No, it really isn't. The road to Iran-Contra and the excesses of the Bush Administration leads from the Ford pardon.
I've never found this to be terribly persuasive, because it rests on a kind of amorphous conviction that the trial would have played out politically exactly the way you think it would have, and the actors in later scandals would have learned exactly the lesson you think they would have learned.
Is all of that really very knowable?
We do know what transpired after the pardon and the country suffered for it. At least with Nixon's trial America would have had some history putting its presidents under pressure for breaking the law, rather than continuing the tradition of letting corrupt presidents off without the slightest wrist-slap. Maybe the parties behind Iran-Contra and Bush would have thought twice about being shitheels, you're right we don't know - but I fail to see how it'd be worse than what we got.
edit: It's tragic that Obama's repeated this shitty policy. The country is never going to get better by not holding its elected officials accountable. The cycle will go on and there's no end in sight.
One reason I think for that is we have a long history of peaceful power transfers once elections happen or when their term limits are up the current president steps down and then hands the keys over to the next guy at bat. The danger in prosecutions of ex presidents is if it starts happening a lot especially given as stupidly divided as our country currently is you run a serious danger of a president refusing to step down and start causing much more significant and potentially country ending dispute.
Maybe a middle ground for prosecuting previous administrations is to just have those fact finding committees that dig up all the dirt they can find and publish it, but not actually press charges necessarily. It turns the previous administrations name to shit, but hey, and it also gives citizens a good chance to seek recompense or better information for future elections.
Outright illegality is rare, except perhaps in an international sense - but under US law the President can violate international law with impunity, so it's a wash.
Outright illegality is rare, except perhaps in an international sense - but under US law the President can violate international law with impunity, so it's a wash.
Sure. If violations of international law were on the table, then the list would go something like this:
Obama - Ordered murder of international citizens without any due process
Bush 2 - Ordered murder of international citizens without any due process
Clinton - Ordered murder of international citizens without any due process
...
pretty sure we could go a very long way down the list of presidents like that.
To be fair though, international law is pretty cool with murdering people without due process under a surprisingly broad range of circumstances.
Well, it doesn't hurt that the same place where the violations would be brought suit and prosecuted are also places where the people who need to murder some folks happen to have unlimited veto power over those investigations.
To be fair though, international law is pretty cool with murdering people without due process under a surprisingly broad range of circumstances.
Well, it doesn't hurt that the same place where the violations would be brought suit and prosecuted are also places where the people who need to murder some folks happen to have unlimited veto power over those investigations.
And the us is not a signatory to the body that could potentially prosecute them
One of the problems is that the opposition needs to accept that it is a legitimate prosecution rather than a partisan prosecution. If they don't, they attempt to initiate partisan prosecutions in what they view as retaliation and it becomes a routine power struggle tactic.
It will always appear to the partisan that his case against an opponent is just, and that anyway, this is what the other side very spuriously and unjustly tried to do to his party leader very recently. Look at the partisan psychology around the indictment of Perry or the impeachment of Clinton.
But the outcome of all these just smitings from the left and right being administered by partisans isn't deterrence or justice.
For instance, if Boehner's lawsuit against Obama was successful for instance, would Democrats be more likely to feel chastened about the implementation of the ACA in the face of nihilistic opposition and accept that the House Republicans were right, or to file lawsuits against a future Republican President?
Capek on
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. - Fitzgerald
Maybe a middle ground for prosecuting previous administrations is to just have those fact finding committees that dig up all the dirt they can find and publish it, but not actually press charges necessarily. It turns the previous administrations name to shit, but hey, and it also gives citizens a good chance to seek recompense or better information for future elections.
That's not justice, though. That's what we have now, that's not going to stop future criminal presidents committing crimes and getting away with it. better information also relies on crooked or corrupt politicians not tainting the process for their own ends. How can citizens seek recompense when the people they were hurt by aren't being criminally prosecuted? Then there's international law and foreigners whose lives have been ruined.
No, it really isn't. The road to Iran-Contra and the excesses of the Bush Administration leads from the Ford pardon.
I've never found this to be terribly persuasive, because it rests on a kind of amorphous conviction that the trial would have played out politically exactly the way you think it would have, and the actors in later scandals would have learned exactly the lesson you think they would have learned.
