Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

No, you're not telling me what Trump and his followers will do. You have internalized what they will say as if it's persuasive to anyone else, which it is not, and you are regurgitating it as if it is the way the rest of us think. When you say Judge Berman was "supposed to" to act to avoid Trump attacking her, you're not describing Trump at all. You're repeating his attacks on her and saying that you believe them.

Whenever you say something like this and get challenged on it, you backtrack and pretend that you're just relating "the rules," "the playing field." That's bullshit. Trump will attack anyone and everyone who doesn't accept his dominance. He attacked Judge Curiel, who did not say anything like what Judge Berman Jackson did. When you suggest that Judge Berman Jackson brought Trump's attacks on herself by doing her job as a job, you are being naive at best. Yes, Trump's attacks are absolutely predictable. That's not an objective reality, it's a choice that Trump and his supporters are making. For some reason, their agency never enters into your thinking -- they are just a fact of nature and you spend your time lecturing the Judge Berman Jackson's of the world about how they ought to behave instead.

If, for just a second, you started from the assumption that Trump and his supporters and their decisions are the problem, then you might have different thoughts about what to do about them, and whether what Judge Berman Jackson should do as a federal judge to uphold the rule of law. You literally seem incapable of thinking those thoughts. Trump's dominance politics resonate deeply with you.

I'm sure Judge Berman Jackson was not surprised that Trump supporters attacked her. She absolutely invited attacks with her decision to say what she said. It does not even seem to have occurred to you that she knew what Stone did, she knew what she was saying, she knew that she would be attacked, and that she thought it was worth it.

What does “internalized” even mean? That’s a word like “impactful.”

The rest of the first paragraph is beneath both of us. Pass.

The second is true, and I’ve so stipulated. Trump attacks judges. Judges need to deal with that if they care as much as Berman seemed to. You seem offended by it. I don’t care. No one said judges are beyond attack. If a President feels like bullying them, they can fight back. Berman did. You have this bizarre reverence for them. Let them fight. They’re adults. And Trump’s followers are a fact of nature.

I’m so sorry this new evolution upsets your idea of how nature should work. Shit happens. Deal with it.

Trump and his supporters are not a problem. They are actors fighting for power in a system built on power. If you think differently, you’re naive. It’s always been a charade hiding a game of power behind the scenes.

I admitted several times Berman might not have cared, or actually intended to send a message. Go back and reread that. I made sure to repeat it for you. And I never disputed she knew where and how Stone lied. But she does not, and cannot, know that Trump engaged in illegal or unethical acts which were covered up by Stone. Because if she knew those acts, we’d know those acts.

Berman engaged in conjecture, Which She Can Do. But for which she will receive a response, and maybe not a good one. See Newton’s third law.

And now she and you and everybody who’d wish to see Stone go down can see his commutation made a little easier as a result of what Berman said.

Look, dude, you’re done here. You’ve been done. You’re arguing right and wrong in game that has nothing to do with that. It’s like arguing the Sixers are more honorable than the Celtics. My only point is to critique the moves.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Hi all! Just checking to see if you all are enjoying the 2020 Democratic race, that now is a reprisal of the 2016 GOP primary. This time, the role of John Kasich is being played by Amy Klobuchar.

It is inevitable that Bernie will receive the largest plurality of the delegates. So he will get the nomination, or Bernie Bros will riot if he does not.

Nominating Bernie seems like a bet the House move. As in literally. This is the only possible scenario for the GOP taking back the House. I think there is a chance Bernie will win, but on the whole the odds favor a second Trump term. I know the Democrats don't care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, but Bernie is almost the candidate to make me say "screw it" and vote Trump. Almost.

We are a decadent and unserious people and it seems we are getting the candidates we deserve.

2016 was, for Republicans, a bet-your-soul moment. At least this is not that.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Hi all! Just checking to see if you all are enjoying the 2020 Democratic race, that now is a reprisal of the 2016 GOP primary. This time, the role of John Kasich is being played by Amy Klobuchar.

