If you're fighting the executive branch, then legality goes out the window and any outrage about punishment becomes moot, no? Expecting the system you intended to subvert/dismantle to save you is a bit of a weird ask.

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mulmen 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> If you're fighting the executive branch, then legality goes out the window

No it doesn’t. It’s enshrined in the constitution. The entire point of the United States is to be able to change the system. I’m struggling to imagine a worse take than this.

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godwinson__4-8 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not at all? To the American founders that would be a psychotic take that is completely at odds with the founding principles of this country.

Have you read about the Continental Congress? They thought pretty hard about these questions. They did not engage in insurrection (what would surely today be called "terrorism") against the crown lightly and without great consideration.

You should take the opportunity of the 250th anniversary to educate yourself as opposed to writing such comments. Nothing about your comment makes any sense in almost any legal context, in America or otherwise. How could something like laws of armed conflict even be comprehensible under your standard? Truly I am sad for the state of your mind that you wrote such a comment.

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BobbyJo an hour ago | parent [-]

I'm sorry, I meant in terms of discussion, not in terms of legal proceedings. Obviously these people were formally charged in a court of law on legal grounds and I assume had their constitutional rights afforded to them.

I meant more along the lines of "30 years for hiding a zine" being a weird take. It is logically inconsistent, IMO, to both want to fight a system, and want to be afforded its privileges.

	▲	godwinson__4-8 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I disagree if only because the clarification you make in your first two sentences doe not square with your last sentence. Why do we read people their rights or formally charge them? If someone has committed a crime is that not in some sense "fighting [the] system"? Why would then the same apparent contradiction you highlight in your last sentence not arise? Even in cases of extreme conflict, there is a certain base state of "rights" or "privileges" one wants to be afforded, and it is not contradictory of people to do so. See the laws of armed conflict. Even if someone is a complete psychopath and doesn't respect these laws, the law itself usually does not respond in kind. That is the nature of the law. If the law could allow for a situation where "legality goes out the window and any outrage about punishment becomes moot" then its no longer law. The only state this exists is one of anarchy. Far more likely in some situation would be the state tries to exercise some emergency power, itself sanctioned by law. In such an extreme case the contradiction no longer applies because the "privileges" have been legally suspended. However, now society has entered a dubious state re the nature of the law itself. Alternatively, take the Codes of Hammurabi. But then the proposed contradiction also does not apply. For in an eye for an eye there are far less afforded privileges to appeal to. A state of dubious legality was essentially the state of affairs that convinced the founders revolution was inevitable. But there was never - and is usually never - a state where "legality goes out the window". That is anarchy. Even if the founders had lost, surely they would have a right to be outraged if instead of simply being hung (as was the legal remedy for their acts at the time) the British soldiers had rioted and killed all of them and their families on sight. There is no contradiction here. It would not be a "weird take". Frankly if some among them were also outraged at being hung, I'm not sure that is a "weird take" either. It certainly doesn't strike me as "logically inconsistent". Its not like the "privileges" of life and liberty are granted by the government after all. If you believe in the principles as the founders did, those rights are given by a power beyond that of any terrestrial government. You may be deprived of them by such an entity, but it is not something the state gave you. Therefore once again, your proposed contradiction doesn't really make sense. I guess your position boils down to "if you do wrong against someone, you should have no expectations about your treatment in return"? But I don't think this is ever actually seriously considered as an ethical position when it comes to a people and their government. At least not since divine right and the like went out of fashion. At the end of the day, one can both transgress and be entitled to outrage about how the state acts in response. I fail to see how the alternative is anything less than barbarism.