Agreement is irrelevant. We could agree because you threatened my wife, or because we're family and I'm partial, or simply because I like you and not the next guy. These are merely economic transactions, not moral ones. You need to be deeply steeped in a capitalist society to equate economic transactions with moral ones, so the mistake is understandable but it's a rather simplistic and unexamined position. That's where almost everything goes wrong with most of your thinking. — Benkei

Yes indeed. An entire ideological system that has been so useful to the ruling class rests entirely on bogus notions of freedom, individuality, and human nature. Simplistic, transactional, soulless.

Proof is in the pudding: these people vote for, and endlessly defend, Donald friggin’ Trump. Tribalistic hacks to the bitter end.

Recall the last time the Trump and Biden debated.

By that time Hunter Biden, the Biden crime family bagman, had stupidly left his laptop in a repair shop, and the contents found its way into the pages of the New York Post. The reporting displayed his numerous crimes for the world to see.

But the propaganda wing of the Biden campaign brewed up some misinformation in order to fool their base and any undecided voters. The Big Lie they conjured was that the laptop was Russian disinfo. They called in some favors from former deep state apparatchiks to help sell the lie to the gullible, and it worked. The information was censored and discredited in public discourse. And when Trump brought up laptop in the debate, Biden reiterated the lie.

This was one of the largest disinfo campaigns in recent memory and it defrauded the country, and exists as an exemplar of election interference. To this day no one has been held accountable.

I’m excited to see what Biden comes up with next.

Any evidence, nos4? Btw, are you a paranoid schizophrenic?

For the Nos4ora2, all forms of exchange beyond what one body can do to another are not shown by what they seem through the evidence for them existing or having existed but are products of "statism".

The "social contract" as conceived by Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, etcetera, is the adoption of a belief, not an attempt to understand the formation of society as something that has happened. So, there is no way to challenge N's idea on its own terms since it denies a means of comparing it to others.

I feel Baden staring down at me, questioning the relevance of that observation to the matter of the Donald as a particular being. I propose the decoupling is essential to the Trump phenomena. The petri dish, as it were.

Refresher prior to the forthcoming debate, on what Trump did after the last election and has done since:

• Continued to spread baseless lies that the election had been stolen from him
• Blocked federal officials from working with Joe Biden’s transition team
• Demanded Georgia’s secretary of state “find” him the exact number of votes he needed to turn his loss their into a win
• Pressured the DOJ to investigate the absurd claim that Italian satellites had changed Trump votes to Biden ones
• Urged state legislators to “decertify” their election results
• Incited a violent riot that left numerous people dead
• Let said violent riot go on for hours before he half-heartedly told people to go home (and also told the mob, “You’re very special” and “we love you” and “Remember this day forever!”)
• Said Mike Pence deserved the chants calling for his hanging
• Continues, nearly four years later, to claim the election was stolen from him
• Won’t commit to accepting the outcome of the 2024 election
• Says there will be further violence if he loses again
• Regularly threatens to  use the government to go after his enemies if he wins
• Said he will be a dictator on “day one” in office

Because of all of the above, and because Joe Biden has notably done none of the above, you might think it would be pretty clear to people that of the two candidates, one of them is good for democracy and one of them is bad, and that the latter is very obviously Trump. But according to the results of a terrifying new poll, that is, somehow, very much not the case.

That poll, conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, reveals that in the six swing states Biden won in 2020, more voters classified as “Deciders”—that is, they are likely to decide the outcome of the election—think Trump is better equipped to handle threats to democracy than Biden. — Vanity Fair

“The worst in the history of our country’s life.” — the stable genius with the best words

:lol:

CNN just lobbed the question to Donald Trump about Jan 6th. First of all he completely ducked it, attacking Biden over the border, and then he tried to pin the blame on Nancy Pelosi for not calling the National Guard, which is another lie. He then follows up by saying that Hunter Biden is a convicted felon, another lie (apparently true, but not relevant). Overall, almost everything Trump is saying in this debacle, um, debate, is a lie. Shame is, half the electorate will believe him.

