President Joe Biden has something that he wants the public to know. After the discovery of highly classified material in Biden’s former office, his garage and library, the President wanted to make one thing (and only one thing) perfectly clear: “I have no regrets.”
It was a moment that rivaled his disastrous observation that, while classified material was found in his garage, it is a locked garage that also housed his beloved 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
While Biden’s “corvette standard” for storing classified documents was baffling, his declaration of “no regrets” is downright infuriating. It is also remarkably moronic with a special counsel in the field. Either the President believes that Special Counsel Robert K. Hur will paper over the entire affair or he is doing his best to force his hand with a criminal charge.
Biden was miffed to be even asked about the matter after stonewalling the press for days. He ventured out of his White House bunker to tour storm damage in California and used the victims as a virtual human shield: “You know what, quite frankly, bugs me is that we have a serious problem here we’re talking about. We’re talking about what’s going on. And the American people don’t quite understand why you don’t ask me questions about that.”
The problem is that recent polls show that, while the President has no regrets, the public overwhelmingly does. Most citizens view his conduct as negligent. Roughly two-thirds believe that Congress should investigate the President, including a majority of Democrats. Sixty percent believe that he acted inappropriately with classified material.
Nevertheless, after days of hunkering down with this aides and polls, Biden decided to stick with total and absolute denial of regret or responsibility. It was not a surprise for many of us who have following Biden and his family through the years.
I wrote at the start of this scandal that Biden’s “silence is hardly surprising. Biden has always been better at expressing revulsion than responsibility. Time and again, he has literally rushed before cameras to denounce others, often without basis, for alleged crimes. He has not waited for investigations, let alone trials.” When it has come to his own alleged misconduct, Biden will deflect, deny, but rarely declare responsibility.
The comments on Thursday were classic Biden. He first deflected by using the California victims. He then denied any real responsibility. Despite the appointment of a special counsel to investigate his conduct, he shrugged off the entire matter as something akin to finding a neighbor’s borrowed hammer from 2017 in his garage: “We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place. We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department …I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there there.”
Of course, there is also a special counsel “there.”
Indeed, it is never a good idea to go public with expressions of no regret when you are being investigated on whether you took classification laws seriously. The statement was right out of the Alex Baldwin School of Criminal Defense in claiming that the gun did it. Fortunately, the President is not (yet) saying that the Corvette did it.
Since the standard is gross mishandling of classified evidence, the last thing you want to do is convey a grossly negligent attitude toward the discovery of highly classified material in your various private spaces. The President even added that he is “looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.” That quick resolution is less likely when you are telling the special counsel that this is no big deal. That is precisely the type of attitude that leads to classified material being stored with your corvette.
It is hard to imagine how Biden’s legal and political team would come up with this as the best approach when the President finally broke his silence. There is a difference between denying and dismissing an alleged crime. As a criminal defense attorney, I would be mortified by a client publicly dismissing the seriousness of a potential crime while he is under investigation. For most defendants, it would constitute “bearding the lion” and prosecutors would not take kindly to the approach.
Of course, the President could be counting on his prior declaration that “no one f**ks with a Biden.” However, he may be saying the quiet part out loud and putting Hur in an early and uncomfortable position. There is a “there there.” It is classified evidence in places like a garage. By stating that this is likely to wrap up quickly, Biden is not only showing little appreciation for the seriousness of the alleged crime but the seriousness of the investigation. He is not only making Hur look like a stooge or cipher. He is making Baldwin look like a comparative genius.
A version of this column also appeared on Fox.com
Trump to Davos. A nations highest duty is to its citizens.
I think Mr Biden was misquoted. I believe he meant to say “I HAVE NO SHAME”.
I also would worry about further documents being distributed in multiple other places. Elderly, intermittently confused individuals have a tendency to squirrel away all sorts or personal documents, uncashed checks, out of date bills, unsent letters, unread letters, swords and knives and other objects in recently reconstructed walls and rooms. I would suggest that any rooms rebuilt in Joe’s homes that were renovated since 2009 should be gutted and searched. Only way to be sure.
I expect this musical outburst from Joe at his next press conference:
Why would he have any regrets? The big guy has been doing this kind of crap for nearly 50 years. He knows nothing is going to happen to him or his demon seed son. The man is a congenital liar. A d the apple didn’t fall to far from the tree.
“The big guy has been doing this kind of crap for nearly 50 years.” This is what frightens me; the fact that he has gotten away with this for 50 years and his reward for all this grifting is the most powerful position in the world. We are not going to make it as a nation if this sort of civic ignorance is allowed to continue.
Biden said “We found a handful of documents that were filed in the wrong place. We immediately turned them over to the [National] Archives and the Justice Department. We’re fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there there.””
I don’t think he’s saying that he has no regrets about the documents having been in his possession. I think he’s saying that he has no regrets about how it’s been handled since they were found, as that’s what the entire comment is about.
As for unforced errors in the classified documents investigations, Biden’s isn’t nearly as bad as Trump’s this week, where he claimed “When I was in the Oval Office, or elsewhere, & ‘papers’ were distributed to groups of people & me, they would often be in a striped paper folder with ‘Classified’ or ‘Confidential’ or another word on them. When the session was over, they would collect the paper(s), but not the folders, & I saved hundreds of them. … Remember, these were just ordinary, inexpensive folders with various words printed on them, but they were a ‘cool’ keepsake. Perhaps the Gestapo took some of these empty folders when they Raided Mar-a-Lago, & counted them as a document, which they are not.” To be clear: the FBI did find empty classified folders, and they identified them as empty classified folders, not as documents. The documents were all associated with page counts.
Between the two of them, Trump’s statement about purposefully keeping folders is a lot more problematic legally than Biden’s. Trump is also suggesting that he saw his staff take classified foldered documents out of their folders and fail to put them back, and he was fine with that, even thought it’s against policy for the treatment of classified docs.
I’m pretty certain that “no regrets” means “NO regrets”
So are you saying that he didn’t mean what he actually said?
I’m saying that he meant all of what he said, and we always have to understand people’s statements in context.
My concern is that he is not mentally competent to understand what he is saying.
Do you mean to say that ATS should stop taking people’s statements out of context. We really want to know.
Every federal agency has strict regulatory requirements for producing, handling and accounting for all classified documents including daily document control logs and inventory control. There is a chain of custody process that records who receive or transmit classified documents. Understandably POTUS doesn’t personally do that but his staff certainly would or should. What this speaks of for him, Trump, Clinton and others is an arrogant disregard for a well established process for protecting the nation’s secrets. All should be prosecuted for their reckless disregard for the law and more importantly for the impact such intentional careless behavior has on nation security. That careless attitude no doubts spreads throughout and leaves little wonder to how our national secrets are soon possessed by our enemies like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and others.
Anonymous: How it’s been handled since they were found is that they covered up the discovery until after the Nov. election, then lied about when “all” the documents were finally uncovered. If Biden has no regrets about the cover up, it’s because it achieved its goal and he knows nothing will happen to him anyway. You should choose your role models a little more carefully — this one is a congenital liar and crook.
Biden is not one of my role models. Both Biden and Trump f’d up. I have no problem in saying it about both of them. How about you?
President Trump did what every other President since Nixon, the event triggering the creation of the PRA. Trump is negotiating what is personal and what is Govt. EVERY administration has done this. Garland decided since he cant find any crimes he invented one.
This is nothing that hasn’t happened before.
What Trump did not do is scatter classified documents to the wind
What Trump did not do is accuse others of what he was doing himself.
There is no further information that we could get that would change the fact that Joe F’d up.
We do not have sufficient information to determine whether Trump F’d up and based on what we do know,
he is at worst far less culpable and probably even innocent of wrongdoing.
At worst Trump did what other presidents and VP’s have done.
At Best Biden did WORSE than other presidents and VP’s
Who is your role model? Donald Duck?
Dear American voters: “You get what you pay for.”
According to some Obama gave Biden or a vp the authority to declassify documents. At least what I read.
That either is, or isn’t. We will never know because no charges will ever be filed.
The debate centers on Plenary power exercised by President Trump. Once that is accepted, then the reality of a negotiation of documents retained by the President. Not a crime.
Ole Man, no that isn’t true. The VP can only declassify what HE classified, not any other classified material.
The VP can also declassify documents that were classified by people he supervised.
The Vice President does not supervise any people that have the power to classify. The Vice President has 2 enumerated powers. President of the Senate, and to count the EC votes
That’s false. The VP can delegate the authority to classify to people he supervises (see Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority, (a) and (c)):
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information
His enumerated powers are irrelevant to this. The President gave him the authority to classify and to delegate classification authority.
You never admit when you’re wrong, and you won’t admit this either. You’re too cowardly.
Aside from the ad-hominem you are correct.
The VP has no enumerated powers other than those Iowan mentioned. But the Obama EO still in effect delegates some authority to classify to the VP,
and the VP has the authority to delegate his own power to classifiy. I am not aware of any such actual delegation.
The VP has the power to declassify anything they or their delegates have classified. But nothing else.
There is an analog to the presidents powers regarding government records/personal property – but it is far more limited. That is because the VP has few enumerated constittuional powers and congress can regulate the VP inside the scope of his congressionally delegated powers and possibly outside his enumerated powers.
Where has anyone said That all the classified papers were classified by Biden? Nowhere.
You are now admitting what Trump claimed. You can’t seem to keep your arguments straight. You also need to recognize the differences between the President and the Vice President.
In Both the Biden and Trump cases we are still missing many details.
No one has said the papers were declassified or they were biden’s.
But it is in theory possible. Except that Biden is NOT claiming they were his, or that they were declassified.
Trump is claiming that.
Trump is claiming actual innocence – and if there is an attempt to prosecute DOJ will have to PROVE
The docs were not declassified.
Were not Trump’s
And some Post presidency Act of Trump’s rendered them insecure.
That must prove ALL of those.
Biden has claimed the docs were taken inadvertently.
He has admitted that they are not his, and that they are classified.
DOJ need not prove that.