It is inevitable that Bernie will receive the largest plurality of the delegates. So he will get the nomination, or Bernie Bros will riot if he does not.

Nominating Bernie seems like a bet the House move. As in literally. This is the only possible scenario for the GOP taking back the House. I think there is a chance Bernie will win, but on the whole the odds favor a second Trump term. I know the Democrats don't care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, but Bernie is almost the candidate to make me say "screw it" and vote Trump. Almost.

We are a decadent and unserious people and it seems we are getting the candidates we deserve.

Humans suck. I've always believed that. Individually we are okay. But en masse we are garbage. We are capable of both amazing and awful things, but mostly awful. We have murdered, enslaved, raped and pillaged throughout history. Humans acting like dickheads is the norm. I've become a much more positive person as I've gotten older, but my view on humanity hasn't changed.

That being said, it all comes down to MI, WI, PA, AZ, and FL. Maybe NC. I don't think Bernie can win Florida, but I think he's got a shot at the midwestern states. He's not my preferred candidate but literally 99.9% of the population would be better than Trump.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Humans suck. I've always believed that. Individually we are okay. But en masse we are garbage. We are capable of both amazing and awful things, but mostly awful. We have murdered, enslaved, raped and pillaged throughout history. Humans acting like dickheads is the norm. I've become a much more positive person as I've gotten older, but my view on humanity hasn't changed.

That being said, it all comes down to MI, WI, PA, AZ, and FL. Maybe NC. I don't think Bernie can win Florida, but I think he's got a shot at the midwestern states. He's not my preferred candidate but literally 99.9% of the population would be better than Trump.

Honestly, the only benefit here that I can see from Bernie, is that Bernie supporters will vote and not vote third party. The dems that are for other candidates might be less likely to drift. But I can also see a ton of unaffiliated people thinking Trump is safer than Bernie. And Bernie's health will be an issue.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Honestly, the only benefit here that I can see from Bernie, is that Bernie supporters will vote and not vote third party. The dems that are for other candidates might be less likely to drift. But I can also see a ton of unaffiliated people thinking Trump is safer than Bernie. And Bernie's health will be an issue.

Before 2016, my dad voted R in every presidential election since 64?68? He refused to vote for Trump or Hillary in 2016. He won't vote for Trump this year, but I think he would vote for Biden or Pete. But I don't think he'd vote for Sanders - boomers really don't like socialists (or candidates they think are socialists).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

whoops, double post

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Before 2016, my dad voted R in every presidential election since 64?68? He refused to vote for Trump or Hillary in 2016. He won't vote for Trump this year, but I think he would vote for Biden or Pete. But I don't think he'd vote for Sanders - boomers really don't like socialists (or candidates they think are socialists).

Gotta wonder whether Bernie would like a time machine to go back and erase his embrace of the "socialist" label. Seems like he once actually was, but his positions today are straight up New Deal Democrat and his path to the White House would be a lot easier without it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

What does “internalized” even mean? That’s a word like “impactful.”

It means that sometimes you pretend you are just describing what Trump says, but you also make clear that you believe it. For example, you repeatedly said Judge Berman Jackson was "supposed to" avoid saying the sorts of things judges commonly say after convictions about the perpetrator's crimes. Let's be totally clear: There is no law, ethical standard, rule or any other precedent that says that Judge Berman Jackson shouldn't have said what she said. What you really mean is, by saying something that Trump would object to in a public way, she was going to become the target of criticism by him and his followers. "Supposed to" is not descriptive language -- it's normative. You said "supposed to" because you don't just describe his shit, you sometimes believe it. You have internalized it. But you also are not one of Trump's supporters, so when you're pushed on it you back away from what you've said, and pretend that you're just a dispassionate observer, describing the follies of the age but not getting caught up in believing any of it.

Look, dude, you’re done here. You’ve been done. You’re arguing right and wrong in game that has nothing to do with that. It’s like arguing the Sixers are more honorable than the Celtics. My only point is to critique the moves.

