- 25 Feb 2021 02:30
#15158311
That's my definition as well, which is why I don't consider Biden a legitimately election president--he didn't receive the needed number of votes cast in accordance with the Constitution.
Again, we're in agreement--it is through the actions of the authorities that Biden "won" the election.
If by "respect the outcome" you mean recognizing that the process was followed and that Biden has been duly authorized to act as president, then yes, I respect the outcome--Biden is officially but not legitimately the president. His actions will have all the power that his official position grants. As with the sports analogy I've given, the official statistics will always count it as a win. But there will always be that asterisk after the name.
My "proof" is simple, right out of the Constitution: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors ..." No one has denied that in a number of battleground states judges and state executive officers mandated deviations from the laws passed by the state legislatures, and no one has tried to explain how those actions didn't violate the Constitution. They've simply pointed at all the judges that rejected the Trump campaign's lawsuits while ignoring that the vast majority of those rejections were based on procedure rather than the merits and therefore didn't make a constitutional argument. Of course, most of those lawsuits didn't make constitutional arguments, either.
@Verv, you're better off just ignoring SpecialOlympian. Ignore those that do nothing but mock, and maybe eventually they'll go away. And if they don't, at least you're not feeding their egos by giving them a respect they don't deserve.
Yggdrasill wrote:Doug,
I was afraid we'd jump into the semantic weeds, but that's ok. I don't think I am confusing "legitimate" with "official". I'm using the "standard" dictionary definition of "legitimate" as being, "in accordance with the rules and laws."
That's my definition as well, which is why I don't consider Biden a legitimately election president--he didn't receive the needed number of votes cast in accordance with the Constitution.
Official simply means relating to an authority and it's duties/powers.
Again, we're in agreement--it is through the actions of the authorities that Biden "won" the election.
Taking your example of a sports match, the fans of the losing side could say that their team lost unfairly because of the bad calls, but it doesn't mean that the result wasn't legitimate. As I said earlier, the system is imperfect, but you have to respect the outcome and move on to try to improve the system. The NFL did exactly that by introducing challenges and instant playback reviews. I don't recall any losing NFL team ever saying, "Fuck that, WE won the Super Bowl." The important thing is that so long as the rules are followed, you respect the outcome, even - especially - when you think it's unfair. If you do not, the whole thing falls apart.
If by "respect the outcome" you mean recognizing that the process was followed and that Biden has been duly authorized to act as president, then yes, I respect the outcome--Biden is officially but not legitimately the president. His actions will have all the power that his official position grants. As with the sports analogy I've given, the official statistics will always count it as a win. But there will always be that asterisk after the name.
As to 2020, I don't see in your post any specific allegations with proof, so I can't really respond to those except to say that all the claims regarding substantial election fraud that I have seen have borne out to be unsubstantiated. So I don't accept your assertions that a number of states "lied", or that many state officers and judges behaved unconstitutionally. Perhaps a specific example would prove useful.
My "proof" is simple, right out of the Constitution: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors ..." No one has denied that in a number of battleground states judges and state executive officers mandated deviations from the laws passed by the state legislatures, and no one has tried to explain how those actions didn't violate the Constitution. They've simply pointed at all the judges that rejected the Trump campaign's lawsuits while ignoring that the vast majority of those rejections were based on procedure rather than the merits and therefore didn't make a constitutional argument. Of course, most of those lawsuits didn't make constitutional arguments, either.
@Verv, you're better off just ignoring SpecialOlympian. Ignore those that do nothing but mock, and maybe eventually they'll go away. And if they don't, at least you're not feeding their egos by giving them a respect they don't deserve.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke
—Edmund Burke