Reverse Logic?
This showed up on Facebook. Some guy by the name of Daniel Becker posted it as a commentary there. It is actually pretty good. A type of reverse logic. There is probably a name for this writing style, It eludes me right now. Enjoy on a Saturday . . . yes? It is simple, no hard thinking. No Martin Heidegger’s alethetical idea of truth to be determined here.
“The Shovel’s view on the Donald Trump FBI raid” | The Shovel
We are certainly no fans of Donald Trump – let’s make that clear from the outset. But yesterday’s raid by the FBI on the home of a former president sets a dangerous precedent.
A precedent which now means that anyone who evades taxes, attempts to undermine an election, sexually assaults women, manipulates the value of their assets, uses state resources to enrich themselves or aids and abets the overthrow of a democratically elected government will be subject to investigation.
Is that the world we want to live in? Where anyone accused of insurrection can be subject to questioning from law enforcement officers?
It’s a slippery slope. Before we know it, regular citizens accused of defrauding the government, concealing evidence, manipulating financial documents, tampering with witnesses or perverting the course of justice will also be held to account.
Or to put it another way, if we simply shrug our shoulders and fail to question the actions of the FBI, soon any old Joe Citizen who is suspected of ripping classified government documents into small pieces and flushing them down the toilet will be obliged to answer to law enforcement, as well as their plumber.
If we don’t ask the hard questions about the potential motives of the FBI now, soon any one of us who buries our ex-wife in a small grave at the side of their golf course in order to gain a tax concession will be treated with suspicion.
As Trump supporters put it so clearly yesterday, if this can happen to a President, it could happen to anyone who has committed insurrection, assault or fraud. That’s a chilling thought.
We are on new ground here. As Donald Trump himself made clear, this is the first time a former president’s home has been raided. Proof, if ever we needed it, that the FBI shamefully only targets people who it considers to have committed a crime. Who gave FBI director Chris Wray that authority?
As we made clear earlier, we’re certainly not Trump supporters. But in today’s partisan world, it would be easy to fall into the trap of cheering on the FBI’s actions, without taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. If Trump goes to jail, it opens the door for every lying, corrupt, perverted piece of shit to go to jail too. Is that what we want?
Just to review…
Donald Trump and the Self-Made Sham
NY Times editorial – Oct 2, 2018
Republican pols are continuing to pretend Trump is no different from any other person who’s been elected to the White House. All presidents (like anyone else) are dishonest at times. Trump is an extreme outlier. That he could win a presidential election qualifies as a fairly ominous sign for the current state of democracy in the U.S. That there continues to be a need for him (and his nonsense) means nothing has been fixed.
Given constitutional constraints, it’s hard to be optimistic about meaningful reform in this era. I find myself supporting voter turnout initiatives hoping we’ll find some wisdom in the crowd.
geoff
I knew a geoff who used to comment and write at the BOTF over at Slate when it was far less commercial.. He had a level of intelligence sometimes (?) superseding my numbers based one.
And these people are vicious too in their dislike of others who will not support an insurrectionist, liar, thief, traitor, degenerate, etc., critter (and I demean animals). trump is a level well beyond Nixon. He pollutes the air in the room. It is hard to converse with them as they ooze contempt, and we are not the ones who attempted to overthrow the country.
I do not believe he will win. While there is a substantial number of people who still support him, he blew th place up and many more people came to the realization of what he is about. SCOTUS scares me more.
trump is different and he really needs to be jailed to bring him back to reality of being “nobody.”
What is funny or not funny, I could help a lot of people around my home in getting the builders to fix their homes or finish them. They are too busy whining about the last election and dislike of others who are of different political beliefs.
I’m another Economist’s View refugee. Really appreciate your efforts here.
geoff:
The story as told is by others Angry Bear helped Economist’s View get its start. I just write here as do others. If Dan (blog owner) is a round, he can add to this. Thank you for your comment.
“If an ex-President cannot be above the law, no American is safe.”
Often heard this week.
Presidents and ex-presidents are people. No people are above the law. That is what makes us all safe under the law.
You are correct in what you say though. It is hard to understand why they believe an x-president can steal secret and top secret government documents, participate in an insurrection, etc. and not be prosecuted. You or I would be in a cell right now.
If the Electoral College, overloaded with electors from Red states – especially the gerrymandered ones, can’t re-elect Trump, that will be a something of a miracle, devoutly to be wished.
