Ken White (of "Popehat" twitter fame) has a great article explaining how this and similar court cases during the first world war are the origin of the (poor) "fire in a crowded theater" argument against certain kinds of free speech:
I never realized that the crowded theater of the idiom refers to WWI and shouting fire means opposing the draft. The metaphorical argument is much less compelling when the crowded theater is actually on fire!
Conflating wealth with speech is another recent SCOTUS boondoggle.
• Citizens United v. FEC
• Speechnow.org v. FEC
• McCutcheon v. FEC
Corporate personhood with rights afforded to actual citizens but separate from actual citizens laid the groundwork for a whole mosaic of wrongheaded schools of thought.
"Amoral, effectively immortal fictional entities can be created at will with the rights and privileges of ordinary citizens. What could go wrong?"
>Corporate personhood with rights afforded to actual citizens but separate from actual citizens laid the groundwork for a whole mosaic of wrongheaded schools of thought.
>"Amoral, effectively immortal fictional entities can be created at will with the rights and privileges of ordinary citizens. What could go wrong?"
You realize that the "immortal fictional entities" you speak of are just groups of "ordinary citizens", right? That's the logic behind the Citizens United ruling, ie. that ordinary citizens don't lose their free speech rights when they band together (either as a corporation or a labor union).
Not necessarily citizens - can't corporations be owned by foreign entities?
(I'm not sure that changes the overall argument, but it speaks to a common fear - influence coming from people who don't have the nation's best interests at heart)
> The Supreme Court has made many awful rulings with respect to the first amendment.
I am astounded you'd bother to qualify that "with respect to the First Amendment." They've made stacks of awful rulings, period. Some of their greatest hits: Dred Scott v. Sanford; Plessy v. Ferguson; Hammer v. Dagenhart; Bush v. Gore; Kelo v. City of New London; DC v. Heller; Dobbs v. Jackson.
The Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics but time and again proves it's a vehicle of partisan politics, and one megalomanic sociopath can slant the Court for decades.
DC v. Heller is a great opinion to read for us Constitutional Law nerds though. Scalia really put the historical scholarship work in on that one digging up all that 1776 history. It is a very long and detailed treatise.
If you are a gun control fanatic, I could see where that one would rub you the wrong way, but it was a fantastic piece of legal scholarship.
It was a whole lot of motivated speculation about how some people were thinking hundreds of years ago and how they would interpret contemporary weapons. It is indistinguishable from a reddit post with fancier words. Scalia would have been happy to hear you think it's a fantastic piece of legal scholarship, though - it was his job to dress up his opinions in that way. I quite enjoyed this account of it: https://www.fivefourpod.com/episodes/dc-v-heller/
Heller was also the product of a decade of scholarship by liberals like Larry Tribe and Akhil Amar. The dudes who had just overthrown their government with muskets they had lying around the farm really intended for firearms ownership to be a private right. Least surprising thing ever.
The opinion of the court in Heller seems pretty explicit about not establishing a private right for citizens to bear military weapons (just sweep the whole opinion for the word "military"; it comes up multiple times.)
Military weapons weren’t at issue in Heller, and anything it says about them is dicta. My point is that the historical circumstances of militias armed with weapons they had lying around confirms Heller’s holding that the right conferred by the 2A is a private right.
The regulations that allowed for private warships and artillery?
Those gun control regulations?
If there are actual gun control regulations from the post-revolutionary period, I'm sure that they'll be used to defend NY's and CA's modern regulations soon.
> Scalia really put the historical scholarship work in on that one
I'm afraid not, and not by a mile. He based his decision on his unfounded and unsupportable belief that most Americans believed that self-defense was inclusive to the 2nd, based on nothing but what he thought, and he was wrong, because most Americans are not idiots, but even if he was right (which he definitely was not), the Supreme Court is not and not supposed to be a democratic institution swayed by the whims of alleged popular opinion.
In considering the 2nd Amendment, the Framers debated self-defense and intentionally left it out of the Amendment. Scalia knew this, being a strict Constitutionalist, probably personally reviewed the minutes of the Constitutional Congresses where it is very clear the Framers did not want self-defense inclusive to the 2nd. They did not want an armed citizenry. The 2nd only concerns militia and tyranny. The proper exercise of the 2nd looks exactly like Black Panthers surrounding the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland, California in 1968. It does not look anything like Florida (and elsewhere) Stand Your Ground nonsense, nor Texans shooting kids in the back.
What Scalia did was criminal, bastardizing the 2nd, changing it from a selfless right to stand against tyranny into a selfish right to protect self and property. Self-defense is far more fundamental than the Bill of Rights and is superfluous there. If the right of self-defense comes from any document, it would be one far, far older than the Constitution. But it's really a natural right, older than writing, older than language. Self-defense transcends our species and is a right of all living things. The Bill of Rights does not give us rights we already have and have had since long before we even evolved into humans.
And self-defense was completely skew and unrelated to the issues of DC v. Heller. That portion of DC v. Heller will be struck down, eventually, as soon as its challenged under a balanced court, because Scalia stepped way, way beyond the bounds of the mandate of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution, instead literally adding meaning that was never there before, sidestepping the legal methods of amending the Constitution aka 2/3rds majority of both houses of Congress or state legislatures.
Scalia vandalized, gutted and diluted the 2nd Amendment. Prior to 2008, the 2nd was noble and great. After DC v Heller, it is worthless. DC v. Heller is just another assault on the Constitution, just like the suspensions of habeas and the 5th Amendment.
Gun owners don't need the 2nd Amendment. Hunters never did. The 10th Amendment was always where (nearly all) gun owners' gun rights derived and still do, through legislation by the States, as the Framers intended, abiding by the first 3 words of the 2nd Amendment, put right up front to underscore their importance, and that every gun owner loves to ignore or lie about their clear and literal meaning. The 2nd limits itself and allows the 10th to legally cement what has become a dirty word: regulation. "Shall not be infringed" was placed last, making it less important than and subject to regulation. And commas are important, and it is easier to understand the 2nd removing the clauses between them:
A well-regulated Militia shall not be infringed.
The "right of the people to keep and bear Arms" is "a well-regulated Militia and necessary to the security of a free State." Before Heller, and after that portion is struck down when the Court is inevitably balanced again, no personal right to bear arms existed nor will exist, respectively, except what the States grant under the 10th Amendment.
May I ask you what you think about Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade’s case? Was it correctly argued as a matter of constitutional law and historical practice?
It is not easy to understand, but I think Blackmun got it right. But the Court should have said more in establishing Constitutional privacy. It is undeniable that the right to privacy lives in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments. What is easy to see is that Dobbs v. Jackson not only violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, it is also an extremely rare case of blatantly violating the 9th Amendment.
What is worse is the Court ignoring the fact that at least one of its members is illegitimate and Merrick Garland should have been seated. Barrett is not the only untrustworthy Justice that claimed to support women's rights to choose in order to be confirmed and then apparently couldn't break her word fast enough (we had such high hopes, but it turns out she's as ineffective and as big a fruitcake as Thomas). Alito and Roberts are the surprise. Just what are they thinking? I'd like to know how they think history is going to remember them for making such an impotent and (expectedly) short lived ruling.
The Court also ignores the current state of the country for the last 20 years at least that conservatives are distinctly in the minority and likely will remain so indefinitely. They should not make decisions that are so painfully obviously unlikely to stand. Row v. Wade stood for very nearly half a century. Dobbs v. Jackson will be lucky to make it a decade and a half before it is either overturned or made irrelevant by Congress, either by law or a new Amendment.
Ignoring details, abortion is clearly wrong, but there are some things the government can not do, and saying anything about what a woman can or can't do with their body is one of them. The government is prohibited from doing so by the Constitution as it stood in 1789. Roe v. Wade should not have been necessary, but we have too many intellectually dishonest tyrants that must be put into submission through case law.
It is ironic that there are individuals refusing COVID vaccination, claiming the government has gone too far and has no right to mandate vaccination, crying their rights are being violated, yet by and large these are the same individuals that would have their government tell women they have no choice. It is ironic, but it is also absurd that a vaccination mandate is an intolerable infringement on privacy and the 4th Amendment while at the same time insisting on killing children for the sake of unborn fetuses.
