5 ms·

The main failure here is the failure of the elections system to elect anyone reasonable. On its own it is not that bad an idea for someone who carries a mandat

The main failure here is the failure of the elections system to elect anyone reasonable. On its own it is not that bad an idea for someone who carries a mandate of the majority of the population to be able to grant pardons.

kortilla 2y ago
All of the presidents pardon tons of people unpalatable to the other side of the political spectrum. They usually just save it for the end of their term so it doesn’t cause too much noise.
- ArnoVW 2y ago
  While it is true that there is always controversy, this does not mean that there is equivalency. Yes, every president has pardons that are arguable (Biden pardoning his son, for example). And anyone pardoned has been found guilty of a crime, by definition. But not all crimes are equal. Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal. Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) is not the same thing as pardoning the head of the worlds biggest guns and drugs marketplace. Even if he did not kill anyone himself (it was proven, just to a lesser extent, but fine). Those drugs and guns most definitely did kill people.
  - dead_gunslinger 2y ago
    [dead]
  - kortilla 2y ago
    > Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal. Because you’re political view of it is indeed that they were having an insurrection. To the right they were just having a protest that got violent but not anymore violent than any of the others throughout the country that year. > Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) You mean he pardoned a bunch of drug dealers who will now go back selling drugs to children? Do you see the issue here? The justice system is to try to cut through the bias and selectively choosing which part of the justice outcomes to ignore is going to be extremely political. Anything clearly obvious is usually resolved by higher courts so the pardons are completely for when the president just decides “fuck the law in this particular way”.
    - ArnoVW 2y ago
      Sure. It is true that violence and unrest is something that happens more often. And not everyone that day came to storm the senate. But, as usual, this is a case of false equivalency. Can we agree that when violence results in penetration of the national seat of power, during the transfer of power, that changes from "civil unrest" to "insurrection"? This is like saying "but your honor, fights happen all the time", when trying to defend yourself after robbing a bank. I won't even go into the fact that there is ample evidence that it did not "just got violent". Even if not everyone came there to storm the senate, there is ample videographic proof of people arriving geared up and organized. Now. Regarding those "bunch of drug dealers". In fact, Biden commuted the sentence of 1500 non-violent offenders so that their punishment was in line with the punishment they would receive today. He pardoned 49 people that mostly have already purged their sentence and today are productive members of society (and there were being kept back by their record) Really. Spend two minutes reading through the list of pardons, and after reading about the lives of these people, then tell me if you still think those people will sell drugs to children. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/clemency-recipient-list-3 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/clemency-recipient-list-3
falcor84 2y ago
Why is it not a bad idea? Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority? Taken to the extreme, we could have an impartial legal system putting in prison criminals from an even mix of society, and then the president pardoning everyone from the majority group, leaving in prison only the minorities.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  Which is exactly what we do have: a president pardoning everyone from the majority political group. It's not consolation that the majority/minority groups are roughly equal.
- lukan 2y ago
  "Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?" And how would you call a justice system, so complicated and convulted and therefore expensive that poor people (from minorities) don't really stand a chance to get their justice there? Obviously Ross was not in that group, but I see presidential pardon as a potential tool to counter the flaws of the justice system.
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    The justice system is flawed, but I don't see how adding a political dimension makes it any better.
    - lukan 2y ago
      Because fundamentally the idea is to be a democracy. The laws should represent, what the people want. Not a small caste of lawyers and lobbyist what it often rather seems to be. Presidential power is a direct way to represent peoples wishes. Or well, could be, if the voting system wouldn't be flawed as well ..
  - Propelloni 2y ago
    Unjust? Broken? But adding one broken thing to another broken thing will do nothing to fix any one of them.
Escapado 2y ago
Honest question/thought experiment: if we only elected people who are qualified for their job (assume we can measure competence at least in some dimensions like we do for a myriad of other professions before we allow people to work in them) and if the election process was set up in a way where when casting your ballot you have to take a multiple choice quiz which tests for basic knowledge on what you will vote for and the country you’re in (as in “what is the household budget roughly, is this candidate in favour or against x, did the crime rate increase or decrease nominally” take these as rough examples of what I mean), to ensure that the people who vote for something have some clue what they are voting for and the broader context it’s embedded in (we require a license to drive a car, this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not? I would assume it would make democracies significantly better than they are now. Imagine going to a doctors office to find out your doctor is a Plummer and he was voted into this job and that the people working for him and handling your prescription is a random assortment of people he seems to like.
- upwardbound2 2y ago
  I'm sure there are benefits and that might it help overall if implemented here and now in our current America with our current levels of public access to civics and career education (MAYBE.) However, this change would be the exact opposite or a total repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which good people died for. At a meta level, I trust those who died for voting rights to care more and know more about the correct answer to your question than I do, and I guess I would recommend to look back at historic speeches from MLK and other leaders to understand their full reasoning about why literacy tests were either irredeemable or undesirable, and their reasons for thinking so. If we assume that both you and MLK were right, but that different policies better suit different conditions, then your proposal could maximize meritocratic effectiveness in an already-very-fair society, whereas MLK's way (the Voting Rights Act) provides a better minimum standard of human rights (similar to 1st and 2nd Amendment protections for people).
  - Escapado 2y ago
tchalla 2y ago
> On its own The reality is in front of you. So, you can't look at this "on its own".
barnabee 2y ago
Assuming a sufficiently functional congress[0], why not require that pardons go through congress as well rather than be unilateral presidential actions? [0] A big if, I know…
namlem 2y ago
Yep. The problem is the system of elections itself. Biden and Obama also issued a lot of dubious pardons and commutations. The incentives of elections naturally favor short-termism and populism. Instead of having the people vote on candidates, we should randomly select citizens to an elector jury, which would carefully research and deliberate on the candidates before choosing. https://www.electionbyjury.org/ https://www.electionbyjury.org/

kortilla 2y ago

All of the presidents pardon tons of people unpalatable to the other side of the political spectrum. They usually just save it for the end of their term so it doesn’t cause too much noise.

