Under penalty of perjury, a witness told the FBI back in 2016 that they had “personally witnessed” President Donald Trump threaten to “disappear” a girl and have her entire family killed, according to a document released by the Justice Department on Friday.Released as part of the DOJ’s publication o...
Well, that understandable drive for retribution - which blinds us to principles of equality and justice - is exactly why we don’t let victims administer justice or mete out punishments.
“The law, in its infinite wisdom, prohibits both poor and rich alike from sleeping under bridges”.
I think you’re making my point.
France was talking about systemic inequality, and he’s right: Systems claim to be fair and equal but they still make systematic errors. So why would we add an irreversible punishment, plus a vague ‘elite’ category that invites political targeting and misclassification?
Because we’re only discussing applying it to those most likely to be able to tip the scales of justice in their favor. That’s exactly the point.
Again… To do that, you need to classify everyone accordingly as elite or not, which is subject to systematic error. Which is why we should just choose not to do it, since the death penalty is irreversible, and killing an innocent person runs counter to the way in which a liberal democracy chooses the values that structure its justice system - that is, that we prefer to run the risk that a guilty person go free to avoid, as much as possible, that an innocent person suffers.
If you prefer a justice system built on different fundamental values, maybe you prefer China, Russia or Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, China has dealt with elite corruption better than the West recently. Not a hard call.
So did Finland and Norway and not with the death penalty.
How have they? The Swedish royals involvement with Epstein comes to mind
I was referring to past treatment of elite financial crimes.
You’re right, we haven’t seen the fallout from the Epstein files yet. Not that I’m aware of.