Pro Life and Pro Gun movements go together, and they are each internally logically inconsistent, each reveal cognitive dissonance, and when both ideologies are held by the same individual that individual is necessarily a hypocrite, a twice cognitively dissonant hypocrite as well as a bully and a coward. The Pro Life control freak bullies say: we tell you what you can or can't do; The scared Pro Gun cowards say: don't tell us what we can or can't do. Ridiculously, their sworn political enemies are those that are tolerant of others, including them.
Okay, and can you name any decision by SCOTUS that was decided egregiously incorrectly in favor of liberal/progressives? And any decision by conservative SCOTUS that was decided correctly, to a detriment of liberal/progressive cause?
My point is that if your arguments and positions about matters or law always just so happen to align along partisan lines, why should anyone even pay any attention to the arguments long comments you write, when the conclusion is preordained anyway? Why should anyone even bother to answer to the Gish gallop of wrongheaded arguments, if no arguments would ever get to change your position?
Of course, you can prove me wrong, by pointing to any opinion of Court, written by Justice Scalia, that you think is correct, but most Democrat voters would prefer to have been decided differently. Can you?
> prove me wrong, by pointing to any opinion of Court, written by Justice Scalia, that you think is correct, but most Democrat voters would prefer to have been decided differently.
You're asking for a contradiction. If he had written any decisions correctly, no one would disagree with him. Scalia consistently wrote horrible decisions, but one stands out that is correct, Crawford v. Washington, 2004.
> If he had written any decisions correctly, no one would disagree with him.
This is absurd, and only a complete partisan could write something like this. There is absolutely no point in discussing anything with you, because you literally are unable to concede that your side can ever be wrong. This attitude is extremely corrosive to peaceful coexistence: when more people understand that for you, the only “correct” court decisions are the ones that go according to your preferences, why would they want continue to participate in the rule of law? The whole point here is to solve disagreements by appeal to shared rules and procedures. If you are unable to concede that rules and procedures can ever result in an outcome that is against your preferences, you’re effectively telling people that you do not care one damn about these. Why should then anyone else? This will cause the judiciary to devolve into pure partisanship, with some latin words sprinkled on top.
> The whole point here is to solve disagreements by appeal to shared rules and procedures.
Rules and procedures are merely for civility. Not sure where you get your pejoratives, but partisanship is a very good thing. Things only get better when individuals disagree. Without adversity nothing would ever change, nothing would ever improve, and there would be no such thing as technology. Sometimes disagreements can only be solved by democracy where the majority rules, not like the current State where the constantly shrinking conservative minority has somehow turned that on its head.
I'd argue the other way around. Judges have are humans and have opinions. But they must be principled, if anything. Lady justice has a blindfold after all.
The Supreme Court is just that, 'Supreme'. So personally I'd expect supremely capable judges at such a complex and important post.
The fact that that is considered 'quaint', is a testament to the current state of American democracy, and the self confidence of the Americans in it. I hope it's just a phase, and that you guys can work it out.
"In 1969, Schenck was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot)."
So we can tell other people to avoid the draft now, even in a dry bureaucratic sense. In real life of course the draft is slavery and immoral, as Ayn Rand and many others have pointed out.
I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion.
If, for example, the nazis were at risk of invading the American homeland, would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in?
Again, I agree the draft is immoral, but so is war.
EDIT: for an even better example you should look up what the Japanese did to most civilians in WWII and really ask yourself if a draft to avoid that at home is bad.
I heard Iran is bad. You need to go die right now. No questions, no opinion, they MIGHT BE BAD SO YOU MUST DIE.
But seriously - you don't get to tell me to die because you are afraid. If you want someone to be sacrificed to your fears, start with yourself - you want someone to die, it better be you.
Now, get out there and suffer. I wish all the "glory"[1] of war to you - go die because (and i can't stress this enough) Iran MIGHT BE BAD.
[1] glories like: having your limbs torn off, permanent disfigurement, intense pain for the rest of your life, TBI and all of the difficulties they cause, PTSD, and mystery diseases! These glories assume you survive of course... but listen if you do good they will give you a shiny bauble to pin on your uniform.
> I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion.
So, if the government decides to go to war, this opinion becomes irrelevant then?
And if the US can't convince people to enlist when they're under threat of invasion, I guess people just don't support the regime as much. I'm sure North Koreans are telling people "But what if the Americans invade? We must have the draft".
I think the point of that argument is that citizens generally can't predict what will happen well enough. Before the US entered WWII, I expect most Americans thought of it as "that far away European war that won't hurt us". Leaders in the US may have understood that the stakes were much higher, and allowing Nazism to take over Europe would be devastating for the US, but I figure regular Americans may not have gotten that, at least not in large enough numbers.
But I think it's fair to say that the US really did need to enter WWII. What if the US military needed more recruits, but no one wanted to enlist?
At least, I think that's what the argument is. I'm still not sure I buy it though, because, still, it's up to government leaders to convince people that there's actually a huge threat to the country, that war is necessary, and that people should put their lives on the line. If they can't do that, then maybe they don't deserve to be able to go to war. And if that does end up being disastrous for the country (or even the world) and its people, maybe that's just how things have to go down.
> But I think it's fair to say that the US really did need to enter WWII.
Sure it needed to enter the war - it wanted to put down Japan and take control of the pacific. Plus, the war allowed it to gain massive influence over Europe and better containment of the USSR.
But that doesn't mean the people of the world needed the US to enter the war. Just like they didn't need the other imperial states to engage in their world wars.
> Leaders in the US may have understood that the stakes were much higher, and allowing Nazism to take over Europe would be devastating for the US, but I figure regular Americans may not have gotten that, at least not in large enough numbers.
So they may have claimed. In reality it would have been pretty fine for the USA, Nazi Germany was fundamentally unstable and would be struggling with suppressing dissent in its conquered population for at least a century if it didn't collapse outright.
> If, for example, the nazis were at risk of invading the American homeland, would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
If you cannot get enough volunteers to fight in your war then tour population early doesn't care that much about winning it.
Even if there might be some hypothetical war where for some aliens-with-mind-control type reason the populace doesn't want to fight but losing the war would be even worse, having a draft as an allowed policy is still net bad because of all the times it will be used when there isnt some existential threat!
In almost every case the draft has been used, losing the war would be far better for the people than being drafted into the war.
The relevant population for “was the draft better?” seems to be the people eligible to be drafted not those actually drafted (and, depending on the question, might be everyone who has been or could be eligible)
>would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in?
I think the response to the 9/11 attacks shows that when something major happens, lots of people feel motivated to get up and do something. Volunteers flooded the different branches and even gov't services. My point being that I'm not sure a draft would be needed in your proposed situation.
I mostly agree with the broader point here, but 9/11 is IMHO a bad example. People were signing up for essentially a war of adventure against adversaries that were really no match. It’s a very different situation that the people of the Philippines up against the imperial Japanese army in WWII.
WWII saw similar response, so precedent is there when Americans see a direct threat. Some political action that nobody agrees with like Vietnam/Korean conflicts is where you see the lower interest. That's more in line with your example.
> I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion.
It is, and the two examples below aren't comparable, you want a real-life recent example?
Look at Hong Kong and Taiwan: since at least the early 2000s after the hand over to the CCP in 97 many in HK knew the writing was on the wall of what Life would be like (look at films like 10 years for the most stark and sobering use of foreshadowing I have ever seen since maybe the works about East Germany). In the case of HK you have an affluent, highly educated population focused on what you think most modern developed nations seek: careers, status, salary, etc...
Their fight was a valiant one, starting in earnest in 2014 with the Umbrella Revolution, but the sad truth is HK was never in a capacity to thwart a real attack from the CCP in any real capacity since it's population didn't have any combat training or knowledge beyond the ad-hoc problems solving they were left with, coupled that with being unarmed and then seeing how Russia has invaded Ukraine and you can see why a similarly affluent and well educated country like Taiwan has had a massive up-tick in civilian combat and weapons training.
I'd hate to even contemplate what it would take to require the civilian mobilization in the US as even a thought exercise because f the obvious realities, but at that level I think we saw enough evidence from COVID how polarized people are in Society that I doubt how effective that even would be, and that is not even mentioning how unfit people are to be of any use in such situations given how prevalent obesity is in the Country.
> Again, I agree the draft is immoral, but so is war.
