DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
: shrug : labels, such as 'felon' mean nothing. No consequences. Americans are crazy.
Trump's legal woes
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
Well if they can decline to jail Trump even though he is a convicted felon, then they can decline to jail all the other Americans who they could be going after.
First Trump and then "you".
Well the election is over now so he probably won't be wasting disinformation energy on that particular spiel.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Some poor bastard will get arrested for messing up his tax returns, panic, try and cover it up and get jail time.
He should have hired an accountant but got 30 days instead.
"Dear Mr President,
...........so I will end this letter as find myself in this situation because I was too average at maths, not because I am a bad person.
And that spec DID look like a decimal point honestly.
Anyway Since you seem to be able to get away with murder, I am hoping you grant this request to move sentence to suspended status or just kind of forget about the whole thing.
Yours respectfully
Mr P K Cromar.
Yeah, I think this sends an excellent message to young people and those who are prone to criminality, generally: Do whatever you fucking want. If you're a rich white male, with a long history of rape and criminality, you'll most definitely get away with it. Otherwise, it's kind of a crap shoot. But, so long as you've got at least a couple of the markers--in no particular order: wealth, whiteness, maleness, etc--your odds are very good.
For legal reasons or some such shit, I'm probably supposed to say that I'm not advocating for anything, just acknowledging the circumstances.
Edit: Oh, and, Free Luigi!
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I call them SWORGs
Straight White Old Rich Guys.
As far as societal consensus goes, "wealth" is probably the only attribute for which there is near universal agreement--and with wealth, "privilege" is practically definitional.
It's difficult to suss sincerity or earnestness from polls, or sometimes even from footage of randos interviewed on the street. And while I'm generally sceptical when people claim not to recognize the "get out of jail free" card with respect to, say, whiteness; at the same time, often these are the same people who claim that someone like Bill Burr used to be on their "side", but now he's all "woke". To me, this suggests that they simply never fully comprehended the joke and they totally missed the punchline--Bill Burr really has not changed all that much.
I don't know. There's willful ignorance, but there's also willful stupidity. IMHO 80-85 percent of people ought to be able to comprehend privilege, even when considering that maybe they personally have not benefited with respect to this particular matter. It just doesn't seem that big of an "ask".
Anyone here with any legal expertise who can precisely delineate the differences between an "unconditional discharge" and... well, nothing? I mean, I guess if Trump ever applies for a job at McDonald's, he has to check that box that asks if you've ever been convicted of a felony. I think. Honestly, I don't even know: Would he have to check that box, were he to apply for a job at McDonald's?
Anything else? Who has to pay the court fees? Oh, right, we do.
Anything else? Who has to pay the court fees? Oh, right, we do.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I had a tough time convincing my brother we were privileged for being white dudes. He kept saying 'I've never gotten anything because im white or a guy'.
I had to explain how pernicious privilege is because it's invisible to the privileged.
It's not what you got; its what didn't get put in your way.
But admitting that they are in a position that might give them privilege over someone else is tatamount (to them) being told "you didn't work for what you got; you had it easy." And if there's one myth that white cis straight male republicans cling to above all else - it's that they are where they are because of their own hard work, sweat and sacrifice, and if someone else doesn't get the same result, it's because they didn't work as hard.
Gay-bashing? Well, Joe Republican got bashed in high school once by a bully, and he succeeded anyway! If that trans woman can't handle the bashing that's HER fault.
Blacks arrested and killed more often by cops? Well, Joe Republican got pulled over by a cop once, and he was polite to the cop, and he got off with a warning! All it takes is a little intelligence. So if those black teens are getting killed after traffic stops they are obviously just not being smart and/or polite. But you know them.
Discrimination against blacks/women/LGBT in the workplace? Joe Republican was once denied a job because they DEI hired someone else! But he got right back up and applied to another job and got it. And if those woke queer libs can't be bothered to perservere like he did - then why should anyone be upset when they don't get jobs? It's their own fault.
