Normally I wouldn’t mirror a whole post from another site. However, Scott Adams has closed his comments section, so it is no longer possible to discuss what he asserts in his latest essay. It is my hope that what he has to say will provoke discussion. Need I say, courteous , thoughtful, and robust discussion, both about Mr. Adams’ contention and about what other readers’ responses may be?
You will notice one main thesis presented and several embedded corollaries. I request that you take them on one at a time so they can be responded to one at a time. After you’ve read his essay, I’ll give you my own opinion regarding the situation and what ought to have occurred. You can take that on also, should you so desire.
My agenda here is to provide a forum for those who have something cogent to say about one of the most dismal situations ever to burden our increasingly diminished “exceptional” nation. In this discussion, I have no doubt we’ll stray into the OT weeds; there are simply too many assumptions present to avoid that effect for anyone who grabs hold of Benghazi.
Hillary Clinton has become our very own Heracleum mantegazzianum especially given the fact that from long before the shooting started and into the coming decades, the sequelae of that hogweed sap will wound all of us, including those who run away by refusing to think about it.
Perhaps the chosen image should have been a nuclear bomb? After some thought, the New York Stinging Hogweed seemed more apropos to sum up the numerous hairy impeccabilities of our former Secretary of State. Thus the immediate reaction and the long-term consequences are perhaps as injurious AS nuclear radiation. Anyone who has brushed, however inadvertently, a Giant Hogweed — ah, what an apt flower symbol for (to change the metaphor) FOR this dung-covered cash cow the Democrats have shoved at us. Anyone who has come within touching or smelling distance can verify the pain. Hogweed damage can take up to six years to heal; for some it causes permanent blindness.
[Edited with better information from Mark Spahn]
You have only to look at her frozen shell-shocked gofer, Huma Mahmood Abedin Weiner, to see what happens even to those devoted to this woman. Perhaps only someone raised as a true believer within the strictures of Islam would be so blind? The choices both women made when they picked their spouses (and stayed with them) is indicative of some deep folie à deux. The next generation of psychohistorians — those far and safely outside the confined consensus of academe — will have their work cut out for them with these two women.
Mr. Adams’ book is linked at the end of this essay. I recommend it in the best way I know how: I bought the Kindle version and found it unable to surrender all the information inside: some of the material (not just his cartoons) are in images I wasn’t able to enlarge. More modern versions of Kindle may have that function, but I stubbornly stick to the original Kindle, sans the annoying touch screen “improvements”.
[Sometimes Amazon and Wal-Mart seem to be offshoots of government: they offer what they want to sell, but not always what you want to buy. Since they haven’t completely taken over yet, one is able to access places like eBay to get the older or less “best-selling” versions of things you think you need. I was able to find an old (but unused) IBM large-screen monitor for the Baron when his old one gave out.]
At any rate, I bought Adams’ book again, this time as a used paperback; I promptly bought copies for my children, too, though I realize my enthusiasms and Road-to-Damascus paradigmatic shifts are not necessarily heritable. Darn. That’s a hard lesson for some of us parents… I always give with the idea they may pass it on to someone else who might find my book gifts more amenable to their own thinking.
Now, on to Mr. Adams’ essay. It is up to you to decide: (a) is this essay straightforward, or (b) is he being tongue-in-cheek [again, maybe?]; (c) are his “facts” correct or is he sneakily trying to trip you up?, and (d) in the case of (a) how would you refute his assertions?
The FBI, Credibility, and Government
The primary goal of government is its own credibility.
That notion needs some explaining.
Governments do many things, including building roads, providing social services, defending the homeland, and more. But no matter what the government is trying to accomplish, its macro-responsibility is to maintain its own credibility. Governments without credibility devolve into chaos. Credibility has to be job one.
Consider all the different government systems around the world, and all the different laws they created. The Chinese government is different from the United States government, which is different from Jordan’s government, which is different from Great Britain. But each of those governments is credible to its own people, and that’s the key. The specific laws and the specific forms of government don’t matter too much, so long as the public views its own local system as credible.
The notion of credibility is why my political preferences don’t align with either of the candidates for president. I look for credibility in government, not for my personal agreement with a particular policy.
For example, I think laws regarding abortion are most credible when they are agreeable to the majority of women, no matter what the majority of men think. Imagine an abortion-related law that was acceptable to 90% of men but only 10% of women. It wouldn’t be credible. Nor should it be.
I take this same thinking to how a president should fill Supreme Court openings. For maximum credibility, we should have eight justices instead of nine, equally divided by liberal versus conservative credentials. That way nothing gets through the Supreme Court unless one of the liberals or one of the conservatives switches sides. That’s how you get credibility. Compare that to a 5-4 court that always votes conservative or always votes liberal. With a biased court, every decision will lack credibility with half of the citizens. That’s a problem.
[From Dymphna: a sidetrack onto a brief history of the Supreme Court. It leaves out much of the real history, but this is enough for our purposes here to let you examine Mr. Adams’ assertion about the best number for Supreme Court justices. This is an example of what I mean by his tongue-in-cheek assertions vs. his desire to ascertain how persuasive he can be, even with a bad idea. As such, it serves as a good lead in to his next theme.]
