[SNIP]
No, it's not clear. Constitutional disputes in the mid-19th century were ultimately resolved by extra-judicial means (i.e., the bloodiest war in American history). It would have been practically impossible to have trials for everyone engaged in rebellion (uniforms make it relatively easy to identify who did what). There's no such practical barrier for trying and convicting Donald Trump. The suddenly strong opinions people have on a relatively obscure clause in the 14th Amendment reminds me of how more or less the same activists from across the spectrum abruptly became vocal about stoves.
It sounds like what you're struggling to say was addressed in the reply to dirtywick in this same post.
My explanation of why your arguments about how other provisions of the Constitution are anti-democratic are not supportive of your argument regarding the mechanisms applying the insurrection provision of the 14th was not only quite a bit shorter, it was vastly more clear than your argument above. You assume that your overall argument was
so well constructed, that the only reason one could confuse the points you were throwing out as being related to each other is the reader not having your special boy understanding of the 14th (on dint of them not really knowing about it until it was cool to). The simpler explanation is that several readers were trying to connect things you wrote next to each other because you wrote them next to each other about the same general thing.
Your above response doesn't actually see the source of the confusion at all. You're welcome for clarifying for you that your statements weren't actually meant to support each other.
You're attempting to forge connections between claims that are not linked in an ironic bid for nonsense sophistry. It would seem pretty simple to maintain that prohibiting Trump is anti-democratic, but the right thing to do. I can understand why people want to eat their cake and have it too.
I explained they were not connected.
Why are you objecting to an argument you didn't make being called sophistry? Stop yelling at the clouds.
You're also papering over how people want him barred, which often seems to suggest "by any means necessary."
No, I am addressing your arguments and choices in writing. You reading into the motives of the people who disagree with your insistence on mechanisms that don't exist in the law (which includes many Republicans) is not really important to your points, the points people thought you were connecting, nor my writing.
The case against prohibiting Trump from running becomes substantially stronger if he's found guilty of insurrection through familiar public-facing legal channels (charged, tried, convicted) rather than a star chamber. If there had been a regular trial, then the public would have been prepared for the consequences well in advance of the election, as the media and activists would repeatedly point out that if Trump were found guilty, he could be prohibited from holding office.
This is in the 'no **** ought' category and it's becoming more clear why some have been misreading your writings. Several posters have tried to make the point to you that also in the 'no **** ought' category is that Trump engaged in insurrection. So on one 'ought' we have 'Trump should have been held accountable in the criminal justice system for his insurrection'. In another 'ought', we have 'Trump should be disqualified from office because of his insurrection'. The fact that you are arguing the mechanism of criminal trial is better than any other for getting to the second 'ought' doesn't actually speak to the second 'ought' nor to if that is
in legal fact what is required.
As for the analogy from jr. high death penalty debates -- what??
You're not arguing at a higher level than jr high school. 'But have you considered the Napoleonic legal tradition' and assumptions about how Americans consider the law and the Constitution aren't exactly advanced rhetoric.
We can think more broadly about crime and punishment. This canned response often assumes a retribution model of punishment. The most defensible argument for incarceration is to humanely protect the public. In the case of a well-publicized, competitive election, you have participation from the public itself. Abstracting the discussion away from the totems and tribalism of the current situation, we might imagine a state that imprisons someone because he committed a crime and poses a threat to the public. The public disagrees that the person is a threat, and petitions for the prisoner's release. In a well-functioning society, the public might have more trust in their institutions, deferring to the expertise of the people who staff them. Shady legal maneuvering further erodes trust in institutions, which makes it easier for elites to rationalize still greater levels of paternalism, and the cycle continues. Americans constantly want to read their own political views into the Constitution rather than engage in the hard work of democratic governance.
This is the navel gazing that passes for deeper analysis than jr. high? This makes it seem like you really
were making arguments you and I both said you were not.
This has been addressed already in terms of minority rights. You seem to be internalizing the Constitution in a distinctly American way. The horror of establishing an official religion is the type of argument that I expect would resonate with similarly provincial USians who eschew any kind of critical thinking or worldly knowledge. Northern European countries have official state churches, but are nevertheless high-functioning democracies with strong individual rights. Again, I'm inclined to blame the cult of the Constitution for discouraging socializing citizens into moral-political adulthood and resorting to "but the Constitution sez."
There is that special boy hubris again. No, it is not unknown that there are solid democracies that have state religions, and even royal families, among 'provincial USians'. Did you really think knowing that is an example of critical thinking or worldly knowledge? Utter tosh. You've just decided to actually drop the use of critical thinking in order to use the most banal 'American bad' insults while sidestepping what the examples I used was talking about.
In case you missed it from your special throne of 'not like the other Americans' and 'I knew about the 14th Amendment
before it was popular', the explicit point of those examples was that something could be
anti-democratic in trivial ways and
still be part of a well-functioning democracy. Why on earth would you think pointing out that something is an acceptable provision of the Constitution while
reducing democratic power be an argument that a well functioning democracy
couldn't exist without that provision? The entire point was that something could be anti-democratic in trivial ways and still be acceptable in democracy. It says nothing about the lack of it not being acceptable in a democracy.
But hey, you got out your trivia about Norway at least.
In terms of direct vs. representative democracy, the former can be problematic when only the few are able to participate while others are busy with life and work, so it's not really a rule by the people. This is one of the stronger objections to the US's primary system, which allows voters to select candidates directly. In almost every advanced democracy, the parties select their slate of candidates (and would almost never choose a figure like Donald Trump). Are those other countries "less democratic"? Not really. Participation in primaries is notoriously low, and the highly motivated voters tend to be unrepresentative of the electorate. There's the added challenge of gerrymandering, so the general election is often a farce. However, referendums with broad participation that are robustly debated can have even greater legitimacy than laws passed via representatives. I highlighted the 22nd Amendment because it's well-understood and has overwhelming buy-in even though it limits people's choices.
Yes, yes, and first-past-the-post voting leads to the domination by two parties, reducing the democratic power of the vote, and amount people have to work leaves them with less time to engage in the system to make informed choices, and a whole host of other issues in the US, none of which means our democratic republic isn't
really a democracy.
Like other parts of your post, this is not a model of clarity, and I'm too busy to parse it. Please do better.
Ironically this was pointing out a problem with your writing that you must be too busy to deal with too. To rephrase for your sooooo much better than 'provincial USian' understanding; your writing about how undemocratic baring anyone from being eligible from office for any reason
could be bad on principle is confusing and detracting from your objections on the specific mechanisms used to bar someone from office.
Even in this long post, you can't help but to take up the cause of attacking what you consider other deficiencies in American democracy, Constitution, and most of all the disdain you have for several different understandings Americans have of them
other than your objection to the 14th not requiring a criminal court mechanism to be implemented. If your main objection
were that the provision is anti-democratic, then it ultimately
doesn't matter what mechanism was used to implement it, for you'd object regardless. If your main objection is that not having the most robust criminal trial standard leads to other problems, that can be argued better without calling people stupid Cult of the Constitution worshiping Americans.
