Wait, so you're saying the crackdown on Bolsonaro is fine and ethically 100 percent ok?
Sounds like you know more about it than me.
Can you explain?
Sounds like you know more about it than me.
Can you explain?
I have to say, it is cute to read your faux outrage over this after Bolsonaro made sure the guy with the best chances to defeat him two elections back would be put into prison in a sham trial right before the election... not persecuting a figure as corrupt and power hungry as Bolsonaro would be 100% ethically wrong.
Not saying that Bolsonaro has any moral high ground to stand on, though. He is as corrupt as it gets. But if anything, I'd say that his problems really started when he was already elected and colluded with the Supreme Court to get Lula out of prison in exchange of killing the investigation against his sons.
I meant the guy had a concrete plan to topple democracy, assassinate other leaders and bring back dictatorship.
People like this should be thrown into prison for the rest of their lives.
I'm not saying Bolsonaro is any good. Just saying Brasil is cooked either way and I don't get how anybody can take sides. It's like chosing between catshit or dogshit.
You do realize the supreme court has been grabbing power since 2019 and by now is essentially running the country, right? A few days ago they once again walked all over our elected congress. Our institutions exist to give people the illusion of democracy. In fact, these unelected judges have usurped the powers of the legislative and executive branches of government. They are judge-kings.
If the vote was fair, then there may be an excuse of bad advice. He should've known better, but it's possible someone lied to him.
And a third option, he lied knowing well that the vote was fair. I such case this is an attempt to undermine the state and it should be dealt with harshly. It's o E thing if some journalist makes BS claims. It's another if obe if candidates does so.
I genuinely have no idea which of these is true. I know for a fact the claim "we lost because of fraud" has been popularised by Trump and him basically not getting even a slap on the wrist for it. So it gets used everywhere now.
To start with: voting machines. Surely we need not debate the problems with such technology in Hacker News of all places? I don't really need to elaborate on this matter, right?
Then there's the fact our elected congress tried to add an auditable paper trail to the machines not once but twice and in both instances was overruled by the unelected supreme court. More details here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423
> There should be an investigation into the rigging.
And who would investigate such a thing?
One of the supreme court judges, Alexandre de Moraes, was also the head of the so called Electoral Court at the time. Yes, the same guy who's judging Bolsonaro now. He was in charge of the voting machines. I have videos of him proudly proclaiming that the machines are UNQUESTIONABLE. One would think he'd have the balls to publish the source code and hardware schematics and offer a billion dollar bug bounty.
> I genuinely have no idea which of these is true
I'll tell you what I saw.
In the months leading up to the 2022 elections, I personally witnessed these judges interfere with the elections in unprecedented ways. I watched them call everything Bolsonaro and his party said "fake news" and issue countless censorship orders. I view it as something of a nationwide gaslighting campaign.
Suddenly, everything was "fake news". It was "fake news" to say Lula had been imprisoned for corruption, even though he had been. It was "fake news" to say he's friends with communist dictators, even though he is. It was "fake news" to say he's the preferred candidate of the country's organized crime gangs, even though he is. They even deemed it "fake news" to say he's a communist and a socialist himself, even though there's literal video evidence of it. I watched them censor a documentary about the assassination attempt on Boldonaro as "fake news" despite the fact the documentary had not even been released yet. A priori censorship, something not seen in these lands since the military dictatorship of the 20th century.
All this happened even though in Brazil censorship is unconstitutional, especially censorship of political speech. Censorship equals dictatorship, it's that simple. People who protested this have been sent to jail already. Brazilian journalists and even streamers have sought political asylum in the USA because of these events.
People keep talking about Bolsonaro's alleged coup that never actually materialized. They ignore the silent coup perpetrated by these unelected judges. They have been relentlessly grabbing power since at least 2019. Now they have essentially usurped the legislative and the executive branches of government. Yes, they legislate and they execute. They recently decided to make social media companies liable for user content, despite actual laws to the contrary. Just a few days ago they raised taxes on the brazilian population despite our elected congress blocking the taxation.
More details about the supreme court's abuses:
But Trump exerting pressure like this is another level.
"We're right and you're wrong!"
That's sure to lead to more nuance and critical thought.
In Brazil, nazism is illegal but socialism and communism are not. They should be.