This gets me to FBI Director James Comey’s decision to drop the case against Hillary Clinton for her e-mail security lapses. To the great puzzlement of everyone in America, and around the world, Comey announced two things:
1. Hillary Clinton is 100% guilty of crimes of negligence.
2. The FBI recommends dropping the case.
From a legal standpoint, that’s absurd. And that’s how the media seems to be reacting. The folks who support Clinton are sheepishly relieved and keeping their heads down. But the anti-Clinton people think the government is totally broken and the system is rigged. That’s an enormous credibility problem.
But what was the alternative?
The alternative was the head of the FBI deciding for the people of the United States who would be their next president. A criminal indictment against Clinton probably would have cost her the election.
[Aside from Dymphna. See if you can establish his missing middle term here.]
How credible would a future President Trump be if he won the election by the FBI’s actions instead of the vote of the public? That would be the worst case scenario even if you are a Trump supporter. The public would never accept the result as credible.
That was the choice for FBI Director Comey. He could either do his job by the letter of the law – and personally determine who would be the next president – or he could take a bullet in the chest for the good of the American public.
He took the bullet.
Thanks to Comey, the American voting public will get to decide how much they care about Clinton’s e-mail situation. And that means whoever gets elected president will have enough credibility to govern effectively.
Comey might have saved the country. He sacrificed his reputation and his career to keep the nation’s government credible.
It was the right decision.
Comey is a hero.
This is the first post by Mr. Adams in which he does not turn the last sentence into some play on words/ploy to buy his book. I wonder why?
- Does he consider what he has written here too shameful for including a link to his book?
- Was it simply a senior moment?
- Has he finally wearied of flogging the book?
- Since his book is mainly concerned with the art of persuasion, does he think this post doesn’t make that cut?
We’ll likely never know.
Here, as promised, is a link to Mr. Adams’ book on persuasion:
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life Paperback
As you can tell from the title — Failure and Winning — it’s difficult to know this is really a book about being/becoming persuasive. [One of the reasons we remain adamant about the strictures of our comments section is our basic belief that you never persuade anyone by cursing at them, calling names, or churlishly dismissing another’s ideas. Persuasion may not be your goal; your goal may simply be to vent. But at Gates of Vienna, there are no such easy way-in-way-out vent holes. At the very least, even if you don’t want to persuade anyone, you must keep a civil tongue in your head whilst on the premises. Cursing and name-calling are sure signs of infection via cultural degradation. No such spores will pass the portals here. Latin is permitted, though. And sometimes French, if you can carry it off cleverly — et si vous dites très brièvement.]
In my opinion, in this essay Mr. Adams has slyly attempted to make the case for the great forewarning in the mid-19th century, issued by de Tocqueville: he admonished us to watch with vigilance for the harm that would issue from THE TRYANNY OF MAJORITY RULE. If you agree with his assertions, then you believe in majority rule. I do not. Finding the “right” answer among many possible variants isn’t easy. But in this case, the thesis that convicting a criminal would be wrong because it would deprive Democrats of their current presidential candidate is easily gotten ’round: choose another candidate.
You have only to look at what would happen were the Republican candidate found guilty of so many felonies in a former government position: s/he would be hounded into jail forthwith. The fact that the Dems own the Iron Triangle is no excuse for double standards. Mr. Comey didn’t take the bullet — only God can judge him on why he did what he did. We can say with a fair amount of moral certainty that what he did was wrong. So wrong, that he too ought to step down. He may feel it is too dangerous. difficult, or futile to do so. By all that is just, he should leave and take Mrs. Clinton with him.
The many tyrannies developed and applied in the 19th and 20th centuries used a faux “tyranny of the majority” as a whip once they came into power. The “majority” they claimed to possess was often little more than a monstrously faux chimera for the exclusive use of those who controlled the mechanisms of state power: bureaucracies, media/social media, and in America’s case, the third arm of the Iron Triangle: Hollywood. (thank you,Bill Whittle).
Everywhere employed, this monstrous admixture of social shame, exclusion, threats of impoverishment, imprisonment or effective banishment (e.g., self-exile for safety’s sake) has proved mortally, murderously effective. One has only to look at the cancerous growth of socialism — of real true devout belief in Socialism, say here, in a book by one of its survivors Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, The Fallacy of Economic Equality, and other Optical Illusions of “Redistributive Justice”
Those who would seek to understand the energizing effects of Donald Trump’s campaign for President have only to look at our blinded populace. He is here because at this awful juncture in our history it may be that only a one-eyed man has any chance to lead us out of this Socialist Cave in which we sit, murmuring about shadows of former generations.
“Comey is a hero”.
Watching the whole spectacle over and over again, befuddled by his inconsistent announcement, re-playing his reactions during the Capitol Hill hearing, mulling over his responses, I have come to a conclusion that: yes, he is a decent man, he understands what his deeds are causing etc. etc. – yet doing what he is doing.
Mr. Adams, you may very well be onto something …
I watched Loretta Lynch testimony today, like everyone else didnt answer one question the Repubs asked, answered all the Dems some of which were another topic, the love fest between them is gagging.I love how they run or Pres or have high positions, when asked the answer always is, I dont have info on that, i dont have the answer to that, i wont make a characterization on someones actions. Shes a lawyer alright. I think Comey want to live and have a job. He got Bill off yrs ago, long connection. For Lynch to say Bil and her met socially about Grandchildren? Seriously? Supposedly her hsbnd and 2 attendants were there, i read once she and Bill met away from them, dont now about that but why cant they subpeona hsbnd? they dont believe her so why not him? My question is, since Bill hired her yrs ago, Killary is under investgation by her Dept, wouldnt you think mtg was a bad idea?
