Pardons for members of government for actions they took from the seat of government just removes the public’s ability to hold our government accountable. We already have too little accountability.
Further because pardons are more likely to be political in nature it allows for a regime to entirely protect themselves when and if they commit abuses of power.
Here is the problem. Let’s say Trump has someone from Biden’s admin arrested, tried, and convicted on trumped up charges. If there is no pardons for members of government, or no presidential pardons at all, that person is fucked and innocent.
I would like to see a check to presidential pardons, like Congress can veto or the SC can vacate a pardon.
In theory due process would protect them. Personally, in the same vain, I don’t like qualified immunity. I think government officials and workers should be owed a slightly higher level of due process to protect against political targeting, but should also face higher sentences because as a member of government they should have a higher respect for the law if they are convicted.
Qualified immunity prevents that and so do pardons for government mis-actions.
Absolutely, qualified immunity is bullshit.
Nope, the pardon is a check on persecution. The problem is a lack of a check on the president due to party rule. I’d rather see an amendment that forced majority parties to allow minority subpoenas and investigations. And also to allow the minority party to force a vote on bills.
But it could also be an absolute check protecting persecution.
I would abolish presidential pardons altogether. They’re an insult to the rule of law.
Laws aren’t always applied fairly, nor are they necessarily morally right.
For example, Alan Turing was convicted and sentenced to chemical castration for being a gay man when it was illegal to be one in the UK. Under a strict adherence to the “rule of law” this was the correct decision, but obviously the UK government was morally wrong for treating him that way.
That is a fair point. I suppose it is a weak argument to say that the government should do something else well instead, because it currently doesn’t. But more broadly government shouldn’t be placing serious penalties on anything that doesn’t have definite harm that has occurred on a definite victim.
Fining you for speeding sure. But castration or even jail longer than six months, I’m going to need to see an actual victim with a substantive harm where but for the accused’s specific actions they would have not been harmed (proximate cause).
But people think with emotions and can be told to dislike this or that person (sometimes fairly but often unfairly) and then people will support any level of penalty suggested thereafter.
More amendments we need. It should be easier to pass amendments that restrict government where the majority agree, strong majority to grow powers. Yet another amendment we need.
I didn’t say the law was perfect - especially in the US! But I trust judges and due process more than I trust a single dude’s whims in the White House.
If you need convincing, watch a bunch of insurrectionists roam free tomorrow.
I don’t disagree. But if pardoning the traitors who attempted to overthrow the US government on Jan. 6 is the price for pardons ensuring that the people who tried to bring those traitors and their enablers to justice are shielded from the insane fascist who has already said he’s willing to throw the resources of the US government against them, then I’m willing to pay it.
If they had attempted to overthrow the government don’t you think they would have gone in armed? This is the problem with the internet being politically bifurcated. The claims on both sides for what is reality get more and more disconnected over time. The echo chamber only rewards those who make claims beyond what has already been claimed and never rewards those who make a correction. Each echo chamber then has a steady velocity toward madness.
So they broke through fences, climbed up the building, smashed through windows, assaulted the police trying to keep them out of the Capitol which was closed to visitors due to COVID, smeared shit on the walls, stole Pelosi’s laptop, stole furniture, flew Trump and Confederate flags, and tried to break into where the votes were being counted to do… What?
That’s rhetorical, by the way. I don’t give a good goddamn what you “both-sidesing” fascist enablers think. The videos are there to see exactly what they tried to do. The testimonies from the Jan 6 Committee are there.
Also, they were armed with both firearms and makeshift weapons. So go fuck yourself.
That’s fair.
How about if all pardons were conditional and required being put on the next ballot and getting over 50% of affirmative votes.
I posted this to a few places. If you want to see what different places on the net think:
https://goatmatrix.net/c/USPolitics/DrjNYLpSU5No, as Biden showed today, when an incoming member of government is directly threatening members of the former administration, those people deserve to be protected.
Due process.