Trump is very worked up about the story that he called military casualties 'loosers and suckers' and repeatedly said the story has been 'debunked'. But it was presented in The Atlantic on September 3, 2020:

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. — The Atlantic

By way of a coda my sister and I both thought that everything Trump said was a lie, but that Joe Biden looks like he should be in a rocking chair on the front porch with a blanket over his knees.

God help us. :yikes:

Fraudster-Ra(p)ist-Insurrectionist-Convicted Felon-1 "outperformed" POTUS tonight. :sad:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/912686

Another win for Trump and loss for Biden. The supreme court has ruled in FISCHER v. UNITED STATES that Biden's DOJ, including Jack Smith, stretched the law beyond the constitution in order to prosecute J6 political prisoners and Donald Trump. Much of the government's case regarding the charge against Trump, "obstruction of an official proceeding", relies on this stupid theory.

The real criminals, it appears, are the ones running the justice system. The scam is crumbling in real time.

I will toot my own horn on this one because I received quite a bit of pushback from it, even from self-described lawyers. When failed congressman Jamaal Bowman pulled the fire alarm in congress I joked that he should be prosecuted under the same legal theory that the Biden justice department was prosecuting j6 prisoners and Donald Trump. Out of fairness or stupidity, one or the other, other posters agreed. The problem was the theory was nonsense.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/841733

The Supreme Court ruled presidents have absolute immunity for official acts, likely delaying the government’s persecution of Donald Trump a little longer. If Biden’s DOJ could learn to follow the letter of law and judges took their time rather than force it through the courts to influence an election, none of these cases would be an issue.

1July24

SCOTUS rules, in effect, that POTUS is a "King" with Absolute Immunity from criminal prosecution for Official Acts.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-supreme-court-immunity-1.7251423

So, as an official act of National Security, POTUS aka "King Joseph I" SHOULD "decree" by Executive Order (A) immediately strip US citizenship and Secret Service protection from, (B) immediately freeze and then seize all domestic and foreign assets from, and (C) immediately incarcerate in The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp Trump and his MAGA gang of January 6 & Russian Collusion co-conspirators indefinitely.

But will "King Joseph I" do this?

No. Even though, as of today, it's (apparently) legal for POTUS to do so. :angry:

It must hurt to have unconstitutional and illegal mechanisms to do politics taken away from you, so I wager Biden is quaking in his boots. But should Biden do something stupid as you suggest, there are still legal and constitutional paths to check executive power, and it’s called impeachment.

Obviously, NOS, you have not yet thought through how the MAGA Six Justices just gave Dark Brandon a get out jail free card! If the MAGA caucus in Congress tries to impeach POTUS, "The King" can order any or all of those morons rounded-up and shot before the vote to impeach even happens. :mask:

That’s when the 2nd amendment comes into play. Just another reason why the tyrant Dank Brandon regime fears the constitution.

:lol:

You really are a child, nos4. I think you live in England; why don't you grab a bat and try bashing your way into Parliament - see how far that gets you. We'll watch for news of you.

The question of what does and does not count as an official act is one that is not likely to be determined in the cases against Trump. The Court knows this. They are willfully and deliberately protecting him. Effectively allowing the clock run out in the Trump cases by not issuing a ruling until the clock on their term was running out.

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. ...

Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.
— Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer, Dissenting on Presidential Immunity

A beautiful irony is found in Thomas’ ruling. While the fevered dissenting opinions opine about the president as king, Thomas’ concurring opinion notes the illegal means with which Jack Smith was appointed, in a way similar to how the King of England created offices out of thin air.

By requiring that Congress create federal offices “by Law,” the Constitution imposes an important check against the President—he cannot create offices at his pleasure. If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution. A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former President.

The limitation on the President’s power to create offices grew out of the Founders’ experience with the English monarchy. The King could wield significant power by both creating and filling offices as he saw fit. He was “emphatically and truly styled the fountain of honor. He not only appoint[ed] to all offices, but [could] create offices.”

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

This could be the end of the Biden regime’s illegal and monarchical persecution of their political opponents.