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lbriner | on: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
Someone might have already pointed it out but for me, the sentence of RA is not the main issue, the issue is allowing a single person to stamp through an entire legal system and undermine all of the time and money that is invested in it, even if that person is a president.

I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve but if it is used more than a few times by a President, it makes a mockery of it and it should be removed as a power. How can a President ever decide that the entire legal process is flawed and their opinion is right? If the sentence was too long then change the sentencing guidelines.

contravariant | parent | next
The main failure here is the failure of the elections system to elect anyone reasonable.

On its own it is not that bad an idea for someone who carries a mandate of the majority of the population to be able to grant pardons.

falcor84 | root | parent | next
Why is it not a bad idea? Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?

Taken to the extreme, we could have an impartial legal system putting in prison criminals from an even mix of society, and then the president pardoning everyone from the majority group, leaving in prison only the minorities.

lukan | root | parent | next
"Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?"

And how would you call a justice system, so complicated and convulted and therefore expensive that poor people (from minorities) don't really stand a chance to get their justice there?

Obviously Ross was not in that group, but I see presidential pardon as a potential tool to counter the flaws of the justice system.

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contravariant | root | parent | next
In a similar situation a majority could simply make it illegal to belong to the minority group. And without a way to pardon them the damage would be permanent.

You want a majority to be able to decide who gets punished and who goes free, and even the best designed laws will have unforseen consequences. If the majority is 'evil', well there's just not all that much that can be done in a democracy. Yes it would be better to live in a dictatorship of the most virtuous person in existence, but if you ever figure out how to do that please let me know.

oneeyedpigeon | root | parent | next
Which is exactly what we do have: a president pardoning everyone from the majority political group. It's not consolation that the majority/minority groups are roughly equal.
hamandcheese | root | parent
Personally, I view the pardon as a form of veto power on the judiciary. Why is it reasonably that a president can veto controls, but not the judiciary?
kortilla | root | parent | next
All of the presidents pardon tons of people unpalatable to the other side of the political spectrum. They usually just save it for the end of their term so it doesn’t cause too much noise.
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Escapado | root | parent | next
Honest question/thought experiment: if we only elected people who are qualified for their job (assume we can measure competence at least in some dimensions like we do for a myriad of other professions before we allow people to work in them) and if the election process was set up in a way where when casting your ballot you have to take a multiple choice quiz which tests for basic knowledge on what you will vote for and the country you’re in (as in “what is the household budget roughly, is this candidate in favour or against x, did the crime rate increase or decrease nominally” take these as rough examples of what I mean), to ensure that the people who vote for something have some clue what they are voting for and the broader context it’s embedded in (we require a license to drive a car, this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not? I would assume it would make democracies significantly better than they are now. Imagine going to a doctors office to find out your doctor is a Plummer and he was voted into this job and that the people working for him and handling your prescription is a random assortment of people he seems to like.
upwardbound2 | root | parent | next
I'm sure there are benefits and that might it help overall if implemented here and now in our current America with our current levels of public access to civics and career education (MAYBE.) However, this change would be the exact opposite or a total repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which good people died for. At a meta level, I trust those who died for voting rights to care more and know more about the correct answer to your question than I do, and I guess I would recommend to look back at historic speeches from MLK and other leaders to understand their full reasoning about why literacy tests were either irredeemable or undesirable, and their reasons for thinking so.

If we assume that both you and MLK were right, but that different policies better suit different conditions, then your proposal could maximize meritocratic effectiveness in an already-very-fair society, whereas MLK's way (the Voting Rights Act) provides a better minimum standard of human rights (similar to 1st and 2nd Amendment protections for people).

Escapado | root | parent
Thanks for pointing me to that. One thing that stands out about that argument though is that voting is already discriminatory, right? Permanent residents and minors are not allowed to vote (the latter because we take age as a proxy of competency, no?), despite facing the consequences of elections just as anyone else does. I do understand that a risk for misuse absolutely exists, but at the same time it looks like populism, social media abuse, smear campaigns, science denial and plain old corruption in sheep's clothing are rampant enough that we can agree that many many votes are cast by misled people, who would have made another choice if they really understood what they voted for. I guess it would boil down to the difficult question of which harm is greater.
lolc | root | parent | next
Like a literacy test?

https://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm#litbkgnd

Sorry for the snark, it's just a very hard problem because we'd end up in a situation where the voters would decide who is part of their club.

oneeyedpigeon | root | parent | next
> would that remedy the situation a little?

I've had this thought before and my tentative conclusion is "no". It boils down to the purpose of democracy which is NOT to produce the best government but to make people feel ok about having a government at all.

Escapado | root | parent
That's an interesting perspective, but I wonder if we can't have both.
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lukan | root | parent | next
"this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not?"