This is the conclusion any sane person comes to, and you'd think during/after COVID we would have come out with a better understanding of just fragile our World really is and how quickly it can turn to utter chaos because of unnecessary fragmentation that you'd think we would collectively regard War as the scourge of Mankind and yet some how it persists. It wasn't long into 2021 that Israel and Palestine were starting to kill each other again.
The REAL question is how to render War moot in modern Society, and my only conclusion is to elevate all of Humanity's standard of living such that they have a greater vested interest in stability and diplomacy as the sole form of conflict resolution rather than default to our basic instincts of tribalism that always leads to the perpetual senseless destruction of people and property at the behest of a political class and a few multi-national weapons dealers who profit from it.
If War is indeed immoral, than one has to also realize that War is the health of the State [0].
Not even. The pamphlet in question opposed the draft by peaceful and legal means and further asserted that conscription is in violation of the 13th amendment. He was simply telling people that the law is unfair and unconstitutional. He didn’t even tell people to break it per se.
Well that was the whole point of the Declaration of Independence. From the British viewpoint it was breaking the law of the land. So clearly it's a very American tradition to rebel against unjust authority.
The thing that amuses to me is a lot of the laws and rhetoric around these matters presume a draft. But we haven't had that for years.
Instead, you had folks who signed up for the national guard thinking they'd just screw around with fancy guns in the woods 2 weeks a year absolutely apoplectic they might actually be put in harm's way.
I remember still being a teenager in Appalachia and being made to feel like you're a hair shy of an agent of foreign power if you suggested the best way to "support the troops" was to say no illegal wars of aggression that put them in harm's way instead of slap a yellow ribbon magnet your car and say let's bomb Iran too.
You haven't truly lived until you tell some aggressive moron wh very purposefully signed up for the infantry because they wanted to kill people of color in an illegal oil war that you don't give a single solitary fuck what they think, you don't thank them for their so called service and that many Marines died at Okinawa died for your right to say that, and that if they don't get their hands out of their pockets and step back you're going to invoke stand your ground and call their wing commander or whoever the fuck is in charge of them to collect the body.
(Many, many folks sing a song about the constitution but break down when you use it for anything other than greasing the wheels of the military industrial complex, and it's DIGUSTING.)
Debs was 64 when sentenced to 10 years in prison. He likely would have died there if Harding had not commuted his sentence to time served. As noted, Debs eventually passed from health problems developed while imprisoned.
The “liberal” Oliver Wendell Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Supreme Court, upheld the verdict, on the ground that Debs’ speech was intended to obstruct military recruiting. The “liberal” Woodrow Wilson, with the war over, and Debs still in prison, 65, and in poor health, turned down his Attorney General’s recommendation that Debs be released. He was in prison for 32 months, and then in 1921, the Republican Warren Harding ordered him freed on Christmas Day.
Wilson, liberal? Besides nearly eradicating the 1st Amendment, he was a promoter of the KKK and did his best to reverse any gains Black Americans had made that hadn't already been erased.
That’s why it’s in quotes, but if you start reading the cliffs notes version of history, he is the father of liberalism or some permutation of that. I agree with you, he was a monster.
The judges are all crooks and liars and will make you pay because you didn't "respect my authority" (read in the voice of the petulant child, Eric Cartman from the cartoon show South Park).
In fact, I feel like I am doing something illegal just by typing this. We cannot win in a court of law. They will simply replace us if we show them any brain activity.
You must reach a unanimous not guilty verdict, not because of jury nullification but because you genuinely believe the defendant is not guilty.
> For the most part, the answer is no. You should NOT discuss jury nullification with your fellow jurors.
> It is well-established that it is perfectly legal for a juror to vote not guilty for any reason they believe is just. However, courts have also decided that they can remove jurors for considering their option to conscientiously acquit.
> This applies anytime until the verdict is officially rendered. Even as late as deliberations, if a disgruntled fellow juror decides to tattle on you to the judge, you could be replaced with an alternate juror. We recommend not openly discussing jury nullification during deliberations.
> The judges are all crooks and liars and will make you pay because you didn't "respect my authority"
Generalizations like that are not helpful, I am not a lawyer and I won in court with judge, he reversed his own ruling because I've proved he was wrong based on Supreme Court rulings.
If you find me any precedent showing that I can openly discuss jury nullification without the judge throwing the book at me, I will be very indebted to you. Until then, the point stands.
They do not take kindly any effort to disrespect them. Remember, a court of law has authority because we as a society gives them this authority. Since we don't live by divine rights of kings, they do not have any claim to authority other than through us, the people. This is the very foundation of our democracy. I agree that usually this is inflammatory language but in this specific case, you must walk into court assuming they are out to get you if you discuss jury nullification.
Jury nullification is the negative right of not punishing jurors for their verdicts, not the positive right of jurors being able to pick verdicts that rule against laws they don't like.
We can talk all about how jury nullification allows the jury to dismiss unjust laws, but do keep in mind the oath a juror is required to swear:
Do you and each of you solemnly swear that you will well and truly try and a true deliverance make between the United States and ______, the defendant at the bar, and a true verdict render according to the evidence, so help you God?
Threatening jury nullification is a clear violation of the oath (definitely not "a true verdict rendered according to the evidence") and the judge is well within their right to hold you in contempt of court for violating that oath.
As always with these things, you can always ask to take an affirmation instead of an oath that omits the "so help you God". The oath is usually administered at the start of the case.
Not being able to talk about jury nullification does not mean all judges are crooks.
The reason people try to discourage “jury nullification” is because if a law is unjust, it should be removed, not be in place for certain juries to give _some_ people passes.
The law should be the law. If you allow juries to decide to give “innocent” verdicts even if someone broke it, then congrats you have made a system where the jury gets to decide randomly if they want to enforce something.
> The law should be the law. If you allow juries to decide to give “innocent” verdicts even if someone broke it, then congrats you have made a system where the jury gets to decide randomly if they want to enforce something.
This is the world we live in though.
Imagine telling someone who is facing life in prison "tough luck but we need to fix the law first".
1. Congress is pretty much deadlocked and has been for decades.
2. This guy, Michael Flynn[flynn], received a presidential pardon.
3. Prosecution routinely uses its "discretion" on which cases to bring forward and what charges it wants to recommend. Police / law enforcement uses its "discretion" as well.
If there is any justice,
either this guy should serve his full sentence
or we should immediately release anyone and everyone convicted of "lying to federal agents[making false statements]" from prison
declaring the insane law null and void.
Right but isn't the whole issue we have with white people walking free after crimes while black people face the actual punishment all because of this exact issue?
White college girl has weed, jury nullifies. Black unemployed guy has weed, jail.
No charges pressed because jury will nullify; it's a cycle.
Jury nullification, of a sort, actually dates back to England. One of the pressures that diminished the penalties for theft (which had crept up to "death") was that juries, seeing a young man in the box with their whole life ahead of them whose only crime was taking from some unaccountable rich boffin, found themselves unwilling to toss the man in the gallows for taking from one who had plenty.
Upon seeing this pattern emerge, the London merchant class panicked and petitioned the king to lower the penalty, lest no crimes against them be punished at all.
Yeah but by the time a person is actually on trial, trying to change the law that they are facing is probably too late, isn't it? And the system is slow and is dominated by the rich and powerful subset of society, so trying to change the law may not work anyway.
>If you allow juries to decide to give “innocent” verdicts even if someone broke it, then congrats you have made a system where the jury gets to decide randomly if they want to enforce something.
To some extent, this will happen one way or another. If I was on a jury, I would not vote to convict someone for breaking a law that I dislike. And a jury is already random in the sense that it's a somewhat random selection of 12 people who may have wildly different levels of intelligence, concern about the law, emotional states, and so on. To some extent, a jury decides randomly in every single trial whether they want to enforce something. The way I see it, informing people about jury nullification just helps to potentially win back some power for what myself and those I care about.
They’re not deciding randomly, they are exercising their own considered judgement.
However I’m not a fan of jury nullification, as it’s a violation of the juror’s oath. I agree jurors individually can in practice give their verdict as they see fit, but advocating openly for others to violate their oaths is another thing.
The police and prosecutor already have that power, to decide randomly if they want to enforce something. What harm would a little additional capriciousness do?
