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Notes -
Politico says that Biden’s staffers are allegedly pushing for preemptive unilateral pardons for controversial figures in order to “inoculate” them in preparation for Trump’s DOJ & FBI. There are some real eyebrow-raisers in this article, so forgive me for this block-quote:
Emphasis mine. It’s not really surprising that Biden wouldn’t be brought into these discussions given how isolated he has been said to be in these last weeks, but the fact that his staffers see an opportunity to extend his personal clemency for his son to a general pardoning of anyone Trump dislikes (including those that might have committed legitimate crimes, like Fauci) seems to me to be another attempt to just have one final ‘fuck you’ against Trump as lashed out from Biden’s lame duck period. As mentioned in the article, one of the major weighing concerns in actually doing this would be the fact that the very instance of such pardons would seem to be indicative of actual foul play, and to add on it would seem to be reminiscent of the pardons Trump gave out in his last weeks as President even as in those cases the pardons weren’t sweepingly preemptive as these would be.
The very fact that Fauci of all people might get a pardon, despite the fact that entire governmental agencies as seen in the House & Senate reports believe that some fuckery might have been going on with gain-of-function research, seems to me to be a huge mistake to make; his pardon if done would have to specifically make clear the timeframe in which that research was going on to clear him for it (if any foul play occurred during that timeframe) if that’s what the Biden administration believes Trump will prosecute him for. This is just one example of a possible pardon and its disastrous implications, too, notwithstanding the other rumors of Biden pardoning SBF or whomever else (which would also be another thing that could be explosive given conflict-of-interest).
Crimes are real, and people in high places commit them. But prosecuting them is reactive, and prosecutorial discretion lends itself to petty political witch hunts. Trump supporters, of all people, should realize this.
What would be gutsy and genuinely salutatory would be for Biden to offer broad, blanket pardons of controversial figures on both sides. And it would be helpful for Democrats: they wouldn't spend the next four years chasing down crimes, real or imagined, that don't really matter (compared to other issues) and that don't help them win elections.
No, we shouldn't. What we should realize is that the system has been used against us, legitimately or illegitimately, and so now it needs to be used against them as well. If the ways that federal, state, social and corporate power have been used against Red Tribe were acceptable, then they remain acceptable when we use them against Blue Tribe. If that cannot and will not be allowed to happen, then that is valuable information that we would do well to confirm before considering where we go from here.
If in fact the situation is one where Blue Tribe is fundamentally unwilling to accept application of their own rules against their interests, then this fact needs to be made common knowledge.
Sulla was so bad that Marius must take every measure and seize every power to save the Republic, otherwise the Optimates will keep winning forever. This can't have dire consequences down the line.
Meh. The blues are pretty much guaranteed to lose a kinetic tribal conflict, so it's far from a worst case scenario.
I'd say this is a pretty strong assertion, of the sort that should really have some evidence provided to back it. For one, why don't you think the blues will be able to retain control over "kinetic" government institutions?
I mean, the Texas border standoff shows that federal control of kinetic institutions is far from unlimited(theoretically both sides were supposed to take orders from Joe Biden- in practice, neither of them did), and there’s simply very few blues in kinetic positions. There’s a lengthy history of federal law enforcement- much much more willing to crack skulls than the actual army- not being willing to get into it with antigovernment extremists.
From a geographic perspective, as well, maintaining control over enough kinetic institutions to win a civil war is a far taller order for blues than reds. The navy is the most liberal branch of the armed forces and it’s also the least useful for this. To win, blues need to maintain a continuous line of supply over hostile terrain to large inland cities that can serve as a base for controlling the hinterlands well enough to launch offensives against red states- if they fail at this very infantry intensive task, then they don’t have a victory condition. Without Denver it’s basically impossible for the blues to reconquer the heartland.
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Unlike a lot of people here on both sides (apparently), and despite my ostensible respect for violence as a necessary component of politics, I am not fond of war.
It would be better for everyone involved if that could be avoided.
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