‘Devoutly to be wished’ is that Trump doesn’t make it back into office.
Thanks run. I just thought it was the Aus’ version of The Onion. I loved it when The Onion had a fake news show on for a while.
I am certainly no fan of Trump. Let me make that clear…as if that would help.
And I certainly the Foxish newsies are ridiculous..yes I have heard them say exactly what Becker is ridiculing here.
But try to remember, there will be other times, other people, who will be accused of vile crimes, and we really do need to ask hard questions about the motives of the FBI.
No joke.
Well this Onion-like slice of parody was a pretty good joke, but yes I do recall an FBI run by JEH that focused surveillance on POTUS Kennedy and Doctor Martin Luther King. This particular cautionary tale may just be that the actual authority of a former US President is trumped by the actual authority of a sitting US Attorney General and you know how much that the Trumpist gang loves authoritarian executive power. What goes around, comes around.
JEH is J.Edgar Hoover, for those of you who don’t know. right up there with Joe McCarthy, Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles, the Koch brothers,….oh, the list goes on. so yes, Trump is just the clown who shows up at the end of the show to laugh at us as our fate is sealed.
Yep, but don’t count Merrick Garland out too soon. Trump’s authority now is only via his naive activist supporters and his kindred army of goons, goons that might find themselves in the cross-hairs of the ATF and DEA which have better equipped goons of their own and also fall within the scope of Merrick’s DoJ. One’s political stature is only increased by the stature of the enemies that they confront if, and only if, one survives the confrontation. The bigger they are, then the bigger the grease spot they leave when run over.
Machiavelli only realized the good reason to stay out of the halls of power after he was bound to a rack, beaten, and thrown out naked onto the street.
H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956): “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
William Casey (CIA Director 1981-1987): “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” Casey uttered this definition of ultimate CIA success at Reagan’s first Cabinet meeting.
Typically, ignorant self-pity is the only emotion with any credibility in American minds. Get it through your heads: the only thing that matters is the truth of this matter.
Did Trump illegally remove and conceal Top Secret and Secure Compartmentalized Information?
Did Trump and his staff illegally refuse to preserve and secure Presidential documents?
Did Trump and his staff illegally destroy Presidential documents?
This article’s welcome sarcasm makes it clear there should be no pity or consideration for any criminal, especially if they happen to be a former President. Frankly, Presidents, and any other person favoured with extraordinary power and respect should receive extraordinary penalties and punishments for their crimes. Any peace officer, judge, doctor, engineer, powerful businessman should get the maximum, and do the maximum.
Frantz Fanon: “They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does not mean improvement.”
H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956): “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents… the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Ricardo
it may be that Trump deserves no mercy, but some day some one accused will dserve mercy.
Think you will be able to tell the difference?
Someone, not Mecken, said “Go and find what it means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice.”
yes, this has been going on since long before even Machiavelli, but back then they didn’t have nukes, or 8 billion people whose highest hope was to have a really bitchin’ car some day.
Coberly,
No one gets to decide how the world works because that is an amalgam of decisions by those 8 billion people along with exogenous influences and unforeseen consequences of occasionally benign appearing decisions along with utter stupidity. Sure we only have a few leaders, but they have countless followers that make them dangerous. However, almost anyone can see how the world works because little of it is really secret despite the great deal that is decided behind closed doors. If people do not realize what Trump or Putin has been doing, then it is only because they prefer to believe their own fantasy over the rather obvious reality. Besides, the highest hope of nearly one billion people is that they might eat today and less than one out of five people in the world own any automotive vehicle at all.
Ron
you are probably right, but in spite of my preference for superstition I spent too long in the trenches to avoid having a pretty mechanical idea of how the world and people work. i guess you could say people prefer their own fantasy, i know i prefer mine, but i don’t really think they have a choice.. they believe the fantasies given to them by their parents and peers and politicians…all by simple, essentially random repeated association with occasional “reinforcement,” fear and oxycontin on the brain.
and i guess the last best hope of much of mankind is their daily bread, but i think most of them are dreaming of having a better car. (one being better than none, but only until you get one. then you need a better one. does that count as “their own fantasy”?
and yes, i believe in “forces of history,” the law of unintended consequences, “who ordered that?”, swamping the best laid plans of dictators everywhere…though the best and worst of them do seem to emerge out of chaos through injustice, and strut and fret their hour on the stage telling the other actors where to stand,
…still, some good people seem to create an island of sanity around themselves…subject to the same limitations of course.