I am not from a country that uses juries, but your hypothetical situation probably happens daily already. You need only look at the statistics to see that being black (or to a lesser degree: being a man) significantly increases the odds of a guilty verdict in the USA. To stick to your drugs example, your white kid is more likely to have cocaine, and the black one crack. And one of these drugs has much more severe sentencing guidelines than the other...
> Right which is why I am saying jury nullification is bad. These situations happen because of it.
Please try to understand from my perspective.
I am trying to say the privileged won't even see trial.
If you are especially privileged, it won't even matter if you get convicted.
See the case of Michael Flynn.
Jury nullification cannot make the situation worse.
All it can do is expand the pool of people who won't have to suffer.
Remember, Congress is deadlocked.
I have no hope that we will get sensible repeals like repealing the nonsense "making false statements is a felony" [false].
> Making false statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001) is the common name for the United States federal process crime laid out in Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which generally prohibits knowingly and willfully making false or fraudulent statements, or concealing information, in "any matter within the jurisdiction" of the federal government of the United States,[1] even by merely denying guilt when asked by a federal agent.[2] A number of notable people have been convicted under the section, including Martha Stewart,[3] Rod Blagojevich,[4] Michael T. Flynn,[5] Rick Gates,[6] Scooter Libby,[7] Bernard Madoff,[8] and Jeffrey Skilling.[9]
This is the stupidest law I've ever heard of in my opinion.
To convict someone, you have to know they were lying.
If you can independently verify they were lying, how did their lying hurt the case?
Law enforcement just needs to do its job and not have stuff just handed to them in a silver platter.
Remember though, this common sense repeal will not happen in our lifetime.
What recourse do you have left?
Jury nullification is not some divine right, it’s an unintended consequence of jury secrecy. It’s like going into a job interview at Twitter, and just talking about how everything is exploited by bots, and then you just complain about how you aren’t allowed free speech on the platform. Who would hire you?
> WW1 was ended, in part, by labour action: the October Revolution in Russia, and the Kiel Mutiny in Germany
"in part" saves you there. Otherwise it's nonsense.
WW1 was certainly not ended by the October Revolution. If anything, it made the war 10x worse, by freeing German troops for Ludendorff's 1918 offensive, which almost succeeded.
The Kiel Mutiny? Maybe accelerated the end by a few days. The Germans were already seeking an Armistice.
> certain kinds of political speech were never really protected
Adams and Wilson were indeed villains here. Lincoln suspended *habeas corpus." Roosevelt sent Japanese-Americans to the internment camps.
Leaving aside the toll of Communism over its 72 years:
There was a Russian Civil War, which we don't hear much about. So the war hadn't really ended for them. There was also a war between Russia and Poland.
I looked some for a total of "WW I casualties by year" table but didn't find one; only "casualties by country." The significance would be "giant German offensive; therefore giant casualties."
In any case, I don't think there's much of a case for the hypothesis "Russian Revolution saved lives."
For Russians, the war has started in 1917. Whatever there was in 1914-1917 now barely registers compared to what has followed.
It is also disingenous to call Russian revolution a "Labor action", since it was performed first by army generals and members of ruling class, then by political exiles-in-return.
I'm Russian, and this is nonsense. The Civil War that followed is definitely recognized as very destructive and traumatic. But it doesn't mean that we don't remember the Attack of the Dead Men, the Brusilov Offensive, the Women's Death Batallions, the Brest Peace etc.
When it comes to politics, in particular, WW1 is remembered precisely because it led to a revolution, and it was very obvious and explicit in the revolutionaries' rhetoric; one of the most famous slogans was "штыки в землю", literally "bayonets into the ground".
Thanks. I'm not Russian, and if someone says WW1 is largely forgotten there, I'm doubtful, but I'm hardly in a position to argue.
It's mostly forgotten in the US, for that matter. I think the last living veteran of that war died recently. Peter Jackson's recent cleaning up of the movie footage for "They Shall Not Grow Old" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1 was heart-rending.
The Russians lost 30,000 killed or wounded, while the Germans sustained a total of only 13,000 casualties. Some 92,000 Russian prisoners were taken, two and a half army corps annihilated, and the remaining half of Samsonov’s army severely shaken.
There’s always a reactionary push to silence people for their own good.
John Adams kicked it off, and Woodrow Wilson’s craven politics represented a moment where the country could have moved in an awful direction.
It’s unfortunate that we live in an era where many people have mastered the art of mass manipulation. We’re in an era where we’re vulnerable to the same sort of grinding warfare that WW1 became, and the information landscape is a barren one full of propaganda and junk.
Woodrow Wilson was the worst president in US history. If I had a time machine, I would go back in time to kill Wilson, not Hitler. Hitler would be a no name artist if it weren’t for Wilson completely fucking up WWI and the peace thereafter.
Fun fact: Wilson resegregated the entire federal government and even went so far as to show a KKK propaganda film at the White House. The guy was a rabid racist.
Additionally, Wilson had a stroke that left him blind and paralyzed in 1919 and for the remainder of his presidency his second wife and doctor manipulated him so heavily that there is serious debate as to who actually was in control of the White House during those years. Some historians call Edith Wilson, his second wife, America’s first female president the manipulation was so effective.
Sure. The problem is, who is “us” and who is “them”. Unfortunately the 20th century shows what people are capable of in pursuit of protecting “our” stuff, whatever that may be.
The Constitution can work only if the society allows it to work. If the SCOTUS judges are willing to concoct arguments saying "this political speech is so bad we must ban it at all costs" and the society lets them - then there's no magic Constitution Man to jump out of shadows and stop them.
> by labour action: the October Revolution in Russia
Calling Russian revolution a "labour action" is like calling WWI "a brawl between some German and British lads". Technically, part of it fits this description, but one can't but notice it doesn't exactly paint the correct picture. Also, Russian revolution didn't really end the war - rather, Russia was losing badly, which in part led to the regime collapse, which made Russia sign the peace and get out of the war which it could no longer fight. The war didn't end by it though.
You're ignoring the Russian Civil War, which killed millions more. It's not like the October Revolution was a clean stop to the violence. And even after the end of the Civil War, the political violence didn't end.
> And to remember that WW1 was ended, in part, by labour action: the October Revolution in Russia, and the Kiel Mutiny in Germany.
I don't know much about Russia, Germany certainly has given Lenin a train ticket so that he could participate in that revolution, because they thought that it would help their interests. But for Germany, the theory that Germany lost the war because of the revolution is the so called "Dolchstoßlegende", a right wing conspiracy theory. Germany has already lost the war before that revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
If you read the Founders writings justifying the first amendment you’d read it’s origins were rooted in fear members of Congress would be shot during periods of open debate.
It was not until the last 60-70 years the “zeitgeist” changed such that free speech was considered a freedom for all the government could not intrude upon.
Back then they had state level and federal level defense councils. People would get reported to the authorities for all sorts of things. If you didn't donate to the red cross you would get on the list.
They also would instruct the pastors of churches to disseminate messages and those that didn't were on the list as well. This is before mass communications took hold. Most folks got their news through word of mouth or gatherings.
What about newspapers? They weren't invented in the 1930s.
Revolutionary War propaganda famously included various pamphlets, editorials, and self-published periodicals (Thomas Paine, The Federalist Papers, etc.).
It was high. America is historically one of the more educated countries. During the civil war literacy among native born whites was over 90%. By WWI I believe it was over 95%, and by WWII it was nearly universal among native born adults.
Democracy overrules the status quo of criminal law. That's a deeply admirable principle, and principled people shouldn't abandon that principle -- the supremacy of democracy -- on mere expedience. Democracy decides what is a crime and what is not, and can boldly overrule the law with a mere vote.
Incidentally, the incoming president of Brazil is also an ex-con.
> Incidentally, the incoming president of Brazil is also an ex-con.
The incoming president of Brazil had his convictions thrown out because the process was fraudulent. IIRC election regulators went after Bolsanaro for calling Lula an ex-con.
That aside, I don't think enough people explicitly hold popular sovereignty (expressed as democracy) over the rule of law. Law that isn't subject to popular sovereignty is obviously subject to some other kind of soverign. You shouldn't be jailing people who have a reasonable chance of being elected as the head of the executive, because if the public would elect them, the public doesn't think that they should be jailed.
