6 ms·

oh I wish the American people were this brave

by boltzmann-brain 1y ago

leptons 1y ago
Half of them are, half of them are not.
- pbkompasz 1y ago
  more like third of them are, third of them are not and a third doesn't care
  - leptons 1y ago
    I can agree with that. I sometimes forget that quite a lot of voting-age people just don't vote.
_ache_ 1y ago
France population isn't very better, I can assure you, it's not about been brave. We just still have a working judiciary system. But for how long? It barely correctly financed and his independence his attacked every days in the oligarchy controlled medias. I hope you fix your judiciary system one day.
- throw101010 1y ago
  Sarkozy himself tried to reform it and remove a key position in that system the "juge d'instruction" who conducts investigations indepedantly of the executive power in complex cases (like his many cases). It makes the procedures much more efficient and less prone to influence from the government. Fortunately he failed to do it when he was in power, and this is in my opinion a big factor in his current demise.
falcor84 1y ago
Reading up about Israeli politics, it seems that this might be a "be careful what you wish for" situation. They had previously put in prison both a prime minister and a president, and the disastrous governance there over the last decade and a half appears to be in large motivated by Netanyahu's almost certain knowledge that he'll go to prison if and when he loses his grip on the reins. The documentary The Bibi Files was a particularly interesting examination of the allegations against him and his almost shrugging response to them [0]. And going back to America, a week ago Trump asked the Israeli president to preemptively pardon Netanyahu during his speech at their parliament [1], which I find to be concerning on all possible levels. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33338697/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33338697/ [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-urges-israels-president-pardon-netanyahu-2025-10-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-urges-israel...
- yard2010 1y ago
  I'm not into politics and I'm far from an expert but this has more to it. Netanyahu doesn't just wait until he loses his grip on the rein, he's making the changes to the system (i.e ruin the whole country for everyone) so he won't count as a criminal when this is all over. No offense but the french people should thank god their criminal in control didn't go all the way through turning the country into a shit show in the process. As I said before I believe we live in a global time in which countries must embrace the rule of law systematically in order to survive as democracies. Otherwise you just get a kleptocracy with extra steps, just like in the US, some of Europe and Russia.
  - falcor84 1y ago
    Yes, exactly - I was hoping to allude to that, but apparently wasn't clear in my writing. It seems to me that he has arrived at a "L'État, c'est moi" mentality, doing everything in his power (and consolidating as much additional power as possible) to stay out of prison, even (as you said) at the cost of destroying the country around him and the rest of the middle east, intentionally aggravating all the conflicts in the area, to be able to continuously yell out about crises that (in the mind of those who support him) necessitate his staying in power.
- falcor84 1y ago
  Thinking about this some more, I'd like to offer an even more controversial opinion, being a proposal for a governance structure that I think would have entirely different failure modes: How about it if by a fuller acceptance that power corrupts, we have the head of government only serve for one term and automatically be taken to (actual) prison once their time is done. They would then have an expedited trial by a socioeconomically diverse jury representing the population, judge their overreach in different areas, and how long of a sentence they should be given; at best, they would be released after a month or two for time served. Afterwards, unless this has been explicitly revoked from them due to gross misconduct, the former head of government would be given a sufficiently generous stipend to live and travel without ever needing to work again, and encouraged to spend the rest of their lives on charitable pursuits. The big risk I see here is that by stripping some of the long-term power from the head of government, it would lead to a re-concentration of powers in a head of party role, or other behind-the-scenes power brokers, but the intent here is that the head of government once elected is explicitly given the ability to overreach, and particularly knowing that they'll be set for life, they'll have the freedom to act independently, in what hopefully would be their take on the country's best interests, and a desire to leave a positive legacy. And furthermore, I think that restricting the ascension to power to those who are willing to take on that prison time would attract people who are a bit less vain than the typical crop of candidates, and at the same time reduce the stigma of prison in general, and hopefully lead to political interest in improving prison conditions.
ikekkdcjkfke 1y ago
The first trump campaign was fueled by government and banks not being held accountable, ex. after the financial crisis and bailouts of banks. Though trump kind of piggy backed on those sentiments along with the tea party/koch brothers backing. Just goes to show you need to apply justice blindly and harshaly, or else you will trigger peoples strong and inate sense of injustice and burn it all down
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  >The first trump campaign was fueled by government and banks not being held accountable Nah that's horse shit. Trump has been trying to ride outright populism since Ross Perot showed you could be a moron with no experience and people would still insist you were somehow a genius because you had a million dollars. Trump's first campaign was nothing more than the republican party being utterly ravenous to demonstrate the hatred that AM radio and Fox News had been cooking up for a generation. The tea party movement was not organic, it was invented and astroturfed into existence. The outcome was not planned, but it was entirely intentional. Trump was the biggest source for the birtherism bullshit remember? The people who believe haitian immigrants eat dogs, that portland is currently on fire, or that Mr "grab them by the pussy, they let you do it" and "I used to watch all the ms teen USA girls change" is somehow not the primary pedophile problem were never serious about justice, never cared about it being applied equally, and will never be satisfied with an actual fair justice system. They believe that crime is at an all time high despite no evidence. They believe the man that has quite literally scammed them time and time again is a "great businessman" or knows what he is doing at all. The people who say "Obamacare is the worst thing" and yet "Don't you dare take away my ACA coverage" at the same time do not care about justice. These people keep electing Republicans despite mountains of objective evidence that Republicans nearly alone are responsible for America's current budget and debt problems. A lot of these people are utterly furious that the Federal Government forced them to treat black people like people in the 60s and have been holding a grudge ever since. You don't scrub rainbows off of cross walks because you are upset about justice. The people cheering on the black bagging of American citizens and hate fueled oppression and the literal suppression of free expression or thought do not care about justice The people who were upset by the injustice of 2008 were the Occupy movement. Where are their political candidates?
yard2010 1y ago
The Americans would never be this accountable as you can't make a shitload of money and be accountable. You have to choose
- dmix 1y ago
  Trump has already been convicted multiple times by the courts Putting an active president in jail was not something the country wanted to risk, I'm not convinced prior Supreme Courts would have agreed to that either in other situations. If Trump did not win the election he would have faced serious consequences, beyond the millions of dollars he already owes from other trials. Sarkozy is easier to put in jail because he's not in power.
lordnacho 1y ago
What I see in the US is that the judiciary has already become partisan. In most of Europe, if there's a trial, the judge is just some nameless character. I mean, he has a name of course, but nobody can really point the finger at them and say they are interested in one side or the other. It's just not the done thing. By contrast, American judges are appointed by politicians, and people can claim they are not impartial. (Or elected, same thing) Here's a weird observation. I know the names of several US supreme court judges, and their right/left lean, despite never having lived there. I've lived in four other countries, and I might know one judge due to him having a funny name. What also doesn't tend to happen in Europe is questioning the legitimacy of the system. People can get sentenced and they just... accept it.
- phito 1y ago
  Also we don't make reality TV shows (disguised as "news") about it.
- boltzmann-brain 1y ago
  I think that's just a case of you not knowing European judges are partisan, rather than you knowing they're not. I think the relative obscurity of judges in Europe is just lack of scrutiny, and I personally know of numerous situations where cases are handled poorly.
  - kzrdude 1y ago
    Mistakes and worse is going to be part of any system. Systematic partisanship is something else.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Important exceptions in Europe: the politicization of justice in Poland and Hungary. For exactly the same reasons, the protection of the ruling party. It's a serious risk when "separation of powers" collapses. As it has in America. German constitutional law is also politicized, but it has good reason to be against Nazim coming back.

oh I wish the American people were this brave

leptons 1y ago

Half of them are, half of them are not.

pbkompasz 1y ago
more like third of them are, third of them are not and a third doesn't care
- leptons 1y ago
  I can agree with that. I sometimes forget that quite a lot of voting-age people just don't vote.

_ache_ 1y ago

France population isn't very better, I can assure you, it's not about been brave. We just still have a working judiciary system. But for how long? It barely correctly financed and his independence his attacked every days in the oligarchy controlled medias. I hope you fix your judiciary system one day.

throw101010 1y ago
Sarkozy himself tried to reform it and remove a key position in that system the "juge d'instruction" who conducts investigations indepedantly of the executive power in complex cases (like his many cases). It makes the procedures much more efficient and less prone to influence from the government. Fortunately he failed to do it when he was in power, and this is in my opinion a big factor in his current demise.

falcor84 1y ago

Reading up about Israeli politics, it seems that this might be a "be careful what you wish for" situation. They had previously put in prison both a prime minister and a president, and the disastrous governance there over the last decade and a half appears to be in large motivated by Netanyahu's almost certain knowledge that he'll go to prison if and when he loses his grip on the reins. The documentary The Bibi Files was a particularly interesting examination of the allegations against him and his almost shrugging response to them [0]. And going back to America, a week ago Trump asked the Israeli president to preemptively pardon Netanyahu during his speech at their parliament [1], which I find to be concerning on all possible levels. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33338697/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33338697/ [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-urges-israels-president-pardon-netanyahu-2025-10-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-urges-israel...

