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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10462 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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here are people here willing to argue that it's a good thing, that it shows humanity on Biden's part to be willing to act as a father rather than as a politician.

I dunno man, are there people here willing to argue that? Maybe a couple.

I like the idea some have proposed that Biden could have executed a master stroke by pardoning his son and the Jan. 6 protesters. Heads exploding on either side of the aisle.

But more seriously, I wonder if the GOP will make noises about amending the Constitution to abolish the presidential pardon now. Probably not (since they will want Trump to use it), but Biden has done grave damage to the concept of a presidential pardon. I have always thought it was a good thing - even when presidents have used it to pardon friends and cronies, I still like the idea that for grave injustices, there is a last resort if you can just appeal to one man. But like so many "to be used in case of emergency" tools, we risk losing them when they are abused.

I dunno man, are there people here willing to argue that? Maybe a couple.

I've not been able to post much here the last month or so, but I've made the argument as a steelman in other venues, and while I'd prefer some more enlightened form of deescalation on these matters combined with a moderately-embarrassing airing-of-deeds, there's reason that many of those options are either not available (eg, commuting sentences not finalized gets complicated) or not trusted to be available (eg, Biden absolutely wouldn't and probably shouldn't trust Trump to do a pardon exchange).

EDIT : hopefully fixed link.

Is that supposed to go straight to Cooke's Twitter profile? Not logged in ATM, so can't see if his most recent post is an exchange with you or something.

Nope. Sorry, correct link should be this. In case it's not visible for those not logged in:

I think there's a steelman that there's a bunch of widely distributed risks when prosecution of close family of presidents starts being a common thing, in the same way that prosecutions of Presidents would. If we broke down the fence over malum in se conduct, it'd be one thing. But as illegal as many of Hunter and Trump's behaviors may have been, afaict we're looking at malum prohibitum.

When you start opening up potential where the laws and moral get unclear, or enforcement hard, you don't just (or primarily) Get The Bad People. The alternative isn't just these two going to jail; it's opening up a repeat of Ted Stevens every four years, for the highest office in the land.((And, as Trump has demonstrated, sometimes with the opposite effect.))

I think there's some weaknesses even to this steelman: the obvious 'is no one above the law' question, differing feels on inherently immoral, why some offices fall under it and others don't, whether it delays or even discourages the reform that still hasn't happened post-Stevens. But from a 'maybe we don't want to break all these really important institutions' position (albeit as someone who maybe does), there's a not-crazy arg that this cordons off a really bad path.

Of course, even if that covers the breadth, it leaves the 'why pardon instead of commute' problem, especially since Hunter specifically would likely benefit from some time in a halfway house or mandatory detox.

I dunno man, are there people here willing to argue that? Maybe a couple.

Yes.

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