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There are a number of things presidents technically /could/ do but do not because they are horrifying. The fact that he's technically legally allowed to do some
by wfo 10y ago
There are a number of things presidents technically /could/ do but do not because they are horrifying. The fact that he's technically legally allowed to do something bad does not mean it's okay that he is doing it -- the president can (and has) executed and indefinitely jailed citizens without trial or attorney, locked everyone in America of a certain race in camps and taken their belongings, sold arms to and trained terrorist groups, ordered torture, leaked the identity of a CIA operative in order to enact personal petty revenge on her husband, toppled and assassinated democratically elected world leaders, given out pardons in exchange for personal favors or money, criminalized drugs with the explicit stated purpose of going after cultural subgroups who chose to dissent but were doing so legally and could not be jailed, sent law enforcement to spy on and shut down peaceful legal protest groups including trying to convince MLK Jr. to commit suicide, to name a few.
Presidents have done and can legally do all these things. Trump could do each one of these things. The only hope we have is that he chooses not to out of a sense of not wanting to destroy the country, or out of some sense of morality and sense of what is right and wrong. Each one is a disgusting, horrifying abuse of power. So is demanding a list of federal employees who meet some political criteria with the explicit intention of an ideological purge (even worse, he's purging all people who believe in or are curious about science from a science agency). Next will he ask for a list of federal employees who have had an abortion? A list of those who have voted Democrat? A list of those who have posted an Internet comment critical of him? The next time he asks for a list, will we hear about it?
- throwanem 10y agoYou have just equated a new president-elect inquiring into the staffing of one of his subordinate departments, and the mass internment in concentration camps of American citizens with Japanese ancestry. In response to that, I cannot imagine what I might possibly be able to contribute.
- wfo 10y agoI have done nothing of the sort, of course, which you know, but it's a common dishonest rhetorical tactic to suggest that mentioning two concepts in the same post is automatically drawing an equivalence between them. I've made an argument that because something a president does is /allowed/ or /legal/ does not mean that it's morally acceptable. If you think everything that is legal but immoral is equivalent, that's on you, not me. The fact that he's doing horribly immoral things and the defense is -30 days into his presidency already "it's legal therefore it's okay" is a very, very bad sign for the future of his administration, because as I've shown abiding by actions which are 'legal' means almost nothing when it comes to federal executive power. That moral sense which we are depending on which prevents a president from abusing their power is, by the evidence we've seen, not present in him.
- throwanem 10y ago> Each one is a disgusting, horrifying abuse of power. So is [...] How do you mean this to be taken if not to say that what he's done is as bad as all the other things you named? - that is, as a claim of moral equivalence.
- wfo 10y agoIt being disgusting and horrifying does NOT mean that it is the same as the holocaust or Japanese internment. It can still be disgusting and horrifying while simultaneously being less disgusting and horrifying than, say, genocide.