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Now we're cookin'! Do you have an opinion on why Paul Combetta wasn't charged for violating the same law that Mike Flynn was charged for, but in a way that was vastly more flagrant?
No, I don't. I don't even know who Paul Combetta is, much less the particulars of any alleged offences he may have committed.
Ah, so you're actually just ignorant of the examples people have of a double standard. That's why you think they're just mists of time. Perhaps you could check out the IG report on the matter, with choice quotes from agents who were sure that he committed the same crime, more blatantly, and had no idea why he wasn't prosecuted? Perhaps you could look in to some of the allegations before broadly declaring that they're all nothing but mist?
This is not a thing I have said.
Ok, I'll venture on this side quest with you. I'll promise to come back to the main point afterward.
I am not the best at literary interpretation, so please help me understand what you mean here. When I look up the phrase "mists of time", it says, "used to show that something happened a very long time ago and is difficult to remember clearly". My sense is that this is because of the ultimate nature of mist - it is fleeting, never pinned down to being concretely known in the specifics. My sense is that the point here is that any allegations of double-standards aren't actually true, and that you think Trump-supporters are the ones who won't get pinned down to concrete specifics. Instead, they'll just roll it into the amorphous mist. Is this not what you meant?
No, I meant "mists of time" as in "beyond the foreseeable future". I'm saying I don't really see a point coming where Trump supporters snap out of it and realise Trump is just a loser.
Ok, thanks for clearing up your literary turn of phrase.
Back to the main quest. So, you're actually just ignorant of the examples people have of a double standard. Perhaps you could check out the IG report on the matter, with choice quotes from agents who were sure that he committed the same crime, more blatantly, and had no idea why he wasn't prosecuted?
Why would I do that? I don't dispute that unfair application of the law is a thing that happens sometimes, and I'm not trying to assert it didn't happen in this particular case. Nothing about my opinion or argument hinges on whether or not Mike Flynn was given the same treatment as some other guy.
I'm not arguing that no double standards exist ever. I'm not even arguing that Trump has not been subjected to double standards. I'm arguing that does not give him a free pass to attempt to illegally hold onto power.
Most people simply refuse to entertain the idea that there have been unfair applications at all. They rest, as you seemed to have rested, on, 'If he did a crime, he should go to jail.' But that reasoning is completely undermined if, what is actually happening, is unfair application of the law. So, the minimal pathway of arguing is to demonstrate that there are, in fact, unfair applications of the law. This far, you seem to agree. Then, argue that those unfair applications have been targeted against Trump and Trump-adjacents, while being lenient toward others, which dovetails into the claim that the entrenched powers of the bureaucracy are using their hard power in a differential fashion. It is not yet clear what your opinion is on this matter. Finally, we would be in a place to discuss whether these particular charges are of a kind with those or not. But right now, we're at step two.
Do you accept that Mike Flynn was prosecuted for something that Paul Combetta was given a pass for, even though Combetta far more clearly and egregiously violated the law in question? If not, why not? If so, do you have an explanation for this other than that the entrenched powers of the bureaucracy are using their hard power in a differential fashion against Trump-adjacents?
This is the easy part, where we can hopefully come to some relatively benign agreement, in order to show that we are reasoning from similar-enough premises that we don't have to discuss the final topic across a vast inferential gap.
Given that he, in fact, gave up office as scheduled, do you think that he should be allowed to run again in a free and fair election?
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