This always feels funny to me, like sure Lula’s conviction was thrown out but I’ve never seen any compelling explanation for the apartment he was convicted of accepting as a bribe.
I agree but your argument isn’t convincing because people are
convicted by juries presented with evidence not public opinion.
A better argument is that it is a check/balance against laws that are not democratic putting people in prison that provide a good opposition the current president.
What about other requirements for office and limitations, like the age and citizenship requirement and term limits for President of the United States? Should “democracy overrule” those too?
Honestly I the existing and proposed age limits (e.g. that you can't serve as President over 80) are addressing symptoms of a deeper problem. If your country's population wants to elect a senile 90 year-old or dumb 18 year-old or Russian traitor, your democracy is deeply flawed. A law preventing the people from doing so won't save them, as they can just elect someone else incompetent. If voters know what they're doing we shouldn't need requirements for people to run for office.
You got me there. The questionable aspects of 18th-century political sociology fundamentally *refute* the moral arguments in favor of democracy, in the same way diagonalization arguments refute theorems in computability theory. It's ironclad math.
Presidential term limits in the US were only instituted as a reaction against a president (FDR) who was very popular among voters, but far less popular with the Chamber of Commerce.
Democracy is mob rule. When one says that democracy decides what is a crime and what is not, one is then defending a long history of lynchings, miscegenation, slavery, forced medical procedures, Jim Crow laws and much much more.
Will any downvoters comment? I think democracy is the best option we have, but ignoring its weaknesses and checkered history isn't constructive.
The current democracy-worship afoot in the US ignores the fact that almost every progressive aspect of the US state sprang from a counter-majoritarian institution: Roe and Brown, plus the administrative implementation of civil rights law.
it's possible for a candidate to run from prison in Westminster-style parliamentary systems. The fact that a candidate is imprisoned should not inhibit the electors from expressing their choice. Though once elected, they face certain practical barriers to assuming office.
For example, the IRA member Bobby Sands was elected to the UK parliament while in prison during his (subsequently fatal) hunger strike. Parliament then immediately passed a law banning people from running for parliament from jail.
Of course, the UK is a monarchy, not a republic, so its relevance to the subject at hand is somewhat dubious.
>> The UK is only a monarchy at the ceremonial level.
This is a common claim, but I can't say that I agree. The House of Lords holds real power, as does the king in his role as head of state. The UK is not an absolute monarchy by any means, but the king is far more than just a figurehead [1].
One can only hope Charles disbands parliament and puts it to the test. For once I hope the fear mongers at the Guardian are right, but I suspect that I am, sadly.
- "Though once elected, they face certain practical barriers to assuming office"
Then they're democratic in name only. If the previous leader has the effective, practical ability to fuck with the transfer of power, it ain't democracy.
It’s not clear to me why one ostensibly democratic mechanism (the criminal justice system) should automatically be overridden by other ostensibly democratic mechanism (an election).
It seems pretty clearly undemocratic to me to say that you get out of jail if you win an election (or that the justice system somehow applies less to you if you’re an elected official).
One's direct and one's second-order indirect. It'd be like the bash shell saying you can't do something as sudo because a config file you edited last year overrules it.
- "But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either.
"
Then you're disenfranchising the majority of democratic voters, millions of citizens, in preference of ossifying so-called criminal justice against a mere one human. Why would you do that? What hallowed value does that serve?
The question of what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable.
We're in this thread, remember, because pretentious ideologues once imprisoned an anti-war protestor for bullshit reasons that were framed as "crimes".
> what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable
Sure, and the question of the legality of a given action can also be on the ballot. Implying that someone who wins an election should automatically get out of jail is nonsense. One of the pillars of the bureaucratic rule of law is making it so that no individual has autocratic power. We already have too much of powerful politicians and other agents of the state being effectively above the law.
I'm philosophizing above my pay grade, probably, but winning a majority of votes seems to me like the *opposite* of "autocratic power".
If anything, to me, "convicted criminal winning an election by majority vote" strongly pattern-matches "effective check against autocracy". Again: look at what the OP is, what fact patterns we're discussing in this thread!
> winning a majority of votes seems to me like the opposite of "autocratic power"
No it's not. The two concepts are orthogonal, and treating them as a single quality is a dangerous fallacy. The first is about how someone gets elected to an office - one of the cornerstones of our society is that leaders are elected by the people. The second is what someone in an office can legally do once they are there - another cornerstone is that nobody is above the rule of law. Equating the two effectively throws out the latter.
The distinction is very clear when it comes to a narrowly-scoped office, or even a general executive at a low level like the mayor of a city. It only gets fuzzier as you go up in scale, as those charged with enforcing the law are better poised to not enforce against themselves. But the proper term for that is "corruption".
I havent opened it yet but the book American Midnight came highly highly recommended, which covers this time period & this event.
A power hungry intolerant federal government mandating War-fervor & jingoism, suppressing all outside voices (largely liberal & progressive), clamping down on how people think & what they say. passing the Sedition Act & charging many under these wartime powers, before it's repeal.
This book supposedly makes quite the case for this being one of thr darkest times in America. Excited scared/sad to start reading it.
I think it's quite rare that war is the only viable choice for both sides, but probably reasonably frequently the case that war is the only viable choice for one side. Sort of like how many crimes require both a victim and a perpetrator, but only one side is making the choice.
It's also the case that in many modern wars both sides will claim to be the side with no choice though. Also that having entered a war by choice doesn't necessarily imply that it's still possible to exit the war by choice.
> but probably reasonably frequently the case that war is the only viable choice for one side
I think this is untrue... unless your invaders are the assyrians, surrender and losing the war isn't really that bad. Even the Mongols would just collect some extra taxes.
It's not just the only choice, but a phenomenon that eventually gets a mind of its own. There is a point in almost every war where both sides regret the escalation, but are powerless to stop the war as the time tables have been set, the troops mobilised, the ultimatums issued. And the belligerents, deeply invested in the outcome, cannot stop the war before the cataclysmic defeat of one side.
The inevitability of war beyond a certain point is a terrifying prospect.
Libertarians and Anarchists used to be Socialists in the 19th and early 20th century. Everyone from Kropotkin and Bakunin to Oscar Wilde. And likewise, socialists like Eugene Debbs had correctly pointed out that the governments and political class send you to war while they themselves don’t go.
Many socialists said the same thing during WW1. Why should the working class people fight each other? Turn the guns on your masters etc.
Would be nice to post links here to European versions of this.
Today’s libertarians view modern wars with the same skepticism. Are they really necessary, and if so, can our governments have a referendum by their people before starting one?
Public opinion and conflict seem to have a complex relation and
predictable phases that follow the seasons of war.
Before the show starts, jingoism is emergent and it ought to be
illegal to rattle sabres and call for blood where peace is still
possible. That changes quickly, there is a definite threshold.
Once the game is on, one has to move with the crowd. To not support
the war is demoralising, treacherous even. And this rises as the first
body bags come home and mothers weep.
In the middle phase, people are stoic and quiet. Soldiers have "a job
to do" and we must "grin and bear it".
Without swift victory, then comes the point of fatigue and economic
pain. Too many dead children on the TV. But the protestors are in a
minority and need great courage to point the way to an exit. That's
when tactical silencing of dissent can happen. The idea that opposing
the war is the same as siding with the enemy comes to the fore.
As the tide turns, even millions on the streets (Vietnam, Iraq), or
the advice of generals (Afghanistan) cannot overcome the pride of
miscalculating leaders. But at that point public opinion has passed
the threshold the other way.
By the end it is shameful to still support a lost war (and sometimes,
depending on the cost, even a victorious one).
Long before it ended WWI was universally seen as "insane" by all
sides.
Perhaps my historical education is wanting, but only the second world
war seems to have a clear narrative of victory over evil, with a
constancy of support for Allied triumph which I think even the
exhausted Germans and Japanese felt toward the end. That "just war"
model is wheeled out and is still active apropos Ukraine.
WW2 as a just war is only true to an extent. To an Indian, an Arab or an African, it was not a war of liberation.
Let's not forget that Britain worried about the loss of its colonies, that the Soviet Union started and ended the war as an invader, that France was as worried about the socialists at home as they were about the Nazis at the border, that Paris was liberated by colonial troops, but it's the Europeans who got a parade on the Champs Elysées, that everyone bombed civilians, that victors made immoral concessions in preparation for the next war, that the faith of entire nations was decided on a napkin in Potsdam.
