21 ms·
- "So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it?" If it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have
by perihelions 4y ago
- "So some people are upset that this happening in an election season, even though they support it?"
If it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have done it in his first week in office. Like Carter with his Vietnam pardons in January 1977.
It's difficult not to become cynical about electoral politics today, when politicians have become so transparently cynical about your vote.
- tolmasky 4y agoBiden signed 30 executive orders his first week in office. In everything from climate change to the pandemic. Not sure anyone remembers but that was a big deal back in 2021. We’ve wanted this for 50 years, Biden getting it done in under 2 years isn’t too shabby. Was it for political reasons? I hope so! It would be nice for the politically expedient thing to start lining up with what’s actually right and what people want for a change. As Milton Friedman used to say, “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”
- perihelions 4y ago
- latch 4y agoHonest question: isn't it a stroke of the pen that then must be executed? The proclamation is a very short read and what I got from it is that now things need to be "administered" and "developed" and "reviewed". Maybe these things require a little more coordination, planning and capacity than you're suggesting?
- tolmasky 4y ago> It's a stroke of a pen. There's no process or negotiation involved; he just methodically slow-walked it for electoral considerations. Right, my point is that while you bemoan what this says about Biden, I am encouraged about what this says about the electorate. Who would have thought that this would be a politically savvy move 10 years ago? I will gladly take every other October becoming “get rid of laws we should have gotten rid of 50 years ago” month. I cannot wait until someone says that future President X doesn’t really believe in copyright and patent reform, and that they’re only strengthening fair use protections and eliminating software patents because it’ll help them in the future election.
- perihelions 4y agoMy comments got upvoted, while yours got greyed-out; but your perspective seems a lot wiser and more reflective than my own. I'm glad I read it. (I would still prefer virtuous leaders, though. If such things exist. It's very unsatisfying to settle for "wrong people doing the right thing").
- rgbrenner 4y ago"It's a stroke of a pen." False. If you look at his student loan forgiveness plan, it was immediately challenged in the courts. And when he tried to suspend family separation at the border, it was challenged in the courts. And he's been fighting to change DACA rules for 2 years straight, in the courts. Biden can't just write whatever he wants.. He needs to get legal opinions, and structure the order so it complies with existing law, to ensure it withstands challenges. The idea that he can just waltz into the oval office and start writing his wish list on paper.. and have everything completed the first week of his presidency is a simplistic and naive view of how the presidency works, and the restrictions we place on the office. It contributes to the erroneous view that some have, that the president is some sort of king.
- perihelions 4y agoFederal criminal pardons are a plenary power of the executive and aren't judicially reviewable. It's a specific constitutional provision and unlike executive orders.
- rgbrenner 4y agoI think you missed the rest of his actions. The pardon was one part. The other is to review it's classification under the Controlled Substances Act.
- perihelions 4y agoYou're right, that part is reviewable. (I was only thinking about the pardons).
- hiyer 4y agoI don't get it - how does the court get to decide what is a controlled substance and what is not? Shouldn't that be up to some government agency?
- 4y ago
- foogazi 4y agoMaybe he had to be convinced of it Would have been better if others had done it before, but no one did I like that he encouraged governors to do the same thing at the state level, so an opportunity to do more good - hope all of them do it
- danso 4y ago> If it were a sincere and principled choice It's literally a choice for Biden to make this an issue and successfully execute on it. But I don't know how it could be "principled" by your standards. For most of his career, Biden has outright opposed the legalization of marijuana, and still has health concerns about it. By the end of 2020, he and the Democratic party made decriminalization part of the party platform, i.e. he made a policy change right before the election, so even if he had the power to decriminalize on the first day of office, wouldn't you still cynically accuse him of doing it only for election reasons? But in any case, while Biden made the promise to pursue decriminalization, that was never his main thing. I think he should've done it by end of 2021. But seeing how difficult and surprising it was for him to execute on his bigger plans, e.g. infrastructure, clean act, and student loan forgiveness -- it's possible that pushing for pot reform would have sidelined one of his bigger priorities. I don't see how perceptions of "sincerity" obviously outweigh the virtue of actually getting it done.
- rgbrenner 4y agoRight. I dont get the criticism. He's up for a performance review, and he's delivering on the promises he made when he was hired. I think the real problem that some people have is that they were hoping to reduce the power of the Democrats in the next election, and they dont like that this is a clearly popular move supported by the majority of americans.
- jayd16 4y agoIf you think your party's policies are good then allowing your party to win elections is a sincere and principled choice. Political strategy is important and thinking otherwise is just incredibly naive. There were plenty of other topics at hand since Biden's inauguration. I don't know I can say that the order things have been worked on is optimal but I'm glad to see this done.
- scarecrowbob 4y agoIf I were in jail, I might be kinda cranky about losing another 18 months of my life.
- llbeansandrice 4y agoFunnily enough literally zero people affected by this are in jail. No one gets sent to jail for “just” possession. They always tack on other charges. It’s also only about 6500 people.
