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This is the constitutional crisis. You are taking ICE's/the administration's perspective and assuming it is cogent which leads you to conclusion that doesn't s
by hayst4ck 1y ago
This is the constitutional crisis.
You are taking ICE's/the administration's perspective and assuming it is cogent which leads you to conclusion that doesn't support justice and instead supports the end of constitutional rule in the US.
The administration is in open violation of supreme court rulings and the law. They have repeatedly shown contempt for the constitution. They have repeatedly assumed their own supremacy. People responsible for enforcement are out of sync with those responsible for due process and legal interpretation. That is true crisis. These words are simple, but the emotional impact should be chilling. When considering the actions of the ICE agents, it seems very reasonable that aiding or abetting them would be an even greater obstruction of justice if not directly aiding and abetting illegal activity.
America is being confronted with a very serious problem. What happens when those responsible for enforcing the law break it or start enforcing "alternative" law? If the police are breaking the law, then there is no law, there is only power. Law is just words on paper without enforcement.
If the idea sounds farfetched, imagine if KKK members deciding to become police officers and how that changes the subjective experience of law by citizens compared to what law says on paper. Imagine they decide to become judges to. How would you expect that to pervert justice?
- lolinder 1y ago> You are taking ICE's/the administration's perspective and assuming it is cogent which leads you to conclusion that doesn't support justice and instead supports the end of constitutional rule in the US. No I'm not. I'm taking the facts as they're presented by the AP (which is famously not sympathetic to this administration) and saying that nothing in the facts that I'm seeing here in this specific case serves as evidence of a constitutional crisis. This is a straightforward case of obstruction: either she did the things that are alleged or she didn't. If she did, it's obstruction regardless of who is in the White House, and we have no reason to believe at this time that she didn't! We have better litmus tests, better evidence of wrongdoing by the administration, and better cases to get up in arms about. If we choose our martyrs carelessly we're wasting political capital that could be spent showing those still on the fence the many actual, straightforward cases of overreach.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- daseiner1 1y ago> we have no reason to believe at this time that she didn't! this is not the standard of guilt and i think you know that i also think you know that this is merely the latest incident in an extended, obvious campaign to override the judiciary.
- lolinder 1y agoIt's not about the standard of guilt in court, it's about political capital and effective rhetoric. There are so many cases where the Trump administration has flagrantly violated rule of law. Why would we waste time fighting them in the court of public opinion on a case where things currently appear to be open and shut in the other direction? When those on the fence see us getting up in arms about something where to all appearances the "victim" actually did break the law and is being given due process, we lose credibility. If we instead save our breath for the many many cases that actually have compelling facts, it's harder for them to tune us out. In ux design this is called alert fatigue, and it matters in politics too.
- daseiner1 1y ago> When those on the fence see us getting up in arms about something where to all appearances the "victim" actually did break the law and is being given due process, we lose credibility. If we instead save our breath for the many many cases that actually have compelling facts, it's harder for them to tune us out. those cases are the least important to the defense of due process rights. but i'll concede that you're likely correct at the level of the broader populace given that our civic education is an embarrassment and has been for decades.
- frognumber 1y agoThe truth is somewhere in the middle. There was a similar case in Massachusetts many years back. It never went to trial, and legal analysis could go both ways. The bargain struct was it would go into secretive judicial oversight channels. There is a strong case to be made for obstruction of justice, and an equally strong case to be made about her making an error in her professional capacity as a judge and a government employee (which grants a level of immunity). Police officers, judges, soldiers, etc. make mistakes, but they generally don't go to jail for them because (even corruption aside) everyone makes mistakes. In some jobs, mistakes can and do have severe consequences up to and including people dying. If that led to prison, no one sane would take those jobs. In any sane universe, it'd be fair to say she screwed up, and then the FBI also screwed up arresting her. I think the FBI screwed up more, since their mistake was premeditated, whereas she was put on the spot. I do agree with your fundamental point of fatigue. This is not something anyone has a moral high ground to hang their flag on without looking bad.
- Jensson 1y agoThen don't fight these battles where they are in the right, fight them where they are in the wrong. Taking this fight here just gives all the advantage to Trump and his regime, fight them where it is easy to win.
- hayst4ck 1y agoSalami slicing is the first page of the present day authoritarian play book. Here's an excerpt from They Thought They Were Free, a book about the mindset of ordinary Germans experiencing the rise of the Nazi Government: Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk alone; you don’t want to “go out of your way to make trouble.” Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, “everyone” is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, “It’s not so bad” or “You’re seeing things” or “You’re an alarmist.” And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have. ... But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds of thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions, would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all of the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
- c_exclu 1y ago[flagged]
- belorn 1y ago> America is being confronted with a very serious problem. What happens when those responsible for enforcing the law break it or start enforcing "alternative" law? If the police are breaking the law, then there is no law, there is only power. Law is just words on paper without enforcement. The world has a concept that fits that description and it is a civil war. People pick up arms, a lot of people get killed, several generations end up in cycles of violence. That is what happen when there is no law, only power, and people act on it.
- kcplate 1y ago> The administration is in open violation of supreme court rulings and the law. But is this one of those situations? The problem I think people get stuck in the muck about is all these situations run together and they start assuming facts from one case apply to another. Two things can be true— The Trump administration be in defiance of some other ruling related to immigration/deportation as well as being perfectly within the law for this particular case.
- naijaboiler 1y ago>>imagine if KKK members deciding to become police officers and how that changes the subjective experience of law by citizens compared to what law says on paper. You have just described a lot of US policing