War is messy. Geopolitics are rarely a history of good guys and bad guys.
Hope I'm not misunderstanding your comment and over-egging the reply.
Irony isn't a particularly useful concept when dealing with speech on
the internet, which is fragmented and in ambiguous contexts.
And it goes against HN guidelines to proffer the most generous and
sincere writing/interpretation possible.
There's a difference between irony and sarcasm, prevalent here, and
both definitions are largely abused or misunderstood these days.
Look for words like "seemed", which invokes the concept of appearance
and therefore implicitly casts doubt on appearances.
What I am conveying here, by "narrative" (story/account) is that as a
mature person, with some experience of the matters, I have many
reservations about the way things were told to me growing up by
"authority" figures from my past.
That's not really irony. More of a sceptical tone. Sceptical about
the whole way that "war narratives" and public opinion is spun.
I can’t speak to Japan, but your account of Germany leaves out some major details.
Germany was allowed heavy industry after the war, but defaulted on its reparation payment in 1923. France and Belgium thought Germany was holding out on them, and decided to “confiscate” (by occupying with soldiers) German industry.
This was pretty agregious, but Germany responded by the government asking workers to passively resist, more or less triggering a general strike, with the government printing money to cover the wages of all the striking workers. Naturally, if only a few workers are still making things, but the government is paying everyone their salary, it should be no surprise that this triggered hyperinflation.
I don’t know what you mean about “the west” pushing its ideology on Germany when Germany itself is part of that intellectual and cultural group. In fact, the Weimar Republic was culturally quite rich, and relatively progressive compared to other western nations. Unless you’re talking about how the Nazis took inspiration from the segregation in the United States, but I don’t think the US was particularly interested in exporting it.
If you dig deep into the origins of Nazi ideology (this book is a good source [1]) it’s obvious 99% of it came from historical European sources and regional issues. Often German thinkers but also across Europe (including France and Italy). There was enough local cultural and economic anxieties to draw from.
The Germans using America’s racial conflicts was usually mentioned in passing for analogy or for propaganda purposes. But it was hardly the ideological source of the antisemitism, German border fears, anti-Russia, and Lebensraum.
It’s trendy to compare America to 1930s Germany. But trying to spin the ideological origin of Nazi thought as being inspired by fringes of the US shows a severe lack of historical research. There was more than enough cultural sources at home in Germany.
I do read widely and appreciate your suggestion. What do you recommend
as the must-read, accessible and honest and intelligent account of
civilian life in Germany during that period. Thanks.
Rather than giving specifics I’d try to focus on popular (translated) speeches from the time from Germany, Russia, France, UK, US. Read old news papers if you can as well (there are archives online). That’ll give you more of a “heart beat” of what’s going on.
The geopolitics of the time I developed from reading probably a hundred or so books on it. When you get a history book they have citations, go through those and find a few to read. You’ll get closer to the source material.
Sorry for being “loose” in my particulars of recommendations. I really do think for understanding civilian life newspapers might be the best basis (it’s most of the original source material).
I’m not the OP but like reading about the interwar period, particularly in Russia.
You really can’t view The Second World War in isolation, as it was directly related to World War One, particular in Germany and Russia.
It was utter chaos politically and following any thread though the period is very complicated.
It isn’t really about Germany, but gives an idea of the complexity of the era and of German politics, Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale is a good read.
I thought I would also suggest the Iron Dice podcast and specifically the “fight for the republic” numbered series episodes, which cover the power struggle in Germany between WW1 and WW2:
https://www.theirondice.com/
> Similarly, the US cut off oil and resources to Japan.
The US ""cut off"" oil to Japan by having possession of the Philiphines, which was situated directly between Japan and the Dutch East Indes. The Dutch East Indes had the oil, the Dutch didn't want to sell it to Japan, and Japan intended to take it by force so they could fuel their conquest of China. The American-occupied Philippines were between the two, so Japanese military leadership decided to eliminate the American Navy first.
Japan were not victims in this. It was their imperial ambition that did them in.
This post is repugnant, and wrong as a matter of historical fact. You’re brazenly attempting to whitewash the monstrous crimes of Nazi Germany. I’ve never seen “Lost Cause of the Third Reich” historiography, and I’d never expect to see it on HN.
WW2 was an imperial war of aggression waged by a revanchist fascist state that felt entitled to land that other people were already living on, and resources other people already owned - a problem they attempted to solve by simply murdering all of them.
Boxed in? Boxed in by what, exactly? The inconvenient existence of the Czechs and Poles? Germany somehow manages to be far richer today than it was in 1933 - and it does this with less land / resources, and the overbearing influence of the Anglo-Saxon culture you openly deride. If Germany today can resist going on to murder millions of people for land and resources, it’s unclear to me why the larger and more resource-filled Germany of 1933 couldn’t similarly restrain itself. (Hint: because WW2 had nothing at all to do with any justifiable need for resources, but instead the jingoistic ambitions of a culture that saw itself as the master race, deserving of a place atop all others, and seething at its failure to secure the privileges it felt it was owed by reason of its own racial supremacy.)
Worst of all is your casual suggestion that Germany would be better off if it had retained more of its pre-1945 culture. I struggle to put this in any other way, but you’re saying you wish Germany today was culturally more like Nazi Germany, and I honestly don’t know what to say to that. As someone who would have been murdered for about three different reasons by the refined bearers of pre-1945 German culture, I have some choice words in mind.
As a coincidence, I read this person's and some of his "comrades" wikipedia pages. The impression I got at the time was that being a communist was what sent him to prison.
The current government in russia is absolutely not communist. They don't claim to be, and no one else does. Russia might be a continuation of the USSR but that's where the link to communism stops honestly.
It's a minor thing I know... but the man's name is Eugene Victor Debs and it's usually printed as "Eugene V. Debs". So the "V" stands for Victor and not "versus". The title makes it seem sorta like a lawsuit "Eugene vs. Debs".
I have found general anti-war comments I have made here and elsewhere online to be unpopular. If WWIII starts, its likely that comments against participating or legitimizing it will be flagged here on HN.
The thing that people should understand is that wars are strategic. Any moral justification is just propaganda. The paradigm is "might makes right" and has been for millennia. The American Empire is a great example, and the Chinese Empire that comes after it will be the same. But that will be even shorter-lived than the Americans because AI will probably take control soon after. On a large scale, humanity operates at a moral level similar to that of ant colonies.
The Chinese Empire is a fantasy. China will remain a great factory and little else. Everything there is still done using personal connections (eg. corruption). The basis of a globe spanning empire this system is not. When all your growth is due to external investment, external contracts, and external culture/politics, you can’t become the center.
Those common criticisms of their political system are valid, and certainly in some ways the west is more advanced. But realistically western political systems have their own severe (but different) problems, and the Chinese systems have their own advantages.
As I said, the bottom line for the world order seems to be deployment of force. Right now the most relevant force paradigms as far as I can tell are mass information control and bio-warfare (nuclear has largely been tabled.) The authoritarianism has given China an advantage in terms of controlling information and infection and that has been strongly proven out.
I didn't say it was a fact. I really don't know, but I don't want to believe it was an actual attack by one side or the other.
But regardless of what caused it, if you look at the effects, military strategists almost have to treat it as the Hiroshima of bio-warfare. Because it proves that such a thing is both extremely effective and also very hard to prove one way or the other.
Authoritarianism by itself doesn't explain the extreme lockdowns in China. But if the Chinese military sees Wuhan as evidence of the effectiveness of bioweapons and the start of an era, then the lockdowns can be seen as key to effectively defending against (or using) them. So tight pandemic response is now a core national security issue,
Another way to interpret all of it is as overall strengthening "society's immune response" to pandemics and so you could see that as a good thing in perverse way.
But that doesn't really change the military interpretation or brutal paradigm of global power that we seem to be stuck in.
Also, there's no evidence that China desires an empire. Americans believe China wants an empire for the same reason that people believe that the first instinct of a hypothetical full autonomous AI would be to enslave people. They're telling on themselves.
What? Any port in Africa would suggest otherwise. The Belt and Road initiative is not done for charity. When a Chinese state owned enterprise wins a mining contract in a country that is heavily indebted to the CCP you think is is mutual aid? The CCP has put the squeeze on a lot of countries recently for clear political reasons.
