[Oboogie]

The Nuremberg Defence is inadmissable in international law, so I assume also so in US law.

We're not talking about war crimes though. The Nuremberg Defence is inadmissible because it was deemed obvious that the orders people were following were unlawful.
In Trump's administration the illegality may not be so obvious and therefore vicarious liability applies. There are countless cases where employees have been found not guilty because they've been able to prove they were following their employer's instructions.
https://www.tutor2u.net/law/blog/key-ca ... -liability

[MisterMuncher]

At the very worst, I see him with an ankle tag and confined to Mar-a-Lago.

This assumes that he won’t have to sell it to cover costs. Because him going down is just the start - if he’s found guilty of any of the charges against him relating to illegal activity (and depending on what evidence comes out even if not, in some cases), he’ll be open to follow-up lawsuits from every single underling who can reasonably claim they thought <thing they did and got in trouble for> was OK because ‘the president told them to do it’.

Which as excuses go, is admittedly a pretty good one. But regardless, Trump needs to win or dismiss *every single case*, because just 1 loss opens the door to so many more.

I was listening to a thing about the life and times of one G Gordon Liddy last week*, he being one of Nixon's plumbers, an unalloyed fascist and, in all truth, a monumental fuck-up of a guy. For all of that, he was quite prepared to sit schtum for his ten year sentence to protect Tricky Dick, and claims he was prepared to ice a few of his co-conspirators who were preparing to rat (he didn't. There's absolutely no evidence, despite his constant fetish for violence and warfare that Liddy so much as threw a punch in anger in his life). Could you even imagine any of Trump's peons having that kind of loyalty or ability to self-sacrifice.


*Twas Behind The Bastards, and whilst you probably don't actually need nine hours of chat about a fucking lunatic, it's a fascinating tale.

[Crabcakes]

I can’t - but then Trump is no Nixon (which itself is a hell of a statement). Anyone but the most idiotic lackey will be aware that he will sell them out in a millisecond if it will benefit him, up to and including spouses, offspring, and life-long ‘friends’.

[Bones McCoy]

[Watchman]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... Maine.html

Yet another horror shooting; an Army reservist and firearms instructor, sounds like what the NRA would call a “good guy with a gun”. It then goes on to say he’d recently been sectioned, not sure if that’s being touted as an “excuse”, but seeing as that was back in the summer is it to be assumed it was overruled by the 2nd Amendment, which is more precious to the gun-nuts than the life of others

[Crabcakes]

Apparently he was seeking mental health treatment because he’d heard voices saying he should kill people. But of course in the US this does not preclude you from gun ownership, because freedom or something.

Thoughts and prayers will, I assume, be forthcoming from the GOP.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

But that obsession with guns and violent solutions doesn't spring fully formed from some head of Zeus - it is the product of a form of toxic (and quite hopeless) masculinity which in turn stems from the idea of 'rugged individualism' which is central to the American psyche and the American dream, where the only help is self-help and the answer to most problems is violence.

This is so inbuilt to the US mind*, along with a slavish dedication to a now outdated constitution that I fear there is no hope.

*reinforced so many times in popular culture.

[MisterMuncher]

Apparently he was seeking mental health treatment because he’d heard voices saying he should kill people. But of course in the US this does not preclude you from gun ownership, because freedom or something.

Thoughts and prayers will, I assume, be forthcoming from the GOP.

Couple of DV convictions, a stay in a mental health facility, threats to shoot up an army base in his past, too, if reportage is to be believed. But still allowed to own guns and train others, including police (which would give him ready access to even nastier toys).

Batshit country.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Batshit values...

[Malcolm Armsteen]

This is just as much a part of the problem. This is the police force...

[MisterMuncher]

Of course, there have been multiple moves to take guns off those with domestic violence convictions, as it's a massive commonality in spree killers like this cunt.

They falter not least because the numbers of US police that would need to be disarmed is not small.

[Andy McDandy]

Bill Bryson once summed up the history of the western US as "first they [the white settlers] shot the bison, then the natives, then each other". Sometimes I wonder if a similar thing applies to the culture in general - without a Cold War, a big monolithic enemy to concentrate on, is this the natural outcome?

Then I'm reminded that there's always been this undercurrent of really fucking disturbing hatred running through the place. The Tulsa riots (and bomb dropping), the fact that they laid on fucking trains to ship crowds to lynchings - not to stop them but to enjoy, the 1927 MIchigan school bombing, so much more. Take for instance the Californian rail scandal, or the treatment of Oklahoman migrants - there was an almost gleeful joy expressed in fucking other people - other white European-descended people - over. And it was expressed publicly in a way that elsewhere people would have at least the wits to mask or try to mitigate.

I think it has to be rooted in the American founding and westward push, and the idea that immigrants were not looking for freedom from oppression as much as freedom to do a little oppressing of their own. There's also in a lot of American traditions and procedures an almost parodic aping of the customs from the old country. You see something similar in Australian culture, but that was tempered by the necessity of working with the rest of the world, not being self-sufficient. Hence the straitlaced puritanism of the Australian middle classes until relatively recently, contrasted with the "Strine" culture of the working class there.