Rather cogent Mr. Adams, I never considered Mr. Comey’s actions in the light that you presented them in. With all the (expletive deleted) that he will endure for the rest of his life, he should be placed in the Patriot’s Hall of Fame. He did give it all for his country. I apologize for whatever I initially thought of him.
About Hillary…In some of the discussions I’ve seen on a few blogs, it has been suggested that instead of indicting Hillary, an easy out for the FBI would be to revoke her security clearance. Since not having security clearance and being president are mutually exclusive, this would effectively mean Hillary shouldn’t couldn’t run and would have to stand down. True, she wouldn’t face the possibility of a criminal trial and conviction, but at least we’d be rid of her and the Democratic Party would be freed to nominate someone who – if not perfect – at least isn’t our worst nightmare.
Unfortunately, good suggestions from the blogging community have little or no influence on government policy. Almost nobody in the Obama administration has the courage to do anything that could thwart Hillary’s ambition to rule. She is Wall Street’s chosen candidate, and all stops will be pulled out to ensure her victory. I get the distinct impression that Obama would just like to appoint Hillary the next president and dispense with the election if he thought he could get away with that.
Despite the 24/7 smear campaign against Trump, he might still might win this election anyway because the public is in a very rebellious mood (for good reasons). But I’m not all that convinced that Trump will be a good president. Then again, I’m convinced that Hillary will be worse. But it saddens me that in a nation of 230 million people, these are supposed to be the two best candidates who could be found.
[REDACTED]
See recent updated post on the rules for commenting here: https://gatesofvienna.net/2016/07/hey-we-keep-exalted-r-rated-company/
Either read the whole thing or simply scroll down to last rule in that post. It is there for the mental health of the admin at GoV, who have suffered through thousands of identically worded sentences. It amounts to a verbal tic by now.
I like that one: revoking (I kept typing “revolting – definitely a keyboard Freudian slip) her security clearance would raise a barrier too high even for a vaulting Clinton.
It’s like Deja vu before the fact of her ever sitting in the Oval Office – i.e., when Billy was disbarred and fined some 25-50,000.00 for perjury on his way out the door. The Dems and their obedient media puppies, splashing in the commode, toiled and roiled mightily to claim the opposition was a quagmire of puritanical wrath about Crooked Willie’s satyriasis, but it really did boil down to the plain ol’ Arkansasian reflex, i.e.- lyin’ like a rug. For which he had to pay once out of office. IIRC, it was the state of Arkansas itself that disbarred their own son. They knew him too well to let such sins pass unpaid.
Even though his disbarment period is over, he is permanently forbidden from ever arguing before the Supreme Court due to his felonious legal misdeeds.
What an amazing couple. And what they did spawn – or at least one of them did. A good case can be made that Chelsea is a cuckoo bird, put in the nest by Webb Hubbell, former mayor of Little Rock. Even with her much improved cosmetic surgery, Chelsea Clinton cannot erase the fact that she’s Webb’s girl…funny how much better a parent Bill appeared to be than did Hillary…it will be fascinating to see how the grandchildren play out the genetic dice they were dealt. Their own daddy has a great chin, so perhaps the DNA gods will be kind.
Remember “Slick” Willy “Winning” “Father of the Year”?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/13/bill-clinton-honored-father-year/
Well, fatherhood doesn’t necessarily involve whose sperm arrived first. Fatherhood is presence, real presence in a child’s life. Mommas (Hillary may be an exception) provide unconditional love. Daddies give a child spine and fortitude and grit.
I grew up without a father. In many ways it wasn’t his fault, given that *his* daddy, whose older son died of diptheria, told my father every day that the wrong son died…
…which means my grandfather, if he ever thought that far ahead, didnt give me the right to exist.
I do really believe in the message of Christianity, i.e, that love is possible, evil is reversible, and we *can* live freed from our past.
I am fortunate: my beloved Baron has helped me grow a spine. He cannot cure me, but he can provide the splints – an exoskeleton – that permit me to function. That in itself is a kind of miracle.
In return, for helping me learn how to simply BE, he has my undying gratitude. He is younger than I, healthier than I, from a boring, stable family. No drama, just life itsownself. Barring some accident, he will outlive me, another part of my gratitude for it is vital to have him hold my hand when I pass the portal to the other side.
That is what I mean by “undying” gratitude: it will remain with him when I am gone.
So, as to Crooked Willie’s “Father of the Year” award, given the political nature of such things,
maybe he deserved it. Maybe whatever love that child got was from him. He wouldn’t have done so well with a boy, but Chelsea was fortunate in that regard. I believe she’s a spoiled creature, but she could have been much, much worse. She is less like her mother than might otherwise have been the case.
Or, think of it this way: Hillary will never get “Mother of the Year”. Not even Comey can give her that. But like she gives a farthing…having a baby was merdly a step in her political career.
I have a lot of problems with his first sentence of the essay:
The primary role of government is its own credibility.
