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US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

cnn.com

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Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#521

Post by xp84 »

regularization wrote: post #488

Corruption means something legitimate is happening that can be corrupted. Maduro was president of a sovereign country. A bunch of kidnappers and murderers invaded the building he was in in Caracas, murdered everyone in the room, then kidnapped him and his wife. What's the "mission"? To pop up in some room and slaughter everyone in it, then kidnap his wife and him? In order to help steal the resources, billions of dol…

If you think Hamas, the Islamic Republic, and Maduro are/were peace-loving good guys, I have a bridge to sell you. Whatever you think about the US, anyone who isn’t drowning in propaganda must know that those guys are at best no better, and they don’t have even a facade of a justice system that people wronged by those governments can turn to for relief.

For instance, the moment the Gaza ceasefire allowed Hamas to continue to operate, we all witnessed them dragging their own citizens into the street and summarily executing them for supposed “collaboration.”

But regardless of your opinion of the relative morality of the various parties, the days of the civilized world just sitting around and allowing things like October 7th to happen with no consequences appear to be over.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#522

Post by freedomben »

ghtbircshotbe wrote: post #437

Many people here are talking about how more powerful people are also corrupt and are getting away with it. All corruption is bad. This soldier put the life of everyone on the mission in danger by doing this.

Thank you, this was my first thought as well. He essentially leaked classified mission info for the purpose of scoring some cash on it. Insider trading in congress is a big problem too, but there are some real differences here.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#523

Post by elzbardico »

He is small fish. Yes, he was wrong and need to be punished, but still, an small fish on the deep ocean of government inside trading.

If you rob 100.000, you will have a problem with the police and will be arrested. If you rob 1 billion, the police will have a problem if they try to arrest you.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#524

Post by oivey »

waterhouse wrote: post #469
Plasmoid wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are so many applicants that have good grades. A more cynical view is that the governing boards want a way to pick and choose who they let in. So they create "holistic" application systems to get "360 degree view of the candidate".

No matter how many have good grades, you can always pick the top n by grades—unless there's a ceiling that the top m > n have all hit. Which, if you're talking about "grades" as in GPA, is plausible. MCAT seems more relevant, though. According to Claude: "Roughly 0.1% or fewer of test-takers score a perfect 528 in any given year — typically only a few dozen individuals out of the ~120,000 or so who sit for the exam a…

At a certain point, grades become arbitrary and won’t necessarily select for the best candidates. Obviously the current system doesn’t, either.

The actual solution is to increase the number of slots for training doctors to match the huge number of qualified applicants. It makes even more sense given that there is a shortage of doctors and health care costs are astronomical.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#525

Post by kstrauser »

vlan0 wrote: post #401
Frieren wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only aristocrats can play that game. The soldier is being punished for doing something not allowed for his class status. This is how a caste system works. People is not judged based on their actions but their relationship to power.

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#526

Post by TheGRS »

Really disheartening to see this and it brings up so many thoughts and feelings I have over the current state of the US, politically, popularly, and how everyone is thinking about morality personally.

If this had happened during, say, the Osama bin Laden raid I think it would have been one of those "damaging the American psyche" stories that would have run for months with a giant trial and a lot of public shame. Trump coming onto the scene and his first term broke a lot of people's capacity for caring about those sorts of events.

Now we have an operation the public didn't ask for, initiated by people with no clear moral codes of their own and very unclear objectives, ones that we can largely assume are for their own personal gain as well, and all of that trickling down to blatantly illegal use of confidential data for personal gain by someone the public would typically respect. And I'm sure a subset of people will try to make this into a big story, but with everything else that's gone on recently I think it probably fades after a few days (except for the prosecutors involved of course).

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#529

Post by mcepl »

inetknght wrote: post #501
alberto467 wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately enforcing any laws on congressmen is very difficult. In all decent democracies elected politicians have immunity or similar safeguards, since the separation of powers (as theorized by Montesquieu in the middle of illuminism) which represents the foundation of democracy demands that both the legislative and executive power be separated from the judicial one. “Making the politicians pay for their crimes”…

What one theorycrafter says does not make it right; nobody should be above the law in a democracy. We should have no kings in a democracy.

You said SHOULD. Yes, I absolutely agree that politicians (and I very intentionally do not call any names) should be criminally punished most harshly for abusing their position for personal enrichment or for some other egoistical goals. On the other hand, these are the people we, as totality of all voters, chose for their function. The main punishment for a politician in democracy should be the threat of losing next elections, not criminal prosecution. And of course, per definition, in every democracy every politician has a majority of citizens, who considers him stupid and in the hysterical environment of the current political life (hysterical for many more or less good reasons) such politician is not only opponent, but an enemy if not a traitor. There is an unfortunate tendency to convert this adversarial feeling into full blown hate and accusations of criminal misconduct.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#530

Post by theptip »

ghtbircshotbe wrote: post #437

Many people here are talking about how more powerful people are also corrupt and are getting away with it. All corruption is bad. This soldier put the life of everyone on the mission in danger by doing this.

Both are true. No sympathy for this guy if he’s guilty as charged.

But also don’t forget that this guy’s trades are a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of the likely insider trading that’s visible in the Polymarket logs. (Eg on timing of Iran attacks, Trump tariff announcements, etc)

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