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Gavin Newsom doesn’t want to remove Trump from California ballot
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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The constitution is a legal document that has over 200 years of being interpreted by courts. Legally, it says a lot of things that it doesn't explicitly say, and those things are the result of something called "arguments".
In my comment, my first words were "I would argue that". This is because I am making an argument that the constitution recommends Trump be removed from the ballot. You know, similar to how somebody made an argument that the constitution guarantees that people are allowed to marry between races, and so now that's what it says. But you can't point to the part where it explicitly says it.
If I meant, "the constitution explicitly states that", then I would have used that language, instead. You can tell that by the way I used that exact language in my second paragraph.
In court, they made the argument in court. Which is now what they’re doing… yes?
I could just as easily argue that it says dipping french fries in frosties is illegal…. doesn’t make me right. (Who am I kidding fries+frosties is awesome).
For better or worse, this is the process we’re stuck with.
My argument referenced the contents of several parts of the constitution, including two amendments. It referenced current practices by states as well as reasoning as to why not following the recommendation can have poor outcomes. In response to your comment, I even referenced the contents of existing case law.
Your "argument" lacks anything approaching an argument. Where's a reference to any part of the constitution? Where's any precedent? If you can make a similar constitutional argument about dipping french fries in frosties being illegal, feel free to do so. But you don't get any credit for simply claiming you can do it. I doubt you could make a coherent argument on french fries if you tried. Maybe not even if you were a law student, for example. But I'd bet a constitutional lawyer would be able to make an argument. But anyways, the point is that you didn't even try. You just claimed victory.
I feel like we've gone through the part where I disagreed with you. Then you reacted by misinterpreting my comment. Then, I explained everything, and now, we both know that there's nothing factually wrong with what I said, but you are still somehow trying to make new arguments. There's nothing to win here, and in fact, your last argument is quite low quality, trivial to refute.
My point is that I don't understand your motivation. It seems like you should just acknowledge that you understand what I mean, and we can all get on with life doing other things.
No, but, we’ve apparently got to the point, where you feel the need to insult my intelligence, while still ignoring the point.
The purpose of the frosty analogy is simple: it’s absurd for any one to make any argument- no matter how reasonable and then assert that that is how it is. The fact- which you keep glossing over- is that we have never faced this particular question before, and the constitution’s sole input is “congress gets to do it.”
There’s long precedent, of course, that ineligible people may be kept off the ballot… but there’s really no solid argument at all for insisting they must be kept off- indeed, precedent is against you here, in the 1918 matter of Victor Berger- whose conviction under the espionage act prompted the senate to call a special committee to enforce section three.
I don’t know that anyone tried to keep Berger off the ballot; but he was in fact, elected and unseated twice. The fact is, these cases are in entirely uncharted water, and we can argue all we want on the internet. But those arguments provide zero influence into how the courts will decide the matter- and for better or worse, it's the courts who will decide these things.
is trump ineligible? certainly. But the constitution itself provides no clarity in how the enforcement mechanism is supposed to work, and outside some rando commissioner in New Mexico that got outed from a state position, Berger is the last person to be held ineligible- and the only person who was not a confederate.
If you followed MN's ruling on the matter, the judge basically decided that there was no law nor state-constitutional clause prohibiting Trump from being nominated by the state's republican party. Because there is none. Every state is going to have to figure out that matter for themselves- and when (if?) trump wins in november; then it becomes a matter for congress.
I started off by letting everybody know I was making an argument. When you're making a legal-style argument, you try to convince people that it's true. So, you say things as if they're obviously true.
This is literally what lawyers do when they're making arguments. If it's "absurd", as you say, then our entire adversarial system is absurd. But this is the way things are actually done.
If I was doing something other than an argument, say, a legal analysis, I would use different language.
I actually tried fairly hard to make sure that my comment did not insult your intelligence, but focused on your argument. But I also said that you probably didn't have the knowledge of a constitutional scholar to actually make the argument. You might find that an insult, but it was part of my argument because you said it was something you were "easily" able to do. You were the one who brought up your own abilities ("I could just as easily argue that it says dipping french fries in frosties is illegal") as part of the argument. If you didn't want me to talk about them at all, then you either shouldn't have brought them up as part of the argument, or you should have done the thing that you said you could easily do.
I get the feeling, because you keep trying to bring up other things, that you feel that I'm somehow being off-topic. But then, you still keep arguing against those same points that I'm making, so that makes them on-topic. If you don't think they're worth arguing, then don't argue them. From my perspective, all that happened was that I brought up a valid argument, and you keep attacking it, which is fine. But all of those attacks lack merit, so I feel the need to defend it. If you'd stop attacking, or if you somehow proved your point (which I don't think is possible), then this thread would simply end.
(By the way, I want you to know that I don't believe in comment downvotes for anything except completely off-topic things like spam. I haven't been upvoting your replies, but I certainly haven't been downvoting them. I am actually impressed when I meet another person like me who argues, but doesn't downvote, which is what you're doing, as most of my comments have zero downvotes. So overall, I commend you for that. I'm sorry that other people are downvoting you.)