The idea that politics is an amoral game with no rules is Trumpian. It's what people like Judge Berman Jackson oppose. If you believe this, then you're in the bag for Trump, just not self-aware enough to own it.

We're all lawyers, and we all get how the law is like a game. The idea that it's *just* a game is the sort of thing that is exciting to teenagers, but that most people grow out of. And you obviously don't believe it, for example when you talk about criminal justice reform. You just like the cynical pose.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

It means that sometimes you pretend you are just describing what Trump says, but you also make clear that you believe it.

Nope. I'm guessing how Trump will react. Could not be a different thing.

For example, you repeatedly said Judge Berman Jackson was "supposed to" avoid saying the sorts of things judges commonly say after convictions about the perpetrator's crimes.

She is supposed to stick to the issues before her. But can she say whatever she likes? Absolutely. And if it incurs a response, she has to live what that response.

Let's be totally clear: There is no law, ethical standard, rule or any other precedent that says that Judge Berman Jackson shouldn't have said what she said.

Generally a judge sticks to what's before a judge and doesn't assume facts. But again, there is no rule requiring it.

What you really mean is, by saying something that Trump would object to in a public way, she was going to become the target of criticism by him and his followers.

Yup. As I said, I was anticipating what I'd do in Stone's or Trump's shoes. She left the door open.

"Supposed to" is not descriptive language -- it's normative.

This connection you're struggling to make is clever, but you can't build the bridge you need. That a judge is supposed to stick to issues before her and not opine as to facts she can't know is a normal concept. The suggestion it is a concept that Trump has invented and I am internalizing is bizarre.

Trump hasn't commented to my knowledge on Berman's use of "covering up" yet. Which kind of undoes your whole argument. If he does, and he does as I said he will, he'd be internalizing me rather than the other way around.

You said "supposed to" because you don't just describe his shit, you sometimes believe it.

Yes, I have internalized that which he's not said yet and might not say. Did you even think about linear time when you were authoring this post?

You have internalized it.

You have it all wrong. I am the puppet master. Watch how Trump says exactly what I said he'll say. He's internalizing me. (God that word is shite... I feel dumb using it.)

But you also are not one of Trump's supporters, so when you're pushed on it you back away from what you've said, and pretend that you're just a dispassionate observer, describing the follies of the age but not getting caught up in believing any of it.

That's exactly the point. But I'm not dispassionate. I'm interested in the entropy at hand. Trump's just a match on gas. The unraveling he's causing has been years in the making. The system is rotten and the discrediting of it helps to crash it so it can be rebooted. You seem to dread that for some strange reason. You're very conservative, defensive of the institutions.

The idea that politics is an amoral game with no rules is Trumpian.

No. It's reality. Anyone who's been near it at any point for the last 800 years has reached that conclusion. To call that an innovation of trump's is deeply insulting to billions of intuitive minds who've surmised politics as dressed up pretexts and games masking underlying grasps for and exertion of power by more often than not amoral actors.

Neoliberalism, the socioeconomic ethos of the age, is dressed up nihilism. What cave on Mars have you been hiding in for the past 40 years?

It's what people like Judge Berman Jackson oppose. If you believe this, then you're in the bag for Trump, just not self-aware enough to own it.

That's a swell civics lesson, Senator Smith. But I've believed its mostly that for a whole hell of a lot longer than Donald Trump has been in politics. So again, I guess I can assume Trump is internalizing me and the billions of people who think like me?

We're all lawyers, and we all get how the law is like a game. The idea that it's *just* a game is the sort of thing that is exciting to teenagers, but that most people grow out of. And you obviously don't believe it, for example when you talk about criminal justice reform. You just like the cynical pose.

The law isn't so much a game as one of various battlefields on which games of power are often played. Politics, commerce, military interventions... There are numerous arenas in which power is sought and exerted in amoral "games."

