I'm getting tired of these comments that normalize being in the middle of the slippery slope as if it is merely the same as being at the top of the slippery slope was. They may not have been "good" times, but they were certainly better times when government agencies at least aimed to carry out their roles in good faith rather than minmaxing the rules to cause the most damage to enemies of the Party. Applying judgement while exercising delegated authority is exactly why these agencies were given wide leeway in the first place. And while we can say this was naive, it is even more naive to normalize the current behavior.
Laws are supposed to be crafted to be as applied by anyone, anywhere and at any time. This is why lawyers and politicians are supposed to have foresight and be prudent.
You look at prior events and see them as justified due to the people involved and situations.
If the US government can, for example investigate Richard Spencer or some other extremist figure based on a web post, then they can do the same for someone else on the other end of the spectrum.
But even more terrifying is that they can do the same for someone not in the extremes.
When my friends on the left held power and used it to quash the speech of my friends on the right, I spoke up.
When my friends on the right are doing the same, I also speak up.
The sad irony is that those not in power protest only when it is not their side.
> If the US government can, for example investigate Richard Spencer or some other extremist figure based on a web post, then they can do the same for someone else on the other end of the spectrum.
> But even more terrifying is that they can do the same for someone not in the extremes.
This isn't a valid principle. It suggests that we should oppose laws against murder, because if the government can imprison a murderer, it can imprison someone who saved a life. Even more terrifying is that it can imprison someone who saved a dog's life or didn't save or kill any lives.
Most people are in a bubble and are unaware of what their tribe is doing.
I may be wrong but I think there have been Republicans who have resigned for extra-marital sex.
While we are screaming about the current POTS and his relation with Jeffery, we gave Bill Clinton a platform to speak during the 2024 Convention. When I bring that up, I get told "It's important that we beat Trump."
The Epstein was arrested in 2019, the files have been in the hands of both Democrats and Republicans. Neither group really looks like they want to prosecute anyone further; only use accusations that their opponents are in there to galvanize their base.
I did not realize that we invited "nobodies" to speak at the convention; I can tell how shunned he was based on the Wikipedia page:
>Third night (Wednesday, August 21: A Fight for Our Freedoms)
>The third night was emceed by actress Mindy Kaling, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Sheila E and Maren Morris. Vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz delivered his acceptance speech. Pete Buttigieg also spoke.
>It was confirmed that Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to speak. The evening was headlined by Walz and Clinton.
Headline - verb - to be engaged as a leading performer in (as in show or performance)
>Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president.
-Also Wikipedia
Yes, at this moment the current POTUS is more relevant. At the time however, both Trump and Clinton were both "Some nobody with secret service protection" with the only difference between them being one was running for his second term and the other was not.
>Democrats seem to want the files about him to be released.
Everyone wants the files released and those responsible prosecuted...until they are the ones with the files. Then there are all sorts of hints and allegations that their opposition is featured heavily but no charges brought.
It's really sick, there are real people with lives who have been ruined. Committed suicide because of what happened to them and yet all those with the power to act just talk, be it democrats or republicans.
while former US President is about as far from a nobody as it is humanly possible the commenter’s points are all valid. while the current President is most definitely one of the most dispicable human beings than ever roam this planet the whole epstein business is far above any US politics. and Americans generally do not give a hoot about this (see election in 2025) - especially when victims are women and children.
> Laws are supposed to be crafted to be as applied by anyone, anywhere and at any time. This is why lawyers and politicians are supposed to have foresight and be prudent.
Except this is both impossible and a bad idea, which is why we have judges, juries, elections, and every other part of the system intended to constrain the blind application of the law.
You have said very little that addresses anything I said, except to appeal to some vague sense of "both sidesism" which is so far away from our current predicament that the only applications I see are (1) to say "I told you so", which isn't productive and widely misses the mark with me (2) normalize the current situation and/or absolve blame by shifting it onto the other side.
Investigative agencies are going to be able to investigate people. So supposing that the "US government can ... investigate Richard Spencer ... based on a web post" isn't a compelling argument unless your goal is to completely reject the concept of government. This can certainly be a consistent position (I've held it in the past), but it's not a common one.
At which point it comes down to accountability for how delegated powers are used - both in individual cases, and to stop patterns of abuse. For example I've long argued we need to neuter the concept of sovereign immunity, and start routinely compensating people who are harmed by the government but never convicted of breaking the law - one should indeed be able to "beat the ride". So I'm not waking up to this in 2025 clutching my pearls gasping "I can't believe the government can just do this". I've been following how the government operates unaccountably for quite some time, and I'm pointing out that the current regime is still a marked escalation.
This isn't to say I am pushing lame answers like "just vote Democrat" (I don't consider myself a Democrat). And I do agree that meaningful reform needs to be in general terms (eg aforementioned sovereign immunity example). But I also think that dismissing our current situation as some mere extension of what has been happening for a while is a terrible way of framing things.
I am saying "No. Full stop." to the idea that we ever had a time when the government was attempting to carry out their roles in good faith.
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law" - Óscar Benavides, former president of Peru.
This can only be true if the law is broad and relies on "good faith". This is why laws and court ruling are often narrowly tailored, to prevent a precedent being set that will open the door for future abuse down the road.
>Investigative agencies are going to be able to investigate people. So supposing that the "US government can ... investigate Richard Spencer ... based on a web post" isn't a compelling argument unless your goal is to completely reject the concept of government. As has been often said, you can get a grand jury to indite a ham sandwich.
I suppose I could have fleshed out this argument a little further, a distillation of my point would be that "investigations" are carried out with little or flimsy evidence as a pretext to go on fishing expeditions to find something, anything to actually charge the person with.
>we need to neuter the concept of sovereign immunity
I wish we could get the government to hold themselves accountable, however they would need to pass a law to override the concept and they do not seem to be in any hurry to do so.
I am not attempting to say I told you so to you, nor normalize the situation. I disagree with your assessment that there ever was a "better time" and invite not only you but everyone to stand against bad laws and practices no matter the letter after the name.
> I am saying "No. Full stop." to the idea that we ever had a time when the government was attempting to carry out their roles in good faith.
This is such a strong claim, I don't know how it could even be supported.
At the agency level (the context of my original comment), this is effectively an assertion that the FDA has never meaningfully cared about food safety, NPS has always had some hidden motive for hosting visitors in parks, and so on. I'm nowhere near the best person to wax eloquently about the value of government, and I'm probably coming from a much closer position to you of being skeptical, but I think we have to admit there is some value here.
At the level of individual government agents, it's even less supportable. For example, most ICE agents are not boxing in vehicles to create an excuse to execute their drivers who had been protesting. Most ICE agents are just trying to perform their stated purpose of enforcing immigration law. This is NOT a defense of the agency, their leadership, the part of their stated goal that I have to begrudgingly admit is lawful, the tendency for agents to close ranks and defend the worst agents, the totalitarian propaganda holding it all together, etc. Rather it's an acknowledgement of the actual reality. (that we have to work with if we're going to attempt to reform it, and I use the term "reform" loosely here. I think the moderate option at this point is "abolish ICE")
The point is that in all of these situations, there is authority being delegated to individual humans, who are then supposed to faithfully carry it out. This is why we have oaths of office, and whatnot. You seem to be rejecting this very idea of how any human structure necessarily functions, in favor of some idea that laws can be objectively defined and mechanically executed?
> I wish we could get the government to hold themselves accountable, however they would need to pass a law to override the concept and they do not seem to be in any hurry to do so.
but then:
> invite not only you but everyone to stand against bad laws and practices
What do you mean by "stand against" if not ultimately pushing for reform, likely culminating in demanding some kind of government-inconvenient legislation that curtails abuses?
And I'm getting tired of these comments that normalize the awfulness of the past. We can be pragmatic in recognizing that "our guys" also did bad things. Less bad than awful is still bad. If we choose not to recognize our own foibles then we just fall down our old patterns of "it's someone else's problem".
Because otherwise, better than what we have now is an abysmal target and we should aim for better.
> We can be pragmatic in recognizing that "our guys" also did bad things
What do you mean "our guys" ? I don't have guys. I consider myself a libertarian, was both sidesing up until June of 2020, and had never voted for a major party in a national election until 2020 when I voted for Biden - which I view as me getting older and more conservative - aka valuing our societal institutions and values after seeing how much Trump openly trashed them instead of showing an ounce of leadership during Covid.
Even with this perspective, I still think it is foolish to write off the current administration as if it's just another iteration of back and forth corruption rather than a shameless wholesale kicking over of the apple cart.
Care to elaborate on your point then? Reading what you have written, I do agree with the abstract thrust of where you're coming from.
But I have also observed that the destructionists appeal to similar lofty ideas to justify what is currently going on - eg accelerationism.
(I also don't know what difference "tongue in cheek" makes. I've never looked at the government and thought anything like "these people represent me and work for my interest". I know a lot of people seemingly have, but that's not me. But I did look at the Biden administration, which I voted for, and think "this is the stable predictable evil I (and the rest of American society) already know how to cope with".)
Well, for background, my background is in investigative journalism with a focus on policing, technology, and transparency. I've been the plaintiff in a bit over 10 FOIA lawsuits and have three ongoing suits now. "Our guys" was more meant to be a hand waived ideal of what each in-person thinks their out-person is.
My point can be read as a recognition that ratcheting happens within the boring minutia and work is rarely done to recover from those ratchetings. Things like continuation of prosecution policies, legislation changes, staff changes, etc. There's a very strong tendency to consider those sorts of ratcheting effects as "just how things are" rather than recognizing that no, it hasn't always been that way.
Like, progressive politicians love to talk a big game about transparency, but when it comes down to it, they themselves contribute to systemic transparency failures. See Chicago's past two mayors' campaign transparency promises. Both have done a complete 180 on those promises and use never-losing lawyers to enforce that sort of thing. Chicago's mayor's office once asked me to do analysis of parking tickets' effects on poor folk... then a few months later accused my wanting a data dictionary of the parking tickets system so that I could modify the parking ticket system's data. That led to bad case law at the IL supreme court.
It's shit like that. The small-but-not-really-small things.
> So we agree, including that there is a difference.
No, that's a distinction without a difference. I mean, it doesn't matter in the slightest if at some point in time certain powers weren't abused, if they're being abused now the situation cannot be tolerated.
Arguing about how it's possible not to abuse the system is a waste of time at best and a diversion at worst.
I'm not arguing that it's possible to not abuse the system. I've recognized abuses for quite some time, regardless of which political team has been in power. The point is that we need to avoid normalizing our current situation by pointing to previous abuses.
It's worth pointing out that "criminals" are generally "people at the margins"... If for no other reason than to point out that pithy comments like this are often so vague as to be worthless, or even counter-productive!
It's also a good thing that antisocial behavior is often isolated to "the margins", so your statement can even be considered a good thing, by the same metric!
These times never existed.