For now, I will confine my protestations to just one. The first sentence is a claim, and it does not appear factual on first impression, and I don’t believe he supported that claim. His explanation is that governments must maintain credibility in order to remain in power. However, if that’s the case, then the primary role of government is not really to maintain credibility but to maintain power. After all, there were governments who have existed and many still do exist who maintain power without maintaining credibility – unless Mr. Adams is referring to the credibility that it will use force if necessary to maintain its power – and that seems a circular argument.
Well said, sir.
I don’t think he supported the claim either. Or several of his other claims for that matter. However, as I said – or if I didn’t should have done – this may be tongue-in-cheek. Which is part of what makes it so interesting.
To see another example of this essay form, see this one, about a month old now:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for-president-of-the-united-states
The events of the last few days shine a slightly different light on these words. And in subsequent essays, he took Trump to task for letting Hillary get ahead of him in the persuasion game.
By the way, that post must have had at least 3,000 comments and the size kept growing in subsequent essays. So he aborted the whole comment idea…which was probably wise. I can only imagine what would have transpired in those sweaty places after the violence of the last few days…
On the Supreme Court: The problem with 8 justices (or 10, or 12) is that whenever there’s a tie, the case is determined by the lower court’s decision. In cases coming from the 9th Circuit – up till now the most-reversed Court in the country – that means that “unpopular” (i.e., un-Constitutional) decisions become law. (FDR tried to ‘pack’ the Court with 15 Justices.)
It’s hard to reconcile “The public would never accept the result [Trump] as credible” with all those People who voted for him. But Adams does make a good point in that Director Comey has effectively turned the case over to the largest jury ever: the voters.
A bit off-topic, but if you’re looking for a plant metaphor, the California Stinging Nettle
http://online.sfsu.edu/bholzman/courses/Fall%2003%20project/nettle.htm
is far outdone in nasty noxiousness by the Giant Hogweed
http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/39809.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/72556.html .
Nettles are one of my favorite plants, as they actually make a delicious soup that I enjoy every spring. It is one of the first edible wild plants you can eat in the spring. Strange but true. Tastes like a cross between asparagus and spinach, and is a Scandinavian favorite.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2137636/nettle-soup
Yes, and nettle has many curative properties that herbalists have used for centuries. There are many varieties that don’t sting. Hillary is not one of them. But I’ll be changing that image and editing text to show the giant hogweed; it is pestilent in N.Y. state.
It took a long time to find a use for kudzu, which is eating the South, especially near railroads where it was planted to prevent erosion. Now it appears to be helpful for cirrhosis of the liver, particularly that brought on by excessive use of alcohol.
Would that we could excise the harmful nature of Hillary Clinton, whose influence resembles this plant.
Scott Adams’ Argument:
If the FBI recommends indictment then Hillary probably won’t be the President. Therefore, the FBI should not recommend indictment.
Unstated premise:
Only the people should decide who will be the President.
No, the people only get to decide which of two candidates shall be president. This is a republic, not a direct democracy.
If one party puts up for consideration someone who is indicted for a criminal act, then it becomes that party’s responsibility to find another candidate who is not an indicted criminal.
Even the way the former Sec State was questioned is/was illegal.
The repercussions of all this government nonsense could spill over into federal court juries. The government may well find itself unable to get convictions for corruption cases and may have to exempt the vast majority of citizens from even serving on said juries.
I would like to add that in this day and age, what with government accumulation of private data on its own citizens, only favored groups of people will be considered for service with the exception of citizens who can be threatened with some past indiscretion in their file.
It is going to spill over into everything. THAT is Obama’s legacy. He wants Hillary in so much because her criminality will somewhat shadow his miserable mal-administration.
Dymphna, I’m in complete agreement with you on the democracy/republic distinction. I don’t actually believe the premise that “Only the people should decide who will be the President.”
I was looking solely at Scott Adams’ argument and then finding a missing premise that would support his conclusion.
I don’t think Scott Adams himself believes that argument either. He’s just using it to poke fun at those who really believe that if the people want Hillary they should get Hillary.
I am wondering, how would we know if Mr. Adams is being satirical? If I don’t know the context, that is, if I don’t know where the man is coming from with respect to his views, I am not able to say that he is being satirical. If a narrative is acknowledged to be preposterous to the point of being confounding or unbelievable, it could have been written as a satire. But it could have also been written by a complete idiot. Much of what we read in the opinions sections or even comments from the politicians, I regard as unbelievable. And I take it the speaker or writer of it to be unbelievably stupid. Therefore in this case, since I am not familiar with Mr. Adams, I cannot say whether it is satirical or just plain stupid.
That was one of my questions, as it is for the other post of us I linked to, in which he explained who he was endorsing for president and why.
The question is a good one, but either way, Adams’ essay is useful since his point is try to get us to think, to reason with ourselves and then to persuade others.
Satire, done well, is a good teaching instrument. One has to examine the first assertion- i.e, the function of government and then go on to see where else he slides by. For example, when he says if the majority of women are in favor of abortion, then it’s settled, or some such phrase. As if women got impregnated themselves (I realize some do just this, but that is not germane to his argument).
So in your eyes, there is being stupidly satirical or “just plain stupid”.
I am afraid a class in rhetoric might be wasted on you since you appear to be stuck in literal mode. That’s a shame.