You focus on the law like its the pinnacle, the game trumping (god help me) all others. You seem to think it's the one that must be protected, beyond reproach, and not have its authority tested. I disagree. It's a system like any other, and if one can hack it, good on him.

My objection to criminal justice abuses reaches back to my earlier point about punching down. The man in the dock, even if he's rich, is up against the most amoral and vicious adversary in the world when the govt comes after him. He often barely stands a chance. A system that allows that isn't deserving of comparison to a game. It's more predatory... something else. Something really rotten, and deserving of being discredited.

[Hank Chinaski]

sometimes it breaks my heart that fringey and I didn't end up together, but then I read a story like this and realize that maybe it was for the best.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

My objection to criminal justice abuses reaches back to my earlier point about punching down. The man in the dock, even if he's rich, is up against the most amoral and vicious adversary in the world when the govt comes after him. He often barely stands a chance. A system that allows that isn't deserving of comparison to a game. It's more predatory... something else. Something really rotten, and deserving of being discredited.

You have this real, principled concern about the way the criminal justice system is rigged to favor the government, "the most amoral and vicious adversary in the world," and at the same time, in the same post, you repeat utter bullshit that the head of the government, the President, is spreading to corrupt the criminal justice system to serve his ends. You say the criminal justice system is predatory and rotten -- does that moral concern just shut off when the President tries to arrange special treatment for this own supporters? I think your instinct is to just take the side of almost any defendant, even Roger Stone, but you don't seem to get that the moronic attacks on this judge are aimed at making the system more predatory and more rotten.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You have this real, principled concern about the way the criminal justice system is rigged to favor the government, "the most amoral and vicious adversary in the world," and at the same time, in the same post, you repeat utter bullshit that the head of the government, the President, is spreading to corrupt the criminal justice system to serve his ends. You say the criminal justice system is predatory and rotten -- does that moral concern just shut off when the President tries to arrange special treatment for this own supporters? I think your instinct is to just take the side of almost any defendant, even Roger Stone, but you don't seem to get that the moronic attacks on this judge are aimed at making the system more predatory and more rotten.

Trump and the justice system are peas in a pod. They richly deserve to infuriate and damage one another.

I have a hard time taking Stone's side because he chose this. The usual individual ground up in the gears of the justice system doesn't choose to fuck with it. He's often trying to do something the people and entities with significant property interests and lobbyists who write our codes don't want him to do (drugs, "honest services" fraud [whatever that catch-all is], tax shenanigans, trading on info he should have known was insider stuff, etc.). Rarely is he deciding to voluntarily put himself in the cross hairs of an investigation and then lie to the investigators.

I offer no brief on behalf of violent or predatory criminals.

I full understand that Trump may have a corrupting effect on the system. And if he uses it to try to jail his opponents, you'll see me attack him (as opposed to critique, which I'm doing in regard to Berman). But we're not there yet, and so far he's actually been good on criminal justice reform.

I see a great bright side to the criticism of our justice and court systems. It's highlighting the insanity of our draconian sentences, and causing the public to examine a system it doesn't typically examine closely. If this results in policymakers saying, "Hey, ya know what? Putting away non-violent offenders for nearly a decade is nuts. We have to stop that cruel and silly shit, and wasting tax dollars on that sort of ludicrous incarceration," that's a great thing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump and the justice system are peas in a pod. They richly deserve to infuriate and damage one another.

I have a hard time taking Stone's side because he chose this. The usual individual ground up in the gears of the justice system doesn't choose to fuck with it. He's often trying to do something the people and entities with significant property interests and lobbyists who write our codes don't want him to do (drugs, "honest services" fraud [whatever that catch-all is], tax shenanigans, trading on info he should have known was insider stuff, etc.). Rarely is he deciding to voluntarily put himself in the cross hairs of an investigation and then lie to the investigators.

I offer no brief on behalf of violent or predatory criminals.

