Comment by ben_w
5 days ago
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:
…
…
- 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:
and
To quote others on this:
- 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.
I would add that for vast swaths of time in a lot of areas of the world in between Hammurabi and now, there wasn't even a written code of law, it was more based on customs. Rome did not have written laws for the first 300 years of its founding. A friend I was talking about this was in disbelief when I mentioned this.
4 replies →
I appreciate your reply very much, it was nice reading. But between you and me, I sense that you might be getting a bit too high on your own supply of intelligence.