The primary role of Govt (which Europe has forgotten) is external defence. The secondary role is internal order, not just “law & order” but the full range of infrastructure, regulation and systems to preserve public health and support the life choices of the population (employment, housing, schools etc). A Govt that achieves both objectives in a non-intrusive way will have all the credibility it needs.
When Scott Adams says that credibility is the primary role, he is talking from the perspective of a Govt (nearly all of them these days) that puts its own continued existence as the top priority.
Good lord. Where did you come up with the notion that government – via the few roles it was permitted in the Constitution – has the right to effect the “full range of infrastructure, regulation and systems to preserve public health and support the life choices of the population”. What an incredible socialist fantasy. One of those “life choices” that is unfortunately more common that most realize is pedophilia. Interesting to know you believe the government should support that.
Our government over-regulates and insinuates itself into our lives in an abusive and excessive manner that should have been stopped back when George Washington and thousands of troops attacked citizens who simply refused to pay tariffs on the product of their own labor, during the Whiskey Rebellion. It only got worse with Madison vs Marbury, Abraham Lincoln, Wilson and FDR.
Let me know when you get tired of a low-flow toilet which has to be flushed twice to empty, paying for the proper disposal of the mercury-laden compact fluorescent lights that cease working, or being told how and with what – and at what temperature – you may heat your home.
I must say, however, I am impressed that GoV actually has collectivists who comment here about their love of big government.
Of course we have “collectivists who comment here about their love of big government”. And we have their opposite, people whose sentiments align more with your own. I welcome points of view with which I disagree; they remind me of my own foundational beliefs.
The day we become an echo chamber is the day we lose our vitality.
Those &^#(*$ mercury lamps – our county administrator has no idea how to dispose of them. So they sit in a coffee can in the shed…meanwhile, Western innovation being what it is, LED has quickly shoved those poison curlicues into oblivion…for those of us paying attention anyway.
If only Marx had been right, and the government had truly withered away…we’d have one flush toilets back again in short order…btw, I read today that Bernie Sanders spent his honeymoon at Lenin’s Tomb…it’s beyond face palm to dumbstruck…
Government in employment, education, housing, and health has not been an improvement. It has proved to be a huge hindrance.
It was the DOJ which made the call, not the FBI. “Being a hero” would have been for Comey to buck the obvious pressure from the DOJ and reccomend charges brought and force his superiors to do the right thing.
The onus would be on the DOJ, and Hillary, after being shown for what she is….it would be her legacy, not the FBI nor the DOJ being pilloried. Adams has it wrong.
I reject this assertion in its entirety. First of all, the government’s #1 job is to faithfully perform the duties for which the citizenry voted and paid. In the past month alone 54 Americans have died at the hands of terrorists that this agency should be monitoring; they failed so spectacularly at job #1 that no words can paper that over their incompetence.
In the USA, Lady Justice wears a blindfold, at least that’s what I thought. Since Comey’s traitorous HRC decision he has destroyed the credibility of the ENTIRE federal justice department. The only credibility gained is within the incredibly corrupt democratic party apparatus.
Amen!
Thank you Jeff for capturing my thoughts exactly. Justice is blind. Or used to be.
Also, nothing would stop her from running as an indicted nominee, nor stop her from being president in an orange jumpsuit in Leavenworth, only congress could remove her through impeachment.
The fix was always in.
Hillary wasn’t put under oath.
The Feds made sure no recordings and transcripts were taken.
That’s a real in your face middle-finger to the American people.
Had anyone else did what Hillary did, they would have ended up in prison. Comey did what he did because the subject matter is esoteric and has never been adequately explained by the MSM, especially FoxNews so people didn’t have a real handle on the subject or the scope of it.
Anyone who has handled Secret or TS data can vouch for that.
A one time screw up will get you a letter, a second one, they may pull your clearance, you will get transferred out ASAP. A third, you don’t want to get. And that’s just with Secret level. Violations with TS and SAP would be very, very bad.
What Hillary had done is so beyond the pale that it’s up there with treason and would involve a lot of people going to prison as well. What she did was not just some simple mishandling or incompetence, it’s deliberate.
She had highly classified data repeatedly pulled from a secure network and physically transferred to unclassified system on the internet which probably sent it to her server for her perusal at a later date.
And someone stripped all the headers and cover sheet off the highly classified info so as to give Hillary plausible deniability later on.
But it gets better, once the classified data left the secure network, we have no idea what Hillary and company did with it. There is no tracking. She could have easily sold the data to any third party with the cash.
This gets as deliberate as can be. Comey knew from day one.
Adams should consider how much more damage Comey is doing by giving the perception that in terms of the law B does not always follow A, blatant & tangible in his very action, depending on who you are, what office you hold, who your husband is, what party you belong to, etc. So he very clearly harms the legal system’s credibility in order to protect the political / electoral system’s credibility. The US went down this road with the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. I don’t see how compromising one part of the state to protect another part is useful at all. Wouldn’t it just accelerate the decline? Plus rewarding the venality & lifelong corruption of a Democrat so she can continue compromising the system and potentially drag the US deeper into the swamp if she’s elected. Comey is a patriotic idiot, if he acted with this object in mind. He’s done more harm than good. I’m beginning to think America doesn’t deserve the probity of Trump, and his sober leadership, and the likely rescue of America from the worst president ever.
