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> these past few administrations I remain amazed at how, again and again, no matter how specific and unique an abuse by the Trump administration is, it is alwa
by ajross 1y ago
> these past few administrations
I remain amazed at how, again and again, no matter how specific and unique an abuse by the Trump administration is, it is always, invariably, Really Joe Biden's Fault. Like, the frame has been adopted by the MAGA base, but also the cranky left. The media does it too. Here on HN bothsidesism is a shibboleth that denotes "I'm a Serious Commenter and not a Partisan Hack".
But it leads to ridiculous whoppers like this, and ends up in practice excusing what amounts to the most corrupt regime in this country in over a century, if not ever.
No, this is just bad, on its own, absent any discussion about what someone else did. There was no equivalent pardon of a perpetrator of an impactful crime in a previous administration I can think of. I'm genuinely curious what you think you're citing?
- torgoguys 1y ago>But it leads to ridiculous whoppers like this, and ends up in practice excusing what amounts to the most corrupt regime in this country in over a century, if not ever. Amen. Preach it, brother! >No, this is just bad, on its own, absent any discussion about what someone else did. There was no equivalent pardon of a perpetrator of an impactful crime in a previous administration I can think of. I'm genuinely curious what you think you're citing? I don't know what the poster was referring to, but I AM mad at Biden for pardoning his family. It's a molehill of an issue compared to the current administration though.
- zeven7 1y agoI would be very mad at Biden pardoning his family if the next president was going to be Bush. With all of Trump's calls for retribution, and actions in that direction since the election, it is hard to blame Biden for trying to shield his son from unjust exercises of the law, while Trump was publicly touting him as one of his biggest enemies.
- HaZeust 1y agoI was less mad that Biden pardoned his family, when Trump did it first for Kushner in Dec. 2020. The precedent was already there.
- LexiMax 1y ago> Here on HN bothsidesism is a shibboleth that denotes "I'm a Serious Commenter and not a Partisan Hack". HN users don't necessarily do that because they want to. They might do it as a pre-emptive defense mechanism against the brigades of de-facto censors that roam the site. Moderation via populism is an anti-feature on its face, but Hacker News has the worst possible version of that sort of feature by making downvoted/flagged comments completely hidden unless you are logged in and showdead. It's a pretty horrendous system if you're interested in good faith and honest debate.
- ImPostingOnHN 1y agoI have showdead enabled, and in my experience, the only dead comments are ones which violate the site guidelines or are otherwise Bad Posts regardless of the political affiliation of the poster. Stuff like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45689291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45689291
- LexiMax 1y agoI also have showdead enabled and in any remotely controversial thread, among the uncontroversial Bad Posts you will find a reasonable number of posts that are well argued and have effort put into them, but get downvoted anyway. There are a number of reasonable posts in this very thread that are either already dead or on their way out - and I don't even agree with some of their positions.
- ImPostingOnHN 1y agoMaybe some examples from this thread of the actually dead ones?
- Karrot_Kream 1y agoAny post bringing up any context behind CZ's behavior that makes crypto or CZ not sound bad is getting downvoted.
- hypeatei 1y agoThis comment is a perfect explanation of my observations on here too. Thanks.
- lobsterthief 1y agoYeah, a lot of people on HN can’t seem to cope with the truth. I guess they’ll finally understand over the next 12 mos
- Karrot_Kream 1y agoWhen Obama really increased the number of pardons, a lot of contemporary opinion writers said stuff along the lines of "this is a dangerous precedent and we're lucky that the pardons are fairly popular and sane." Now we're seeing unpopular, not sane pardons. When democratic norms erode like pardons becoming more acceptable, it's like laying tinder and kindling for a fire. You still need a fire; a bad actor who is willing to light the material on fire. That bad actor is Trump. But the warnings from abusing these limitations from previous administrations was exactly for this moment. Nobody is saying Trump isn't the bad one, he is. But the conditions were laid for him. Now we need to survive him. When we look back at Roman Senators and Emperors, it's often hard as modern people to point to one, single bad figure because we don't have a lot of contemporary thought or reading from the time. But when we look back we can see the seeds of "decline" in eras rather than single figures.
- ajross 1y agoI don't buy it. A president that will literally direct his AG in public to prosecute his political enemies is simply not bound by norms, period. To pretend that he'd never have pardoned Zhao but for Obama's "increased number of pardons" is, to be blunt, ridiculous on its face. And in context, you're doing exactly what I mocked above, tut tutting about civil behavior and norms and The Discourse while the system burns down around you. But don't worry! You can always take solace in the fact that it was Really Barack Hussein Obama's Fault.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoObama did once wear a tan suit, and on another occasion put his feet up on the Resolute Desk.
- mlrtime 1y ago>I don't buy it. A president that will literally direct his AG in public to prosecute his political enemies. This is what happened to Trump though, the established politicians do not like him and did everything they could to stop him from running.