[ExI] Sanders, Clinton and Trump

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 7:22 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> John: because both Clintons are shady characters.  Both lie.  Any charity
> which donates to them is suspect.
>

Neither of those actually follow.

Given the amount of lying that happens all the time on Capitol Hill, one
would have to lie about stuff far larger than either of them have to be
"shady".

Given the corruption that anyone has, if you look deep enough, merely
assisting someone with something does not automatically make for
whole-hearted support, nor does it tar the donor with the level of
suspicion the recipient has.  One can support the Clinton Foundation's work
in what it claims to be doing, without intending to lend support to any
other facet of the Clintons' work.  (And in this particular election, even
if the charity was trying to end-run to get Clinton elected, "stop the GOP"
was sufficient and honest motive even before Trump clinched the nomination.)


> This means giving money that could have gone into AIDS research instead
> disappearing into the Clinton Family “charity” which is under their
> control, doing who knows what, but we do know it is not charity.  The
> Clintons don’t do charity.  They use that money for political gain.
>

You're going to need some actual evidence here.  It is plain fact that the
Clinton Foundation calls itself a charity and has passed at least cursory
reviews to confirm that it is in fact doing some charity work, therefore
those in charge - the Clintons - do in fact "do" charity.

It is possible to do charity and simultaneously use that for political gain
("Look, look, aren't I a good philanthropist who you'd trust to be your
President?"), but then, all charity is ultimately done for some reward -
even just the psychic reward of doing good.  If that didn't exist, we would
be sufficiently biologically motivated against doing charity that the
concept would barely exist.


> John you have somehow convinced yourself that Mrs. Clinton is honest and
> that the security leak is trivial.  I do not follow that reasoning at all.
> Treason is never trivial.
>

You have argued that Mrs. Clinton is a felon, and when I challenged you on
that, you eventually came to see why she is apparently not (whatever the
consequences for her staff).  I've yet to see your case for why she is a
traitor, and I wonder if inspection of said case will have a similar result.


> Compare to Mrs. Clinton’s revealing TS to Scooter’s uttering “Yeah I heard
> that too”, Clinton’s storing TS on an unsecured server, making a flash
> drive copy and giving it to her attorney who had no clearance, all of which
> is definitely treason
>

If this is your case, it makes no sense.  Each of those things you listed
may be a breach of law & security (emphasis: "may"; the FBI's determining
if they are), but treason requires actively betraying one's country.
Criminal activity alone does not cut it.  In fact, it is possible to commit
treason without committing any crime at all other than treason itself
(which is why treason is itself a crime).

In other words, if she is a traitor, to whom was she betraying the US to?
Everyone directly and intentionally aided by each of those steps (whatever
the unintended consequences) would seem to be part of the US, and not an
enemy of the country.  Absent some specific enemy of the US that she was
working with, there is no treason there.  (Unintentionally slipping up and
helping an enemy is not "treason", otherwise every member of the military
who has made a mistake during combat - whether or not they survived said
mistake - would be a traitor.)

(Note that being opposed to the current administration, or seeking election
so as to replace said current administration, is not opposition to the
country.  Otherwise, much of the GOP would be traitors by definition, and
the Democrats would have been during the 2004 presidential run.  Many
single-party country governments refuse to learn this distinction, which
refusal happens to keep their current administration in power.)
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