yard2010 1y ago
I'm not into politics and I'm far from an expert but this has more to it. Netanyahu doesn't just wait until he loses his grip on the rein, he's making the changes to the system (i.e ruin the whole country for everyone) so he won't count as a criminal when this is all over. No offense but the french people should thank god their criminal in control didn't go all the way through turning the country into a shit show in the process. As I said before I believe we live in a global time in which countries must embrace the rule of law systematically in order to survive as democracies. Otherwise you just get a kleptocracy with extra steps, just like in the US, some of Europe and Russia.
- falcor84 1y ago
  Yes, exactly - I was hoping to allude to that, but apparently wasn't clear in my writing. It seems to me that he has arrived at a "L'État, c'est moi" mentality, doing everything in his power (and consolidating as much additional power as possible) to stay out of prison, even (as you said) at the cost of destroying the country around him and the rest of the middle east, intentionally aggravating all the conflicts in the area, to be able to continuously yell out about crises that (in the mind of those who support him) necessitate his staying in power.
falcor84 1y ago
Thinking about this some more, I'd like to offer an even more controversial opinion, being a proposal for a governance structure that I think would have entirely different failure modes: How about it if by a fuller acceptance that power corrupts, we have the head of government only serve for one term and automatically be taken to (actual) prison once their time is done. They would then have an expedited trial by a socioeconomically diverse jury representing the population, judge their overreach in different areas, and how long of a sentence they should be given; at best, they would be released after a month or two for time served. Afterwards, unless this has been explicitly revoked from them due to gross misconduct, the former head of government would be given a sufficiently generous stipend to live and travel without ever needing to work again, and encouraged to spend the rest of their lives on charitable pursuits. The big risk I see here is that by stripping some of the long-term power from the head of government, it would lead to a re-concentration of powers in a head of party role, or other behind-the-scenes power brokers, but the intent here is that the head of government once elected is explicitly given the ability to overreach, and particularly knowing that they'll be set for life, they'll have the freedom to act independently, in what hopefully would be their take on the country's best interests, and a desire to leave a positive legacy. And furthermore, I think that restricting the ascension to power to those who are willing to take on that prison time would attract people who are a bit less vain than the typical crop of candidates, and at the same time reduce the stigma of prison in general, and hopefully lead to political interest in improving prison conditions.

ikekkdcjkfke 1y ago

The first trump campaign was fueled by government and banks not being held accountable, ex. after the financial crisis and bailouts of banks. Though trump kind of piggy backed on those sentiments along with the tea party/koch brothers backing. Just goes to show you need to apply justice blindly and harshaly, or else you will trigger peoples strong and inate sense of injustice and burn it all down

mrguyorama 1y ago
>The first trump campaign was fueled by government and banks not being held accountable Nah that's horse shit. Trump has been trying to ride outright populism since Ross Perot showed you could be a moron with no experience and people would still insist you were somehow a genius because you had a million dollars. Trump's first campaign was nothing more than the republican party being utterly ravenous to demonstrate the hatred that AM radio and Fox News had been cooking up for a generation. The tea party movement was not organic, it was invented and astroturfed into existence. The outcome was not planned, but it was entirely intentional. Trump was the biggest source for the birtherism bullshit remember? The people who believe haitian immigrants eat dogs, that portland is currently on fire, or that Mr "grab them by the pussy, they let you do it" and "I used to watch all the ms teen USA girls change" is somehow not the primary pedophile problem were never serious about justice, never cared about it being applied equally, and will never be satisfied with an actual fair justice system. They believe that crime is at an all time high despite no evidence. They believe the man that has quite literally scammed them time and time again is a "great businessman" or knows what he is doing at all. The people who say "Obamacare is the worst thing" and yet "Don't you dare take away my ACA coverage" at the same time do not care about justice. These people keep electing Republicans despite mountains of objective evidence that Republicans nearly alone are responsible for America's current budget and debt problems. A lot of these people are utterly furious that the Federal Government forced them to treat black people like people in the 60s and have been holding a grudge ever since. You don't scrub rainbows off of cross walks because you are upset about justice. The people cheering on the black bagging of American citizens and hate fueled oppression and the literal suppression of free expression or thought do not care about justice The people who were upset by the injustice of 2008 were the Occupy movement. Where are their political candidates?

yard2010 1y ago

The Americans would never be this accountable as you can't make a shitload of money and be accountable. You have to choose

dmix 1y ago
Trump has already been convicted multiple times by the courts Putting an active president in jail was not something the country wanted to risk, I'm not convinced prior Supreme Courts would have agreed to that either in other situations. If Trump did not win the election he would have faced serious consequences, beyond the millions of dollars he already owes from other trials. Sarkozy is easier to put in jail because he's not in power.

lordnacho 1y ago

What I see in the US is that the judiciary has already become partisan. In most of Europe, if there's a trial, the judge is just some nameless character. I mean, he has a name of course, but nobody can really point the finger at them and say they are interested in one side or the other. It's just not the done thing. By contrast, American judges are appointed by politicians, and people can claim they are not impartial. (Or elected, same thing) Here's a weird observation. I know the names of several US supreme court judges, and their right/left lean, despite never having lived there. I've lived in four other countries, and I might know one judge due to him having a funny name. What also doesn't tend to happen in Europe is questioning the legitimacy of the system. People can get sentenced and they just... accept it.

phito 1y ago
Also we don't make reality TV shows (disguised as "news") about it.
boltzmann-brain 1y ago
I think that's just a case of you not knowing European judges are partisan, rather than you knowing they're not. I think the relative obscurity of judges in Europe is just lack of scrutiny, and I personally know of numerous situations where cases are handled poorly.
- kzrdude 1y ago
  Mistakes and worse is going to be part of any system. Systematic partisanship is something else.
pjc50 1y ago
Important exceptions in Europe: the politicization of justice in Poland and Hungary. For exactly the same reasons, the protection of the ruling party. It's a serious risk when "separation of powers" collapses. As it has in America. German constitutional law is also politicized, but it has good reason to be against Nazim coming back.