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I think the barrier is the fact that the new elected official would still have prison time left to serve. Nothing about that should stop them from running and

I think the barrier is the fact that the new elected official would still have prison time left to serve. Nothing about that should stop them from running and winning. But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either.

perihelions 4y ago
- "But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either. " Then you're disenfranchising the majority of democratic voters, millions of citizens, in preference of ossifying so-called criminal justice against a mere one human. Why would you do that? What hallowed value does that serve? The question of what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable. We're in this thread, remember, because pretentious ideologues once imprisoned an anti-war protestor for bullshit reasons that were framed as "crimes".
- mindslight 4y ago
  > what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable Sure, and the question of the legality of a given action can also be on the ballot. Implying that someone who wins an election should automatically get out of jail is nonsense. One of the pillars of the bureaucratic rule of law is making it so that no individual has autocratic power. We already have too much of powerful politicians and other agents of the state being effectively above the law.
  - perihelions 4y ago
    I'm philosophizing above my pay grade, probably, but winning a majority of votes seems to me like the *opposite* of "autocratic power". If anything, to me, "convicted criminal winning an election by majority vote" strongly pattern-matches "effective check against autocracy". Again: look at what the OP is, what fact patterns we're discussing in this thread!
    - mindslight 4y ago
      > winning a majority of votes seems to me like the opposite of "autocratic power" No it's not. The two concepts are orthogonal, and treating them as a single quality is a dangerous fallacy. The first is about how someone gets elected to an office - one of the cornerstones of our society is that leaders are elected by the people. The second is what someone in an office can legally do once they are there - another cornerstone is that nobody is above the rule of law. Equating the two effectively throws out the latter. The distinction is very clear when it comes to a narrowly-scoped office, or even a general executive at a low level like the mayor of a city. It only gets fuzzier as you go up in scale, as those charged with enforcing the law are better poised to not enforce against themselves. But the proper term for that is "corruption".

perihelions 4y ago

- "But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either. " Then you're disenfranchising the majority of democratic voters, millions of citizens, in preference of ossifying so-called criminal justice against a mere one human. Why would you do that? What hallowed value does that serve? The question of what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable. We're in this thread, remember, because pretentious ideologues once imprisoned an anti-war protestor for bullshit reasons that were framed as "crimes".

mindslight 4y ago
> what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable Sure, and the question of the legality of a given action can also be on the ballot. Implying that someone who wins an election should automatically get out of jail is nonsense. One of the pillars of the bureaucratic rule of law is making it so that no individual has autocratic power. We already have too much of powerful politicians and other agents of the state being effectively above the law.
- perihelions 4y ago
  I'm philosophizing above my pay grade, probably, but winning a majority of votes seems to me like the *opposite* of "autocratic power". If anything, to me, "convicted criminal winning an election by majority vote" strongly pattern-matches "effective check against autocracy". Again: look at what the OP is, what fact patterns we're discussing in this thread!
  - mindslight 4y ago
    > winning a majority of votes seems to me like the opposite of "autocratic power" No it's not. The two concepts are orthogonal, and treating them as a single quality is a dangerous fallacy. The first is about how someone gets elected to an office - one of the cornerstones of our society is that leaders are elected by the people. The second is what someone in an office can legally do once they are there - another cornerstone is that nobody is above the rule of law. Equating the two effectively throws out the latter. The distinction is very clear when it comes to a narrowly-scoped office, or even a general executive at a low level like the mayor of a city. It only gets fuzzier as you go up in scale, as those charged with enforcing the law are better poised to not enforce against themselves. But the proper term for that is "corruption".