- leereeves 4y agoThat makes it sound like a empty gesture, and therefore more of a political stunt.
- jonny_eh 4y agoRemoving crimes from your record is hardly an empty gesture.
- cudgy 4y ago“They always tack on other charges.” Yet it has less impact when there are other charges anyway. “But I was convicted of just 2 felonies not 3!”
- DocTomoe 4y agoA pardon does not remove anything from your record. It is about forgiving, not expunging. As for civil rights (e.g. the rights to vote or the right to bear arms), they often are state matters and a federal pardon does not grant them back. It is an empty gesture.
- smsm42 4y agoIf politicians do right things for selfish reasons, it's much better than them doing wrong things for idealistic reasons, in my book.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ckw 4y agoBetter still when they do the right thing for reasons of principle.
- dr_dshiv 4y agoThe system is best where moral actions emerge from rational self interest. E.g., being trustworthy is moral but also good for business. We want systems like that.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agohorse and cart. It's good for business BECAUSE it's moral.
- dr_dshiv 4y agoNot sure I agree. Paying doctors to promote pills is good for business but doesn’t seem very moral, per se.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoYou're making my point for me. That only works for those doctors when there's no transparency that they're being paid for it.
- tchaffee 4y agoNot necessarily. A politician doing the right thing for reasons of principal and ignoring elections could result in a loss of power for the entire party. If those who gain power are truly evil then what you've done is lost sight of a far bigger "right thing" by insisting on being principled in every small action. Political naivety is a very poor excuse for doing a "right thing" that eventually causes great harm. Especially for an experienced politician.
- panarky 4y agoMaybe I'm missing something but doing good things and getting rewarded by the popular vote seems like the way the system should work. Contrast that with doing bad things and then trying to prevent people from voting so you can cling to power.
- b112 4y agoI don't get the complaint. If anything, it is far more risky now. A parole action, at the start of a term, incures low risk. It will be years until midterms, and the action will be dim, distant in people's minds. Doing it now, means that any voter who is opposed, will have this very fresh in their minds. Even if 20% is opposed, that's still a 20% potential vote loss! And contrary to what twitter and facebook media try to claim, there are swing voters. So taking a stance now, is very much the most democratic thing to do.
- mootzville 4y agoI'd argue this is one of the last things people will be thinking about in this election. No one is changing their vote over this...the economy and abortion will drive this cycle.
- b112 4y agoMy point wasn't about the issue, but the timing of any issue.
- roenxi 4y agoI suspect they are just being political. It is a good move. Keep up the good work, I say. That being said, Joe Biden has been a key player at the highest levels of US policy for decades. He only narrowly missed out on entering the US Senate to vote on the original Controlled Substances Act of 1970 that it seems people are being pardoned for violating. 1973-2009 he was part of the exact group of people helping build up the war on drugs. 2022 elections he throws out a bone to deal with the symptoms. You can see why people like Obama or Trump do so well vs incumbent politicians. These ex-Congress people are, by and large, responsible for all the messes they campaign on fixing. The internet is making it harder for them to escape their own decisions. The US really needs to look back and get rid of some of the people with the more appalling track records. I think there are still people in the US Congress who enthusiastically supported Afghanistan and Iraq. They shouldn't be allowed to tell people what to do any more. It is hard to do worse than that.
- JAlexoid 4y agoYes, it's a political move. Yes, it's good. There's no chance a republican politician would do the same.
- WalterBright 4y agoTrump did. https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/676771335/how-trump-went-from-tough-on-crime-to-second-chance-for-felons https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/676771335/how-trump-went-from...
- ajuc 4y ago> If it were a sincere and principled choice Why should anybody care about the reasoning behind a good decision?
- brigandish 4y agoKnow thine enemy.
- atoav 4y agoNot an American here, but given the current state of US democracy I would argue that the less fascist party would be utterly stupid to pass on a chance at populism just to be fair towards an opposing party who openly calls for the shooting of your members and has prooved it will itself stretch every rule (even the ones they self spouted before) to e.g. put in their supreme court picks. You cannot play it "fair" with fascists and expect your nation to stay a democracy — at least not on such a minor level. And I am not a fan of the Democrats myself, but as an Austrian living in Germany I learned enough about the Nazi rise to power to know where this is heading. If you didn't have the Dollar, you'd be neck deep in fascism already.
- cto_of_antifa 4y ago
- bamboozled 4y agoYou know things take time, he didn’t inherit the Whitehouse in’s a very organised way? Motivation is a factor too? Who cares if he was motivated by the election, he did a good thing, he could’ve tried to rile everyone up and start a new war on drugs or something similar. He gave people a break for something which should never be criminal. I’m motivated to work, mostly by money, the chance of a bonus and all that the money I earn brings me, I’m not a bad person for this. Sometimes I take the money and donate it too, this is similar in my opinion.
- tchaffee 4y agoIf it were a sincere and principled choice he would have done it when it gives the biggest impact for more people like him to get elected.
- jeffalyanak 4y agoIf politicians always did the popular things at the beginning of their term they would be far less likely to be voted back in. Unfortunately the news cycle and therefore the voting public has a short memory. It does suck a bit that the system incentivizes being strategic with the timing of key decisions, but politicians who didn't do so would be hurting their chances of reelection.
- chongli 4y agoIf it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have done it in his first week in office. For some reason this reminds me of the old saw about the economist and the twenty dollar bill. “The $20 on the sidewalk doesn’t exist because the efficient market guarantees that someone else would’ve already picked it up!” the economist said, while walking past the twenty dollar bill. I think in reality politicians have schedules and priorities and the constantly shifting demands imposed on them by world events. Sometimes the things they always wanted to do get left on the back burner until election season starts to loom over the horizon. Then they actually look for these sorts of quick fixes because it can give them a little boost in the polls for something they were going to do anyway. What’s wrong with that?
- SQueeeeeL 4y agoThese kind of arguments (and people who are so blinded to the harm of politicizing every action) are why we'll probably lose abortion rights by the end of the decade. American Democrats are playing checkers and are satiated by scraps
- sokoloff 4y agoIt’s better than not ever doing it, but that’s not the only alternative. If you can’t manage to review your campaign promises until it’s time to campaign again, that gives me reason to doubt your competence or your genuineness as an executive. There are literally thousands of people working who support the President. None of them could find time to write up an executive order and put it on the agenda in the first 100 days? (Remember, they would be allowed to “cheat” and work on this before inauguration or even before the election.) But because the frying pan is slightly more comfortable than the fire, people keep tolerating this and voting for the lesser of the evils they’re offered, so so long as this strategy is epsilon more effective than actually leading the country and aggressively delivering on your promises, we should expect to see more, not less of it. Ultimately, the voters are partially complicit in this nonsense.
- chongli 4y agoI don't see how the voters are complicit in any of this. Human beings also have their own schedules and priorities. People are more stressed out and busy than ever. Inflation is rampant due to a war in Europe that regular people (especially those outside of Europe) had no power to avoid. Every year technology and social media get ever-more complex and sophisticated, demanding more and more awareness and discipline from people to avoid collapsing into a black hole of time-wasting. Likewise, the problems facing societies at the national level and humanity at the global level have become unbelievably technical and complicated, yet we expect voters to navigate them like experts and deliver a miracle in the voting both? How has this idea not become widely seen for what it is: an absurd fantasy.
- pengaru 4y ago> If it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have done it in his first week in office. Like Carter with his Vietnam pardons in January 1977. I'm no fan of presidents in general, and especially not ones who forget what they're saying mid-sentence. But isn't it worth noting Biden has historically been pretty anti-drug, he introduced the RAVE Act[0] FFS. Maybe it took some convincing to change his attitude towards marijuana laws? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_Act
- camgunz 4y agoI'm cynical about politics--it's generally the most correct way to understand the behavior of various actors. But I don't think that's the case here, and my counterexample is student loan forgiveness. Biden's philosophically opposed to blanket forgiveness, even though it would almost certainly cement Democratic Party dominance among millennials and thus the country for the foreseeable future. He just won't do it, because he thinks it's unfair. That's a sincere and principled choice, whether you agree with it or not, despite the clear political gains.
- kranke155 4y agoJimmy Carter was so principled he served one term. He was such an honest man and a poor leader that GRRM cited him as an inspiration for his thought process behind Game of Thrones. Being a good man doesn’t get you re elected. Reality is harsh and unforgiving.
- beowulfey 4y agoI would agree, but I think it is important to remember that people have very short memories, so doing it then may not benefit the election now. The implication is that the best choice is to steadily do things like this, so the benefits are always forward in our minds. The issue is more just one off events not really matching our goals or expectations, I think.
- addicted 4y agoIt’s only sincere if you do something when you will not benefit from it is the thinking of a 4 year old. And thinking politics is about sincerity and morality is the thinking of a politically inclined 12 year old.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoThe Hunter Biden story exists and you think that family is what, a-political? It was like the people that watched Obama make a political agreement with Hillary Clinton to get her to stop running against him and then were dismayed when he was mostly just another politician. It's just naive.
- buttercraft 4y ago> If it were a sincere and principled choice, he would have done it in his first week in office. Are you serious? A president has one week to do it all and anything he does afterwards is insincere? How does this logic work?
- xerox13ster 4y agoTell me you don't understand politics without telling me you don't understand politics. If he had done it in his first week in office we would have all forgotten by now and the republicans could sour the pot drastically in the intervening two years. By doing it now, he gains broad appeal going into an election season so that he is potentially enabled to enact more beneficial policies down the line. Never forget that the republican party is working against the interests of the people and the party that opposes them and will do whatever they can to twist public perception to their side. Being purely sincere and principled means getting routed by people who work against your sincerity without any regard for principle. It can be both a sincere and principled choice and an action taken based on careful political calculation. In fact, I'd say that if it really were sincere and principled, it should be as calculated as possible for maximum beneficial effect.