attofishpi wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 5:36 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:50 pm
Let's suppose the election wasn't rigged. Let's suppose that.
However, just as a speculation, if an American election were ever rigged, let's see what would follow.
It would follow that somebody discovered they could rig an American election to produce the results they wanted. They could put a candidate of any quality or character up for office, and get him elected, so long as it was in the name of one of the major parties. They would know they could arrange irregularities with ballots and machine tallies that could produce any result they wished...at least within the extremity of plausibility. They could stop an election in process, and reverse results. The press could be counted on to fall into line. The media's oligarchs would support it. Millionaires could be induced to flush resources into the process...
Moreover, they would know that they could avoid any consequences. They would know they didn't have to fear a judicial reaction or a legal investigation of what they had done. And they would also know now that they no longer had any reason to fear even the President of the United States himself objecting to their interventions. And they would know that the reaction from the electorate would be sufficiently tepid, and Americans would continue to accept any results there were dealt. And, of course, the "winners" would immediately come to their aid and cover up any wrongdoing for them.
But those "winners" thereafter would also have real reason to fear them. They would know that the only reason they "won" was because these backstage operators, these manipulators, were on their side. They would know that, thereafter, if any politician gets unruly relative to the goals demanded of them, the operators can present their services to another cause or another candidate, with the same results. So the party thus elected would have to be very cowed, very tame in the hands of the operators.
In short, if somebody could do that, they would be the new masters of the America.
So let's hope that all didn't happen.
Mate, not sure where consideration of Occam's Razor is more appropriate.
Well, right. But like all things Occam, the debate goes on over which is the genuinely "simpler" solution.
Is it that Joe Biden was fairly elected by normal procedures, and represents the American choice? Or is it that all the many anomalies -- the vast discrepancies between the early and late results, between the voter roles and the numbers of votes, between the actions of the electoral officers and their duties, between historical precedent and reported result, between the swing states and the bellwether constituencies, and so forth -- are more "simply" and probably explained by saying, "Well, it was obviously a fix."
Both are, from their own perspectives "simple" explanations of a sort. So one could claim Occam to both of them. And if the former explanation turns out to be actually
true, then none of the consequences I've suggested above would seem necessary at all. But if the latter explanation is not only the "simpler" but is also the
true explanation, then we must ask ourselves what follows from that.
And that's the real point. For I think that the majority of both the Democrats and the Republican supporters know the truth. They couldn't NOT really know, actually, unless they made a very deliberate effort not to know very much at all -- which would be a temptation, particularly for those who really like the immediate result. They are unconcerned, and others, perhaps, remain concerned -- but not so much as to act, it seems. But very serious concern is certainly warranted for both sides, IF it should turn out to be that the election was fixed by outside powers. IF that were ever to happen, the American Republic -- and plausibly the democratic world as well -- would be in very dire circumstances.
And
that fact, neither side can really doubt.
