It’s generally understood in the ranks of government that if stonewalling and falsifying the evidence doesn’t work, and that if “sovereign immunity” isn’t enough to get a government employee off the hook, he or she can expect executive clemency. [More]The path to salvation, government-style.
[Via Mama Liberty]
I agree with the idea - but not the example. Libby was probably the first government official to be prosecuted with no predicate crime.
ReplyDeleteUnder that standard, there isn't a politician serving who is not eligible for a conviction.
Charge them with a bogus charge and then wait for a mis-statement. Instant conviction for lying to a federal prosecutor.
Putting Libby and Horiuchi in the same paragraph is obscene.
What you said, Anon. Yo.
ReplyDeletei don't really like the direction the article takes at the end. this has nothing to do with empathy. it's a series of simple economic calculations. libby made one when he thought he could get away with actions A, B and C.
ReplyDeletewhen you go to buy a new car, and the salesman asks you how much you would like to pay, your answer is zero dollars. wouldn't you want a free car? and, if he asks you what the hell you're talking about, why, wouldn't he prefer you pay several million dollars for that same car? he might reluctantly agree, having learned something. it might go over his head.
regardless, you just "know better" than to engage in this otherwise futile exercise, which is why you make an offer and don't just tell him the technically correct answer. in other words, you are informed, conditioned, to behave decently in what is assumed to be decent society -- for better or worse, of course. (it would be typical leftism here to attack this point and this point alone, not being versed in economics, crying "brainwashed!")
enter the politician. with the backing of a belief system, the false god of the state, he sees no reason to act like he knows better. he might not know better. under other circumstances, he'd probably be in prison, or wallowing in the dregs of society. in almost all circumstances, that's where he came from, anyways.
and so he makes ruthless economic choices, which by their nature are all the more simple to deconstruct, as they always seek the most technical of answers in the most cynical of fashions.
inside or outside of "power," you cannot escape the market.
It's my understanding that all Libby did was to be caught in a lie by a federal prosecuter. In that he never should have been in the room in the first place had less honorable men(?) manned up, but that's a foolish statement isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI agree with his premise, but not his example. Libby was railroaded as has been proven, even before his trial. Yet, because his memory wasn't perfect as to timeline, he was accused of lying to federal agents.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't one among us who could not be convicted by that process if enough questions were asked. Not a damn one.