Rewarding venality and corruption has been a speciality of the Democrat Party since the days of Tammany Hall and their present-day incarnation in unions.
Comey simply confirmed the fact that the Rule of Law left the room – a long time ago, to be sure – but he made it plain that it no longer exists in this country. I won’t call the man a coward, if only because we don’t know what coercion was placed upon him, if any. But he certainly did not fulfill his duty.
The only thing I can say in his defense is that he did at least list the obvious and numerous felonious (subject to felony charges, at least) actions of which Hillary was guilty. And, as has been stated before, intent was not necessary for conviction of the offenses she was guilty of committing.
Mere citizens are not permitted to use the defense of no “intent” (mens rea) anymore, so why should she, even if the crimes she was guilty of allowed for the consideration of intent – which was actually proven by the way she moved the emails onto private servers, stripped headers, etc.
The fix was in, and Hillary most likely sent Bent Willie to speak to Lynch in order to give herself “plausible (right) deniability”.
Mr. Carter I have to take issue with deciding we deserve to suffer someone worse than Trump. I think he could be good for America, but I do tend to get a bit peeved at all the times I am told we deserve what we get for voting/not voting, protesting/not protesting, etc. when it is actually the manipulations and machinations of a relatively few elites in cooperation with the major media outlets who determine and shape what the rest of us – by FAR the majority, I believe – end up stuck with and having to suffer.
Between the lies, the ballot box stuffing with the dead and the illegal, the inflated counts of votes that were never even cast, the scum we elect to Congress who use the voting machines of their colleagues not even present in the room to cast THEIR choice of votes on legislation, the twisting and abuse of the Congressional rules to achieve their nasty agendas (like that incredible cockroach, Harry Reid) the majority of us have completely lost any control of the process that we might have had at one time in the distant past.
So, please, realize that it might not really be our own fault that things have gotten so far out of hand. The evil – and evil does indeed exist – have always been able to take a fair and honest game and warp it to suit their own desires. That is what happened with our government. Franklin warned us this could happen, and – thanks to Hamilton and his ilk – it happened when the ink dried on the signatures on the Constitution.
Pretty serious senior moment here. This is unbelievably bad.
If she were indicted, she would almost certainly have to drop out, would be forced out from the race, and another democrat would be put forward.
Mr. Comey would NOT be deciding who becomes next president. He would be effectively making a decision which eliminates Hillary from the race as the law requires.
Scott Adams’ position is subject to a simple reductio ad absurdum: by Scott Adams’ logic the Democrat or Republican pick should NEVER be indicted, because that would amount to ‘deciding who becomes president’. So even if Hillary or someone else were indictable for being a CHINESE SPY, or an ISIS MEMBER, she should not be indicted! Otherwise the opposing side would not be credible! Such nonsense I am facepalming here!
Thanks. I think you are doing what Scott Adams hoped we would do. To think throught to the absurdity of “consensus” minus law.
That is why I find his essays – short, written in plain language – to have real value.
It may be that his work won’t be appreciated in the current ambience of our cultural twilight. But eventually, eventually, he will be a sort of minor Swift – i.e., with even more “modest” proposals than Swift made.
The preparation of Irish babies (“To Serve Man”) for the delectation of the English aristocracy, as horrible as it would be, pales before the fact that our country no longer operates under the Rule of Law. With no rule of law – as we have seen – Planned Parenthood can deliberately kill viable newborn babies for the profit made from selling their tiny bodies, intact or in scalpel-separated pieces. Or from crushing the skulls of viable babies about to be born. Ask Holder’s wife, a doctor who is co-owner of an abortion clinic in the Atlanta area, IIRC.
Adams is very bright, certainly brighter than I, and it is my hope this is as you say, Dymphna – wicked satire written in such a way as to not allow his readers to immediately know his true opinion on the issue.
I have another problem with the sentence:
The primary goal of government is its own credibility.
Governments have no business pursuing or enhancing its own credibility. That is the business of a propagandist. Advertisement companies are in the business of credibility and they do it very well. We know credibility does not necessarily mean truthfulness. People, especially unthinking ones, are susceptible to manipulation in what they think and believe. The object of those seeking their own credibility is to cause their target audience to believe them. That can be achieved by manipulation and even outright lies. They only just have to be believable. A government whole primary goal is credibility is a government whose primary instrument for its continued existence is propaganda.
This has to be satire, there is no other explanation for this absurdity. Unless he truly believes that the role of law enforcement is to ensure the desire of the mob is more critical than the rights of all citizens to be secure in their freedom.
Our government is built on the premise of consent. We actively elect those who represent our interests and prevent the implementation of rules, dictates and legislation that is counter to our interests. When those representatives we select fail to meet our demands, we attempt to replace them with somebody who will.
This is the credibility of our government; routine and regular elections which allows the governed to exercise their consent. We do not have hereditary or divine right to rule, nor does any individual have a right to claim coronation.
Suggesting the Democrats may not have their desires fulfilled because the candidate they supported is a criminal and that may somehow diminish the credibility of the government, is just too XXXXXXX bad. This is the bed they made, they get to lay in it.
