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Bigger Than Trump
Having now reviewed everything I can find on what the President actually said at the protest in D.C., I can state with confidence that he did not cross a line into legally actionable speech. The bar set for classifying speech as criminal is pretty high, and the President did not even come close to meeting it.
Try to set aside what you think about President Trump. That’s a stretch goal for a lot of us, but let’s stretch: consider, for just a moment, that there might be an issue here that’s bigger than the President himself, and that could have repercussions that go far beyond January of 2021.
Those who call for the President’s removal from office are asking that punitive action be taken — in fact, that the most punitive action which can be taken, in the case of the Chief Executive, be taken — for his exercise of constitutionally protected speech.
Let that sink in. If the most powerful man in the United States can receive the highest punishment which Congress can mete out for the non-crime of speaking in a way that offends many people, then what protection does anyone have to speak freely? What does it mean to set a precedent that a sitting President can be removed from office for constitutionally protected speech?
During the Kavanaugh hearings, I argued that it was critical that the Senate confirm the nominee following the vague and unsubstantiated allegations made by Ms. Ford. A failure to do so would diminish the Senate’s authority by signaling that any future nominee could be derailed by nothing more than an unverifiable claim of past misbehavior.
Something even greater than that is at stake here. If we remove the sitting President, a man who received, barely two months ago, the support of more than seventy million Americans, that decision should be rooted in the most profound and solid Constitutional reasoning. Anything less elevates virtue signaling above the Constitution, and both endorses and enshrines the left’s view that the right not to be offended transcends freedom of speech and the rule of law.
If this disregard for law and the Constitution were coming only from the left, from people who already held neither law nor the Constitution in high esteem, I could almost overlook it as merely more of the unprincipled toxicity of the progressive movement. But some on the right are falling for this too — as evidenced by Ricochet’s own misguided rush-to-judgment piece a few days ago.
It’s time to put one’s feelings about the President aside, and to take a hard-headed look at the law and the Constitutional principles that are at stake. Everyone’s right to free expression is in the dock right now. That serves a left that has already embraced censorship and controlled speech. We on the right must do better.
Published in General
Here’s from Vox’s other post.
So the hackers then reportedly created millions of fake admin accounts, and used that in order to set up a way to harvest all the data off Parler. Including
I’m not on Parler, but apparently there’s a category of membership called “Verified Citizen” which requires the upload of an image of the front and back of your “REAL State Driver’s License” (whether that means a REAL ID one or not, I’m not sure but I think it may) but the thing is, this report says that that is now compromised.
That’s where the growing no-fly lists are coming from. Can’t fly without REAL ID, you’re associated by virtue of Parler with the planners of the demo and therefore the riot.
FISA, as we now know, allows the “wiretapping” of not only the subject of the warrant, but of the contacts of the subjects (I may be wrong, but I think also the contacts of the contacts.)
It would be interesting to see how “member of (Parler, Ricochet, etc. etc.” gets used on the FISA warrants the Harris administration files.) Except we won’t see it, will we?
My belief that there were significant election irregularities has nothing to do with President Trump or his behavior. I’ve listened to the hearings; I listened to the infamous phone call. There’s evidence aplenty, and it’s not good enough to say that if it were real then a court would have heard it and acted. That’s not an illogical argument, it’s just an unnecessarily general one when there are rather specific items of evidence that can and should be investigated and discussed.
I also think that the Russia Collusion Hoax was perpetrated by a politically weaponized IC. Few with the power to do something about that seem interested; it’s not a stretch to think that anyone would be even less interested in looking at election claims.
Asinine behavior abounds. All of it is contributing to the anger and discontent. If the claims are so easily refuted or checked – then why haven’t they been checked? On the infamous phone call with Raffensperger the Trump team was trying to do exactly that but Raffensperger was putting up roadblocks to that.
One of the things that President Trump figured out early, I think, is that our system isn’t as non-political as most of us want it to be. Almost everything is primarily political and only secondarily legal/constitutional. Yes that’s dangerous; no President Trump didn’t create that.
Can one unintentionally incite riot? Is that like “asking for it” by wearing a skirt to short in the wrong part of town at the wrong time of night? Is that like wearing a MAGA hat in the wrong Chiacago neighborhood and inciting someone to punch you?
