2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: The Circus Is In Full Swing

Users who are viewing this thread

In a democracy, especially with low corruption rates, it can seem superfluous,
but it protects a person from being forced or coerced into admitting guilt or answering questions designed to imply guilt.
Remember, language is a tricky business, that doesn't necessarily reflect objective truth - but that is a long discussion.
It stems from a time where torture was widespread, and you certainly want a law like this in less democratic countries...
 
Why on Earth does this law exist? .... What sort of society is that supposed to foster?
The right not to self-incriminate is an absolutely essential one if you value not living in a police state. Having the legal duty to self-incriminate would effectively cancel presumption of innocence and shift the burden of proof from the prosecution onto the defense.

Suppose "not talking" or giving false information as a suspect would be in itself a crime. The cops could just walk up to anyone and basically blackmail people into admitting things without any actual investigation or evidence. This would work especially well if the punishment for "not talking" or giving false information was disproportionate to the underlying crime. Say you do something that's punishable by 3 years, but lying about doing it is punishable by 20 years. As the defendant you're now facing a pretty lopsided and self-evidently malicious choice. People might start admitting to things they didn't even actually do, just to avoid the penalty for not talking.

Another argument is that not admitting to a crime is already an integral part of doing the crime. Criminalizing not admitting to it separately and on top of the actual crime would be like criminalizing running away from the crime scene on top of committing the crime itself. You may get extra points for surrendering peacefully, turning yourself in or pleading guilty (early enough in the process) and perhaps get a reduction of the default sentence, but not doing so should not carry an extra penalty.

I think the "making **** up" shows exactly how much power the court has. To interpret laws almost at random.
The 1966 case of "rights of suspects against self-incrimination" was decided 5-4. It could have gone either way, but is now so fundamental it's the first thing a person is told when arrested.

It also seems absurd that it requires a supreme court ruling to establish the "right to counsel" e.g.
Abortion is another absurdity. To my knowledge there are no recent amendments mentioning this. So 'ancient scriptures' - back when abortion was not a medical option - are interpreted by 9 people instead of the democratically elected politicians.
Yes, well this maybe nitpicking, but that doesn't make the US SC more powerful than its German, Italian or Czech counterparts. They all have these powers. The "only difference" is that the American political system is less flexible and America hasn't had a revolution since at least 1865, or possibly never even had one. Lots of civil rights in Europe came about as a result of a revolution or even several (most of continental Europe), a credible threat of one (UK). America wasn't devastated by two world wars, it avoided a dictatorship during the Great Depression. There wasn't really any massive systemic and institutional failure, where they would just start from a scratch with a fresh new ideology, consitution and lessons what to avoid in the future etc. America has always worked well enough to make a large part of its population think that no change is really needed.

On top of that, you can't underestimate the effect of American federalism. Your typical European country is a unitary state with one government that almost always also controls the legislature, so whatever it says, goes. The American constitution, on the other hand, gives the federal government a fairly limited playing field in the first place. Many things are simply not possible for the Congress or president to do without amending the constitution - e.g. gay marriage. The federal Congress has no jurisdiction over family law, it can't make a law that allows or prohibits gay marriage. It had to be the Court to state that the individual state laws violate an already existing federal right.
 
@DanAngleland, to add to what other people have said, American law language is often, on purpose, very confusing and convoluted. So there are ways you could incriminate yourself simply by saying the wrong thing and triggering a certain clause in the law even if you are substantially innocent.

I read a very interesting article some time ago that was comparing British to American law in that regard, where a single sentence in a British contract would basically say the same thing as an entire paragraph in an American contract. Unfortunately I can not for the life of me remember where that was.
 
Trump was more composed than 4 years ago, when he was just a hurricane who had nothing to prove or defend. Then it was freestyle of jabs, brags and insults. This time, he was the defending president and it felt more coached and rehearsed and thus less entertaining. Or maybe they just don't have the hateful chemistry that he had with Hillary.

He failed to break and distract Biden enough to make him look senile, although I'm pretty sure Biden forgot what one of the last questions was, but he manage to play it off.
 
Last edited:


It's scary to see Trump not condemning idiot militias with guns marching on protests and to see him basically say he won't accept the results unless he wins (explicitly saying the election is being rigged). The man is openly flirting with civil war.
 
Well surprisingly everything that I thought that would happen in this debate did. Biden would try not to argue with Trump much and he mostly stayed out of it. Trump would try to attack Hunter Biden which he did honestly the debate went how I expected.Biden mostly tried to talk Policy and kinda of exposed that Trump had no policy still expect a Biden Victory in the up coming election atleast in the popular vote. The main thing is that most people already decided who they are voting for.
 
It's scary to see Trump not condemning idiot militias with guns marching on protests
Ah, I see peace hasn't intensified in your country and city yet.
vh1YC.jpg
Aren't you on the wrong end of the Atlantic to be looking for entertainment?
Not much else to do anyway. I'll probably get a cabin or something in the woods upstate for the election day, because I have zero faith in my fellow "mostly peaceful" New Yorkers if Trump refuses to concede, or heaven forbid, wins.
 
Ah, I see peace hasn't intensified in your country and city yet.
vh1YC.jpg

Not much else to do anyway. I'll probably get a cabin or something in the woods upstate for the election day, because I have zero faith in my fellow "mostly peaceful" New Yorkers if Trump refuses to concede, or heaven forbid, wins.

I feel that you are grasping at straws here. Democrats have condemned violence in protests more than once, Trump has refused to condemn extreme right wing violence once. Anything else than a win for him will automatically be treated as fraud, and then all the "very fine people" such as Proud Boys will get the green light to "**** them up" (their words, not mine).

I am no fan of Biden, but Trump is acting like the villain from a dystopian scifi movie.
 
The Democratic powers that be in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, New York and possibly elsewhere actively pandered to BLM and their fellow travelers as the latter were burning those cities causing damage upwards of 1 billion dollars, innumerable assaults, and at least 5 murders that I can think of.

The militias are responsible for no property damage that I know if and between 0 and 1 murder, depending on how the investigation turns out.
Biden and everyone else can take their vague condemnations of abstract violence and shove it. They did nothing to prevent it, stop it and attacked everyone who called on them to do so.

Trump is better in this regard by only the tiniest of margins. What the ****, Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent them to desegregate a school, but mass-scale violence only warrants sanctimonious tweets.
 
The Democratic powers that be in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, New York and possibly elsewhere actively pandered to BLM and their fellow travelers as the latter were burning those cities causing damage upwards of 1 billion dollars, innumerable assaults, and at least 5 murders that I can think of.

The militias are responsible for no property damage that I know if and between 0 and 1 murder, depending on how the investigation turns out.
Biden and everyone else can take their vague condemnations of abstract violence and shove it. They did nothing to prevent it, stop it and attacked everyone who called on them to do so.

Trump is better in this regard by only the tiniest of margins. What the ****, Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent them to desegregate a school, but mass-scale violence only warrants sanctimonious tweets.

What is your source for this? Because everything I can find points to extreme right wing groups as a serious terrorist threat that is doing real damage, while left wing groups are not considered much of a threat.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...mists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa

https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=696015 (fun fact, this is an older study from 2009 stating that right wing groups could present a real danger, but luckily did not have an influential leader figure to rally around. Well guess what, now they have the president of the US on their side, of all people)


Interestingly enough this seems to be true worldwide, not just in the USA:


Meanwhile Biden and democrats have condemned openly Antifa and violence in riots multiple times:



Incidentally, BLM does not "burn cities", in fact they have condemned the violence themselves:


and there is even evidence of far right activists infiltrating the protests to start violence that can them be blamed on BLM


Let's be real please. There is no comparison to be made here, Trump's words are just not defensible.
 
@eddiemccandless
also, just yesterday


Ah, I see peace hasn't intensified in your country and city yet.
vh1YC.jpg


Ta6NH.jpg




at least 5 murders that I can think of.
between 0 and 1 murder, depending on how the investigation turns out.
this isn't a double standard at all lmao
 
Last edited:
Sounds like a case where people on each side decide to overlook issues because they don't fit their narrative.
Trump downplays white nationalists and won't even straight out condemn them,
while focussing on 'antifa' as the main driver behind the riots (it's debateable how much influence they really have).*
The left wing have been very complacent as riots erupted on a grand scale,
late to condemn it, and criticised efforts to increase law enforcement, that was clearly needed.
The narrative seemed to be that the violence was understandable and would de-escalate by itself - whereas further police/military would do the opposite. Sometimes protests turned violent caused by aggressive police and other times it was planned, as well as looting taking place when law enforcement was absent.
The Black Lives Matter movement supported the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone where a police station was abandoned and several people were shot before being 'closed down'.

*
FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional panel last Thursday that Antifa is more of an ideology or a movement than an organisation, comments that did not please Mr Trump.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom