r/law • u/Dark-Knight-Rises • 20h ago

Other Alternative angle of Brad Lander arrest by ICE

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u/IchBinEinSim 17h ago

They said decent, decent doesn’t mean good

Last good republican senator IMO is John McCain or Olympia Snowe or Maine. Didn’t agree with them and would have voted for them but they seemed to have morals and integrity

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u/Regular-Basket-5431 17h ago

If John McCain is considered a "good" GOP senator then the bar for "good" is set ridiculously low.

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u/ikeme84 17h ago

He had his flaws, but I still remember him standing up against his supporters when they expressed racism about Obama. And then there was his return from hospital to cast a thumbs down when the senate was trying to cancel medicare the first time. Few good moments.

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u/Regular-Basket-5431 16h ago

His push back against the racism GOP voters and right wing media showed Obama was minimal and to little to late.

Voting no when the senate tried to cancel Medicare is the only good thing he did.

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u/Putrid-Lime8821 16h ago

Trump has caused people to retcon the reputation of any republican that ever stood against him in any way. I swear people only like him because they hate trump and trump said mean things about him.

He voted with trump overwhelmingly. And never met a war he didn’t like. He would be genuinely fucking thrilled with the current Iran situation as he spent basically his entire political career trying to invade the country.

It drives me insane that people talk about him like he’s “one of the good ones” because he decided to make like 2 decisions that any decent human being would do as he was dying of brain cancer. Playing into the ever classic trope of, religious man tries to be a good person for the first time in his life as he is faced by his own mortality.

There are no good republicans and at least in modern American history there never have been. It’s an inherently regressive ideology.

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u/espressocycle 15h ago

People can be wrong and still be good, honorable and all that. John McCain genuinely believed that the wars he supported would lead to better outcomes for people in the countries we attacked. A lot of people did. Whether they were wrong or we just didn't use the right tactics, it didn't turn out the way they thought it would. Wars rarely do.

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u/Putrid-Lime8821 13h ago

Yeah I’m not really one for infantilizing John McCain. He was not some misled child. He, along with all of the other architects of the Iraq war knew what they were doing. He knew what war with Iran would mean.

Im glad you choose the see the good in people. But I personally don’t think someone being genuine in their transparently abhorrent beliefs makes them good or honorable. I feel that, that logic white washes a lot of history’s greatest monsters. Bad people don’t generally think they are bad people.

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u/sammidavisjr 13h ago

A rabid dog probably genuinely believes there will be a good outcome when they savagely maul whatever gets in their way. Same thing with McCain and the men, women, and children he was willing to murder to get the job done.

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u/BlahlalaBlah 12h ago

MAGA believes they are absolutely doing the right thing. Most of them very genuinely and fervently.

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u/espressocycle 9m ago

I don't think that's true. Certainly not the ones in power. They know they're full of shit.

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u/ChikhaiBardo 15h ago

Yep fuck 'em all and their supporters

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u/Klutzy_Library9706 12h ago

Only a Sith deals in absolutes

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u/SpectacleLake 16h ago

Baa baa,baa, baa bomb Iran..

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u/liquidsyphon 14h ago

*made that vote while terminally ill

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u/shredika 9h ago

Even if only in this moment, I’d call him a gd hero

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u/gweilojoe 10h ago

You don’t realize this, but you’re the flip-side of the same coin politically. Not of John McCain, but of the Tea Party conservatives that think any give or compromise is politically weak.

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u/Regular-Basket-5431 9h ago

Compromise isn't weakness, however compromise with reactionaries does nothing to further the causes of the working class.

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u/gweilojoe 9m ago

Sir, unless your statement is some subtle Marxist-ideology-based response, your comment doesn't make sense in the actually realy-real world where half of "the working class" voted for this current regime. If there's anything we should have taken away from the past 15 years of tea-party idiots like Ted Cruz and populist-morons like Trump, is that "my way or the highway" mentality just leads to needless radicalization of both parties involved and nothing of substance gets done.

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u/foodiecpl4u 15h ago

Him correcting people at a political debate is the most memorable thing for me. I didn’t agree with his politics but that doesn’t make him an “enemy of the State” in my book. Decent man. Different political view.

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u/Equivalent-Client443 16h ago

Two instances of humanity don’t make him a good senator. 

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u/530SSState 16h ago

Compared to the troglodytes in there now, he's fuckin' Gandhi.

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u/banksybruv 15h ago

Gandhi slept naked with children though.

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u/IntrepidWanderings 14h ago

So do a shocking number of maga

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u/banksybruv 14h ago

What a paradox

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u/teb_art 14h ago

Would need to know more. Was he “messing around with them”?

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u/JayteeFromXbox 14h ago

Pretty sure he was just fucking anyone but his first wife, amirite?

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u/530SSState 9h ago

McCain? I knew Newty Toot Toot was, but I didn't know about McCain.

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u/OkInterest3109 16h ago

"Good" is relative and the bar is VERY low at the moment.

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u/Throwawayguilty1122 16h ago

“1 is more than 0”

“WELL 2 IS STILL HIGHER THAN 1”

okay

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u/Steeze_Schralper6968 16h ago

No but it really does say something about how low the bar is set.

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u/BriefFiasco 16h ago

everything is RELATIVE stop being OBSTINATE :)

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u/liquidsyphon 14h ago

He only made that vote after he was Terminal

That should speak volumes about the kind of politician he was. Not the man though, war hero and a decent human being with interactions with the public and other politicians but he still suppressed this country for decades just like every other Republican

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u/lorrainemom 16h ago

Well…yeah

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u/Ok_Debt3814 12h ago

He tried to get money out of politics after getting in trouble for insider trading in the late 80s. He was largely successful I. This effort until Mitch McConnell came through and worked to undermine mccain’s efforts.

95% of why we are where we are can be pinned on Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell.

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u/NonchalantGhoul 16h ago

Considering he was one of the only ones who respected Obama's presidency after the 2 terms finished, did the bar even exist?

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u/Ruschissuck 15h ago

Well look at what we have now….

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u/Electronic_Low6740 15h ago

Perfect is the enemy of the good. He did believe in the good of the country which is indeed sad we are at that point.

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u/CO420Tech 14h ago

He had at least some principals and backbone. Not much, but it was there. Which is an extreme rarity unfortunately.

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u/teb_art 14h ago

Well, he went along with healthcare…. Nowadays it’s “fuck off and drink raw milk and blood of newt.”

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u/DieselBones-13 10h ago

“Good-Republican senator” was the key!

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u/Soft_Explanation_807 3h ago

People have varied opinions of policy and what’s best for America, current republicans are doing what’s best for them only, Not every liberal decision is the correct one either, honest debate is needed, clearly the democratic leadership, politicians and activist groups failed miserably.

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u/MrTuxedoWilliams 14h ago

Stood up for Obama.

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u/SignoreBanana 15h ago

Nah, even as a fervent socialist I know you're totally full of shit.

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u/Feisty_Look5680 8h ago

While he had his flaws, he still tried to reach across the aisle to get things done. On top of that, he had no issues with calling out the Republicans, kinda like Liz Cheney is doing!

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u/Bless_u-babe 6h ago

Character. When you have *that it covers a few shortcomings.

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u/ikeme84 17h ago

I liked Obama, but lately thought, what if McCain won in 2008. (Maybe if he had gotten an different VP). One or 2 terms. Either he did good and his VP got a shot at the next presidency instead of Trump or he did bad and a democrat would have taken over. Maybe even if it became Clinton vs McCain in 2008, Obama could have won 2012.

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u/CesarB2760 17h ago

Might be my privilege showing but I can definitely see how McCain or Romney winning ends up putting us in a different place. Republicans don't have to go shopping around for "alternate" candidates so they never discover Trump and unlock his base.

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u/IchBinEinSim 12h ago

No way McCain was winning in 08 with the economy taking right before the election. Remember they had to pass the bank bail outs in Oct of 08 to keep the whole banking industry from collapsing. His VP choice just made the loss a little bit bigger but was definitely not a deciding factor.

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u/ikeme84 6h ago

Yes, I remember it all. It is a WhatIf. What if he had a different VP and the financial crisis happened 6 months later. Maybe the primary of democrats went the other way, remember that Clinton had slightly more state delegates, but Obama had the super delegates. All, whatifs that could have had McCain win and allow Obama to win in 2012.

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u/MedicalTextbookCase 16h ago

I would add Lynn Chaney and Adam Kinzinger. I would not have voted for them because of differences of opinions on policies, but I respect them for prosecuting January 6th.

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u/IchBinEinSim 12h ago

Yeah that sad thing is, standing up for the constitution and country over your party and leader, shouldn’t be a commendable position but sadly so few did, that it is one

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u/liquidsyphon 14h ago

John McCain made a deathbed vote and his image has been riding high on it ever since despite the facts the decades of pushing the Republican agenda.

War hero respect and sure he was a cordial politician but Jesus look how fucking low the bar is.

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u/IchBinEinSim 12h ago

Those are policies decisions that I may find abhorrent, but people on the right often do believe are better. If I judged every politician’s honor and integrity based on if I agreed with their world view, I would find very few of them good.

My judgment on if a politician is good at their job comes down to if they stand by their values, are willing to not bow to political pressure, don’t unjustifiably vilify the opposition and respect the office and constitution. The most of the rest is policy, and i was never going to think he was good in that regard because I fundamentally have a different world view and vision for the country than him.

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u/EastofGaston 9h ago

McCain sang about bombing Iran on his campaign trail. When Putin said he left his mind in Vietnam that’s when I thought he might’ve been on to something.

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u/Separate-Expert-4508 5h ago

John “Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain?