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Thank you for this, not just for the compliment but the longer post as well that makes for a far better discussion point.
My overall philosophical retort is this post.
To this point specifically, I'm not appealing to the "majesty of the law". I agree that if one side is selectively enforcing rules against you while exempting themselves, then unilaterally disarming is suicidal. I essentially said that in the hypocrisy post, that some hypocrisy is justified when refusing to reciprocate leaves you permanently disadvantaged.
But the point where I disagree is the jump from "the outgroup abused power" to "there is not law to uphold" or "our side now gets a blank check and none of our sins count" as I've been effectively hearing from MAGA apologists on this site and on others. Most of Trump's corruption doesn't directly advantage MAGA as a movement, and in fact does some amount of harm. MAGA as something other than just a Trumpist personality cult would be stronger if everything else was the same, except that Trump didn't sell off pardons. There would be some momentary discomfort as the right had to undergo self-criticism, but it would emerge stronger for it. The fact that it mostly refuses to do so is a cancer that eats it from the inside.
My position isn't "never fight back", it's that people should be very clear about what counts as fighting back, and not trying to launder every act of corruption as defensive necessity. If the claim is "the law is already dead", then the burden is on you to explain why a specific escalation improves the situation rather than just helping to bury it.
Yes! Or rather I'd frame it as Trump not losing points in this instance while Biden would have.
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