The idea has been around for a bit and I call it interesting, but also with huge potential of misuse.

Change the test slightly, so your target audience will yield better results, giving you a better result.

Either way, as long as climate change and darwinism are controversial topics, I see it hard to implement in a meaningful way.

fgna | root | parent
While I can see this preventing many of the current issues, I can't help but wonder who will serve the interests of the people that are not allowed to vote.

Would it be a better system if the not-allowed group is totally dependent on the people that are allowed to vote?

Escapado | root | parent
I see. In a sense we are already doing that. Minors can not vote (and if I am correct the reasoning is that they don't have the competency to cast a proper vote) and even foreign permanent residents can't either, even though the outcome of the elections totally influences their lives. In a sense these not-allowed groups are already totally dependent on the people that are allowed to vote.

I guess my argument boils down to: We already discriminate. My thoughts are that the way we do it is not optimal.

tchalla | root | parent | next
> On its own

The reality is in front of you. So, you can't look at this "on its own".

barnabee | root | parent | next
Assuming a sufficiently functional congress[0], why not require that pardons go through congress as well rather than be unilateral presidential actions?

[0] A big if, I know…

namlem | root | parent
Yep. The problem is the system of elections itself. Biden and Obama also issued a lot of dubious pardons and commutations. The incentives of elections naturally favor short-termism and populism. Instead of having the people vote on candidates, we should randomly select citizens to an elector jury, which would carefully research and deliberate on the candidates before choosing.

https://www.electionbyjury.org/

Terr_ | parent | next
> I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve

That reminds me of the early 2000s, where there were a lot of US debates around around terrorism and "harsh interrogations" i.e. torture.

A certain bloc of politicians and commentators kept bringing up a hypothetical scenario where there was a nuclear bomb counting down, and some guy wouldn't admit where it was hidden in a major city. My favorite response to that involved presidential pardons, something along the lines of:

1. "So what? If everything you say is true, then the authorities would simply torture the guy and seek a pardon afterwards. We already have an exceptional mechanism for those exceptional situations, meaning that's not a reason to change it."

2. "Conversely, any interrogator who isn't confident of a pardon is on who does not believe it's at ticking-bomb situation, meaning they cannot justify torturing someone anyway, they just want to do it to make their job marginally easier. That's bad, so it should stay illegal."

FilosofumRex | parent | next
It's part of the separation of powers and the system of checks & balances against powers of branches of government.

Congress makes laws and impeaches presidents, courts judge constitutionality of laws and try cases of treason and presidents appoint judges and grant pardons.

You can't have impeachment without pardon, otherwise, there wouldn't be a check against judicial tyranny.

samatman | parent | next
It's a system of checks and balances. The Presidential pardon power is specifically a check on the power of the Federal judiciary.

Regimes have toppled in response to popular uprising against imprisonments perceived as unjust. Having a system of governance without a way to rectify that seems unwise to me.

The check on Presidential authority, in turn, is impeachment. It's not a perfect system by any means, but in my estimation it's a good one.

varsketiz | parent | next
I tend to think this way about ideal leadership, but in reality big systems I can see end up having exception paths, or even processes
that_guy_iain | parent | next
They literally gave the power of pardons so that one person could right wrongs. Previously, it was used a lot more than it is now. There are lots of people in prison on unfair sentences which are technically legal but still wrong. Sentencing guidelines are just guidelines.
rafaelmn | parent | next
Legal system is very often at odds with public perception of justice, changing the law is slow and does shit for people currently in jail - having veto power for elected officials is a good safety mechanism and helps perception of justice.
murphy1312 | parent | next
It is a relic from the time when most countries had kings who could pardon people.
sebzim4500 | parent | next
He's a single person but this was a campaign promise of a campaign that 77.3 million americans voted for.
tonymet | parent | next
Is this a complaint about Trump or Biden ? So far Biden has pardoned more than 20x Trump , and Bidens recipients were Much more controversial
account42 | parent | next
Bidens pardons have been even more absurd - pardoning people for unspecified crimes before they have even been charged. Including his family.
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gadders | parent | next
Did you say this about Biden pardoning his whole family for their crimes, or just the ones Trump issued?
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keepamovin | parent | next
Still something tells me you have zero problem with the thousands of pardons Biden issued, correct?

Don’t dress up your stance in fancy garb when it comes down to something baser.

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lolwatter | parent
Maybe the legal system shouldn't have been used to go after individuals based on political reasons? Wouldn't that be a good start? Fed always win, so send Fed after someone and they will be in jail soon. It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do, this is sadly the way it's done now.

1500 in jail for protesting in DC? Really, less than that in jail after months BLM riots afaik. Sure, jail a few bad boys, but 1500? No way.

Throw a rock at people in power and go jail. Rape and murder is fine, no threat to DC.

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