politics

You've perfectly articulated what drives me absolutely bonkers about Conservatives. Sometimes I feel like I'm on Punk'd. How do they not see how what they're saying is often, sometimes verbatim, the very opposite of what they're doing? E.g. they complain about "woke cancel culture!" yet they ban books because it features two fathers, they tell "freedom!", yet they dictate, over doctors, which care women and trans kids may receive, "Curb spending!" vs "trillion dollar tax cuts for disproven trickle down economics", "small government!" vs "let's regulate what people can and can't wear". It's projection 101 and it's maddening.

Wait, are they actually upset about fucking chair safety? Seriously? Jesus fucking christ on a pancake.

Yeah, but it's different when it's my will.

The Declaration of Independence is a document that explains the political decision to break from England. That's it.

So, Eastman and the Declaration of Independence and the linked article are on the same page as far as this: There is no "prohibit." A lot of the world runs on prison rules; more so than may be immediately apparent if you live in a well-ordered first world society. You can try to overthrow the government if you want, because that's just the reality: You have hands and feet, maybe you have weapons; it's not like an AI safety mechanism will kick in "FORBIDDEN, I MUST NOT." You can roll yourself down the road and do whatever you want to do.

But, don't get all surprised if the government reacts in a certain way.

In other words, yes, you have a revolutionary right to overthrow the government if you really think its abuses have gotten that intractable and grave. But the government has an equal right to stop you, to defend itself or, as we see today, put you on trial if you fail. The American revolutionaries of 1776 knew full well that they were committing treason against the British monarchy. If they lost they would all hang. They accepted that. They didn’t claim that George III had no choice but to let them go.

This is a certain mindset that people can get themselves into when they take for granted systems of justice that protect them: They are allowed to trample all over the system and the rights of other people because of some logic they concocted. But the instant someone starts doing something to them, they forget all about how it's prison rules, and start screaming about how what the other person is doing is not allowed. Hanging Mike Pence is fine. Shooting Ashleigh Babbitt was a shocking breach of these civilized rules you are supposed to be following. Et cetera. It's like those people who fight with the police and then get super loud about how their handcuffs are too tight and they need a drink of water. Like, dude, you were the one that opted out.

Yes, John Eastman should get due process. The handcuffs should be a reasonable tightness; that's an important part of our system even when the suspect tried to run over a state trooper five minutes ago. But also, we should remember everything he had to say about prison rules, if at some point in the future he has something to say about how unfair it all is.

And even if we grant his argument, what "abuses" is he claiming are intolerable?

• That if a person with a penis wants to be called a woman, or a person with a vagina wants to be called a man, or a person with either set of genitals wants to be called neither, they should be allowed to?

• That everyone in this country deserves to be treated fairly?

• That your choice of religious belief doesn't give you the right to refuse service to others, or grant you some higher station?

• That in the time of the greatest wealth disparity in the history of the world, maybe the wealthy shouldn't have that much money?

• That nobody asked to be born, therefore nobody should have to earn their living?

• That if the other political party has more votes than you, you don't get to have control of the government?

• That if making it easier to vote means your party gets fewer votes, your party shouldn't exist?

• That in the time of the highest worker productivity in US history, people should have more leisure time?

• That all education ought to be government funded, because the ROI for an educated populace is incalculable compared to bankrupting entire generations?

So tell us John, what was so "intolerable" you decided to commit sedition?

He was a professor and doesn't know that the Declaration of Independence isn't a legal document in the USA. It is not and has never been actual law. This dumbass isn't even fit to teach at Trump University.

“There’s actually a provision in the Declaration of Independence that a people will suffer abuses while they remain sufferable, tolerable while they remain tolerable,” he said. “At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.”

(From the interview)

As an explanation for his Jan 6 related activities, 'it was our duty to alter or abolish the existing government' is pretty close to 'hell yes'

He also says

Our Founders lay this case out. There’s actually a provision in the Declaration of Independence that a people will suffer abuses while they remain sufferable, tolerable while they remain tolerable. At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.

But he's not just asking a philosophical question. He's one of the people at the core of the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep Trump in power.

Here, he's providing his ideological underpinnings that he believes gave him the right to alter or abolish the existing government.

Sure, here he's just asking the question if revolution is necessary - but he already answered it in deed when he tried to keep Trump in power against the expressed wish of the electorate.

I don’t see that he actually said that. At most, the article quotes him as asking if revolution is necessary:

Then you should pay greater attention to the context in which he said it.

Edit: corrected the omitted word "attention"

I know the answer would be ridiculous if we ever even got one, but I would love to hear about these intolerable abuses or threats of abuses these people were (and presumably still are since, you know, they weren’t successful) facing. That’s not to say there aren’t people in this country dealing with some pretty intolerable things, but I just don’t seem to see them (or hear about their issues) at Trump rallies.

He was being asked about Jan6 and he brought up the language of the Deceleration that justified overthrowing British rule while describing Joe Biden's election as an existential threat.

If somebody is accused of murder, and when asked about the murder, they explain the legal and historical context of justified homicide, it'd be pretty obtuse to observe that they didn't explicitly admit they killed the person.

"On Tyranny" lists four basic steps:

1. A movement arises, ready for violence to "defend" itself from "enemies" by seizing power
2. It clashes with the preexisting systems of power (police and government)
3. It overcomes and mingles with those structures of power; violence, to enforce its will and punish its enemies, is no longer punished
4. Unconstrained, and with the power of the state behind it, it brings horrors to life

We've been at step 2 for a while, I think.