There are, I’m sure, a fair number of police abuses that upset broad swaths of both the left and the right. There are others with more divided opinions.
My couple of off-the-top-of-my-head examples weren’t meant to be a comprehensive “catalogue of the left’s actions”. I wasn’t aware you wanted a one-on-one comparison. How would Arpaio vs Micah Xavier Johnson stack up on your 10-point scale, in your opinion? Is Micah more like a gnat or a camel?
No, I don’t think I’d agree with that statement. I think it’s a safe bet that I see many more positive qualities in Trump and many more negative ones in Obama than most Dopers.
I think he was being figurative. The man does not like guns, and I don’t think he’d actually be supportive of the broad civilian gun ownership that would be required to enact a literal interpretation of his quote.
Probably figurative as well. If the Dope’s generalized attitude of Trump-is-only-in-it-for-the-money has any truth to it, he certainly wasn’t volunteering to part ways with his cash.
I think they both probably deserve more of a benefit-of-the-doubt than they generally get from the opposite side.
By itself, it’s just a single decision out of many that the president will make over a four year period. The destruction of a democratic system occurs probably not from a single act, but through a long process of corrosion.
For the record, I’ve seen nobody here arguing that the president doesn’t have the legal authority to pardon Arpaio or anyone. The president has the legal power to do a lot of things, but the exercise of that power can have myriad consequences. We’re questioning whether or not the use of that power is wise, what it represents, and what the consequences are.
If the president wants to use his power to overpower the ruling of a judge to require a public official to comply with court instructions, he can do that. But it’s probably corrosive in the sense that it voids the actions of the court judge who found that Arpaio had violated the civil rights of ordinary people. Is that what you want? Do you want sheriffs, not courts, to be able to decide what your rights are? Do you want your president pardoning that kind of law enforcement officer?
So you consider them on par from the standpoint of quality of character? Is one better/worse than the other? Which is which, IYO?
Agreed.
Whether or not he meant that he’d pay for legal fees for subsequent assault charges, do you think Trump meant for the protesters at his rallies to be assaulted? Did he intervene on their behalf when they were?
I’m speaking of something more specific, per above.
I’d actually be very interested in hearing what you (or anyone, for that matter) can see as a positive quality in Trump.
Mostly what I hear from defenders is some variation of “yeah, he’s a fucking incompetent asshole, but at least we might get some of our agenda passed.”
To explain my response a little: “Quality of character” is a rather specific question, not unlike “which one is more articulate?” (as opposed to the more general “good vs bad” you asked about earlier) and on the “quality of character” question, I think the advantage goes to Obama. He’s certainly a much better husband than Trump is (and Bill Clinton too), and that counts for quite a lot in my book.
I think Trump is a showman who wanted to look like a tough guy when he said it, and probably didn’t think through the consequences of what he was saying beyond “this will make me look tough”. To answer your question as directly as I can: no, I don’t think he actually meant for protesters at his rallies to be assaulted, but that’s largely a function of him not thinking about or considering the effects on the protesters at all and focusing entirely on the effect the words would have on himself and his campaign.
Again I’d like to point out the key distinguishing feature that (in my opinion) makes Trump’s decision here corrosive. I could very easily support a commutation of any jail sentence for an 85 year old convict. That’s within the President’s powers, and it would ensure that Arpaio was not jailed for his contempt. That fair, and certainly defensible.
So why did Trump need to issue a full pardon?
The message here is, it seems to me: what Arpaio did should have no consequence. This is an unwise message. A court order can be fought if it’s illegal; it should be flouted only in the most extraordinary of circumstances.
I have some quibbles with arguments from the left here. (Shockingly!) Those people who provide a litany of Arpaio’s supposed other sins are on shaky ground: he wasn’t convicted of any of them, and it’s not clear that they are illegal. So those arguments tend to read as, “Because of all my political disagreements with Arpaio, he can’t be pardoned!” The error there should be clear. But the basic problem is that he WAS convicted of something, and that crime is fair grounds for withholding a pardon. That crime symbolizes a very serious issue. The pardon equally symbolizes a rejection of the seriousness of the issue in a way that a commutation would not have done.