Comey’s obligation is to the Constitution, not a candidate, party, government or individual desire. He, like the presumptive candidate he cut a break for, violated the law. A criminal regime, regardless the charitable works they may do, is still a criminal enterprise.
I don’t have time to dismantle this sophistry in its entirety. If this were taken to its reasonable conclusion we would save a fortune on courts and judges for every beat cop would be a patriot by administering extrajudicial punishment, from collecting fines up to and including capital punishment, on the street corner. A representative democracy cannot not permit that. The FBI Director does not possess the prerogative to excuse high crimes, most especially as a political decision. Congress should move to remove him from office if any evidence surfaces that this proposed rationale was actually part of the decision. This is patriotism of the NorK variety.
Never read one of this feller’s books and, since I was raised to not reward fools, not likely to.
Mr. Adams essay is an effort to legitimize what is happening in this country: That the United States is getting away from the rule of law, and embracing the Rule of Elitism. This also falls in line with Obama’s statement in Poland that weapons should only be in the hands of elitists; Obama’s statement after the Dallas massacre that U.S. police should be federalized; and Merkel’s dictate that EU militaries hand over all power to Brussels. Then there’s the DOJ’s Lynch egging on protestors to taunt police and create more social anarchy. See the pattern?
Comey isn’t a hero. He’s a lackey following an agenda. And Adams is trying to intellectualize the matter. Try intellectualizing a civil war and blood in the streets, all to satiate an agenda by elitists. Hillary Clinton is a demented crook who should be in prison for life. Instead she might be President of the United States — for which Comey will be handsomely rewarded.
Comey is a longtime bad guy. Bush/Clinton protector. Prosecuted low-level offenders for much less than what Clinton did. Board member of the drug-money launderer HSBC.
Where is the Clinton Foundation investigation?
Too many complicit high-ups. Can’t tug on that thread.
Mr. Comey has effectively tossed the Rule of Law out on its ear. He has all but stated with his (the DoJ’s, really) decision that the Law applies not to everyone equally but only to those unfortunate enough to be lacking in proper influence. Clearly, someone in the Clinton/Obama camp got to him through a suggestion of an impending “accident”, much like the numerous people who have crossed the Clintons through the years. “Nice little family/career/lifestyle (take your pick) you’ve got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to them/it/you.”
I am not the first, nor will I be the last to state the simple equivalence:
Director Comey and Hillary = Chief Justice Roberts and Obamacare.
Never mind the iceberg, the deck chairs are sliding!
There are about 4 commentators who used the argument more-or-less that I will use.
This is not a democracy,enshrining votes by the majority. This is a constitutional republic, granting derivative powers to the government as run by elected representatives and as empowered and limited by the constitution.
One of the primary complaints of true conservatives is that the Supreme Court writes its own law, rather than guard the limitations and separation of government according to the written constitution. Once you can write your own laws according to what you think is best, rather than according to a legitimate law which you may not agree with, you have effective dictatorship, or autocracy. There are no constraints on government.
Going back to the case of indicting Hillary, a legitimate elected Congress has passed constitutional laws defining and punishing espionage and misuse of classified data. Do we want the prosecutor,or investigator, to decide on his own: “To act according to this law will cause great inconvenience to the population and damage the current process of nomination and election. Therefore, on my own wishes, I choose to nullify the law”.
If we approve of this reasoning, there is no reason to prefer Supreme Court justices who are constitutionalists. The law is interpreted and enforced out of convenience, rather than taken on its own terms. Legislatures are under no obligation to be rational or objective, as they know their laws will be interpreted and enforced according to the preference of the prosecutors and the administration.
Actually, booting Hillary off the ticket would probably improve the chances of a Democratic President being elected. Biden would probably step in. Biden has not gone through the vetting of a campaign, and his negatives are probably far lower than Trumps, whatever the reality of Trumps’ character versus Bidens’ character.
But, in the bedrock interpretation of the law, we should not consider it legitimate to enforce or not enforce a law because we don’t like the outcome. If the law is bad, you have to live with the consequences, take legal steps to remedy it, and change the law. The process is what gives our government its stability and legitimacy. Once you take away the power of the law, you have only guns and soldiers to maintain a government, and the government is hostage to whoever can collect the biggest army and most powerful weapons.
I’ve always wondered why Supreme Court justices are appointed by a President who is an elected official with an obvious agenda. Therefore, the SC appointee will have that same agenda and will carry forward the President’s wishes. Nothing new here, obviously. But this is one more crack in the system that needs to be fixed.
I rarely comment, but couldn’t help this one. Adam’s argument that indicting her would disrupt government credibility is nearly absurd. Watching a person willfully ignore laws of our country, lie and not be recommended for charges, let alone convicted, does nothing but shred the last piece of government credibility. They’ve (politicians and such) now fully embraced that there are two sets of people, them and us, and the rules apply to us, but not to them. This means even less credibility.
Not that it will make much difference, those in favor of her will not be swayed and those against were already against, but what it does is very clearly resolve the issue that the rules were made by them for us.
I had no idea that Scott Adams ever tried to get serious about anything. What would the Pointy-Hair boss think?
The point of his “seriousness” is in his book. He has done a lot of interesting things with his time, including learning hypnotism. I admire him for making the most out of an average life with an above average sense of humor and the absurd. I like that he uses his money to fund innovative ideas. I love his zest for life and his ability to use satire to have us think about what we ‘think’ we believe.