I full understand that Trump may have a corrupting effect on the system. And if he uses it to try to jail his opponents, you'll see me attack him (as opposed to critique, which I'm doing in regard to Berman). But we're not there yet, and so far he's actually been good on criminal justice reform.

I see a great bright side to the criticism of our judicial system. It's highlighting the insanity of our draconian sentences, and causing the public to examine a system it doesn't typically examine closely. If this results in policymakers saying, "Hey, ya know what? Putting away non-violent offenders for nearly a decade is nuts. We have to stop that cruel and silly shit, and wasting tax dollars on that sort of ludicrous incarceration," that's a great thing.

See, you really do have principles and don't believe the law is just a game. That's why your cynical pose is so irritating -- we know you don't really believe it, and do it to be contrarian.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

See, you really do have principles and don't believe the law is just a game. That's why your cynical pose is so irritating -- we know you don't really believe it, and do it to be contrarian.

I'm not deluded enough to think the power game will end. I view my principled concern about justice reform as a dream I'll never live to see.

You confuse my very dark view about how things work with me trying to affect a nihilist stance. I was never a nihilist, and I never will be. But I have no faith or hope of any kind. I find myself increasingly suggestible in the face of the argument, "Let them burn it all down. That's the only way to fix it."

The nihilists are the neoliberals, the rentier capitalists, the people who enable what's happening by refusing to discuss the economic issues that matter. Politics is fun and games, but economic matters are of primary importance. Who spoke of them best? Yang. Warren and Bernie are a close second. And Trump, at least in 2016, when he pointed out how neoliberal policies of both D and R administrations were fucking the lower 80% of the country, was also facing the issues directly.

I don't care much about the damage Trump and the Courts inflict on one another. I'm sick of talking about Courts, and dickheaded narcissistic lawyers who infect DC, and political parties. I want to hear some candidate talk about why we are all responsible for 1/2 of all Americans not being able to come up with $400 on 24 hrs notice, why 90% of Americans have no savings, and what this will look like in 10 or 20 years.

But I'll never hear that. And no one will ever accept blame. Even here, when someone puts the blame squarely on neoliberal policies that have fed us well but fucked over a whole lot of other people, everybody pretends not to hear it. Or they blame political parties. If no one has any principles, and we live in a sociopathic system where everything is commoditized, what sensible conclusion can one reach but that its all a power game and Trump is just causing us to recognize it.

[Oliver_Wendell_Ramone]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm not deluded enough to think the power game will end. I view my principled concern about justice reform as a dream I'll never live to see.

You confuse my very dark view about how things work with me trying to affect a nihilist stance. I was never a nihilist, and I never will be. But I have no faith or hope of any kind. I find myself increasingly suggestible in the face of the argument, "Let them burn it all down. That's the only way to fix it."

The nihilists are the neoliberals, the rentier capitalists, the people who enable what's happening by refusing to discuss the economic issues that matter. Politics is fun and games, but economic matters are of primary importance. Who spoke of them best? Yang. Warren and Bernie are a close second. And Trump, at least in 2016, when he pointed out how neoliberal policies of both D and R administrations were fucking the lower 80% of the country, was also facing the issues directly.

I don't care much about the damage Trump and the Courts inflict on one another. I'm sick of talking about Courts, and dickheaded narcissistic lawyers who infect DC, and political parties. I want to hear some candidate talk about why we are all responsible for 1/2 of all Americans not being able to come up with $400 on 24 hrs notice, why 90% of Americans have no savings, and what this will look like in 10 or 20 years.

But I'll never hear that. And no one will ever accept blame. Even here, when someone puts the blame squarely on neoliberal policies that have fed us well but fucked over a whole lot of other people, everybody pretends not to hear it. Or they blame political parties. If no one has any principles, and we live in a sociopathic system where everything is commoditized, what sensible conclusion can one reach but that its all a power game and Trump is just causing us to recognize it.

Hey Sebby, Drive-By Truckers are playing your fine town tomorrow night. I think the Rock Show might do you some good.

Your friend,

Ollie