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Comment by avgDev | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it is political reasons, seems like it is for large donation reasons.

That is a political reason...

It convinces others that you're willing to pardon them too in exchange for money and convincing other people is the definition of politics.

That is not political, it is purely a service offered at a price. There is no specific political agenda behind these pardons (i.e., they don't pardon only folks who are, for example, Evangelicals or anti-immigration or whatever), the only criteria is payment.

Selling pardons for money is inherently a very political act. It means that you are aligning yourself with moneyed interests, which is clearly the heart of Trumpist politics. Setting ideology aside even, the open selling of pardons sends the message to the moneyed interests in general that he's on their side, even if they don't need a pardon at this exact moment. It serves both practical (get rich people to like you and therefore donate money to your campaigns and causes to help them succeed) and ideological (supply-sider-esque doctrine going back to at least the protestant reformation says that rich people should be in charge because they're rich, QED) purposes.

> [1] Politics

> Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.

I don't know how much more obvious I can make this for you. Bribery is political.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics

Word meanings evolve. Virtue literally means "manliness" in Classical Latin but only a pedantic dick would insist we use it in that sense. Polis and it's related words meant something different to the Greeks than they do to us.

Right, "Politics" evolved from "affairs of the cities" to "the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.".

it’s the current meaning he’s reciting he’s just adding etymological context

Well akchooally the word man up until very recently meant human, so manliness, meant the state of being manly, AKA a human.

> Bribery is political

Bribery is political. But it's not taken to be a usual part of politics in the West. (Similar to how the Roman word for ambush was the same as their word for treason. Treason isn't taken to be a usual part of politics. Ambush, for them, not a usual part of warfare.)

Basically, you're both right because what is and isn't political is itself a political question.

Politics (from the first Wikipedia pages)

The word ‘politics’ is derived from the word ‘poly’ meaning ‘many’, and the word ‘ticks’ meaning ‘blood sucking parasites’

First at rec.humor.funny on October 11, 1992

I'd like for you to define "political" please.

> they don't pardon only folks who are, for example, Evangelicals or anti-immigration or whatever

Who has Trump pardoned that wasn't a supporter of his?

You can go one further. Who has Trump pardoned that wasn’t a complete scumbag?

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-donald-trump-pardons-seco...

Touche.

The hypothetical pardon was promised by then candidate-Trump in a speech at the Libertarian Party convention.

The specific political agenda was to get support from libertarians, who lean conservative, but don't like Trump much - because he rejects libertarianism.

That's as political as you can possibly get. It wasn't a behind the scenes thing. It was literally announced at a political convention.

I am pretty sure that they only pardon people who are pro or at least neutral to Trump. I doubt that he would part on anybody who's an outspoken critic even if they offered him a bribe.

It is political, it is also corrupt.

> seems like it is for large donation reasons.

more like large bribe reasons.

In 2019, Giuliani's assistant chided John Kirakou that pardons couldn't be discussed in his presence but that the fee was $1 million for Giuliani and $1 million for Trump. Given inflation, I'd bet that pardons now cost around $3 million.

Money is protected political speech.

In the US, this is much the same thing

Is there a difference?

I guess OP means to say it is not idealogical reasons.

Op means to say this type of pardon is not to meant to win votes or satisfy the demands of constituents, Like with convicted cops or people with weed related crimes etc or pardoning draft dodgers after Vietnam or civil war and so on .

While money is involved deeply in politics and financial corruption is there , occasionally idealogical (political) actions without direct financial benefits also happen.

It is hard to say whether this pardon of Silk Road founder was motivated by libertarian, or crypto community pressure or by financial donations to the party etc both are possible even at the same time but they are different considerations

> I guess OP means to say it is not idealogical reasons.

“Government exists for the personal benefit of the leader” (or simply “for my personal benefit as the leader”, with even less generalization beyond that) is an ideology, actually.

It’s not one that is popular to embrace publicly, but, that's hardly unique along real ideologies.

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