Anyone who is using his own gifts in the attempt to have us realize our own in a better light gets my vote. Scott Adams is the antithesis of Mark Zuckerberg, the Kapo of FaceAche. I don’t understand the attraction of Z’s modern police informer-cum-cute kittens machine.
I enjoy referring to MZ as “MotherZucker” – on “FaceAche” itself. As I post articles concerning his tete a tete with Merkel on using FB to censor anti-refujihadi speech in the EU, as well as his putdown of Trump for speaking of walls while the MotherZucker himself is building one all around his property in Hawaii, upsetting the other residents and locals.
Mostly, though, I use it in an attempt to educate others about islam, and the fact that there are no “radical” muslims, no “moderate” muslims, only true muslims, apostates, and infidels, with isis being the perfect expression of islam according to the qur’an and hadiths.
So far I have not been restricted, suspended, or banned, even though all of my posts are public. I recently read that there are actually two flavors of FB – a liberal version and a conservative version, and never the twain shall meet. If true, I suppose I am only singing to the choir, and MotherZucker doesn’t worry about my lone voice in the wilderness.
After the Clinton decision I have decided I owe nothing to my government. ZERO. If this were 1620 in Europe, I would get on a ship and go to the New World.
It is 2016, and I will have to think and act slightly differently, but I will act in my own self-interest without looking back for one second.
The Jews say “Never Again” – I am now saying the same thing.
I don’t think I’d take anything too seriously from Mr. Adams. The essay is clearly intended to be funny and not serious.
“The primary goal of government is its own credibility.” Really?
Yes. In a democracy an in-credible government is dismissed. Only a tyranny need not be credible. Take Ehud Barack in Israel 2000. Versus Bashar Assad in Syria 2011. The first lost credibility and lost the paerliament. The second is busy in ethnic cleansing of his fiefdom.
The system is broken and rigged. Like Blair’s Chillicote report, Hillary’s case stops at the point where actual criminal charges are laid out. It’s all for show. So, how can this increase a government’s credibility? It cannot when you have the privileged and the moneyed being let off the hook. An ordinary citizen would be in prison by now.
He took a bullet “For the good of the American public.” Hilarious. Will people actually believe this? This is why I don’t believe in governments, at all. Because the citizen always trades security for liberty. Americans, and Europeans, have given up their sovereignty, their liberty for security. We think we must have government, an artificial designed to govern each other’s behavior, because we are afraid of life itself.
Hillary lost all credibility when she sat with Suha Arafat and said nothing while the wife of the the Great Palestinian Leader (that is, terrorist cum-laud) regurgitated anti-semitic (that is Jew-hating) canards from the middle ages. http://observer.com/1999/11/hillarys-kissoff-to-israel/
Nothing in the presumptive Candidate’s behaviour and antics has changed. No credibility whatsoever. But still she can win for another reason entirely: She will keep up the handouts and freebies to the 53% of the populace that does not pay taxes. THAT is the tyranny of the majority as foretold by Tocqeville.
There’s another area in which government credibility took a hit. That is with current and future cases of security clearance violations by ordinary people serving in our armed forces or working for government contractors with access to said information.
I had a clearance once upon a time and we always got a brief on how harmful leaking info was which included well known cases like Aldrich, the Walkers, Pollard, etc., all of whom had the book thrown at them. Now we have attorneys for the alleged violators arguing that the consequences handed out to Hillary (none!) and Daniel Petraeus (2 years probation, $100k fine, no jail) are the new guidelines for sentencing.
Big side effect of the rule of law having left the room, everyone wants to take advantage.
The idea that Comey somehow saved the republic by not recommending a criminal indictment is a romantic assessment that substitutes a speculative scenario for a
concrete legal principle : People have to live with the consequence of their actions, regardless of their social standing. The investigation showed that not only that what did Mrs. Clinton was wrong, her arrogance and irresponsibility hurt her country.
Since it was up to the FBI to present evidence to the Attorney General, he should have done that. It was up to Lynch to go forward or not. Since AG Lynch had said weeks ago that she would follow Comey’s recommendation, Comey did not take one for the country so much as he took one for the AG. He let Mrs. Clinton off the hook as well as the AG. Comey had a job to do and he should have made Lynch do hers.
The idea that an indictment of Mrs. Clinton would in effect throw the election to Trump is a speculation. It is also besides the point.
What would have happened if Mrs. Clinton had been suspected of murder? Would it have been “heroic” of Comey, if the evidence suggested indictment, to not indict in that case?
Concerning the emails, not only did Mrs. Clinton show incredibly bad judgement, she also stonewalled and lied outright. But, because she is the Democrat candidate…
But why should she receive any special consideration just because she will be the Democrat nominee for president? Would she have received the same consideration if she was still the Secretary of State? Was she or was she not responsible for her actions?
At the time of his press conference Comey knew that AG Lynch had met with Bill Clinton. Lynch met surreptitiously with the husband of the woman under investigation. Comey should have forced Lynch show if she had “credibility”.
Of her poor judgement (understatement of the year) in meeting with Mr. Clinton, Lynch said “they wouldn’t do it again.” Is she expecting that Mrs. Clinton will be the subject of another investigation?
Comey’s duty was to the cause of justice.