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> Death penalty seems a bit extreme. Can't even do a bit of light treason without being executed these days! It's political correctness gone mad. I'm not in f

by rsynnott 10mo ago

> Death penalty seems a bit extreme. Can't even do a bit of light treason without being executed these days! It's political correctness gone mad. I'm not in favour of the death penalty. I live in a country which hasn't executed anyone since 1954, and the death penalty has been unconstitutional since 2001. However, South Korea has the death penalty. If you're not going to use it for this, what _are_ you going to use it for?

krapp 10mo ago
>If you're not going to use it for this, what _are_ you going to use it for? I don't know, ask my fellow Americans. Our President committed light treason and we not only re-elected him, our Supreme Court gave him absolute immunity from all future crimes while in office as a treat. He's a pedophile and a tyrant, blatantly ignoring Congress and the courts, colonizing and threatening foreign countries, sending masked thugs into the streets, targeted universities and protestors for political oppression and censorship, destroying America's regulatory and scientific infrastructure in the name of purging it of wrongthink (etc etc etc) and neither our government nor 300 million Americans armed to the teeth and ready to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants seem capable of doing anything about it. I'm vehemently against the death penalty because I don't believe the state's monopoly on violence should extend that far (assuming for the sake of argument that it must exist at all) but I have to credit South Korea for having a system that can stand up to pressure. Wish I could say the same for us. We coasted until the civil war then collapsed then stumbled still half-wounded until 9/11 then folded like a paper cup.
- rsynnott 10mo ago
  The US president is _allowed_ a bit of light treason, as a treat. Or so it seems. I don't think _any_ of them have ever been prosecuted for stuff done while in office?
  - krapp 10mo ago
    >I don't think _any_ of them have ever been prosecuted for stuff done while in office? I don't think so. Indicted and investigated, certainly, but never prosecuted. It is weird that this was always a possibility with other presidents but with Trump it became such an existential crisis that we decided to make it illegal to even try, rather than establish that even sitting presidents aren't above the law. Which to me seems like a no-brainer but judging from how many people claimed that either presidents had to be above the law or else the US would descend into a hell spiral of recrimination with every sitting president being arrested on fake charges by the opposition party, I must just be naive. I guess it's good that Nixon was right and nothing a president does is illegal. I guess that's what the founding fathers intended. But again, it's still weird that it was always possible for a sitting president to be prosecuting in office until the supreme court stepped in, yet the absolutely certain slippery slope and worst case scenario never happened. I guess we were just lucky.
    - rsynnott 10mo ago
      > I guess that's what the founding fathers intended. This... seems unlikely. It had already been established that _kings_ could be removed for doing crimes (see Charles I, who, ah, lost his head) by the time the US was founded; it seems unlikely that they'd have intended the US president be less accountable than a king.
  - computerthings 10mo ago
    [dead]

krapp 10mo ago

>If you're not going to use it for this, what _are_ you going to use it for? I don't know, ask my fellow Americans. Our President committed light treason and we not only re-elected him, our Supreme Court gave him absolute immunity from all future crimes while in office as a treat. He's a pedophile and a tyrant, blatantly ignoring Congress and the courts, colonizing and threatening foreign countries, sending masked thugs into the streets, targeted universities and protestors for political oppression and censorship, destroying America's regulatory and scientific infrastructure in the name of purging it of wrongthink (etc etc etc) and neither our government nor 300 million Americans armed to the teeth and ready to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants seem capable of doing anything about it. I'm vehemently against the death penalty because I don't believe the state's monopoly on violence should extend that far (assuming for the sake of argument that it must exist at all) but I have to credit South Korea for having a system that can stand up to pressure. Wish I could say the same for us. We coasted until the civil war then collapsed then stumbled still half-wounded until 9/11 then folded like a paper cup.

rsynnott 10mo ago
The US president is _allowed_ a bit of light treason, as a treat. Or so it seems. I don't think _any_ of them have ever been prosecuted for stuff done while in office?
- krapp 10mo ago
  >I don't think _any_ of them have ever been prosecuted for stuff done while in office? I don't think so. Indicted and investigated, certainly, but never prosecuted. It is weird that this was always a possibility with other presidents but with Trump it became such an existential crisis that we decided to make it illegal to even try, rather than establish that even sitting presidents aren't above the law. Which to me seems like a no-brainer but judging from how many people claimed that either presidents had to be above the law or else the US would descend into a hell spiral of recrimination with every sitting president being arrested on fake charges by the opposition party, I must just be naive. I guess it's good that Nixon was right and nothing a president does is illegal. I guess that's what the founding fathers intended. But again, it's still weird that it was always possible for a sitting president to be prosecuting in office until the supreme court stepped in, yet the absolutely certain slippery slope and worst case scenario never happened. I guess we were just lucky.
  - rsynnott 10mo ago
    > I guess that's what the founding fathers intended. This... seems unlikely. It had already been established that _kings_ could be removed for doing crimes (see Charles I, who, ah, lost his head) by the time the US was founded; it seems unlikely that they'd have intended the US president be less accountable than a king.
- computerthings 10mo ago
  [dead]