Thoughts on my estimate of 80-85 percent? Is that delusional? I hate using IQ as a metric, but sometimes it's apt and it's one of the few measures of that sort that we've got to work with. Privilege just doesn't seem that terribly difficult a concept to comprehend. And, sure, it involves looking beyond oneself and consideration of broad societal trends, for which personal anecdote and experience are somewhat irrelevant, but... theory of mind. Something that humans supposedly got, and something which, according to some thinkers, is uniquely human--or, at the very least, is more "highly developed" in humans.
This is a compelling narrative, but it's also something that I feel even little kids ought to be able to pole holes through. Did you make that axe or maul all on your own? Did you personally mine the materials for the head?
There's cognitive dissonance that's essential for survival or simply getting by in life, and then there's cognitive dissonance that seems to be a whole lot more about "I don't wanna feel bad for what I've got."
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
Since Trump's grandfather Frederick was a Bavarian draft dodger, his US citizenship is not legitimate, ergo his son Fred had only birthright citizenship (which Trump would eliminate). Eliminate Fred's birthright citizenship and this also invalidates Trump's Scottish mother's citizenship since she claimed to be married to a US citizen on her 1942 application for naturalization. So that whole family stack of cards will collapse, and both Fred, Mary Anne and the children will become foreign nationals - Trump being also a convicted felon means he will have to have himself deported as a threat to our fair nation.
I am sure my legal research and logic is just as impeccable of that of the Project 2025 crew, and I look forward to the ICE officers, with assistance from the National Guard, expelling this dangerous felon, grifter and serial rapist from this great country.
I am sure my legal research and logic is just as impeccable of that of the Project 2025 crew, and I look forward to the ICE officers, with assistance from the National Guard, expelling this dangerous felon, grifter and serial rapist from this great country.
They ignore that part of it.
And to an even larger degree, those white cis straight male republicans have a word they use as the worst curseword they can think of - socialism. To them it's the ultimate in giving other undeserving people (who are often black or gay or immigrants or what-have-you) what they themselves have earned without a bit of help. No one helped THEM when they were starting out!
But again, they ignore that the landscape business they started uses public roads that lets them get their trucks to people's houses. They ignore that their new Internet site uses an Internet created by government funding and enlarged by none other than that evil villian, Al Gore. They ignore that their cargo business uses airspace run by the FAA and administered by Air Traffic Control. And even while they bitch and moan about how the stupid wasteful government regulations are stifling their business, those very regulations are the reason that they can fly their cargo planes and have at least a reasonable assurance that they won't crash, destroy their cargo and kill their pilots.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
That's age discrimination. What do you call yourself?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Talk about a strawman argument.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Do you feel bad for what you've got? How do you describe your privilege? Do you feel that it's important to talk about privilege on a daily basis?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Oops. Thanks for asking. I almost clubbed my own point.
I am the first SWORG. I came up with it as an acknowledgement of my own privilege.
(OK, I'm not rich, but still, I recognize how easy i have it.)
Not quite; while there are plenty of ways to say it, and I will certainly leave that standard to those more aged than I, there are times when age is relevant. In terms of historical narrative, for instance, it can be context, not discrimination.
(Hint: That's why a lot of markers remain important. One need not include any particular critique of whiteness, for instance, if I say that my native tongue is the White American Historical Experience, and there are circumstances when that fact is particularly relevant to a discussion.)
The "only" difference between an "unconditional discharge" and "nothing" is that the felony conviction remains on his record. I.e. he is a convicted felon. Most criminal convictions are discharged conditionally, i.e. fine, incarceration, slap on the wrists, but they remain on your record. In Trump's case he has just avoided any such conditions.
So, yes, Trump would not be able to apply for any job from which a felon is disqualified. Being President of the USA doesn't seem to be one such job. I'm not sure of what jobs felons are disqualified in the US.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I hope I'm never in a discussion where I have to say "my native tongue is the White American Historical Experience". "Hey Boomer" isn't one of the examples anyway.