Mastodawn

Eric Puryear Jan 18, 2023

Please don’t confuse what is legal with what is right. There is some overlap, of course, but not as much as one might think. Laws are generally written by the rich and powerful to protect their interests, often at the expense of the poor and weak. Many atrocities are lawful, and many acts of mercy are unlawful. I say this as an attorney.

Angie Adamson Jan 18, 2023

@eric
What is the difference between "unlawful" and "illegal"? Is it just a more formal term?

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 20, 2023

@serehfas ok they are extremely similar but slightly different. I couldn’t find a good example to show difference but by definition.
Unlawful is not approved by the law but not necessarily against the law either. Seems like it means there’s no law that allows you to do it.
Illegal is a violation of the written law.
Illicit carries strong tone of immorality.
Criminal means it’s punishable
It’s all semantics and all can be punished by law.

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Interesting, thank you.
What I am pondering is whether "Robodebt" in Australia was unlawful, because it was never conceived of that the Govt would go outside its own governing legislation, or illegal, because they did ignore their legislation.

When ppl get social security here, their entitlement is calculated week by week depending on what, if any, earnings they had. So-called Robodebt used an algorithm to average their income over 12 months then claim they got too much money.

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject
They ised tax records for this, which are a simmation of the whole year, not connected to eligibility.
They also required recipients to prove they didn't have a debt, where our law requires the creditor to prove debt.
They took this over longer periods than the 7 years people are legally required to keep tax records.
It was a dodgy attempt to claw back cash from the most vulnerable. There were a large number of suicides. Scandalous; now going through a Royal Commission.

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas damn! The gop slashed funding to IRS (tax division) so they no longer had the resources to pursue rich people for tax fraud and started auditing poor people where they might get a couple hundred $ at most.

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Yes, our ATO was pursuing small business. Huge corporate fraudsters get a fine which is only a % of their actual tax bill. Richard Boyle whistleblew on the practices, and is now being dragged through court for sharing classified info.

Aboriginal women with unpaid parking fines get more jail time than white collar crims.

@serehfas sounds exactly like here

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Covid response, or lack of it, has shown how G7 plus ASEAN and others are all in lockstep.

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Hope that's not controversial, but I like my health and I cannot believe public health principles and experience garnered since London's Cholera outbreak in the 1800s have been abandoned.

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas health shouldn’t be controversial. The entire right wing made it a political issue to try to protect economy & businesses and now right wing voters listen to high school dropouts who posted a YouTube video over their own Dr’s and scientists. Trump made it political right from the start and over 300,000 deaths are attributed to his screw up

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas in Jan 2020, Trump gave author Bob Woodward an interview and let him record it. He’s on record talking about how terrible he believes Covid is and worse than flu before public knew. Then in February, Trump goes on tv and says it’s no big deal. Woodward said absolutely nothing about interviews and trump comments bc he was saving it for his book, 2 years and 1 million dead people later. There’s like 5 authors who did similar w/trump scandals kept quiet for books

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas the cdc wanted to send a mask & test kits to everyone but Trump stopped it. Then when states were ordering medical supplies to deal with virus, trump & Kushner had govt agents stop the deliveries and steal all the supplies. States needed covert delivery with private security to get masks and such. Trump people thought it killed minorities more so they didn’t care to stop spread. Plus they invested heavily in ivermectin and lost a fortune on it

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas if we had any other president and any other attorney general leading our justice dept right now, trump would’ve gone to prison years ago. But Biden wants peace & unity and our Attorney general Garland refuses to prosecute any Republicans probably bc Biden told him not to in order to get the job. It’s a huge scandal that nobody will be punished for

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Funny, Labor is the same. We figure they might not show up too well themselves if people start investigating. What angers me is we had it under control, then Morrison, former LNP PM, forced the issue by letting one state of our, like 5 states, have Covid run free and force it onto everyone. We voted Labor for change, but we got more of the same. Its like a football league, pick your colour, but its the same game, same goals.

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas we’ve only got 2 real parties here, democrats and republicans (or gop). People try to say they are the same and in a couple ways they are, but they are opposites. The dems try to give us partial policies of what we want (ie. we want complete student loan forgiveness, they gave us $10k) while gop tries to destroy or stop any policy that is beneficial to the 99% of us and only wants perks for the rich 1% & fake religious. They are suing to block student loan forgiveness

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas surprisingly our govt is usually pretty good at the things it does like post office or military or tax collecting or environmental regulations. But the gop says govt is bad at everything and that’s bc they sabotage every govt program they can so there’s always problems. They literally try to destroy everything beneficial our govt does and the dems are big pussies who let them walk all over them. Gop is 1/3rd of voters but dominate bc the dems are weak. It’s pathetic

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas trump staged a failed coup and tried to take over the government and have his VP murdered. It’s been over 2 years and not a single indictment despite this happening on live tv. Biden wants to play nice with republicans so he left many in positions of power that are trying to sabotage him. Our attorney general refuses to prosecute any elected Republicans despite many crimes committed in the open and even bragged about. It’s ridiculous

Angie Adamson Jan 22, 2023

@twitterreject Labor is dumb the same way. They are still using advisors who were political LNP appointments, and naively imagining they are not being undermined.

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Frightful.

Angie Adamson Jan 21, 2023

@twitterreject Is Woodward a journo? Similar happened here, can't remember the fine detail, but key info was covered up by a journo until publication.

Gurtbeef Robe Jan 21, 2023

@serehfas yeah. Woodward was a journalist for Washington Post. He got famous for his reporting on Watergate scandal that led to govt investigation & Nixon resigning. Wrote book “all the president’s men” about it. Trump was excited to be interviewed by him bc he’s famous. There’s about 5 people from trump’s inner circle that withheld info on him to put it in their books several years later. Shameless greed. It’s mindblowing the level of corruption and criminal he was daily.

Angie Adamson Jan 22, 2023

@twitterreject Ah,thought I recognised the name,now I know.