Is all of that really very knowable?
We do know what transpired after the pardon and the country suffered for it. At least with Nixon's trial America would have had some history putting its presidents under pressure for breaking the law, rather than continuing the tradition of letting corrupt presidents off without the slightest wrist-slap. Maybe the parties behind Iran-Contra and Bush would have thought twice about being shitheels, you're right we don't know - but I fail to see how it'd be worse than what we got.
edit: It's tragic that Obama's repeated this shitty policy. The country is never going to get better by not holding its elected officials accountable. The cycle will go on and there's no end in sight.
One reason I think for that is we have a long history of peaceful power transfers once elections happen or when their term limits are up the current president steps down and then hands the keys over to the next guy at bat. The danger in prosecutions of ex presidents is if it starts happening a lot especially given as stupidly divided as our country currently is you run a serious danger of a president refusing to step down and start causing much more significant and potentially country ending dispute.
The peaceful powerful transfers have been a double edged sword, sure we get transitions with the parties. But that doesn't stop the GOP from trying to impeach the Democrats for bullshit reasons, if they had a genuine reason for impeaching it'd be less of an issue. What has occurred is it's made the government a revolving band of war criminals that'll never get their day in court. International organizations can't touch them, America's made sure of that - so we're left with America cleaning up this mess and that's not happening either. That's a tragedy that's been happening for decades, and I'd be for Democratic presidents being charged if they did break international law. If Obama's done it and it can be proven, that was the right call. Justice has to start somewhere, we need solutions and it appears like the Democratic party would rather dig their heads in the sand rather than try to solve this situation.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited August 2014
If you guys can't be bothered to focus on discussion of the topic matter in big letters at the top of the thread I'm not entirely sure what purpose the thread serves.
There will be a moratorium of at least a fortnight before a similar thread will even be considered.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
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One reason I think for that is we have a long history of peaceful power transfers once elections happen or when their term limits are up the current president steps down and then hands the keys over to the next guy at bat. The danger in prosecutions of ex presidents is if it starts happening a lot especially given as stupidly divided as our country currently is you run a serious danger of a president refusing to step down and start causing much more significant and potentially country ending dispute.
MWO: Adamski
Sure. If violations of international law were on the table, then the list would go something like this:
Obama - Ordered murder of international citizens without any due process
Bush 2 - Ordered murder of international citizens without any due process
Clinton - Ordered murder of international citizens without any due process
...
pretty sure we could go a very long way down the list of presidents like that.
Well, it doesn't hurt that the same place where the violations would be brought suit and prosecuted are also places where the people who need to murder some folks happen to have unlimited veto power over those investigations.
And the us is not a signatory to the body that could potentially prosecute them
It will always appear to the partisan that his case against an opponent is just, and that anyway, this is what the other side very spuriously and unjustly tried to do to his party leader very recently. Look at the partisan psychology around the indictment of Perry or the impeachment of Clinton.
But the outcome of all these just smitings from the left and right being administered by partisans isn't deterrence or justice.
For instance, if Boehner's lawsuit against Obama was successful for instance, would Democrats be more likely to feel chastened about the implementation of the ACA in the face of nihilistic opposition and accept that the House Republicans were right, or to file lawsuits against a future Republican President?
That's not justice, though. That's what we have now, that's not going to stop future criminal presidents committing crimes and getting away with it. better information also relies on crooked or corrupt politicians not tainting the process for their own ends. How can citizens seek recompense when the people they were hurt by aren't being criminally prosecuted? Then there's international law and foreigners whose lives have been ruined.
The peaceful powerful transfers have been a double edged sword, sure we get transitions with the parties. But that doesn't stop the GOP from trying to impeach the Democrats for bullshit reasons, if they had a genuine reason for impeaching it'd be less of an issue. What has occurred is it's made the government a revolving band of war criminals that'll never get their day in court. International organizations can't touch them, America's made sure of that - so we're left with America cleaning up this mess and that's not happening either. That's a tragedy that's been happening for decades, and I'd be for Democratic presidents being charged if they did break international law. If Obama's done it and it can be proven, that was the right call. Justice has to start somewhere, we need solutions and it appears like the Democratic party would rather dig their heads in the sand rather than try to solve this situation.
There will be a moratorium of at least a fortnight before a similar thread will even be considered.