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Comment by carlosjobim

5 days ago

There are different categories of crimes and violations.

You can call it "The penal code", "Common law", or "Crimes" (as opposed to violations).

And in almost all countries in the world the list is the same and has been for hundreds of years: Murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and so on.

Do you think people walking the streets of Washington DC are less safe because of crimes such as those Trump was convicted of? Or are their main concern murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and such?

Edit: Of course my comment nets a hacker down vote instead of a discussion, but for example Nordic countries make a difference between "crimes" and "illegal things" in their laws. And so do South American countries.

The United States has the "felonies" category, which is very comparable. But they also include victimless and non-serious crimes such as tax evasion and copyright infringement.

So one batch of crimes is fine? Is that what you’re saying?

This seems like an intellectual gymnastics exercise in justifying corruption

  • One batch of crimes is awfully much worse than the other. That is what law takes into account. Dismissing Trump's public safety measures in Washington because he himself has been criminally convicted is what I myself would call "intellectual gymnastics". But sadly also typical of hackers, who seem to forget to feel empathy with the victims of street crime.

Law and your list are not the same.

Trump definitely killed probably 100s of thousands of people, with how he handled COVID, and USAID. The law doesn’t consider those as murders, but it’s quite obvious that they were.

The rape on your list is even funnier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._T... Oh sorry, sexual assault.

And theft is the funniest, because he was convicted basically for stealing from his companies.

Trump has lost lawsuits related to sexual abuse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._T...

Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years, and the old ideas of those things are somewhat different to the modern versions. For example, for most of those hundreds of years, "rape" wasn't just about intercourse, it was about kidnapping (same etymology as "rapture": snatch and carry off). This is specifically why spousal rape, in the modern usage of the term, needed to be added to the statue books: little to no thought given to the idea of a husband kidnapping their own wife.

Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.

Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me. Now, it's important to note that I'm not a lawyer, but here's the thing: lawyers have also said this about that quote.

Even if you ignore all the stuff about Epstein, even if you limit yourself to just that self-chosen set of goalposts, he's a wrong-un.

  • > Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years

    You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi. Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined. As in the good example you give.

    > Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.

    Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators. Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.

    Now back to the topic at large:

    > Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me.

    > Trump has lost lawsuits related to sexual abuse

    If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals? Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?

    Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.

    • > You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi.

      No it hasn't.

      First, I've read some of the code of Hammurabi. Fun stuff like this:

        7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.
      

        110. If a "sister of a god" open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.
      

        282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.
      

      - https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamcode.asp

      (Also, bit of fun, number 6: "If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death." - to which I point at the photos of all those documents he was supposed to return after his first term in a bathroom in Mar a Lago).

      Second, I've also read Leviticus. Fun stuff like this:

        Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
      

      and

        Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
      

      To quote others on this:

        The "Law of Moses" in ancient Israel was different from other legal codes in the ancient Near East because transgressions were seen as offences against God rather than solely as offences against society (civil law).[6] This contrasts with the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100–2050 BCE), and the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BCE, of which almost half concerns contract law).
      

      - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Moses#Law_in_the_Ancien...

      > Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined.

      Oh gods no. Even the Christian Bible has seen significant politicised re-translations, famously with the King James Bible, but also fundamentally the New Testament itself is a refutation of almost all Torah law.

      Even just within European Christian nations, there's been huge variations of what was allowed. 1066 England, Normans became a ruling military elite over the now-conquered Anglo-Saxon population, a native Englander killing a Norman triggered severe penalties, but a Norman killing an Englander did not.

      And I've not even touched on Islamic law, the range of things in pre-contact Americas, across Africa, across the east Indies, in Asia.

      Not all cultures even have a concept of personal property for theft to be a coherent concept. You may object that you said "countries", but go back pre-Westphalia and you don't even find something we'd really recognise as countries.

      > Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators.

      That's tautologically false: if something is "still" a crime it cannot also "have been redefined away by legislators".

      > Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.

      "Away"?

      At most, I'm seeing a return to the old definition (IIRC, this would include Russia?)

      > If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals?

      Given I'm not his type, too old and too male, that's a silly question.

      If I had a teenage daughter, I'd avoid DC just in case.

      > Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?

      I would not fear a common criminal stealing my purse before or now.

      Trump, however, I would fear ordering his people locking me up with a demand that I hand over money to make the problem go away.

      It's not like he's obeying the constitution or anything.

      > Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.

      Just look at the subject of this very thread: he's essentially just stolen an entire nation.

      The run-up to this involved ordering the deaths of 114 confirmed dead plus 1 more missing presumed dead, by way of the strikes on alleged(!) drug boats, when actual convictions even if those boats had reached US waters would not have been death penalties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_alleg...

      This, *by itself*, is about twice the difference in DC homicides between 2024 and 2025, 187 -> 128.

      6 replies →

Certain crimes tend to be low in dictatorships, so I don't think that's a good indicator of anything.

What about the storming of the Capitol 6th January? The criminals got pardoned and the people investigating the crimes conducted that day were fired. This shows that Trump does not care about law and order at all, only about personal power and control.