See, it can't be the "big open country, police may be miles away" thing, because Canada is in the same boat with similar big wide open spaces, plenty of guns floating about, but all apparently used for stuff like hunting and not for randomly killing people. It's almost a sense of "Teacher's not here; go around kicking people in the bollocks until a) there are no groins left (in which case start on the heads), or b) someone bigger kicks you (in which case scream for teacher)".

I think Malcolm has it right - call it rugged individualism, frontier code, whatever you like. It just seems to be a way of codifying not giving a shit about others.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I was introduced to Rugged Individualism in my first degree (module on 20th Century American history, taught by Ted Evans, who had been thrown out of the USA during the McCarthy witch-hunts and was himself a student of AJP Taylor, so it was a left point of view).

He tied Rugged Individualism to a number of themes in US history, notably the 'frontier spirit' and the myth of the Wild West, poor social and health care, lack of community spirit and endemic violent solutions to problems. He traced it back to the Founding Fathers and their particular Puritan ethics. This mindset was then heavily endorsed in cinema and TV, especially in the vogue for westerns, but also in gangster movies - where the gangster, as an individualistic outsider is seen as partly heroic.

It also played strongly in the Cold War in contrasting US values - individualism, resource, personal agency, against the USSR, stateist, command economy and so on.

Ted Evans was a great tutor. The only man I ever met who carried a portable pocket ashtray round with him.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Maine's Gun Laws
(The Guardian)

You may think this is utterly insane...

With a widespread manhunt underway for the shooting suspect, here’s a look at Maine’s gun laws.

There is no permit, background check or firearms registration that is required to purchase a hundgun from a private individual, according to the US Concealed Carry Association.

Additionally, open and concealed carry are legal in Maine without a permit, USCCA reports.

It also reports that the state does not have any extreme risk protection order laws, or red flag laws, that would allow law enforcement to restrict access to firearms for individuals with high risk of harming themselves or others.

Maine also has no laws restricting assault weapons, according to the Giffords Law Center which tracks gun laws across the country.

The state also has no law imposing a waiting period prior to purchasing a firearm. In June, the state senate rejected a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases.

In regards to mental health reporting, Maine does require courts to transmit an abstract of any order for involuntary commitment issued by the court to its public safety department and its state bureau of identification. Giffords reports.

According to Giffords, in 2019, the state established a procedure where firearm restrictions can be imposed upon a person taken into protective custody.

“Under this law, when an individual is taken into protective custody, a medical practitioner shall assess whether the individual presents “a likelihood of foreseeable harm.” That assessment is then provided to law enforcement, and, if endorsed by a judge, results in a temporary restriction that prevents the individual from possessing or acquiring a firearm,” it reports.

[Bones McCoy]

But that obsession with guns and violent solutions doesn't spring fully formed from some head of Zeus - it is the product of a form of toxic (and quite hopeless) masculinity which in turn stems from the idea of 'rugged individualism' which is central to the American psyche and the American dream, where the only help is self-help and the answer to most problems is violence.

This is so inbuilt to the US mind*, along with a slavish dedication to a now outdated constitution that I fear there is no hope.

*reinforced so many times in popular culture.

On the downside, 565 mass shootings in 2023.

On the plus side, another year without Tyrrany.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The other aspect to consider about the American psyche is the slavish and unthinking devotion to a particularly primitive and extreme brand of Christianity, which is a direct descendant of the religious extremism and intolerance that got the Pilgrim Fathers chucked out of England in the first place - a fact largely unacknowledged. Hence they really do believe that 'thoughts and prayers' can make a difference.

[Crabcakes]

Maine's Gun Laws
(The Guardian)

You may think this is utterly insane...

I think that if that is the situation, it’s arguable the main problem with Maine’s gun laws is that there aren’t any.

[The Weeping Angel]

It's also down to the type of weapons being produced and on the market in the past it used to be handguns and rifles which whilst deadly could never be used by one person to massacre as many people, nowadays it's assault rifles. Can I also just add people are dead and people on here are expressing smug condescension about how backward and violent America is. I'd like to remind people on here about how violent and brutal British and European history is.

[soulboy]

Ted Evans was a great tutor. The only man I ever met who carried a portable pocket ashtray round with him.

I was introduced to them by Yoshi Okino from Kyoto Jazz Massive. Definitely a thing in Japan these days and not a terrible idea. Available from our old friend Temu but I wouldn't swear to their fire retardant properties...

[Bones McCoy]

The other aspect to consider about the American psyche is the slavish and unthinking devotion to a particularly primitive and extreme brand of Christianity, which is a direct descendant of the religious extremism and intolerance that got the Pilgrim Fathers chucked out of England in the first place - a fact largely unacknowledged. Hence they really do believe that 'thoughts and prayers' can make a difference.

They now have a different slogan: "We will recover, we will carry on".

Am I alone in thinking that "We" excludes the murder victims in a particularly uncaring manner.