I'm sorry, could you please repost your argument in the form of TikTok, or one of those Youtube short videos? I really struggled to remember any context past those big words in that second sentence.
I never understood why Woodrow Wilson is lauded in the history books, and comes out in historians' presidential rankings quite well. His administration (and he personally) had a pattern of suppressing free speech with prison time. That, and he created the Federal Reserve (which then went on to create the Great Depression, as it slowly learned to use its powers). Whether or not you think a central bank is a good thing, it certainly belies his ideology that the government knows best.
The Federal Reserve absolutely did not cause the Great Depression. Economic crashes occurred at least once a decade since beginning of American history, and as the economy grew more more interconnected and less self sufficient, economic crashes tended to be worse than the last, culminating with the Great Depression. Economists overwhelmingly agree that the Fed's biggest blunder during the Great Depression was not going far enough. It was only with what I'm sure you would call "money printing" enabled by the Fed to finance WWII, that the economy truly recovered.
Small-scale economic downturns did happen once a decade, because that's natural in a healthy economy. Federal Reserve tried to prevent a downturn in 1929, but their misguided monetary policies made it two orders of magnitude worse instead. Milton Friedman once wrote a great analysis on this: https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-m...
Most people can't name any specific recession prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve, but everyone has heard of the Great Depression. A sibling commenter posted some good analyses, but the gist of it is that they tried tightening the money supply at the worst possible time (something the modern Fed avoids at all cost, at the expense of increasing wealth inequality by artificially inflating the value of assets whenever they start to dip).
>...While Wilson's tenure is often noted for progressive achievement, his time in office was one of unprecedented regression in regard to racial equality.[1] He removed most federal officeholders who were African Americans, his administration imposed segregation policies, and instituted a policy requiring a photo for federal job applicants.
Wilson was “one of their own”—a professor at Princeton. He was also the founder of the ideology of governance by credentialed experts, which is unsurprisingly popular among highly credentialed people, like historians.
Also, Wilson got the United States into World War One, which helped to put the US on its trajectory to eventually being involved in World War Two and subsequently becoming the world's top geopolitical power. So I suppose that people who think that it was good for the United States to be involved in World War Two and/or people who think that it is good for the United States to be the world's top geopolitical power - which is a pretty large number of people, at least in the West - have those reasons to like Wilson.
I’ve seen a lot of negative backlash against Wilson’s legacy in recent years, to the point of verging on overreaction. He is in an awkward position since he was too progressive for conservative tastes and too racist for liberal tastes. The main positive thing people used to say about Wilson’s legacy was his championing of liberal internationalism, combined with lots of bemoaning the fact that the US didn’t ratify Versailles or join the League of Nations due to isolationist obstruction in the Senate.
There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. You can go up on a soapbox and talk about 'humanitarian concerns and defending democracy abroad' (typical neoliberal-Democratic drivel) or 'patriotism, national security and fighting terror' (typical neocon-Republican drivel), but noting that war is a huge profit center for various interests, that's not really allowed.
For example, the Iraq War really was related to oil - Saddam had no WMDs, no ties with Al Qaeda, but he was moving his oil money out of the petrodollar recycling system, which was a huge threat to global dollar hegemony and the balance-of-payements issue (see capital accounts vs. current accounts). Plus, it was a huge cash cow for government contracts and the military procurement system, which always gets hungry during peacetime. GW Bush and the neocons of course sold this in their preferred manner.
The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive. If you want more strong evidence that their 'humanitarian democractic' rhetoric was nonsense, look at how they treated the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain (crushed by Saudi tanks) or the Saudi assault on Yemen.
It's all pretty farcical. Just admit that maintaining a global financial empire is pretty difficult without engaging in covert regime change and military dominance, already. Stop pretending it's about self-defense or good works - I mean Ukraine is all about control of natural gas sales to Europe, plus another multi-billion injection into the domestic weapons manufacturing complex.
I used to believe the Iraq War was about oil too, but the theory doesn't really stand up when you consider that there were several much easier ways for the US to secure an oil supply in the early 2000s (as other commenters have noted). Instead, I suggest you read about the Wolfowitz Doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine), named after Paul Wolfowitz, the man who CNN in 2003 called the "Godfather of the Iraq War" (https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.wolfowitz.t...). Enjoy the rabbit hole.
Perhaps my comment was unclear. The oil supply itself was not the issue, i.e. the physical oil in tankers or pipelines, the issue was where the revenue from Iraqi oil was going to end up, what it was going to be used for, and so on. It's not that hard of a concept to grasp.
Well, it was for oil. We even had the Oil for Food sanctions program in the lead up. The result didn't work out in the US' favor, Iraq basically kicked us out.
But ultimately I think the oil was a secondary goal. The goal was, and is, endless military conflict as a means to funnel public funds into the military industrial complex. It doesn't matter if "we win" or not, hell we haven't won a war in decades. The point is to maintain persistent instability as a motivator for continued military budget increases. Ukraine is a prime example. All NATO member spending has increased, as has India, China, Iran, and Brazil. The media and politicians just use the "spread democracy" type rhetoric as a sales pitch for the public.
Oil-for-food was aimed at allowing payment for humanitarian resources (you know, food) in oil, so Iraq could keep feeding people without receiving money for their oil, since money could (more easily) be used to buy stuff other than food, like tanks and AA systems and aircraft to rebuild their their quite-strong-before-gulf-war-I military, or to do other things we didn't want them to. Did we screw them on the "price" they got for it and so kinda steal the oil? I mean, yeah, probably, but I very much doubt it was any kind of major motivation for anything the "West" did.
Iraq War II was bullshit and probably a strategic mis-step, and I'm proud to have been among the minority (in the US, anyway) who opposed it and the even smaller minority who actually got out and protested against it, but we didn't need their oil. The US has plenty. We only really care about foreign oil supplies for market-stabilization reasons—it's not worth the effort and various costs to steal it from other countries by force.
Now, there was a lot of corruption and it sure is weird how a bunch of Bush-admin-connected companies landed so many giant contracts related to the war and it 100% does look like "we should invade Iraq ASAP the first time we have even the flimsiest excuse" was indeed one of those actual-in-fact-real conspiracies (multiple top-level Bush admin folks literally signed their name to such sentiments in the late 90s—I'm not even sure you can properly call it a conspiracy given how out in the open it was) but we didn't attack for the oil.
As or why the ones who pushed the war wanted it, I think there was a selfish motivation given that a lot of them were situated to make money off such a war, but also a genuine desire to improve the US position in a much longer-term realpolitik great powers game. Oil in the near term was a pretty minor concern—to the extent it was really about oil, I'd say future ability to strangle larger opponents by controlling access to oil was what they had in mind. Maybe a bit of a message to OPEC states, too.
The problem is that oil is sold into a global market, so even if a nation produces as much oil as it consumes, if there is a shortage of oil, the global prices go up, and then your own oil prices go up. So your economy can be thrown into a recession and your standard of living will decline due to Iraq's oil being taken out of the world market even if you don't need to import any oil from Iraq.
For this reason, the US sought to control all global oil suppliers, wherever they may be, and whomever they sell oil to. Yes, it's an unsustainable, insane, geopolitical strategy -- but in the heady days of post cold-war hegemony, US foreign policy became controlled by neocon ideologues who thought that absolute control over the middle east was an achievable and moral goal. The result of this policy is millions of dead civilians, functioning secular societies that have been destroyed and handed over to warring religious clans, and global chaos from Libya to Afghanistan.
US antagonism towards Iraq was due to Iraq moving away from the petrodollar. The Oil for Food sanctions were an effort to force Iraq back to the petrodollar.
A taboo? Maybe I was (un?)fortunate to be on a college campus during the launch of the second Iraq War, but the "war for oil" commonplace was the dominant narrative. Anyone offering an alternative hypothesis besides that, or GW Bush finishing his father's legacy from 1991 was practically laughed at.
True, but that’s on the bubble of a college campus. In the media and in non-college circles it was close to heresy to criticize the war during the first few years. Much more so to say it was a profit-driven sham.
Not to say no one was speaking out about it, but the vastly dominant narrative was to support the war effort and ignore the corruption.
