Acosta/Epstein Trial

So, while this story is a big deal in terms of revealing how it happens that children and women are regularly abused with impunity under the U.S. Constitution, it is not just because children, whom the law considers to be the property of their parents, have no civil or individual rights. It is also because prosecutors are the ONLY PUBLIC OFFICIALS ACCORDED ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY. Prosecutors cannot be held to account for their decisions because their behavior is presumed to be purely ministerial — i.e. to just deliver information developed by executive personnel (law enforcers) to the judiciary entities, sans any input of his own. That was the original intent, but it has not worked out that way and Congress has failed to define and adjust responsibilities. Nor has the SCOTUS been able to render corrective rulings because prosecutors have insured that no relevant cases are brought to them. Unlike the Florida Supreme Court, the SCOTUS is not empowered to issue advisory opinions.
So, resurfacing Acosta and Epstein as a civil case is a big deal. Just imagine the chutzpah of the prosecutor extending immunity to the perp AND ANYONE WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH HIM.

An interesting distinction—substantive v. process crimes

That is the argument now being pushed by the supporters of the Dude—that the crimes being charged by the Special Counsel have no substance and are merely about process. That argument is consisrent with an inability to perceive process. If applied to a knife murder, it would mean that a stabbing, despite the evidence of blood, if it results in the discovery of no body, is not a crime.
This way of reasoning is consistent with the exclusive focus on results (victims). The Intent of the agent can be discounted entirely and that actually makes sense. If we accept, for example, that the Dude has no intent to do anything, then we can conclude he just reacts to events like a light bulb to the flip of a switch. If there is no agent and no intent, there can be no crime—just an amoral force that wrecks destruction wherever it goes.

I have long suggested that perhaps, instead of worrying about robots acting like humans, we should be more of concerned about people acting like robots. It is a lot easier to disconnect HAL than to remove the Dude from the White House.

Cold

There! By using post-dating, the 28th won’t be missed.

Should note it is an important date in that son #1 officially returned to the single state.

On a New Yorker story

Well, this is not a diary and, if I were not a New Yorker subscriber, I would not have bothered to respond to such a sparse come-.on. It is not nice to tease.

That said, the article is informative, not as tedious as many New Yorker pieces and provides a new perspective.

I have long thought that Bernstein was the better reporter and do not trust Woodward. He is a grand stander and a self promoter.

Since Nixon once answered a letter I sent him, I’ve been ambivalent about his fall. Since I learned that both he and McGovern supported a guaranteed family income, I have felt that he was set up because he had to be removed. Had McGovern won, he would not have been able to effect such a program. Nixon could and the financiers, nor Capitol Hill, could put up with that. Formally liberating the dollar from the bands of gold threatened to reduce the currency to a mere utility. All the people gambling with it as a scarce resource could not have that. They could not give up the levers of the economy. Bad enough that the expanded electorate would challenge the established hegemony.

Watergate overshadowed so much else that happened. One might say it was the beginning of a grand deception which has now culminated with deception being all there is.