ArnoVW 2y ago
While it is true that there is always controversy, this does not mean that there is equivalency. Yes, every president has pardons that are arguable (Biden pardoning his son, for example). And anyone pardoned has been found guilty of a crime, by definition. But not all crimes are equal. Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal. Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) is not the same thing as pardoning the head of the worlds biggest guns and drugs marketplace. Even if he did not kill anyone himself (it was proven, just to a lesser extent, but fine). Those drugs and guns most definitely did kill people.
- dead_gunslinger 2y ago
  [dead]
- kortilla 2y ago
  > Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal. Because you’re political view of it is indeed that they were having an insurrection. To the right they were just having a protest that got violent but not anymore violent than any of the others throughout the country that year. > Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) You mean he pardoned a bunch of drug dealers who will now go back selling drugs to children? Do you see the issue here? The justice system is to try to cut through the bias and selectively choosing which part of the justice outcomes to ignore is going to be extremely political. Anything clearly obvious is usually resolved by higher courts so the pardons are completely for when the president just decides “fuck the law in this particular way”.
  - ArnoVW 2y ago
    Sure. It is true that violence and unrest is something that happens more often. And not everyone that day came to storm the senate. But, as usual, this is a case of false equivalency. Can we agree that when violence results in penetration of the national seat of power, during the transfer of power, that changes from "civil unrest" to "insurrection"? This is like saying "but your honor, fights happen all the time", when trying to defend yourself after robbing a bank. I won't even go into the fact that there is ample evidence that it did not "just got violent". Even if not everyone came there to storm the senate, there is ample videographic proof of people arriving geared up and organized. Now. Regarding those "bunch of drug dealers". In fact, Biden commuted the sentence of 1500 non-violent offenders so that their punishment was in line with the punishment they would receive today. He pardoned 49 people that mostly have already purged their sentence and today are productive members of society (and there were being kept back by their record) Really. Spend two minutes reading through the list of pardons, and after reading about the lives of these people, then tell me if you still think those people will sell drugs to children. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/clemency-recipient-list-3 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/clemency-recipient-list-3

falcor84 2y ago

Why is it not a bad idea? Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority? Taken to the extreme, we could have an impartial legal system putting in prison criminals from an even mix of society, and then the president pardoning everyone from the majority group, leaving in prison only the minorities.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
Which is exactly what we do have: a president pardoning everyone from the majority political group. It's not consolation that the majority/minority groups are roughly equal.
lukan 2y ago
"Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?" And how would you call a justice system, so complicated and convulted and therefore expensive that poor people (from minorities) don't really stand a chance to get their justice there? Obviously Ross was not in that group, but I see presidential pardon as a potential tool to counter the flaws of the justice system.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  The justice system is flawed, but I don't see how adding a political dimension makes it any better.
  - lukan 2y ago
    Because fundamentally the idea is to be a democracy. The laws should represent, what the people want. Not a small caste of lawyers and lobbyist what it often rather seems to be. Presidential power is a direct way to represent peoples wishes. Or well, could be, if the voting system wouldn't be flawed as well ..
- Propelloni 2y ago
  Unjust? Broken? But adding one broken thing to another broken thing will do nothing to fix any one of them.

Escapado 2y ago

Honest question/thought experiment: if we only elected people who are qualified for their job (assume we can measure competence at least in some dimensions like we do for a myriad of other professions before we allow people to work in them) and if the election process was set up in a way where when casting your ballot you have to take a multiple choice quiz which tests for basic knowledge on what you will vote for and the country you’re in (as in “what is the household budget roughly, is this candidate in favour or against x, did the crime rate increase or decrease nominally” take these as rough examples of what I mean), to ensure that the people who vote for something have some clue what they are voting for and the broader context it’s embedded in (we require a license to drive a car, this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not? I would assume it would make democracies significantly better than they are now. Imagine going to a doctors office to find out your doctor is a Plummer and he was voted into this job and that the people working for him and handling your prescription is a random assortment of people he seems to like.

upwardbound2 2y ago
I'm sure there are benefits and that might it help overall if implemented here and now in our current America with our current levels of public access to civics and career education (MAYBE.) However, this change would be the exact opposite or a total repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which good people died for. At a meta level, I trust those who died for voting rights to care more and know more about the correct answer to your question than I do, and I guess I would recommend to look back at historic speeches from MLK and other leaders to understand their full reasoning about why literacy tests were either irredeemable or undesirable, and their reasons for thinking so. If we assume that both you and MLK were right, but that different policies better suit different conditions, then your proposal could maximize meritocratic effectiveness in an already-very-fair society, whereas MLK's way (the Voting Rights Act) provides a better minimum standard of human rights (similar to 1st and 2nd Amendment protections for people).
- Escapado 2y ago

tchalla 2y ago

> On its own The reality is in front of you. So, you can't look at this "on its own".

barnabee 2y ago

Assuming a sufficiently functional congress[0], why not require that pardons go through congress as well rather than be unilateral presidential actions? [0] A big if, I know…

namlem 2y ago

Yep. The problem is the system of elections itself. Biden and Obama also issued a lot of dubious pardons and commutations. The incentives of elections naturally favor short-termism and populism. Instead of having the people vote on candidates, we should randomly select citizens to an elector jury, which would carefully research and deliberate on the candidates before choosing. https://www.electionbyjury.org/ https://www.electionbyjury.org/