I strongly believe it was a combination of bush finishing his daddy's legacy + Hussein playing into the narrative to try to gain power and attention.Adam curtis' hypernormalization BBC documentary is a very good intro to the topic: it was very eye opening, I had no idea that (according to many western intelligence outfits) almost certainly Qaddafi was NOT responsible for pan an lockerbie. Why he didn't deny it and why the intelligence agencies didn't bother going after the truth is answered by curtis' thesis.
There’s no taboo about it. I was spouting the “we invaded Iraq for the oil” theory myself when I was a college student at the time. But in hindsight we didn’t get any oil out of that war. We weren’t even trying.
The intervening 20 years has made clear that there’s no realpolitik rational decision making at play here. Take Ukraine for example. Is there oil in Ukraine? No, it’s Russia that has the oil. So why do we give a shit about Ukraine? Because Americans really are just that childishly idealistic when it comes to foreign policy. They believe in good versus evil and that America needs to intervene on the side of good.
The thing that's really different in Ukraine is that Russia is actively trying to annex captured Ukrainian territories. This kind of thing has been faux pas for several decades now, and for good reason: if it's considered acceptable to solve your territorial expansion ambitions by force, well, most of Europe has some beef with their neighbors. If Russia can do it vis a vis Ukraine, why not Hungary vis a vis Romania, for example?
Not disagreeing at all, but there is another angle to it as well. Russia wages war with any country that attempts to serve as an alternate conduit of energy to Europe and break the Russian monopoly on energy sales there. Syria, Georgia, Ukraine all tried to serve as conduits of energy pipes from elsewhere. US wants to help the good guy, but also, if US doesn’t provide some energy alternatives to Europe, Putin will bend Europe over with high prices. Worse he has been using social media heavily since 2014 or so to break up the EU, so there would be no united negotiating front against him with sanctions.
To anyone curious about exploring this angle more, I recommend Noam Chomsky’s book “Imperial Ambitions.” It’s a collection of interview transcripts where he discusses the US wars in the Middle East and the political and economic motivations behind them. It’s very informative.
But of course, American leadership will never break the facade of doing “good.” The propaganda is too effective. It’s way easier to maintain false narratives that keep the population looking the other way than to come out and say why you really want to invade other countries.
> The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive.
Oh, bollocks. In what universe did the US go to war with Assad's regime? The US tepidly tried arming a few of the (non-fundamentalist) rebel groups once they appeared, but nothing more than that. (Presumably you think the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were caused by the CIA, too, for some unfathomable reason.) And how, exactly, has the US profited monetarily from what happened in Libya and Syria?
(Gaddafi was actually getting closer to the US and Europe; in 2004 he gave up his nuclear weapons program in return for better relations with the West. As for "pan-African unity" -- sure, from the guy who invaded Chad to steal land from it. No one took his bombast seriously.)
(2008) "Russia agreed to cancel $4.5 billion of Libyan debt on Thursday, unlocking big military and civilian export orders in the face of fierce Western competition for the former outcast state’s booming market."
> "Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, visited Moscow over the weekend for talks on oil and natural gas deals, just two months after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was his guest in Libya. The visit here suggested that Qaddafi, a onetime pariah, is maneuvering to play Russia and the United States against each other for commercial and political favors."
There's plenty of similar stories, if you care to look up the historical record. If the House of Saud tried (for whatever unlikely reason) to pull all its oil money out of the US banking system and play similar games with Russia and China, a CIA-run regime change operation would be a real possiblility, right?
In any war, you can find someone who is making money somehow, and then blame them for starting the conflict. If you're cynical enough, you can come up with an "economic explanation" for pretty much anything.
The issue is that such claims are typically made with no actual, direct evidence. I don't doubt, for instance, that "the domestic weapons manufacturing complex" is making money off of aid to Ukraine. But there's no actual evidence that this profit motive is what caused the US to support Ukraine.
The petrodollar is an interesting theory, but I have strong doubts about it. Global dollar-denominated oil trade is a tiny drop in the bucket of global dollar-denominated trade - not a sacred cornerstone that must be protected.
Geo-political power games (Gulf War I) and outright stupidity (Gulf War II) seem like the more likely catalysts for the Iraq war (And you noted a few of the causes of the Libyan one).
I’ve noticed a tendency in the US to assume that everything that happens in the world is caused by internal US interests. That all international issues get re-cast in domestic political terms.
Did the US start the Libyan civil war? No, in fact the US was one of the last of the western militaries to get involved, after Canada, France and the UK. The US initially played a minor role.
Did the US instigate the Syrian civil war? Again, no, the US only involved when IS got involved.
I watched an interview with Tulsi Gabbard where she said the Ukraine War was caused by US corporations that profit from selling weapons. I mean what’s the theory, that Lockheed persuaded Putin to invade Ukraine? It’s absurd. I get that she hates the military industrial complex, and maybe she has many valid reasons, but in this case she’s delusional.
I’m not at all saying there aren’t factions in the US that do advocate military adventurism, and profit from it. That’s a real thing. The second Gulf war is an example, I’ll give you that one, but even in that case that was just one of many factors and I don’t think it would have been decisive by itself. Also yes, the west absolutely compromises principles for geopolitical and economic interests. But this idea that all foreign conflicts are a plot by the military industrial complex is a bit absurd. It’s not always all about you, guys.
I don't think Gabbard sincerely believes most of what she says, whether on foreign policy or otherwise. She has a long history of suddenly getting profound insights at politically advantageous moments (like when it can be used to play a "populist maverick" card).
It's not protected speech to tell people to break the law. He didn't go to prison for his beliefs, he went to prison for telling people to break the law.
That conundrum was not resolved through speech, but through war. And, unfortunately, that war did not go far enough, as slaveowner politics quickly reasserted themselves.
Most of us would find a law that prohibits encouraging slaves from revolting or freeing themselves; to be horrid. Arguments that such laws don't really restrict freedom of speech because they're only encouraging an illegal act, would ring quite hollow. You might well be accused of sophistry if you made the argument seriously today; the act that's illegal to advocate is a fundamental right of all men, after all.
Conscripts are enslaved. What some may call a mutiny of conscripts others might call a slave rebellion. Let's just take that axiomatically for now. Obviously not all agree. But many accept that argument completely. Arguing it does not infringe free speech to call for people to free themselves, because it's only prohibiting the encouragement of a crime rings similarly hollow, from that perspective.
All true, but no one AFAIK was threatening abolitionists who used legal due process to actually pass the 13th amendment on free speech grounds. That activity is not the same as openly telling people to aid and abet breaking the current law, or conscientious objection.
> In the South abolitionism was illegal, and abolitionist publications, like The Liberator, could not be sent to Southern post offices. Amos Dresser, a white alumnus of Lane Theological Seminary, was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee for possessing abolitionist publications.[57][58]
The southern states attempted to secede from the country, and fought a civil war that killed almost a million people to prevent the 13th amendment from passing.
The speech that advocates breaking the laws, but does not lead to immediate lawless action is already protected. I.e. if you say "hey you, I order you to take this gun and kill X!" then you're in trouble. But if you say something like "moral imperative declares that X should be killed" (and it's not a coded signal for an assassin but a genuine moralistic argument not intended to cause any specific action) then it's protected. That's why, for example, people marching through Oakland shouting "Death to America" were doing it in complete accordance with the law.
> What if I urge people, in a riveting call to action speech, to kill X celebrity or Y ethnic group?
I think the former is specific enough to be legally problematic, but I was actually under the impression that the second one is technically legal? (morally awful, but legally unprosecutable)
That's a grey area. The prosecution would need to prove that you intended for someone to commit the murder, that you advocated its imminent commission (or at least the imminent initiation of steps toward the crime), and that you believed your advocacy of such crime was likely to lead to someone carrying it out.
Such speech would only place you in legal jeopardy if it contains a direct and credible incitement to violence. If you simply said something like, "Let's kill all the Elbonians!” and nothing more then it would still be considered protected speech under current US Supreme Court precedents.
Later cases have held that it can be. Calling for imminent lawless actions isn't, but claiming a law is unjust and generally shouldn't be followed is usually protected speech.
A law that prohibited anti-war speech. You might as wall say that murderers don't go to jail for killing someone, they go to jail for breaking the law. It's an entirely pointless technicality.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...