Perfect. I think a lot of the “incitement” talk comes down to “Trump should have known better than to . . . “
“If you’ve done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.”
I don’t know for sure about Rob, but I suspect that BlueYeti would do that in a heartbeat.
It’s amazing how when people point something out, they change the subject and bring in extraneous arguments. What does the Russian hoax and the Ukraine phone call have to do with the last two months? You guys can’t keep am argument straight.
And to say this for the millionth time, I supported Trump for the past four years. The Russian hoax and the Ukraine phone call were bogus. I agree. That has nothing to do with his irresponsible incitement these last two months.
The best case for Trump not being impeached is that it was unintentional. Yes, you can unintentionally incite a riot. Of course people can rise to a riot based on your words when the speaker just wanted them inflamed but not rioting.
How about you pull out some objective right leaning media, say the Wall Street Journal or the NY Post? These, like me, have been supporters of Trump. Where are they on this? Look it up, you’ll find out. They are not supporting Trump on this.
Then people arrested have all been Trump supporters. That is not fictional or media bias. That is a hard fact.
If a ghetto kid fires a gun in the street and kills a bystander. Is he responsible? Of course, and I bet you would say so too. Trump is responsible for gathering that crowd and inciting them.
“You guys”? I speak for me and no one else.
As for extraneous arguments, I call BS. It’s all connected and I’m pointing out the connection. You want to isolate all of these things as if one doesn’t affect the other? I disagree.
That’s not dangerous precedent at all.
What?!? That’s a hell of a stretch. Speaking is not the same as firing a gun in the street. Besides, you have yet to demonstrate “incitement”. That word means something and here is what US Code defines it as:
Oh, and nice touch by adding the “ghetto kid”. You get to imply racism without actually saying it directly.
Of course it has something to do with it. Do you think the recent events could possibly have happened without something like the Russia hoax to stir up suspicions of yet another hysteria being promoted by the leftmedia? The Russia hoax changed the rules of the game.
And yeti will repeat what he’s said before: I’ll do what I have to do, and you do what you have to do.
There’s a context and a bigger story that just that Trump last the election. And it goes back to 2014 and 2015.
This is funny. One guy in the Capitol was a BLM guy, and he was interviewed about what happened there, but he wasn’t arrested. They are only arresting Trump supporters it seems.
That’s what makes it so easy to spout “the people arrested have all been Trump supporters.”
Well, you didn’t really diputee my point, and you haven’t throughout equated the gun with anything Trump did. It’s a weak analogy to say the least.
Respectfully, you’re leaping to an incorrect conclusion. I know that a criminal offense need not have occurred in order for impeachment to take place.
What I’m saying is that I think Trump has done nothing that qualifies as a “high crime or misdemeanor,” given any reasonable definition of the term — including the one Congress uses when determining if it’s applicable.
I confess I don’t quite understand the fervor surrounding the were-they-or-weren’t-they-Trump-supporters issue. While I suspect they were overwhelmingly Trump supporters, I don’t see that it matters much to the larger picture: I’m under no illusion that Trump supporters might not act unwisely, just like anyone else might act unwisely.
Sure, conservative rallies have a well-deserved reputation for law and order, and it’s easy to imagine that both the President and the Capitol security assumed that that would likely be the case this time as well, but even a crowd of conservatives is going to get out of line every once in awhile.
Now, if we’d had several hundred such incidents, I might start getting worried. But we don’t habitually spew fiction and stir the pot until people explode in a violent rage. We’re not BLM, after all.
Firing a weapon on a street is an inherent act of physical force; if Trump had personally shot one of the Capital guards while addressing the rally (and at 1.5 miles away, he’d have to be a heck of a shot), no one would be arguing with you.
Santa can draw crowds and incite people — to unwrap gifts.
Trump can draw crowds and incite people — to call for a return to the Constitution and put America first.
Neither one drew a crowd and called for breaking into the Capitol building.
And in fact they were led in by police. Maybe the police are responsible.
Anti-fa was there and they drew a crowd and incited people — to enter the Capitol. They are certainly responsible.
I think you’re inserting too much of your own speculation as to cause-and-effect into who did what and why.
All of this could have been avoided if we just had reasonable election procedures.
But the only way we could have had reasonable election procedures is if all this had been avoided.
“We will work on it for 2022! Pinky promise!”
She is truly a dangerous threat to decent people everywhere.