Have to say this thread has been a sad display by a lot of folks on both sides of the argument. My greatest disappointment in this day and age is the loss of fundamental principle. Either something is right or it is wrong. Either something is constitutional or it isn't. Either something is corrupt or it isn't. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We have totally abandoned that in the name of political agendas. It's why our media has devolved into irrelevancy as far as adjudicating the corruption and lies put forth by our government and our politicians.
The most fundamental and important aspect of our Republic is that the power of the government is derived from the consent of the governed.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed"
We are whole hog destroying this principle and with it, we will destroy our country. It's not enough to wage political warfare based on best principles any longer. Instead, we resort to a "by any means necessary" strategy.
The all out warfare we see relative to all things around Trump is a great example. There was a demonstratively false set of accusations at the outset of his presidency that were used to undermine his entire presidency. At the same time, we had a president speaking daily and lying about anything and everything to make himself look better.
The really dangerous part of this is that we had our institutions like the FBI sucked into this and as part of the events, the authority of these institutions was greatly eroded. We've questioned election results since 2000. We've undermined our electoral college system. We've dissolved the filibuster in the Senate related to many issues. Now the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is under assault in a way we haven't seen in our lifetimes. It's just all too much.
By any constitutional definition, what happened yesterday is a slippery slope at best. The FBI doesn't need to raid a former president's home this way. And if it does, there needs to be a crystal clear reason so the public can understand what is going on here. On both sides, the consent of the governed is waning rapidly because we have so undermined the credibility of our government agencies. They've been used as political cudgels for a long time.
I remember back in 2013 when the IRS scandal broke. It all started with the absolutely false demonization of the Tea Party Movement which resulted in conservative groups being targeted and treated in disparate ways by the IRS. Our president at the time took to the airwaves to acknowledge this in what I hoped would be a very important moment of restoration of the integrity of our government agencies.
Of course, not too long after that, he realized the damage to his administration the reaction could cause and he resorted to playing politics with the matter. Ultimately, he essentially denied it ever happened and diminished the impact it had caused.
It goes without saying that we have different views on almost every aspect of governance in our country. But if we abandon the importance of the truth to try and wage political warfare, we're going to end up destroying the country. We will end up with a civil war. I would encourage people to look to their own side of issues and try to find the honest way to approach things. Neither side is without blood on its hands. The outrage media goes on the march every day in its endless drive to dehumanize and distort everything it can with regard to opposing viewpoints. This must stop. It's quite simple... you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. There's no middle ground here.
I recognize that to many, Donald Trump is a bad, bad man. People that dislike him do so with such visceral disdain. Likewise, there are those that I find to have an uncomfortable and distorted affection for the man. Nevertheless, even to someone as disliked as Donald Trump our first principles detailed by our Constitution must apply. There is great security in knowing that if we defend the rights and freedoms of someone like Trump then we can know we'll be defended as well. On the right, the same is true of reviled characters such as Hillary Clinton. Chanting "lock her up" was never right.
We better wake the hell up or we will quite literally have a blood bath on our hands.