If Bull Connor had been around for a Trump pardon, I am sure HurricaneDitka would be playing his same semantic games. He’d be using the code word “pro-cop” to really mean “anti-civil rights.” He would be arguing that it isn’t all that big a deal to pardon an unrepentant racist, because our system of government will not have fallen. And maybe there would be some quibbling about whether the blacks carrying out protests on interstate busses actually had their permits in order, so maybe we lefties ought to think about his actions more as enforcing laws on the books rather than being about justice. Because, what is justice? What is a black person? What is a bus?
Nobody should think for a moment that Arpaio isn’t much different than Connor. Both racists would do just as much as their community would allow to wield power in a racist way. Had Arpaio been in Alabama back a few decades, everyone knows down well he would be telling his officers to take a coffee break while the KKK goes to bust some skulls. Arpaio didn’t do that in Arizona, but he did as much as he thought he could get away with.
And we will always find apologists are more worried about what words we use to condemn racist cops, rather than their abuse of a public trust. I suspect mostly because being white means one doesn’t have to think about racism all that much, but I guess there may be other explainations as well.
It’s probably a topic for another thread, but to give one brief answer: I think President Trump really does empathize with the challenges facing the white working class voters (who turned out for him in large numbers and are largely credited with giving him his victory). Certainly moreso than BHO or HRC did. It’s like a somewhat more crass version of WJC’s ‘I feel your pain’.
Hmmm. Agreed, we’re on a tangent. But I can’t agree with this. He appealed to their worst instincts, perhaps. Not really a positive quality. He had no plan to help them, and no intention of helping them. He just made vague and impossible promises (MAGA, or “universal health care that would be so much better and so much cheaper.”).
What in Trump’s personal history leads you to believe that he feels compassion or empathy for anyone outside of his very close circle of friends and family?
I think you purposefully leave out a lot of other important metrics for measuring and comparing qualities of character between these two specific individuals. I also think you have a propensity for introducing variables that serve to distract rather than maintain focus in these types of discussions.
I could (maybe) accept this line of reasoning if this was a one time occurrence. You and I both know it wasn’t. So I’m not sure what you hope to achieve by ignoring that important data point. It does not serve your argument well.
OK, but I was asking about stuff they didn’t put into the Constitution. Congress can impeach a President for pretty much anything they want - that’s not a violation of the Constitution or the rule of law. A President can pardon pretty much anyone he wants - that’s not a violation of the Constitution or the rule of law either.
Also not sure what the Fourteenth Amendment has to do with anything, let alone pardoning some old coot for a misdemeanor. It’s not like he was caught dealing cocaine or anything.
Regards,
Shodan
+1
I’m sure there are lots of ways of measuring something as vague as “quality of character”. I offered one metric that I thought was reasonable and significant. I’m not claiming it’s the only one, or even the best one. Are there some specific ones you’d like to suggest we consider?
I assume this was some objection to my mentioning of Bill Clinton’s shitbaggery? Or did I misunderstand you?
Many more posts than I expected in such a short time.
I am still catching up.
The side that likes cops who break the law. What Arpaio did wrong would fill another thread like this.
Linked in OP.
Strangely enough, in light of the fact that the statements come from a Fucking Republican, they are all one hundred percent objectively factual. No hyperbole applies to any of them, and “ranking” them is an exercise in pointlessness.
Wouldn’t you be worried about contaminating your shoes?
Thrillseeker.
I think you can figure that one out all by yourself (at least I hope you can). I suspect you’re being deliberately literal-minded, but let’s see if I can clear it up for you succinctly.
Arpaio violated the 14th Amendment, proudly and overtly and on a large scale. Trump approved the behavior by pardoning him. After all, who needs silly little things like a Constitution when you’re [del]the leader of the free world[/del] a tyrant?
National Review has an article covering some interesting points. For one, why do it so soon? Sentencing hadn’t even occurred yet, and he wouldn’t have been jailed until all avenues of appeal (potentially up to the Supreme Court) had been exhausted. If an appeal succeeded, a pardon would be unnecessary and all the political backlash would be avoided.
Another point was that the pardon prevents any further appeals. Possibly (unlikely but not impossible) the trial-by-judge aspect could have been overturned. Could be a useful precedent for their side, but can’t happen now.
In short, there was no reason to do the pardon now. At the very least it should have waited until after sentencing (a month-plus out), or more likely until all appeals finished (possibly years out). Doing it own seems like it can only be for the purpose of sending a signal to others.