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Comment by wdr1 | Hacker News Reader

> Don't commit crimes, don't make leaders of people who commit crimes, and you won't have problems.

Not to be disrespectful, but this is naive.

In a perfect world only "real" crimes would be prosecuted.

But almost every despot prosecuted their opponents by claiming they were criminals. Remember Nelson Mandela spent decades in prison as a criminal. The leaders of the KPD & SPD parties were both arrested as criminals during Nazi Germany. Putin has arrested many of his opponents, citing criminal behavior.

Saying "don't commit crimes" overlooks that the "crimes" themselves may not be real.

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I read the part >>don't make leaders of people who commit crimes, as covering that scenario . Arresting people for "crimes" of getting in your way to power, is a crime in and of itself - even if it is not on the books, so don't make leaders of them.

It's not naive. I agree the world isn't perfect, but we have to operate with imperfect human systems - that's life. More imperfect is politicians with impunity for corruption - at least when they arrest someone, there is rule of law, it requires a trial (even a jury, if the defendant desires), etc.

You are reaching far beyond France to South Africa's minority dictatorship and Nazi Germany for examples. The latter is a great example of political leaders with impunity.

Can you provide any examples at all in modern democracies, at any level of government?

- Russian Federation is technically a democracy.

- Belarus, same thing.

- Ukraine, same thing.

They're all in Europe, too.

- Israel, where the Netanyahu's trial is commonly seen (by both sides!) as a way to prevent Netanyahu from serving as the PM.

- Arguably, US with the Trump conviction.

These are the ones I'm personally aware of, it's more than likely there are better examples.

(In a "no true scotsman" way of thinking, it's easy to debunk any such cases by saying they're bad examples of a democracy. Then again, it's the same argument with any political system — proponents of communism will say that communism was never implemented properly, for example.)

> technically

I don't know what that means, but Russia is not a democracy - the people don't have self-determination to choose their government. Nor is Belarus.

Anyway, what are these examples of? When in a real democracy has a court corrupted the democratic process? Not in Ukraine either - their laws just push off elections during wartime IIRC. And was that done by the courts? Have they jailed the opposition?

> Arguably, US with the Trump conviction

Trump was elected after that!

> Russia is not a democracy

How do you determine this though? There are candidates. Majority of the people vote. The one voted for the most wins.

Sure, _some_ candidates are in jail (or dead) — but that's strictly because they were convicted in a fair trial, they're criminals, you see.

I argue that there are similarities between two regimes blacklisting political candidates from the democratic process.

> When in a real democracy

If we cherry-pick the ones we like to be "real", and the ones we dislike to be "fake", then by definition the "real" ones are the good ones.

> Not in Ukraine either

E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspen...

Sure, not a court per se — it was apparently the country's national security and defense council that took the decision to ban the parties from any political activity.

But I agree, it's whatever.

> Trump was elected after that!

Yep, despite well-documented efforts to block him from running. The outcome is I think a win for democracy. That democrats think of this as a defeat is amusing to me. (I'm an foreigner and don't live or vote in the US, so no horse in the race either way.)

>> Russia is not a democracy

> How do you determine this though?

By not wasting time on intentional time-wasting arguments.

> That democrats think of this as a defeat is amusing to me.

Not most Democrats that I've seen - they wanted the law followed (for future reference: Democratic party members are Democrats, those who favor democracy are democrats).

Thanks! I totally forgot about case-sensitivity of Democrats, and sure, I meant the big D.

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