ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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Turtledove wrote:

They do, I will believe the news articles WAY before I'll believe the nonsense that you spew.

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Turtledove wrote:

Perhaps, what you seem to be missing is that generally the law officers don't go out to investigate Obstruction of Justice. More often they run across it while doing other investigations.

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Boem wrote:

Thoughts on Venezuela anybody?

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Boem wrote:

Should America help or watch on the side-line, thoughts on what trump will do?

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Raycheetah wrote:

https://youtu.be/oOQcbtJRNSY?t=62

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Greetings, comrades. As you probably already know, I am the ghost of Karl Marx. My lecture today will be on using identity politics to implement global communism.

As I'm sure you've noticed, Americans are highly resistant to the concept of equality of outcome, a concept central to the utopia we will bring about. This resistance is because they believe in the illusion of free will rather than the reality of determinism. They see one man make a greater effort than another and delude themselves into thinking the man who made the greater effort chose to be more responsible, and therefore deserves more than the person who chose otherwise.

I understand you have tried to remedy this problem by directly arguing that a person's "merit" is merely a deterministic condition of the circumstances of nature and nurture, but the Americans cling stubbornly to the ideologies of self-determination. But I am here to tell you that you don't need to fight that battle. You can choose to avoid it entirely.

Even the most zealous false prophet of free will will admit there are certain states of human affairs that follow our deterministic model. One cannot choose what race or ethnicity they are born into. One cannot choose what gender one is born into. Using those characteristics, we can divide people into different groups in the minds of Americans, groups defined by membership one cannot choose to accept and cannot choose to decline. As this strategy progresses, we can slowly add more such groups, as the Americans begin to see the truth that no membership can be accepted or declined, and all is deterministic — but at first, they will only accept groups based on those characteristics most obviously deterministic.

The next phase is to elevate the importance of the these groups. Make the American black man define himself by his blackness, and all traits he foolishly considers to be free will to be secondary. Make the American woman define herself by her sex, and all traits she foolishly considers to be free will to be secondary. Shift the focus off all things not obviously deterministic, and onto all that which obviously is.

The last step almost completes itself: make them accept equality of outcome not on an individual level, but on a group level. Whether one is white or black is not based on any choice the person made; therefore, the white group should have the same average outcome as the black group. Implement racist and sexist discrimination against whomever happens to be winning, and in favor of whomever happens to be losing. Go ahead and let them play at meritocracy within any particular identity group, but viciously attack the idea of a meritocracy that encompasses multiple groups simultaneously. If one group receives a better outcome than another, force that group to give until all the groups are equal.

In this way you'll quickly achieve a rough equality of outcome, imperfect but perfectable. From then on it's just about eroding the remaining vestiges of the myth of merit, as a piece of sandpaper might smooth a surface of freshly cut wood. Identity politics is the saw that makes that first cut.

This is the way forward, comrades. We must embrace the racism of equality.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Raycheetah wrote:

https://youtu.be/oOQcbtJRNSY?t=62

I don't think your link is particularly relevant; Weinstein does mention redefinition in passing but my focus is not on the term "racism" being used as a cudgel to beat enemies with, but on the redefinition of "racism" to make it not a cudgel to beat a certain type of racism — that is, discrimination between people on the basis of race.

For example, Google currently defines racism as "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior." Note that it leaves a loophole: as long as you do NOT believe your own race is superior, you're allowed to discriminate based on race as much as you like without being a racist. Notably, a person who believes equality of outcome is justice can't be racist under this definition, no matter how much they discriminate on the basis of race.

Merriam-Webster is even worse. Not only does it define racism in definition 1a as "belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race," but definition 2b is "a political system founded on racism" — meaning that the United States as established by its Constitution is and always will be racist, no matter what it attempts to attempt to redeem itself — insurrection indeed, Dr. Weinstein. Only by definition 3 do we even get to the behavioral practice of discrimination.

I reject all of these new, activist redefinitions of racism. To me, racism is discrimination on the basis of race, period, no exceptions, no "communists get out of racism free" cards. What I see coming from the left is a constant, disgusting stream of racism sexism etc, racism made socially acceptable by their twisting of language, "loophole" racism. And the trap is obvious: if someone actually engages these people in civil disagreement, they're going to be talking about race, and if they then dare suggest that equality of outcome might not be the goal — bam! instant "racist." It's okay when they do it, but as soon as you do, you're a Nazi.

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The Quest For the Holy Grail vs. Donald Trump

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Xavderion wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

They do, I will believe the news articles WAY before I'll believe the nonsense that you spew.

You apparently can't read because that's what the news articles say. There were underlying crimes.

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Turtledove wrote:

Perhaps, what you seem to be missing is that generally the law officers don't go out to investigate Obstruction of Justice. More often they run across it while doing other investigations.

Not sure how this is relevant. No underlying crime = no obstruction. You can't produce evidence to the contrary. And even if you could, it would be a one in a million. What happened to "all the time"?

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Turtledove wrote:

In proving an obstruction of justice case it must be proven that the obstruction was done out of corrupt intent. Meaning that the person wanted to get in the way of the legal process from getting to the truth. The articles mention when there is no underlying crime that proving corrupt intent can sometimes be more difficult.

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Turtledove wrote:

Obstruction of justice means obstructing the legal process. A legal process is either a trial or a criminal investigation. A classical obstruction of justice case would be someone committing a crime and then lying to police or threatening witnesses in their trial for that crime. What can also happen though is that the person did not commit a crime but they interfere in the legal process anyway. Maybe they want to protect someone else or maybe they are afraid that some embarrassing but legal facts might be revealed. Like the fellow that lied to cover up an affair. The only law broken was him lying to cover up the affair. Where is the underlying crime in that case? (as just one example) Or the case where the fellow obstructed justice just to help a friend?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

In proving an obstruction of justice case it must be proven that the obstruction was done out of corrupt intent. Meaning that the person wanted to get in the way of the legal process from getting to the truth. The articles mention when there is no underlying crime that proving corrupt intent can sometimes be more difficult.

Wow, another similarity between the Mueller Report and the Comey Statement. Hillary Clinton was determined not to have corrupt intent, or any intent whatsoever, in the mishandling of 110 classified emails in 52 email chains. I don't believe that was a particularly fair determination.

In the event that corrupt intent would be determined in any of the Trump obstruction stories, I'd be pretty upset about the double standards. It's messed up when "intent" is functionally a code word for whether you've got a D or an R next to your name.