For Biden proving that some post VP act of Biden’s rendered them insecure is trivial
They were not found in an ex-vp office or the associated SCIF – and Biden had those.
They were all found places they do not belong.
Biden is pretty close to SOL.
Why is this comparison occurring? Biden had no rights to the documents he had in his possession. He was lawless.
Trump’s case is vastly different and not comparable to Bidens’. Trump had tremendous rights and powers regarding the files. It is true that there is dispute as to how to interpret the laws, but that belongs in the courts.
Moreover the PRA doesn’t state how records of a former president should be turned over to the archivist. That matter is negotiated by the two. The PRA guarantees access for the former President to the records. Finally the PRA does not say that custody of records by a former President is unlawful.
How the President and Nara are supposed to deal with Presidential records is left murky and without penalties so this seems to be intentional.
ATS hopes to cause confusion because that is what he does. He lies and deceives.
What I am pointing out is that the probable best case scenario for Biden is worse than the probable worst case scenario for Biden.
If either are caught providing important classified docs to hostile foreign powers – that is the end for either of them.
That is highly unlikely with Trump. and not probable with Joe Biden. Though Hunter is a wild card.
If either recklessly allowed hostile foreign power access – that is the end of them.
Again highly unlikely with Trump. But far more likely with Biden.
Getting those off the table.
Biden was clearly far more reckless than Trump.
Getting to a scenatio where the documents are not classified or not government property is very easy with Trump.
It requires threading a difficult needle with Biden.
With most possible fact patterns it is probable the Trump docs are personal property and declassified.
With only a few possibilities is that true for Biden.
VP’s are NOT legally the same as other people – even ranking cabinet members. They have and retain more power outside congresses ability to regulate.
But they are an order of magnitude less empowered than presidents and ex-presidents.
“What I am pointing out is that the probable best case scenario for Biden is worse than the probable worst case scenario for Biden.”
I do not believe rational arguments exist against Trump unless the what-if scenario is used. That destroys everything.
On the other hand, Biden’s case fails every major test unless one looks to the extreme to justify Biden’s actions. The difference between th.e two should be black and white.
“Hunter is a wild card.”
If Hunter Biden is near Joe Biden, a security risk exists. Joe Biden, by himself and to a lesser extent, is a security risk. Trump will stretch the envelope but will not step outside of it, and that is proven.
“Biden was clearly far more reckless than Trump.”
Trump is not reckless. He is decisive. Biden is irresponsible, dumb, and a crook.
“It requires threading a difficult needle with Biden.”
Biden is clearly guilty, or we would already have justifications for his actions. However, I am sure the creation of new ‘justifications’ will happen. Morality and ethics don’t exist on the left.
With Both Trump and Biden we MUST engage in “what if”
There are too many variables that we can only probabalistically determine.
We still do not know what the Trump documents are:
There is a high probability that all or most of them are Collusion delusion related.
Snippets from the affadavit of probable cause and the warrant strongly imply that.
Those documents are INARGUABLY declassified – by Executive order TWICE.
We actually have more information on what the Biden documents likely are.
Foreign Policy docs related to china, ukraine, and Russia.
One of the more disturbing assertions I have heard recently – on a Megyn Kelley Interview of Glenn Greenwald was
BOTH agreeing that the MAL DOJ leaks came from GARLAND – not from FBI agents or DOJ attorney’s, and agreeing that all journalists know this.
That is really really really bad it true.
There is always a chance that someone can create an argument or bring up new facts that will make me change what I wrote above, but after significant time nothing exists to create such a need, so my conclusion stands. If you have something new or something you feel I underestimate, state it. I do not wish to play the picayune games of the left. A certain degree of finality must exist to move on.
“We still do not know what the Trump documents are:”
What likely document makes you want to disagree more with what I said?
You are free to beleive whatever you wish.
That does not make it either real or logical.
The future is always uncertain, the difference between doing better or worse, depends on the sum of the individual abilities to get the future close to right.
You are free to refuse to do so – then someone else will do it for you, and you will depend on their ability.
You are free to say that it is too hard or their are too many uncertainties.
Someone will still do it for you.
We will never get it perfect, but we may get it very wrong and that would be very bad.
“You are free to beleive …”
We agree, but what likely document makes you want to disagree more with what I said?
With respect to Trump and Biden predictions or comparisons – we have lots of unknowns.
But those unknowns have only limited possible values.
And there are finite number of probable arrangements.
Constructing the possibilities is logic.
Constructing the probabilities is more complex.
But necescary for good analysis.
“we have lots of unknowns.”
But based on the information at hand or information likely to be known later, what will make you want to disagree with what I said?
Well, WHERE are the “Journalists” out there ASKING Obama?? WHERE is Obama?? WHY hasn’t he come out and say that?? It’s because HE didn’t declassify, and Joe stole them. Wake up.
Joe knows there’s not much you can do to him.
They’ll cover things up and drag it out past the 5yrs statute of limitation.
Unless you can show a conspiracy… that’s it.
Of course there’s a conspiracy to obstruct, but no one ever gets charged because its the swamp and there’s a high bar to meet.
If you did, you’d see Clinton being charged along w Obama and Biden.
-G
The significance of this matter depends largely on the nature of the documents in question. Under the Espionage Act, there is a crime only if revelation of the documents could damage the national defence. Whether they are classified, and the level of classification, is irrelevant. So until there is a potential damage assessment, the existence of a crime is speculative.
That a special counsel was appointed suggests that preliminary analysis indicated to Garland that revelation of the documents could damage the national defence, but we don’t yet know that for sure. For this reason, from a criminal perspective, Biden may be right that there is no there there. And he may be saying that because, despite what has been revealed so far, he and/or his personal lawyers and/or his WH lawyers know what the documents contain.
This also applies to Trump, but with the significant difference that Trump may face an obstruction-type charge, even if there is no crime under the Espionage Act.
That a special counsel was appointed suggests that preliminary analysis indicated to Garland that revelation of the documents could damage the national defence
Nope. Just like the appointment of Mueller, we all know nothing is going to come of this. You are using the requirements for appointing a special counsel as spelled out the the legislation creating the special counsel. The DoJ is ignoring the legislation.
They may be ignoring the legislation, and they may be doing so for any number of reasons.
But in the end, how this proceeds will depend in the first instance on whether the documents contain such information that their revelation could damage the national defence.
If not, there is no criminal conduct, at least under the Espionage Act.
If so, then there is further legal analysis to be done regarding intent and gross negligence, among other things.
Further, even if there is probable cause that a crime was committed, it is virtually certain that Biden will not be indicted, either through the ordinary exercise of prosecutorial discretion or because of the DOJ’s policy of not indicting a sitting President.
At that point, the question will be what kind of report the Special Counsel will write to Garland and whether Garland will release it.
Finally, there will then be the question of what action Congress will take and whether Biden will be impeached — the documents were retained for nearly two years of Biden’s Presidency.
Like you, I suspect nothing will come of this. But there are a lot of steps on the way.
Trump’s papers were secured and protected by the Secret Service, Biden’s papers were in the possession of Hunter Biden in the garage and the Chinese at the Biden Center.
Trump had the right to declassify the papers, Biden didn’t.
Trump’s papers were known to the Archivist, Biden’s were squirreled away for 6 years unbeknownst to anyone other than Biden, Hunter and the CCP.
Now when the NY Times, Anonymous and Svelaz tell you that the two cases are different I suggest that they are right, Trump was not trying to shield some previous criminal activity from the authorities and the people. Trump was not getting paid off by the CCP through Hunter and Penn. Trump had the papers secured and possibly even declassified. Trump did not give Hunter Biden access to top secret documents.
The Secret Service doesn’t protect documents. They protect people.
Anonymous, don’t be a fool. The SS secures locations…don’t they? Are you saying that a SS secured location is the same as Biden’s garage? God, the length that some of you partisan hacks will to to defend a D is sickening.
Biden’s DE home — including his garage — is among the locations secured by the SS. But the SS still don’t protect documents. Someone that they don’t deem a threat to the people they’re protecting could have access to documents, and the SS wouldn’t do anything about it.
Pointing out facts is not being a “partisan hack.” Grow up. Learn to deal with facts.
He didn’t have SS in 2017 when he stole the Documents that he hid in his garage and 3 other places.
Former VPs receive protection for six months after they leave office, so Biden’s Secret Service protection ended in mid-2017.
Whether Biden “stole” the documents is currently unknown.
You keep claiming that Nara and the government own the documents. How could Biden have not stolen the documents? How many more times do you intend to contradict yourself?
Just because left wing nuts are idiots does not mean the rest of us must follow.
There are significant differences between Trump’s situation and Biden’s because VP’s and Ex-VP’s have less powers than Presidents and Ex-Presidents.
But it would in theory be possible for Biden to claim to have threaded the needle and have the same situation as Trump.
But for the fact that his docs are not in the Ex-VP office, or SCIF. but are mseared all over the place in unsecure locations.
Maybe Biden “stole” them. Maybe he did not.
But without any doubt in the world he MOVED them to insecure locations.
That violates 18 USC 793(f).
We should not make claims about Biden that may not prove true with further facts.
But the locations in which the docs were found inarguably required the law to be violated.
Anonymous – didn’t Hunter Biden claim to rent or own this house during the six years that Biden documents were somewhere floating around? If so, the house was not “secure.”
I don’t know whether he did or didn’t. It’s also irrelevant. As I pointed out: Someone that [the SS] don’t deem a threat to the people they’re protecting could have access to documents, and the SS wouldn’t do anything about it. That’s true for Biden’s docs and it’s also true for Trump’s docs. None of the locations where the Biden and Trump documents were found were SCIFs. None of them were properly secured with respect to documents.
“I don’t know whether he did or didn’t. “
Nor do you care because an honest debate is not your desire.
Biden clearly broke the rules, regulations, and laws.
Trump was President and followed precedent and the law. You wanted the law violated by using force and breaking into MAL instead of using the ethical and moral method of adjudicating the dispute in court.
What were the documents the left wanted back? Could they have been documents involving the Russia hoax and spying along with illegal activities by the FBI? Probably, but that is another starting point of the lack of ethics and morals seen from the left.
ATS, that is where you fail, ethics and morality. That is where your ideology fails as well.
Are you saying a person enters MAL saying I am not here to kill the ex-President, I am just here to steal documents, and they let him in?
Are you able to answer that question? No.
Protecting the ex-president requires protecting the space he is in.
When a president is in public on a publicly announced event – the SS checks every suspected looney within 1/2 mile of the route he will take, and every single place he could be assassinated along the route.
The SS protects the person in part by denying access to the space.
The SS has already confirmed they have logs of all visitors to Biden’s DE home during the time they provided coverage.
“Biden was miffed . . .” (JT)
I’m sure he is, and sincerely so. For decades, he’s been getting away with plagiarism, corruption, lying, and (now as “president”) with robbing the country blind. So he must be wondering: “What? Now you’re going after me? For this?”
We’re about to find out what kind of pit bull Jim Jordan really is.
Well Mr. Sniffer Whiffer has confidence if nothing else. The complete lack of self-awareness after 50 years in public service is astounding and reminds me of the old saying that “stupidity knows no bounds”. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
As outraged as the public is over Biden mishandling classified documents . . . just wait until we learn the subject matter of those papers!
What came to mind was that Rudy Giuliani may be taking some ‘comfort’
That sigh we heard when the first classified documents had been found adrift in Biden’s office closet . . . came from Mar Lago.
The broad scope of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant that allowed the FBI to scoop up all kinds of documents regardless of their relationship to the specific classified documents dispute is most disturbing when compared to how Biden is being treated. It seems likely that without the same kind of broad extensive search that the FBI unleashed on Trump, we will never learn about the true scope of the Biden influence peddling operation. It seems most likely that this is the reason why Biden’s lawyers were preemptively going through all these papers in advance of a Republican congress takeover where this entire matter will be under the microscope in the coming days.
For over a year, the DOJ treated Trump’s documents the same as they treated Biden’s documents, leaving it to Trump and his employees to search for them. In fact, the DOJ is still allowing Trump to employ people to search his premises other than MaL.
Kim the reason Garland is letting Biden do the searching is because there is evidence tying Hunter to Joe in all those boxes. Thats why lawyers, and not movers found the first documents. Republicans gaining control of the House power to investigate, scared Biden’s handlers wittless, knowing searches would find evidence of corruption.
As a sidebar, there is an email sent by Hunter on the laptop about a meeting at the Beach House, and the VP wants everyone to show up. The cash kickbacks to the Biden’s is why the focus stays on the documents, that are meaningless. At least they were for decades, until Obama and Biden weaponized the DoJ as political muscle, used to knee cap political adversaries.
Ken9350, I wouldn’t be surprised if the statute of limitations ran out the day before on what’s in Joe’s Ukraine and China documents.
Again, we have a twisted view of government and the roles and responsibilities of the officers who serve in that government! Why should, or would, a President or Vice President have access to sensitive and classified documents, much less take them to their office or home, especially after they have left office?
If we consider the word “president” we find the role and responsibility associated with a president, which is to preside as the person of authority, who ensures that the institution is properly assembled and functions properly in an orderly fashion, but the person who presides does not participate, and that is true of both the president and vice president who only preside over the executive and legislative departments, and in Adam’s words, the role is to make it possible for others to participate in an environment where collective decisions can be made governed by legislative processes to reach a majority consensus of ALL THE STATES as the Union, not to participate himself in those deliberations or decision making, and it’s even a lesser role for the President of the United States who doesn’t even have access to any aspect of the departments they preside over, only with the authority to “require (request) the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices”, and an opinion of the subject of their duties is not access to the details, or information, related to those specific duties.
The Vice President as the President of the Senate has more exposure to confidential information, as that information is discussed in their presence, but that too does not give them access to the documents themselves, and it’s the States as they are assembled in the Senate which determine what of those proceedings may be declassified and reported outside the Journal of the Senate.
I cannot believe we live in such a delusional and gullible society, where we will believe anything anyone says as long as they have a title deeming them an expert or a person of authority.
By the way, all executive departments are established and assembled by the States as they are assembled in the Senate to manage the general affairs of the government under their direction, which is established in Article 9 of the Articles of Confederation as the Purpose of the “Committee of the States” which is now embodied in the current Senate, the only difference is that they established (created) the office of the President of the United States to preside over the executive departments to allow the Senate to recess with the whole congress only to be called into session when matters for their consideration arise, meaning the President must always be continuously present in the Seat of Government, just as the “Committee of the States” sat in recess of the whole congress.
The President and Vice President preside, they do not participate, and they definitely don’t make policy or decisions! There are no individual leaders or lawmakers in a collective governing system, and all democratic and republican forms of government are collective governing systems!
Fed: I don’t get your point and am not sure there is one. The theoretical situations you describe in 18th century times are long gone. For better or worse we live in the 21st century and in a de facto political environment in which presidents are in charge of the executive branch. You can quibble with the original words, such as “preside” versus being in charge, but it’s a distiction withiout a difference. We kinda have to live in the age we’re in and for now, the POTUS is the boss, period!
The time in which we live doesn’t change the Articles of the Constitution of the United States which can only be changed by Article 5 of the Constitution of the United States, and cannot be changed by congressional statute or interpretations, and was rendered unalterable by the dependent nature on the constitutions of the States that are members of the Union.
If it’s not in the Constitution of the United States, we cannot justify doing it, so I ask, where and when did we amend the Constitution of the United States to grant, and otherwise empower, the President and Vice President of the United States.
I’m waiting!!,
federalistpapersrevisited: While I sympathize with your points, there is one glaring flaw: there are no “shoulds” in politics. The Constitution may say whatever, but the guy in office is getting away with violating the Constitution on a daily basis. And he knows it. He depends on a lengthy court process to undo what he unconstitutionally does, and in the meantime, he gets to proceed with his unconstitutional policies. “Shoulds” are for religion — politics is all about the power you can get away with.
Who’s fault is that? Ours!!! We are allowing the constitution to be circumvented and neutered, and we have such ignorance today about the Constitution, and our government in general, that this practice of individuals empowering themselves to perpetrate their malfeasance, is unacceptable and infuriates me! And we wonder why we have dysfunctional government!
“Who’s fault is that? Ours!!!”
FP, Ask yourself why that should be. A lack of morality and ethics. There is no way we can function if those things do not exist. The ATS’s will constantly appeal to the outlier, not to help the outlier but to use him for their own goals much like the Democrat Party used Blacks.
Helping the outlier is moral, using the outlier for your own purposes is immoral.
The argument is well made that many evils have been done in the name of religion.
The argument is well made that republicans are hypocrites, lie, seek power, and justify the means with the ends and all other manner of bad conduct.
But the 20th century shows that on net religion makes us much more not less moral.
That on net Republicans are less harmful than democrats, less hypocritical, less lying. less power grabbing. less authoritarian, less likely to justify the means by ends that are never achievable.
We should strive to do better than republicans, than religions. But the most consequential alternative is far worse.
Shoulds” are for religion — politics is all about the power you can get away with.
Except that the US Constitution was written for a “religious and moral people”, per John Adams.
Throw out religion and you get what we now have.
One of the foremost constitutional theorists of the founding generation, John Adams, observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”1 He wasn’t the only Founding Father to hold this view. Indeed, James Madison wrote that our Constitution requires “sufficient virtue among men for self-government,” otherwise, “nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another. 2
https://constitutionallaw.regent.edu/preserving-a-constitution-designed-for-a-moral-and-religious-people/
These observations are more than the beleifs of our founders steeped in their religions.
They are a requirement for self government.
It is not possible to have successful self government if the overwhelming majority of people do not have sufficient moral foundations.
I have cited repeatedly that GOVERNMENT IS FORCE.
And it is, But it is not possible to have sufficient force to govern a people who will not act morally without the threat of force.
We have laws against murder and we jail people who murder others.
But only a few people elect not to murder others solely because they will go to jail.
We need government, We need FORCE for the SMALL number of people who will not act morally but for the threat of force.
If that number is not very small – we can not be governed – sufficient force is not possible.
Morality is not something our founders believed was needed. It is something that is absolutely required for government.
I would note contra the left – this goes far beyond government.
We can not engage in free exchange without morality. If you can not trust McD’s to make a hamburger that will not kill you – society is not possible, free exchange is not possible.
These observations are more than the beleifs of our founders steeped in their religions.
These beliefs were foundational in the writings of Sam Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, et al. Abraham Lincoln repeatedly quoted the Bible before, during and after the Civil War, deferred to God as the Supreme Being of all, and reminded Americans time and again to turn to the ways of God as referenced in the Bible. To wit:
Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer
Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of March, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-97-appointing-day-national-humiliation-fasting-and-prayer
It is only in adversity that people come to their senses and often their knees. It is only in Pride that they turn to themselves as the center of the universe, which is where we are today.
To quote in 2005 from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), we live in a dictatorship of relativism, or as Jesuit Father John Courtney Murray SJ wrote in 1960, we no longer have a consensus as a nation because we turned our backs on natural law. If you are not familiar with Fr Murray, he is worth a read.
We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition
JOHN COURTNEY MURRAY, S.J.
SHEED AND WARD, 1960
https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/Murray/whtt_index
These beliefs were foundational in the writings of Sam Adams,
John Adams, not Sam Adams, though the latter does make a decent beer
😜
“. . . reminded Americans time and again to turn to the ways of God . . .”
And yet:
“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.” (Jefferson)
If you want to prostrate youself, that is your right. It is not, though, your right to misrepresent America as a country that demands prostration.
Sam, “turn to the ways of God “ is not a command to prostrate oneself. It is a rather bland term that can be interpreted with the use of two words, morality and ethics. You have both.
“Throw out religion and you get” the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the creation of America — the only country in history based on the concept of Individual Rights. It is no accident that America was the ideological child of the Enlightenment. It is also no accident that America was *not* created during the religion-dominated period of the Dark/Middle Ages.
Why do shills for religion always cherry-pick their quotes? There are countless quotes from the Founders defending reason and the individual’s mind, and denouncing the despotism of religion. Yet, somehow, those are conveniently ignored.
Why do you cherry pick ?
What are the great works of the Renasiance ?
Michelangelo’s, St Peters, the sistine chapel, David, Moses, Brunelleschi’s Dome, Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, Donatello’s David
Leonardo’s last supper.
“According to Locke, the existence of God is an instance of demonstrable knowledge in any reasoning being. Since I know intuitively that I exist as a thinking thing, and since nothing can be made to exist except by something else which both exists and has powers at least equal to those of each of its creations, it follows that from all eternity there must have existed an all-powerful cogitative being.”
René Descartes’ (1596-1650) “Proofs of God’s Existence”
Issac Newton spent more time on religious devotion and study than on science.
“Newton did not consider one to be sacred and the other secular, nor did Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, or Pascal—all practicing Christians. Only later Enlightenment philosophy produced a model of “warfare” between science and theology.”
I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.
Voltaire
Human beings are inherently religious. It is in our nature. Just look at how unbelievably religious modern unbeleivers are.
The left has eleveated CDC and WHO to religion, and Fauxi to a high preist.
Look at how incredibly religious CRT, Gender, Climate, pretty much all the BELEIFS of the left have become.
Humans are by far as religious today as ever. What is unique today is that the religions of the left are devoid of moral foundations.
“Human beings are inherently religious.”
So the concept “religion” is an innate idea? Good luck proving that one.
Find any culture before modern times that does not have religion in some form.
I would also suggest reviewing the work of Prof. Johnathan Haidt.
Regardless, this is not a controversial assertion.
To the extent any part of it is controversial – and even that is not, it is that the modern left has constructed a religion from its ideology.
Just to be clear I am not attacking or defending religion or religious beliefs.
Just noting that humans are inherently religious. Get rid of god – and we will find something else to worship.
The problem with the left is not that they are deeply religious, it is that they do not recognize that they are.
We are in the midst of a moment like the persecution of Galileo – where those claiming to be the intelectual elite, are completely at odds with the values and principles of science – again much like Galileo.
Get rid of god – and we will find something else to worship.
Saint Augustine of Hippo said that as well. Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued for the necessity of religion. John Locke held views due to his religious beliefs
I have stated a few times that I attended Jesuit schools. The Jesuits are a product of the Enlightenment period. Some of my all time heroes were formidable thinkers during the Enlightenment Period who forever changed the world:
St Ignatius of Loyola
St Teresa of Avila
St John of the Cross
St Tomas More
St John Fisher
St Alphonsus Liguori
Catholic priest Erasmus
Isaac Newton – deeply religious, brilliant scientist, mathematician, philosopher, etc
Rene Descartes – quintessential Renaissance Man: devout Catholic, mathematician, physicist, philosopher, logic, metaphysics, etc
Blaise Pascal – ditto
Immanuel Kant
….you get the picture
Those who thunder about the Age of Enlightenment disproving the existence of God and religion as being illogical or lacking reason rarely are enlightened, logical nor use intellectual arguments. They’re just run of the mill atheists and unpersuasive howling dogs seeking attention.
FIN
I have no problems with those who claim there is lots of global evil that has come from religion.
But as I posted before the 20th century proved two things.
Nothing is bloddier than socialism – and it is not even a close call.
What ever the evil of cultures and nations that were heavily religious,
those that claimed to disavow religion were far worse.
I would also note that free will and religion are close to inseparable.
And the historical evoltuion of free will – which to a large extent progressed through religion,
is the foundation of self government (and the enlightenment).
Finally – whether it is 20th century communists or the modern woke – the overwhelming majority of those who claim they are completely divorced from religion are among the most religious of all. Religion is not about theism. It is about faith. It is about belifs that can not be falsied.
For those on the left that means something different.
Beleif in God – can not be falsified. You can not prove there is no god.
Beleif in Catastrophic Glonal Warming – or masks, or vaccines – can not be falsified, beleivers will not face facts.
Religion is supposed to be the domain of things that actually can not be falsified – as opposed to the domain where beleivers refuse to face facts.
“. . .howling dogs seeking attention.”
Just can’t muzzle your malice, can you.
Bizzare response ?
While I have little malice against most of those I oppose – would it matter if I did ?
Is there a problem with malice towards those using 1984 as a howto manual ?
Am I supposed to be warm and fuzzy towards those bringing the cultural revolution to the US ?
Antifa rioted and blew up a police car in atlanta this week in retaliation for the death of a member who shot a GA state police office.
Must I wish lollipops and teddy bears for those in Antifa ?
Do you think it is wise to attack someone on a basis that even if true would be reasonable ?
I hate conduct not people. But that does not alter the fact that the conduct of many on the left has earned a great deal of justified hatred.
If humans are “inherently” religious, it would be impossible to find humans who aren’t religious. Non-religious humans exist; therefore humans aren’t inherently religious.
For that matter, find a religious person who was not taught to be religious.
Religious: ” relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity”
In your case the ultimate reality is leftism and for that cause you will lie and deceive.
“If humans are “inherently” religious, it would be impossible to find humans who aren’t religious.”
Straw man.
“Non-religious humans exist;”
Neither relevant nor proven.
Humans that do not beleive in God exist. That is not the same.
Free will is inherently human – some humans are slave today.
“therefore humans aren’t inherently religious.”
non-sequitur
“For that matter, find a religious person who was not taught to be religious.”
Obviously false. If humans have to be taught to be religious – why are any humans religious ?
Who taught the first human to be religious ?
You are realy bad at logic, and critical thinking.
So you have think past the first order ?
It’s not a straw man at all, nor was there a non sequitur.
inherent, adj., existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.
Religion, n., the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.
If you’re defining religion in some other way, you should state your definition.
Humans exist who do not believe in or worship “a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.” These humans are not religious. Religious belief clearly isn’t a permanent or essential attribute of humans, because plenty of humans exist who do not exhibit it.
“Who taught the first human to be religious ?”
How is that relevant to a claim made about current-day humans?
You are the one who is “realy bad at logic, and critical thinking.”
“It’s not a straw man at all, nor was there a non sequitur.”
Of course there were.
Typical pedantic word mangling of the left.
First – you know exactly what I mean, and unless you are a complete idiot you know I am correct.
There exists no nation, no culture, no group, few if any individuals that do not have SOMETHING they accept purely by faith.
“Religious, besides meaning “having to do with religion,” can also mean “acting as if something is a religion.” If you have never missed a broadcast of your favorite TV show for the last five years, then you’re religious about it.”
More correctly being relgious is accepting certain things by Faith rather than by proof.
People who beleive masks will protect them from Covid are acting on faith – not facts, the science does not support masks as effective against any respiratory virus.
Even those who trust experts, even int he rare occasion that experts are correct are acting on FAITH.
None of us have the time or ability to know everything about everything we need to in our life directly through personal knowledge.
We must ALWAYS have faith in something.
But I am talking about more than just faith that others have their facts correct.
in‧her‧ent /ɪnˈhɪərənt, -ˈher- $ -ˈhɪr-, -ˈher-/ ●○○ AWL adjective formal
a quality that is inherent in something is a natural part of it
“As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.”
― Steve Jobs
Did Jobs mean
There does not exist any human that is not good ?
Humans are inherently religious. It is an intrinsic part of humanity, it is a natural part, it is inseparable.
That does NOT mean that every single human in existance expresses that characteristic.
Humans are inherently bipedal – does that mean there are no humans without two legs ?
Quit being an ass. You are wrong, now go away.
“While I have little malice . . .”
My comment was not directed to you. If you’ll notice, the quote I copied is not yours.
You’ve now made it clear that you and I are using different definitions. A claim may simultaneously be true using definition X and false using definition Y. If we’re not going to agree on the definition, the rest of the exchange is pointless.
ATS, when one talks about the lack of punishment of Antifa and the outlandish punishment of J6s, what do you do? You equate the two by saying the penalty for both is equal. In other words, a J6 can go without bail and be jailed for five years, while for the same offense, Antifa can be tried and serve no time.
It is your unbalanced perception of the penalties and other things that various people face based on an ideology that has made you carry an albatross of insincerity.
I did not need to make it clear.
YOU are the one that chose to argue assuming a definition that OBVIOUSLY did not fit.
I made it clear even in my first post that I was not limiting religious to theism.
And even if I did not it was obvious by context. Humans are inherently religious – they are not inherently mono-theistic, or theistic.
I made it clear that modern leftism is for most a religion – yet it has no devine supreme being.
If you all you wish to do is play word games – you can make any statement false by using over broad, over narrow or alternate definitions.
Finally, while periodically posts here devolve into idiotic and precise debate over terms like exponential, no one here is writing a scientific paper or mathematical proof.
Posts here are about basic communication of ideas – usually about politics. While more precision is sometimes needed on issues where such precision is critical – such as law and caselaw. The vast majority of posts do not hinge on precise use of domain specific definitions.
Ultimately the purpose of language is to communicate. Definitions follow use – not the other way arround.
Orwell repeatedly pointed out the danger of trying to manipulate thinking and communications by manipulating the meaning of words.
Intentionally or not – that is what your argument sought. To crush the communications of a relevant and true idea, but gaming defintions.
You can not change the nature of humans by changing the defintiions of words.
The argument that religion is inherently responsible for much of the evil in the world was destroyed by the history of the 20th century.
The regimes most openly hostile to religion – the Nazi’s the Fascists, the Communists, the Socialists are responsible for the most massive bloodshed in global history.
“The regimes most openly hostile to religion …”
Notice that now you’re changing your definition. None of the regimes you list were hostile to having faith in things of their own choosing, though hostile to belief in god(s). You cannot even keep track of your own definition of religion. This is another reason why an exchange with you is pointless.
“You cannot even keep track of your own definition of religion.”
What “definition?” For him, religion is a thing-I-know-not-what, but everybody has it.
Sam, I took his statement that “being relgious is accepting certain things by Faith rather than by proof” as his definition. So his claim that religion is inherent in humans boils down to “all people accept some things on faith,” which is clearly moving the goalposts from your meaning and debate. I’m not going to follow him further down his chosen rabbit hole.
“. . . which is clearly moving the goalposts from your meaning and debate.”
Exactly!
His “definition” of “religion” is every ideology. And his “definition” of “faith” every method by which one comes to a conclusion. That, of course, guts the actual meaning of the concepts “religion,” “ideology” and “faith” — and destroys the very purpose of a definition.
That “rabbit hole” (which is a byzantine maze) is precisely why I also disengaged.
There is nothing ambiguous or unclear about my “definitions” – nor the fact that they are fundimentally accurate.
Please do nto misrepresent my argumnets. Regardless, you are trying to fit them into typical leftist claptrap that everything is an oppinion, and all oppinions are equally true and therefore you can disregard all oppinions but your own, and then self contradictorial elevate yours to truth without having to deal with contradictions – because you have disposed of all challenges as just oppinions.
Religion and ideology are NOT the same. All ideologies are not religion. But some are.
The domain of science is that of FACT,
The domain of religion is that of faith.
It is possible that the innateness of religion in humans is specifically because we will never be able to know everything. Everything is not knowable as a matter of fact. Ultimately a substantial part of human life falls into the domain of faith not fact.
The existance of religion of domains in which we can only work from faith is not evil. It is just how things are.
But all religions – all efforts to apply order and structure to the domain of faith are not inherently equal.
Just as science evolves, so has religion. However imperfect modern theistic religions maybe they demostrably have provided a foundation for workable societies and self govenrment that prior religions failed at. Conversely the modern religions of the left have failed to provide foundations for workable societies and self government.
The only part of this is controversial is YOUR unwillingness to grasp that the current religions of the left are not consequentially different from those of the left 75 years ago and has the same fundimental flaws.
Conservatism is arguably not an ideolgoy. It is the simple and obvious proposition that we should take great care before we disrupt what is flawed but working for change that we do not know will work.
Libertarainism is an actual ideology rooted in the foundation of free will. It is arguable that libertarians are religious – that they the primacy of free will and individual liberty is an article of faith. But libertarians are also dominated by logic, and their faith in individual liberty would collapse should their ideology not work in the real world. Utilitarians reach very nearly the same principles as libertarians without faith in anything.
Libertarianism is the foundations of the scottish enlightenment which has given us all the coundations of modern self govenrment.
As we constantly misuse the word democracy today we NEVER truly mean majoritarian democracy of the greeks. WE mean the libertarian conceptions of self govenrment as expressed by Locke and reflected in the declaration of independence.
That same libertarian scottish enlightenment has given us classical economics, the industrial revolution, modern self govenrment, and exponential impovements in the human condition never seen before in history.
If that is religion it is inarguably an excellent and beneficial one.
The other great modern ideological family is that rooted in equality rather than liberty. That covers the french revolution, numerous permutations of progressivism – both over a century ago, and today. socialism, communism, ….
If it strokes your ego to pretend that is not religion, it is still inarguable that it has been the most massive failure in human history.
Everything is not a religion. Everything is not ideology, all ideologies are not religions, all religions are not idelogies. Everything is not an oppinion, all oppinions are not equal, All religions are not evil. All religions are not good.
Some religions, some ideologies work. Some don’t. Yours doesn’t
“His “definition” of “religion” is every ideology.”
Nope, stick to what I have written. You are piss poor at trying to read minds.
“And his “definition” of “faith” every method by which one comes to a conclusion.”
Nope.
Religion is the domain of faith.
Science is the domain of fact.
Both err when they infringe on the domain of the other.
“That, of course, guts the actual meaning of the concepts “religion,” “ideology” and “faith” — and destroys the very purpose of a definition.”
The first dictionary was only a few hundred years ago. Definitions are an aide to communication, they are not a requirement.
Words are symbols that we use to communicate thoughts, ideas, facts, emotions – they are the most fundimental way we communicate.
The meaning of words comes from their use – what they communicate, not their definitions. Definitions reflect use they do not drive it.
“That “rabbit hole” (which is a byzantine maze) is precisely why I also disengaged.”
You disengaged because you were obviously wrong. And your arguments were disasterous.
Sam, deal with the definition of religion and the context of the statements. Many will consider a faith-based approach as religious. Meriam Webster defines religion: “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”
Take note of the word faith. You hold your belief in atheism with such ardor and faith it sounds like your religion. ATS does the same in his belief in leftism practicing it with ardor and faith. It is another type of religion held together based on faith.
The point is humans seem to gravitate to some type of faith and frequently do so with ardor neglecting things that might demonstrate their “religion” is based on faith.
Thomas Aquinas faced that problem. As brilliant a man as he was, he could not answer certain questions, so he pointed out that those required faith. There is nothing wrong with that, for sometimes we do not have answers, but our faith based on love leads us in the right direction.
Still palying word Games.
Absolutely Socialist regimes are “religious”. They are also openly hostile to religion. Both are true.
It is not MY defintion of religion that creates this apparent contradiction – it is THEIRS
I am not the one claiming they are hostile to religion – THEY are.
Socialist regimes are deeply religious while at the sametime claiming religion is the opiate for the masses and crushing competing religions.
I would further note you kake my point, as well as demonstrate that you knew exactly what I was saying with your own argument.
The fundmental differences between say the “crusaders” and the socialists, is that the crusaders admitted they were religious while they slaughtered people of other religions, and socialists while denying they are religious are able to murder far more people.
That is likely because theistic relgions strive towards moral principles based on those of actual humans, as well as slowly evolving a system of morality that works. The assorted modern atheistic religions like progreivism, climatism, intersctionalism, socialism try to create morality from ideology.
I doubt Adams conceived of the possiblity of creating religions from ideology in the way that the left has done. possibly the first historical precident we have for that is the french revolution – which was unbelievably bloody – again the results of trying to create morality from ideology.
free will is the fundimentally unique human trate. Actual morality and free will are inseparable, and are far more basic and intrinsic to humans than ideology.
Accept free will and human history reflects an evolutionary pattern that brings use to the scottish enlightenment, and the morality that Adam’s noted is required for self government.
Reject, or even ignore it and you can concoct whatever moral system you wish – but you will not be able to self govern.
You can disagree with my thesis. You can play games with words.
But you can not get arround the FACT that Adams is correct. Humans must have a common shared moral code that actually works or they can not govern themselves. Just any moral scheme will not work. One that is not near universally shared will not work.
Why ? Because while govenrnment is FORCE, it is inefiicent and ultimately impossible to have everyone adhere to a moral code by force.
In fact it only takes a small portion of people steadfastly refusing to comply with a moral code imposed by force for that government to fail.
“The domain of science is that of FACT,
“The domain of religion is that of faith.”
You wish to define them that way, but I do not. I say that the domain of science intersects with fact, but also includes things that aren’t fact (e.g., scientific conjectures, the scientific method), and doesn’t include other things that are fact (e.g., mathematical facts, historic facts). Likewise, the domain of religion intersects with faith, but also includes things that aren’t faith (e.g., ritual), and omits some things that are faith (e.g., faith in things that are not supernatural).
You and I are not going to agree, and I suggest that you stop pretending that your beliefs are the only legit approach to what is and is not religion.
You are confusing what is known fact with what is knowable.
We do not know lots of things about the universe.
That we do not know them does not mean that answers do not exist as well as ultimately an objective means to get to them.
One thread in the evolution of science has been the development of increasingly better tools for making abservations.
Ancient man was limited to science that could be determined bith the naked eye.
Today we can peer into the atom, and billions of light years into space.
Who knows what we will be able to know tomorow.
Scientific conjectures are NOT science, they ARE part of the scientific method.
A hypothesis is not accepted until evidence supports it,
and should better tools or other studies flasify the results – the hypothesis is rejected and revised.
As to your efforts to transform this into a non-binary – you are correct that the umbrella term for all things knowable including mathemtaics and logical is not science. Regardless, this is still binary.
On the side of religion – ritual is common in religion (it is also common in science).
Your tangent on supernatural is wrong and irrelevant.
When you beleive in something either without a factual foundation or in contradiction of facts – that is FAITH.
It is faith whether it is beleif in a devine being,
Or beleif that masks work against Covid despite the evidence.
As noted above – conjecture is PART of the scientific method.
There is nothing wrong with “experts” saying based on patterns and similarities X is probable or X may be effective.
It becomes faith when it turns into X is certain, or You MUST do X.
It becomes lunacy when evidence shows that X is no longer probable or that X is ineffective.
“You are confusing what is known fact with what is knowable.”
No, I’m not.
“Scientific conjectures are NOT science, they ARE part of the scientific method.”
The scientific method is part of science!!!! Science is a practice, not just a set of results.
“this is still binary.”
You already admitted that it isn’t, as “the umbrella term for all things knowable including mathemtaics and logical is not science.” Amazing that you admit this and then you falsely claim “this is still binary.” In comparing fact and faith, there are more than 2 fields involved. It’s not binary.
“When you beleive in something either without a factual foundation or in contradiction of facts – that is FAITH.”
But not all faith is religious faith. SCOTUS is quite clear about this in cases about free exercise. No matter how strongly someone has faith in a non-religious belief, SCOTUS isn’t going to say “oh, yeah, that counts as free exercise.” And that is what I am taking as religion: beliefs subject to the free exercise and establishment clauses, and your preferred definition isn’t better than mine. So stop insisting that yours is the only legit definition. Grow up. It’s ironic that you call me immature.
Your grasp of logic is abominable.
Wheels are part of a car – they are not cars.
Scientific Conjecture is a part of a process that often leads to the discovery of truth.
Conjecture itself is not truth.
If you make a hypothesis, and then refuse to ever test it – or having tested it and found it failed, refusing to reformulate your hypothesis – your conjecture is in the domain of faith, religion not science.
This is not difficult. There is no limit to the number of possible scientific conjuctures.
If scientific conjecture is science – as opposed to part of the process of finding provable truths – the process of science
then the conjecture that the earth is flat or the sun orbits the earth or that Christ is god, are all valid science.
Your thought processes are poluted by an ideology that is a logical disaster.
No I have not “admitted” what you are claiming.
You constantly try to convert this into a game of words rather than of meaning.
Science is a subset of knowledge. Math and logic are independent branches.
Yet, epistemology is the science of knowlege.
One definition of science is the systemizes study of knowledge,
that includes math and logic.
My POINT is that YOU are engaging in pedantic and childish word games.
Regardless, we are still dealing with a binary, and you are just being daft.
I would also suggest that you constrain your use of words.
You keep jumping arround without much thought presuming things are the same or that they are different without ever considering the ramifactions of your change in words.
The domain of faith is what is not knowable.
The domain of science is what is knowable.
The domain of fact is what is known.
ONE defintion of science is the pursuit of facts.
“But not all faith is religious faith.”
Because you say so ?
“SCOTUS is …”
What has SCOTUS got to do with this ?
SCOTUS decides the meaning of the law and constitution.
Anything SCOTUS determines is confined to that domain.
Frankly, I have minimal interest in “free excercise”.
Our founders made specific and clear reference to religion in the constitution – because ti was an area of conflict they had seen first hand and that has brought ruin on the west for hundreds of years.
Our liberties are not limited to the enumerated rights in the Bill of rights.
SCITUS does not have the power – nor do they claim to, toi decide what is and is not religion – outside the domain of the constitution.
“And that is what I am taking as religion:”
It is irrelevant what YOU are talking about.
You challenged a statement of mind, and you either knew damn well what I was talking about or you are a moron.
“beliefs subject to the free exercise and establishment clauses, and your preferred definition isn’t better than mine.”
Still going at this ass backwards. The meaning of words does not come from their defintions. Definitions though hopefuly come from the meaning of words.
“So stop insisting that yours is the only legit definition.”
I have not. What I have said is that Your efforts to mangle the meaning of what I have said by applying YOUR defintions it stupid and childish error – and likely you know that, which makes it all the more stupid and childish.
“Grow up. It’s ironic that you call me immature.”
No it is appropriate.
Read your own arguments – you are a walking contradiction.
You have litterally claimed “Your wrong, because I get to apply my prefered defintions to the words YOU used”.
Typical left wing nut. Everything is not an oppinion, all oppinons are not equal and yours is almost certainly the one that is wrong. – whatever the issue.
Grow up – learn something. Get out the self contradictory ideology of yours.
Read plato, read aristotle, read aquinas, read kant.
Read anything that gets you outside that disasterous idelogy of yours.
Far smarter people that you or I have being contemplating everything for thousands of years.
You did not just invent thinking yesterday.
“Wheels are part of a car – they are not cars.”
Duh. Your problem is that you’re asserting that scientific facts are the car, when they’re only part of the car.
“Conjecture itself is not truth.”
Duh. No one suggested it is.
“If scientific conjecture is science – as opposed to part of the process of finding provable truths – the process of science then the conjecture that the earth is flat or the sun orbits the earth or that Christ is god, are all valid science.”
The conjectures that the earth is flat and that the sun orbits the earth have both been disproved. For scientific conjectures that have been proved or disproved, science encompasses the proof/disproof along with the conjecture.
Not all conjectures are scientific (they may be mathematical conjectures, religious conjectures, historical conjectures, etc.). The conjecture that Christ is god is not a scientific conjecture.
“You are correct that religion is defined many different ways.”
And we are not going to make progress using different definitions.
““Wheels are part of a car – they are not cars.”
Duh. Your problem is that you’re asserting that scientific facts are the car, when they’re only part of the car.”
I have no idea what you are saying – I doubt you do either.
Regardless, rather than telling me what I am saying – try rereading what I actually said. There are so many misrepresentations in what you claim I am saying I have no clue how to correct it.
““Conjecture itself is not truth.”
Duh. No one suggested it is.”
That litterally was your argument.
““If scientific conjecture is science – as opposed to part of the process of finding provable truths – the process of science then the conjecture that the earth is flat or the sun orbits the earth or that Christ is god, are all valid science.”
The conjectures that the earth is flat and that the sun orbits the earth have both been disproved. For scientific conjectures that have been proved or disproved, science encompasses the proof/disproof along with the conjecture.”
Logic is clearly not your forte. Please reread what you wrote it is garbage.
A false conjecture is not science only until it is proven false.
A conjecture is not science whether true or false.
It is part of the scientific process whether True or false.
Again wheels are not cars.
Science is the domain of what is PROVABLE – not what is proven – though it includes that. Not what is disproven – though essentially it includes that too.
“Not all conjectures are scientific (they may be mathematical conjectures, religious conjectures, historical conjectures, etc.). ”
So ?
“The conjecture that Christ is god is not a scientific conjecture.”
Good, now WHY isn’t is a scientific conjecture ?
Explain that ONLY in terms of YOUR defintion of science.
I do not want to hear abotu Religion, or anything but science itself.
““You are correct that religion is defined many different ways.”
And we are not going to make progress using different definitions.”
Use the correct one for the context.
We are not infront of SCOTUS debating the 1st amendment.
It was self evident from my remark that I was using religious in the most generic sense.
I did not say humans are inherently catholic, or protestant or theists, or beleivers in supernatural.
Few words have only a single defintion and few dictionaries capture every possible meaning of every word.
Words are just symbols that we use to transmit information – meaning.
“That litterally was your argument.”
It isn’t. Which is why you cannot quote me saying anything like “Conjecture is truth.”
There are so many misrepresentations in what YOU claim I am saying, I am not going to waste my time correcting each of them.
“Use the correct one for the context.”
I AM. The context was set by the original exchange between Sam and Estovir, and both of THEM are using “religion” in my sense, not yours. Sam said as much. You have your ears closed.
“You and I are not going to agree, and I suggest that you stop pretending that your beliefs are the only legit approach to what is and is not religion.”
Typical left wing nut nonsense – everything is an opinion, all opinions are equal (except those we do not like).
Your dancing arround is the domain of epistemology – which you clearly are clueless about.
Much if not all of what you claim is opinion has been resolved – through facts, logic and reason.
Everything is not an opinion, and all opinions are not equal.
As I noted there is an entire field dealing with the science of knowledge.
I have no idea how old you are, but you are immature – which is common place for those on the left.
What wrapping yourself int he mantle of “science” you do not even know what science is.
You reject thousands of years of the development of our understanding of knowledge – using excuses like patrarchy or racism,
as if truth becomes falsehood because of who discovered it.
And you end up trying to recreate from scratch all at once what was worked out often 100’s or thousands of years ago.
“You and I are not going to agree, and I suggest that you stop pretending that your beliefs are the only legit approach to what is and is not religion.”
You and thousands of years of philosophy, epistemology and knowledge are not going to agree.
And you are the one chjosing to be the pedantic putz.
I stated correctly that humans are inherently religious, a position that fairly broadly accepted as true – One of many places you could look regarding that is the work of Johnathan Haidt regarding human foundational values/attributes.
Or maybe a paper from Nature is more up your alley
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1204-1241
Regardless, this is not a controversial assertion – except to those like you who wish to engage in pedantry rather that inquiry.
And YOU decided to start a debate over the meaning of religious.
YOU are the one trying to force everyone else to fit your beleifs – and quite stupidly I might add.
You are correct that religion is defined many different ways. In fact it is defined differently, even by the same person in different contexts.
Because we do not always mean exactly the same thing when we use the same word in different contexts.
You are sufficiently dense that you can not grasp that the purpose of words is to communicate.
It is irrelevant what words are used or that they have differetn meanings in different contexts – so long as we are able ot communicate.
I beleive that despite your pedantry you knew exactly what I meant when I said that humans are inherently religious – it is not like I am the only, or event that there are only thousands of scholars that have made that observation.
Fighting over the exact meaning of religion or science or faith – is a tangential distration from my point. Which remains correct.
Trying to silence me or claiming I am silencing you – because you wish to engage in pedantry over definitions – is just stupid.
If I failed to communicate my observation to most – because of my choice of words – I failed.
If I failed to communicate solely to you – you failed.
If I succeeded in communicating with you – and for sport you engaged in tangential word games – you failed dramatically.
What total shite. Do you really want to try to claim the enlightment was a reflection of some rise in atheism ?
You need not cherry pick our founders or enlightenment thinkers to find deeply held religious views.
You have to cherry pick to find those who do not.
Regardless the John Adam’s cite is about more than religion – is was about morality.
The modern left is incredibly religious – look at debate here – so much of what the left argues on pretty much anything rests on articles of faith, not fact. Whether it is the collusion delusion, or arctic polar bears – god forbid that facts get in the way of left wing nut beleifs.
I do nto think we have seen such religious fervor as we see in the modern left since Torquemada.
What Adam’s noted – correctly is that self govenrment is not possible without strong MORAL foundations.
Until the modern era our moral foundations came rightly or wrongly from religion.
Regardless, of where they come from they are a requirement for self government.
There is no amount of force possible to governmnt people solely through threat of force – that should be a tautology – self evident.
It is a requirement that not only do most people know wrong from right but that the nearly always act morally, or they are not governable.
The modern left is deeply religious but to the extent it has moral foundations – those are complete nonsense. They are a moral framework resting on subjective and variable identity rather than anything approaching objective truth. They are a moral framework where the ends justifies the means.
What total shite
A while back I posted a long list of scientists through the ages who, as you noted re: Newton, spent more time writing and studying religious truths than the physical sciences.
Here it is again. I would give my right arm to be a fraction of the genius of any of them
Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691. Said that a deeper understanding of science was a higher glorification of God. Defined elements, compounds, and mixtures. Discovered the first gas law – Boyle’s Law.
Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794. A Roman Catholic believer in the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. A founder of modern chemistry; discovered oxygen’s role in combustion and respiration; discovered that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen.
Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867. A devout member and elder of the Presbyterian Church. Discovered electromagnetic induction; discovered the first experimental link between light and magnetism; carried out the first room-temperature liquefaction of a gas.
James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879. An evangelical Protestant who learned the Bible by heart at age 14. Transformed our understanding of nature: his famous equations unified the forces of electricity and magnetism, indicating that light is an electromagnetic wave. His kinetic theory established that temperature is entirely dependent on the speeds of particles.
Gregor Mendel 1822 – 1884. A Roman Catholic Augustinian Monk and Abbot. Founded the science of genetics; identified many of the mathematical rules of heredity; identified recessive and dominant traits.
Arthur Compton 1892 – 1962. A deacon in the Baptist Church. Discovered that light can behave as a particle as well as a wave and coined the word photon to describe a particle of light.
Georges Lemaître 1894 – 1966. Roman Catholic priest. Discovered that space and the universe are expanding; discovered Hubble’s law; proposed the universe began with the explosion of a ‘primeval atom’ whose matter spread and evolved to form the galaxies and stars we observe today.
Isaac Newton 1643 to 1727.Passionate dissenting Protestant who spent more time on Bible study than math and physics. Profoundly changed our understanding of nature with his law of universal gravitation and his laws of motion; invented calculus; built the first ever reflecting telescope; showed sunlight is made of all the colors of the rainbow.
Charles Townes 1915 – 2015.A member of the United Church of Christ. Prayed daily. Wrote books linking science and religion; believed religion more important than science. Invented the laser and maser. Established that the Milky Way has a supermassive black hole at its center.
John Dalton 1766 – 1844.A faithful Quaker who lived modestly. Dalton’s Atomic Theory is the basis of chemistry; discovered Gay-Lussac’s Law relating temperature, volume, and pressure of gases; discovered the law of partial gas pressures.
Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855. A Lutheran Protestant who believed science revealed the immortal human soul and that there is complete unity between science and God. Gauss revolutionized number theory and invented the method of least squares and the fast Fourier transform. His profound contributions to the physical sciences include Gauss’s Law & Gauss’s Law for Magnetism.
Charles Barkla 1877 – 1944. A Methodist who believed science was part of his quest for God. Discovered that atoms have the same number of electrons as their atomic number and that X-rays emitted by excited atoms are ‘fingerprints’ for the atom.
George Washington Carver 1864 – 1943. A Protestant Evangelist and Bible class leader whose faith in Jesus was the mechanism through which he carried out his scientific work. Improved the agricultural economy of the USA by promoting nitrogen providing peanuts as an alternative crop to cotton to prevent soil depletion.
Ernest Walton 1903 – 1995. A devout Methodist, who said science was a way of knowing more about God. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics after he artificially split the atom and proved that E = mc2.
Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910. An Anglican who believed God spoke to her, calling her to her work. Transformed nursing into a respected, highly trained profession; used statistics to analyze wider health outcomes; advocated sanitary reforms largely credited with adding 20 years to life expectancy between 1871 and 1935.
J. J. Thomson 1856 – 1940. A practicing Anglican who prayed and read the Bible daily. Discovered the electron; invented one of the most powerful tools in analytical chemistry – the mass spectrometer; obtained the first evidence for isotopes of stable elements.
Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827. A Roman Catholic who declared that he had never wavered in his faith. Invented the electric battery; wrote the first electromotive series; isolated methane for the first time.
Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662. A Roman Catholic theologian. Pascal’s wager justifies belief in God. Devised Pascal’s triangle for the binomial coefficients and co-founded probability theory. Invented the hydraulic press and the mechanical calculator.
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) 1824 – 1907. An elder of the Free Church of Scotland. Codified the first two laws of thermodynamics, deduced the absolute zero of temperature is -273.15 °C. On the Kelvin scale, absolute zero is found at 0 kelvin. Invented the signaling equipment used in the first transatlantic telegraph via an undersea cable.
Charles Babbage 1791 – 1871. A Protestant devotee who devoted a chapter of his autobiography to a discussion of his faith. The father of the computer, invented the Analytical Engine, a Turing Complete computer in 1837 – the first general purpose computer.
Werner Heisenberg 1901 – 1976. A Lutheran with deep Christian convictions. One of the primary creators of quantum mechanics. Formulated the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Samuel Morse 1791 – 1872. A Calvinist with Unitarian sympathies who funded a lectureship considering the relation of the Bible to the Sciences. Took part in the invention of a single-wire telegraph and patented it. Developed the Morse code.
John Eccles 1903 – 1997. Christian and sometimes practicing Roman Catholic. Believed in a Divine Providence operating over and above the materialistic happenings of biological evolution. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the physiology of synapses
Francis Collins 1950 – present. Atheist turned devout Christian. Invented positional cloning. Took part in discovery of the genes for cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, and neurofibromatosis. Directed National Human Genome Research Institute for 15 years.
Anthony Fauci 1940 – present. A devout practicing Roman Catholic who credits his Jesuit formation in high school and college for his belief in God and the sciences, HIV researcher scientist, physician, advisor to many US Presidents, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of principal editors of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine
Estovir – I liked your list until you got to Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, the geniuses behind gain-of-function research. If you ever draft a devil’s list, please consider moving Collins an Fauci over there.
Estovir – I liked your list until you got to Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, the geniuses behind gain-of-function research. If you ever draft a devil’s list, please consider moving Collins an Fauci over there.
LOL. Im afraid my making a devil’s list will not persuade God given that I depend on His mercies to not eternally banish me to the fires of Hades. I will be in Purgatory a very long time. Dr Fauci has lost his way these past 3 years but his scientific research, scientific commentary and leadership have been top notch. I suspect the errors he made with AIDS back in the 1980s, prompted with meeting with dying AIDS patients and their advocates but only begrudgingly, forever haunted him. He realized he made a massive and deadly mistake about HIV and AIDS patients because he did. I think, though I may be wrong, that that period influenced his decision making re: COVID-19. I have never met him, (though I did meet Dr Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of HIV). I would really like to sit down with Dr Fauci and listen to his story on how he pivoted from being a harsh critic of HIV to one of being culpable as a cold, calculating clinician leader. I will always respect the man.
Gain-of-function research has been around for a very long time, as far back as the 1980s. Fauci and Collins were just beginning their medical careers back then. GOF has been debated over and over for decades. There are bad actors in all fields. They should not be the reason we reject scientific inquiry. If that were true we would reject politics, education, parents, etc because malignant players permeate every segment of society. Where ever people exist, bad actors potentially exist. St Augustine of Hippo explained it clearly.
Barton MK, Schedl TB, Kimble J. Gain-of-function mutations of fem-3, a sex-determination gene in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics. 1987 Jan;115(1):107-19. doi: 10.1093/genetics/115.1.107.
“A while back I posted a long list of scientists . . .”
And, yet again, that list proves nothing other than that some people hold contradictory ideas (i.e., they compartmentalize).
That list is also an attempt to validate religion via citing great authorities who believed in it (to some degree). And *that* is the most rudimentary fallacy: Appeal to Authority.
Your response is way off base.
YOU made an incredibly broad claim.
Estovir and I debunked it.
You can make all kinds or agruments about religion.
But there are several claim you make that do not hold up.
Until the modern era we have NEVER had any culture or nations that was not religious.
Human are innately religious.
You can debate whether that is good or evil – though the actual 20th century cultures and nations that were actively atheist are so incredibly bloody that despite all the bad that religion has done through the ages, the debate over whether it is net positive or not is over.
You make this stupid claim about Cherry picking – and then toss out Aristotle who while rejecting religious values openly challenges the religious nature of his own culture.
You confuce those arguing that some relgion is bad, with nonses that religion was not pervasive.
You do not know what an appeal to authority – a long list of counter examples to your claim is not an appeal to authority.
It is a rebutal.
I am not trying to validate religion.
I doubt Estovir is either.
I have made several claims.
Religion is innately human. You say “good luck proving that”. I have done so pretty effectively.
Look up proof by contradiction.
You seem to be personally incredibly hostile to relgion.
Though it is self evident that you have lost the debate over whether Religion is net positive as evidenced by the absolutely bloody disasters of our few examples of cultures or nations that were openly not religious.
The proof that religion is net positive is NOT a claim that religion is all good.
No one is running away from the many evils that religion has wrought in the past.
Your own antireligious fervor is iteself religious.
You do not care about facts – you take your antireligious views as an element of faith.
“Until the modern era our moral foundations came rightly or wrongly from religion.”
That is false.
See the ancient Greeks (especially Aristotle).
What was religion in Aristotle’s time? He was against anthropomorphizing divinities. Did he not call for a ministry of religion? Did he not believe that religious practices were useful?
“That is false.”
You have not proven your statement.
“You have not proven your statement.”
Read Aristotle’s _NE_ or a good secondary source.
With few exceptions those challenging you are merely seeking to proe YOUR broad statements wrong.
Your use of Aristotle refutes YOUR argument. ristotle challenged a country and culture that was permeated by religion.
I am sure that you could come up with a list of people through history as long as Estovir’s that were areligious.
But Estovir sould multiply his list by 100,000 – and you can not.
Humans and human history are inherently religious. The few people who were not do not alter that.
Sam,
“Read Aristotle’s _NE_ or a good secondary source.”
Why? Are you asking another to interpret Aristotle for you? I take note, you wish for a secondary source that is “good” which seems to mean, one that agrees with you.
John Say makes a better point without mentioning what Aristotle said. “Your use of Aristotle refutes YOUR argument. ristotle challenged a country and culture that was permeated by religion.”
Either argument says you have a lot to think about, and you have not provided any support for your contention.
“See the ancient Greeks (especially Aristotle).”
I am not particularly taking issue with you over Aristotle, but rather your point about religion and your earlier statements criticizing religion.
We all, face the question of what or who is the unmoved mover of Aristotle, Aquinas, and others. I believe you wish to hide behind ‘words of logic’, but those words do not point in your direction.
You do understand that Aristotle attacks on Greek religion PROVE the Greeks were religious ?
The claim that for nearly all of human history our moral foundations came from religion is something you really want to challenge ?
I am not saying that no atheists existed ever. But prior to the modern era there has been no culture or nation anywhere that has not been religious, and that did not derive its moral and ultimately legal values from religion.
Prior to the 20th century you could have tried to make the argument that religion is a net evil – there are myriads of historical examples of violence and bloodshed driven by religion.
But the Nazi’s Fascists, Marxists, Maoists – etc, easily demonstrated that the alternative to religion was far bloodier.
Though arguable all socialists are deeply religious, they are just not theists
“The modern left . . .”
You, and much of the West, are accepting a disastrous false dichotomy in ethics: Duty “versus” temptation.
My point was Factual. Your claim was nonsense.
I can not comment on your duty vs. temptation claim as it is tangential and you have made a vague claim – not a argument.
The FACT as I pointed out is that religion is inherent to human nature. The story of human existance is inextricably linked with religion.
Even the modern left that prides itself in being disconnected from religion is as religious as any christian or Muslim fundamentalist.
It is just not theist. You can make a religion from anything. The left is busy constructing an elaborate religion based on environmentalism, race, gender, ….
Anything that can not be falsified, anything that you must beleive as true rather than can prove as true is religion.
If “Anything that can not be falsified, anything that you must beleive as true rather than can prove as true is religion,” then you post a lot of religious comments.
If you beleive this to be true – then challenge me on the basis of Facts, logic, reason.
Make actually valid aguments for your positions.
Make actually valid arguments against mine.
Imagine if Trump had done this at Mar-A-Lago?
Obama started using federal govt agencies to punish his political adversaries. Biden has continued the practice.
There was never anything with Russia. NEVER
There is nothing with classified documents.
Biden and all the Democrats know all Administrations leave with classified documents, All of DC knows this. All of DC knows this is nothing but yet another ‘get Trump’ exercise. Nobody believes charges will be filed. That would trigger discovery. Discovery exposes the corruption.
I would bet JT up to $1.00 (1950 value) that nothing of national security importance is among the documents of Trump or Biden. We are driven into a tizzy by the bugaboo of “classification”.
@edward,
You would lose that bet.
did he or didn’t he declassify them when he was in office,
The more accurate question. Who has the power to override the Presidents assertion of declassification.
We already know that both Trump himself and Mark Meadows under oath walked back Trump’s claim to have declassified all of the Russia investigation documents, so the fact that he claims to have declassified them doesn’t mean that he actually declassified them.
If Trump is charged and wants to claim that he declassified all of the classified documents in his possession, he’ll have to do so under oath and face questioning about it. To be clear: if they’re all declassified, then the press can FOIA copies, which I suspect would make Trump unhappy, as I think he gets off on having access to things that others do not have access to.
If Trump is charged and wants to claim that he declassified all of the classified documents
I presented my question very specifically.
Who has the power to over ride the Presidents assertion?
Unless he says it under oath — and can be questioned along with possible witnesses — your question is legally irrelevant.
The burden of proof in a criminal trial will be on the prosecution.
Further a President can declassify something many ways.
SOME of those.
Removing the classified binders would be an expression of intent to declassify.
Striking the classified markings.
Giving a classified document to someone not cleared for it.
Ordering it moved to an insecure location while president.
Verbally ordering it declassified.
Ordering it declassified by EO or other written order.
These are a few of the many ways a document could be declassified by a president.
Those on the left are correct – it requires more than a thought – it requires an act.
But any act that expresses the intent to remove the classified protection of the document is sufficient.
I would note that almost every example above occured during the Trump presidency and is well documented.
Even the left wing nut press ran stories about it.
This issue with Biden and the classified material has become a major concern only because Biden’s pathological dislike for his predecessor made him eager to take him down yet again for a relatively petty offense. Now, Biden must live with the same consequences. I’m not sure how they will reach the end of this but I do have an idea of how it ends. At some point, as Learned Hand said, reason will eventually surface and when it does, the AG will acknowledge that our next presidential election cannot be decided by unelected lawyers and political appointees acting as special counsels. When Trump and his supporters tried to get the Supreme Court to intervene in election disputes, the Court wisely remained absent on the theory that the Constitution says the people, not the courts, are to decide who becomes POTUS. That was a wise decision (especially given the Bush v. Gore fiasco). That same thinking must prevail here. Those special counsels must complete their investigations, toss their yellow flags, and the AG must declare off-setting penalties against both sides and let us, that is, we, the people, get on with the management of our country.
If the elections are fraudulent, how can we the people have any say in how the country is managed?
Might as well preempt the but Trump. Trump has issues with his handling that have not been sorted out, did he or didn’t he declassify them when he was in office, but the documents were in a secure location. Biden had them in multiple unsecured locations. Was the raid on Trump simply to provide cover for the time Biden’s issues were exposed?
Trump’s unlocked office desk was not any more secure than Biden’s garage.
Ill bet Trumps unlocked desk was in a secured house.
No, MaL is not a secured house.
It certainly is and was very secure before Trump became President. What do you know about MAL?
It’s a 126 room private club limited to 500 members who each pay a large initiation fee and annual dues, each of whom can stay overnight at the club for a few weeks each year. The 1993 contract explicitly prohibits it from being a private residence.
Which Palm Beech had no problems ignoring while he was president.
Great! You told us what you knew about MAL and though not entirely correct, it proves you know nothing about MAL security. In other words you keep commenting about something you know nothing about.
The issue is security, something you don’t mention. Sections of Mar a Lago are walled off and are considered private quarters. You couldn’t get there even when he wasn’t President unless granted permission.
People entering the premises are signed in near the front door. All the members are known and have been screened. If it is a group that is not there on a regular basis a representative of the group identifies everyone. Such groups are limited in number. This all occurred before Trump was President. Since then it is more difficult to enter especially if the President is in residence.
The SS will not allow a president Vice President or Ex-President to live in a place that does not meet THEIR security standards.
I would further note that a SCIF and a secure presidential office is a requirement everywhere a president goes. Even when they travel abroad.
Trump is no longer President and no longer has a security clearance or a SCIF.
ATS, that doesn’t affect the documents Trump had when he left office. The security clearance deals with issues after Trump left office.
We discussed that before and now we are discussing the same thing again. Do you see why you lose credibility?
It is near certain that at the time the documents were ordered to be moved Trump was president.
That is what matters.
The SCIF at MAL has not changed since 2020. It is no less secure than it was when YOU were prepared to call it a SCIF.
If is not a Garage, it is not a closet in a private chinese funded think tank.
Keeping classified documents in a place they could legally be kept in 2020, is not suddenly a crime in 2021 without something besides the label changing.
Biden had a ex-VP office and a SCIF at his DE Home. We are hearing nothing about documents found there.
Maybe that is because there are none.
Maybe it is because Biden is getting kid glove treatment
Regardless, it would far less likely be a crime for an ex-VP to have classified documents in their ex-VP offices or in their SCIF.
Anonymous lies almost as well as Biden. Trump’s papers were in a secured safe, and the room they were in had upgraded security installed as per the advice given him by the FBI.
Some of Trump’s papers were in his desk in his office, not in a safe, not in a SCIF. Why don’t you know this?
In a locked desk in an official Ex-PResidents office, guarded by the Secret Service.
It is entirely possible that Biden docs are also in the Biden ex-VP office or SCIF.
Do one is or should be dealing with those – so long as Hunter Biden did not have the keys.
But there is the valid question of why the Biden docs were NOT in the ex-VP’s office or SCIF
Documents aren’t guarded by SS.
Shall we laugh now or after you leave the room?
Correct, but the places in which Presidents and ex-presidents live ARE.
The SS is responsible for the safety of the person, that requires assuring the security of the space.
I am pretty sure you can find a book in your elementary school library about “My job as a Secret Service Agent” for tweens, that will describe in sufficient detail the role of the secret service sufficient to dissuade you of your misperceptions.
Do you honestly think the SS allows random strangers to wonder arround Trumps residence however they please ?
The SS has already confirmed by the Way that they have logs of the visitors to ex-VP Biden’s home for the period in which they covered him.
They certainly have the same for Trump as ex-presidents security detail does not end until they die.
But they don’t have logs of who saw any documents during their visit.
Because they are not tasked with monitoring documents on the premises.
You seem to think that if someone has permission to visit the premises, they have permission to view the documents, when those are not linked.
No they do not have logs of who saw what. But agents were present whenever Trump or Biden met with others, and are not blind.
Further you may not know who DID see documents, but you know who could have.
People who did not visit – did not have access to classified docs – particularly at MAL where Trump’s residence is far more secure than Biden’s DE home.
People who did not enter the Presidential offices – did not have access to classified documents at MAL. People who visited who have clearances are substantially less consequential violations of the law – presuming they were provided access to actual classified documents.
I am sure that Trump’s visitors to his presidential offices will look far less like a problem than Whoever Hunter Biden had at Joe’s DE home.
The logs at MAL define the worst possible case exposure. Further it is likely that the Secret Service is by record or testimony able to establish not just who visited Trump resident, but the even smaller numbers who came to his presidential offices.
I doubt we have information on Who Hunter brought to the Garage.
Mar a Lago has two sections. The public areas are walled off from the private ones. Even ordinary people don’t have people wandering into their bedrooms and discussing business on the bed. People have designated areas, and Mar a Lago has that as well.
Not you, but others without the intellect of a frog think that people wander around all of MAL and that Trump keeps his papers in the public section. People cannot travel from public to private areas.
There is one room for press conferences and others that the public visits, including the restaurant, the bar, greeting areas, etc., but the flow doesn’t lead one into the private part of the mansion. These areas are all relatively close to the entrance.
MAL is as secure as any building can be that is in a residential area.
You know nothing about MAL yet you talk believing you are an expert. One has to laugh at your silliness.
44 U.S. Code § 2205 – EXCEPTIONS to RESTRICTED access
…(3) the Presidential records of a former President SHALL BE AVAILABLE to such former President or the former President’s designated representative.
This is guaranteed, unlimited access to Presidential Records under the Presidential Records Act.
You may want to consider this when you are excoriating Trump.
Do you think a Corvette substitutes for secret service protection? It sounds that way. Ex-Presidents have access to documents. Even Nara knows that. VP do not have such access.
Nothing to worry about. Hunter was there. Who needs Sercret Service people, fences, cameras, visitor logs, etc., when Hunter Biden Is On Guard!