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Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

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491–500 of 996 posts

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'll be the one to stake out "influence within the Trump administration was highly unusual and doesn't reflect influence in more standard Republican or Democratic presidencies". I guess I wasn't aware this was controversial, but I feel I can support it with evidence.

When I go to a country to get a result, I don't say "hey wait a minute, you're quite a bit more extreme than prior leaders and a lot of your citizens don't want to associate with you at all!" I just go to the mixers and try to get as much influence as possible and I'm glad to hang out in those circles. Like I said, EFF and ACLU are a waste of our energy because they failed to do that. The White House has published a…

Yes, for this administration it's a manual. Did you read the list? Mobsters, corrupted politicians, etc..

The ACLU and EFF should also find a way to give Trump money / favors under the table to get pardons too in the name of the ends justify the means?

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#493
post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downside to this is people spend decades being ruled by people they didn’t have a chance to vote against.

But the Supreme Court doesn’t make the rules, it just interprets them. The rules are made by elected representatives.

Elected representatives get to try to make rules then the other side can chuck lawsuits at it for a decade trying to overturn it. The power to determine what rules are valid and how those rules are interpreted is a very powerful lever on how the country is run.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#495

No Assange, no Snowden. What a fool I am, I seriously envisaged that could happen... Instead it’s just more and more corruption.

The fact that all a POTUS does after presidency is enrich oneself, it's quite clear where the motives are. The moment when POTUS is unable to profit off of his presidency is the moment where these things wouldn't happen. POTUS becoming a multimillionaire after presidency is just a sad display of moral corruption. Edit: Not talking about Trump, just in general about POTUS. It's my impression that in the last 50 years…

If they get rich by selling books and speeches I have no problem with that, and am surprised by the number that do. People might not like that, but it isn't corruption.

If, on the other hand, a president makes his presidency about doing favours for the rich and powerful then he won't have to write books and speeches afterwards.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#496

No Assange, no Snowden. What a fool I am, I seriously envisaged that could happen... Instead it’s just more and more corruption.

I just wonder why. It seemed like pardoning Assange and Snowden could win him a huuuge bonus to popularity among people all over the world. Perhaps that was considered "too much" and could probably imply worse consequences so he hesitated to.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that Levandowski, Snowden, or Assange deserve pardons.

Why is that? Do you not believe in whistle blower protections or do you think that Snowden lied?

Snowden overdid it. He found illegal behavior in a spy agency, but he also exposed legitimate activity. Sure, NSA was spying on Angela Merkel and other allies. You might agree with Henry Stimson, that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail", but the reality is that countries spy on one another. Snowden might deserve whistleblower protection for some of his revelations, but not all of them.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#498

No Assange, no Snowden. What a fool I am, I seriously envisaged that could happen... Instead it’s just more and more corruption.

He pardoned a literal spy who was convicted of espionage of state secrets but he did not pardon Assange. Incredible.

I think people on the right and the left are perhaps skipping over just how much McConnell was manipulating the admin not just over the last four years, but esp since Jan 6th.

I am fairly confident that even if Trump had specifically wanted to pardon Assange or Snowden he could not have.

Edit: lol, this will have been the most successful lie by the media and GOP... getting people to believe the GOP and Trump were friends. They never wanted him. McConnnell picked Sessions and Barr both who did little for Trump. McConnnell picked the 3 Supreme Court justices, and the federal judges who when given the chance refused trumps election fraud cases, McConnnell dropped the mask the second it was clear Trump no longer had power. Ffs, they stuck him with Reince Preibus at first.

This is the thing I’ll never understand about GOP-Haters... not understanding Trump was fighting them too. Literally everyone had to pretend that wasn’t the case including Trump if he wanted to get anything done at all.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> winners of wars What do you think the global acceptance of capitalism is?

While there are temporary monopolies, great products win long term. Without capitalism we would live like monkeys in the forest. That would be an interesting life as well, but far not as interesting than what we have now.

Humans were living like monkeys in the forest prior to 1700?

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#500
post #382

I have to say there is quite a lot to learn from Levandowski.[0] I am not a fan of corruption but it's undeniable that he played whatever cards he had in life and played them hard. He'll probably be a shadowy billionaire quite soon. One quote stood out to me at the very end of the article: “The only thing that matters is the future,” he told me after the civil trial was settled. “I don’t even know why we study histor…

> "But what already happened doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to know that history to build on what they made. In technology, all that matters is tomorrow." To me this is a mind-numbing display of ignorance. Once you understand that you're not the first human being to ever have existed and that the people that came before you (even way before) are not dumber than you, you will immediately realize that there's a…

I don't think it's ignorant, it's just another framework of looking at the world. Consider a chessboard that's in the middle of a game. The moves up to that point don't matter. Only the current state of the board matters and you make the best move given the current position.

This is how this person sees technological progress, and I'm inclined to believe he's right... within the context of technology.

Beyond that, I do think history does matter for understanding how humans interact with each other and with our planet.

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