LogFAQs > #890596591

xp1337 posted...

Inviso posted...

Yet the line of argument he's creating is that BOTH should be forced out of the Senate. That is the BASELINE he is setting, that regardless of severity or nuance, you should suffer the maximum possible punishment the SENATE has to offer. Saying that Roy Moore should be tried in court after the fact does not change anything. It's just tacking on an extra punishment beyond the Senate itself.

First off, you're just flat-out wrong about resignation being the maximum possible punishment from the Senate. That would be expulsion.

Secondly, the calls for Moore to be expelled if elected are thus actually "harsher" than calling for Franken to resign. (Again, ignoring that it's literally voluntary. The other 99 Senators can all call for him to resign but only Franken can decide that, there is no element of force in play)

Thirdly, dismissing "tried in court" because it's outside the Senate is asinine and disingenuous. Let's frame this another way. On a scale of punishments that ranges from 0-10. Let's say Resignation from the Senate rates a 2. Expulsion is a 3. Because in both cases you're "just" losing a job when in most cases you're already very wealthy.

You can subsequently believe that Franken merits say a 2, and Moore warrants a 9 on that scale and you still lead to an outcome where they're both not in the Senate. Since the Senate doesn't have any recourse to handle anything above a 3 you have to turn to the courts or something for more.

The problem with this argument is that I personally do not think resignation OR expulsion are as low as a three. I think prison, regardless of the offense, is a nine across the board, with decimal points added for how long of a duration you're in for (ten would be the death penalty.) Losing one's job, whether you are kicked out, or merely pressured into quitting, is still pretty high on the list for me, in the seven/seven and a half range. For completion's sake, let's say the eight range is having your possessions, home, or family taken away. So for me, there ARE worse you can do to a person than force them from their job, but you're still starting from a VERY high point on the punishment scale.

So for me, if Roy Moore is at LEAST a seven, and I think most of us can agree he SHOULD be a seven according to my scale (at most...let's say 9.5), then it feels wrong to then say that Al Franken's crimes should ALSO be at least a seven (let's give him the bare minimum of seven, for the sake of argument). If at the widest range of 7 to 9.5, that's still uncomfortably close on the scale, and it's high enough that it makes Franken MUCH worse in comparison to the severity of his actions. Likewise, using your scale, a range of 2 to 3 is EXTREMELY small, and it makes Moore look MUCH better in comparison to the severity of HIS actions.

THAT is why the application of similar (not equal, but very similar) punishments to them for what APPEAR to be WILDLY different crimes (think two guys busted for buying a bag of weed and selling several bags of weed), gives off the APPEARANCE of an unfair equivalency between the two men. I'm aware that it's unintentional, and I've said that to Rock several times, but if you remove a lot of the nuance from this particular situation, you're going to have that problem.
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Inviso