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Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021·

They started this tactic of "They're bad dudes trust us don't need a trial" during the Bush administration and many many people pointed out this would come to our shores soon, and it did and it's here again.

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Yeah, not prosecuting serious violations of law like war crimes, tortue, and mass surveillance was a serious mistake that lead to this situation. It reinforced a culture of impunity for those in power.

Because people allowed this to happen, the current administration is now more emboldened than its recent predecessors ever have been.

Even if the Obama administration had prosecuted GWB, the recent Supreme Court ruling on Trump's presidential immunity would have superseded all that.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-supreme-...

My point is that even getting to that ruling would've been much harder if there was actual respect for the law and more importantly, the democratic values behind those laws. And by respect, I mean the general population actually enforcing it by holding those in power accountable.

True, in the event that government fails to hold someone accountable, it falls on the people to do that instead. I think there are different visions of what that justice looks like when carried out that way.

Obama ordered the assassination of a US citizen[0] with no due process, so I don't think the rhetoric of "they're bad dudes trust us" ever really went away. Tried to hide it, maybe, but never gone.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

In the end it all comes back to the PATRIOT Act and GWOT

Even more so Citizens United and Reganism.

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