[ben_w]

With extreme difficulty.

The only real step 1 — unless you want to get into a philosophical argument about the foundation of knowledge and the Münchhausen trilemma — is "get a law degree", which for most people is much too hard.

The closest that nerds like me can do is to watch another lawyer explain what Trump's lawyers did wrong, and hope that YouTube isn't just one giant conspiracy by The Man (and while I have reasons for trusting this channel specifically, I do not trust YouTube collectively): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhy5Y8xVHS0

(This is, I think, further from a law degree than "watching a 25 minute video about Excel" is from "senior software engineer").

[MrPatan]

Yeah, I do wonder as well, how come Trump can't hire better lawyers? Wait, I'm getting a weird brain wave. Could it be because any lawyer representing Trump will get targetted, disbarred and destroyed? No, that can't be it, it must be something else.

Also, what Man? I have no idea who that guy is, it's enough that he's a Trump hater, you don't need any conspiracy, jsut the one guy who doesn't like Trump. You don't like Trump, so you went and google for whatever link you could paste here as "proof" and that was it, that was your process. Youtube-lawyer-guy's process doesn't necessarily need to be much better than that.

Plus I asked you how can you tell the difference between "actual crime" and a political witch hunt. You haven't answered. Do you think Navalny's lawyers won't be found guilty with all the trimmings in a court of law? Do tell me how would you explain the difference to the proverbial just-landed-alien.

[teh64]

How about:

1. He has a documented history of not paying his bills.

2. He does not listen to the advice of his lawyers.

Why would someone want to work for such a client?

[ben_w]

> Wait, I'm getting a weird brain wave. Could it be because any lawyer representing Trump will get targetted, disbarred and destroyed?

"Any" is false, therefore the question yields false. I'd suggest watching the video again, but I assume that was too long for you — if so, (1) I recommend the "speed" button as this guy is quite watchable at double speed, and (2) it's a tier list and it starts that list with the most competent ones, who are all counter-examples to your premise because they're not in trouble.

Before the list, he basically asks your question but phrased differently.

> Also, what Man? I have no idea who that guy is, it's enough that he's a Trump hater, you don't need any conspiracy, jsut the one guy who doesn't like Trump.

(1) Are you unfamiliar with the phrase "The Man"? (2) Needs a lot more than one person as there are a multiple cases in multiple states, and it needs a judge/jury to agree with the prosecution.

> You don't like Trump, so you went and google for whatever link you could paste here as "proof" and that was it, that was your process

Nope, I was already familiar with this specific lawyer for the way he explains other legal topics. I just looked him up directly to see what he had to say on this topic. Hence why I wrote in the previous comment "I have reasons for trusting this channel specifically, I do not trust YouTube collectively".

> Plus I asked you how can you tell the difference between "actual crime" and a political witch hunt.

The important thing about a witch hunt, the defining characteristic even, is the lack of any objective evidence.

The important thing about a successful prosecution under the current systems in most of the world, is the presence of evidence.

In the case of Trump's lawyers, the ones who got into trouble did so by signing their name to untrue statements made under oath, emailing conspiratorial messages from their (other) employer's workplace that they then sued to keep secret, recording themselves on CCTV or dictaphones, etc. — all stuff with a surprisingly clear trail of evidence.

(Not germane to the point, but contrary to what you think you asked, it didn't seem like you were asking «how can you tell the difference between "actual crime" and "a political witch hunt"» but rather between "crime" and "a dictator looking for any excuse to throw their enemies away", which is a very much harder pair of things to differentiate because any competent dictator would just rewrite the rules of the game so they always win — "lawful evil" in D&D terms, whereas the things that are troubling Trump's lawyers are only troubling the specific lawyers that appear to be missing the "lawful" part of the alignment, which is kinda a big deal for a job that has "law" right there in the name).

[MrPatan]

Sure. You'll find plenty of evidence for Navalny's lawyers as well, funny how that works. You still haven't told me how you're going to tell them apart. I mean, I know: You start with the conclusion and work back from there, so that's easy and clean.

Also, have you heard of selective enforcement? Does it not worry you at all to see the one side consistently getting prosecuted and persecuted and the other one not at all? Do you think you're always going to be on the right side?

I don't know man, you are watching the government of the USA going after its main political opponent, no holds barred, even after his lawyers (which of course is pour encourager les autres don't play coy), and you're taking it very well, like "Yes, this is what democracy feels like, love it". And the sight of literally Putin doing literally the same thing doesn't trigger the least amount of thought in your mind. It's all going great, yes. Beautiful.

[ben_w]

Re first paragraph:

> The only real step 1 — unless you want to get into a philosophical argument about the foundation of knowledge and the Münchhausen trilemma — is "get a law degree", which for most people is much too hard.

Go and do the thing. I'm serious, if you want to make this a real actual argument and not just two random nerds locking horns on the internet (which I'm not interested in so you'd have to find a real actual lawyer to spar with after getting that degree), that's the only way — there is no other.

> Also, have you heard of selective enforcement? Does it not worry you at all to see the one side consistently getting prosecuted and persecuted and the other one not at all? Do you think you're always going to be on the right side?

You could've figured that one out from my own comment a few hours earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37954311

> pour encourager les autres

desole, je ne pe parle francais (seriously, I try to say that in French and my French coworker is all "quoi?" because my French is that bad)

> And the sight of literally Putin doing literally the same thing doesn't trigger the least amount of thought in your mind.

On the contrary, for every punishment in the systems in which I exist, I often find myself thinking back to an old movie quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk

(This is particularly poignant to me, as a British person, because of the context of the Human Rights Act 1998 and its use in polemics during half the discussion about Brexit even though technically it's separate: I do not trust any power that says "trust me").

You however (unless you want to deny this now?) give every indication of sincerely appearing to believe that anyone on Team Trump can only be arrested falsely, not honestly.

As for Navalny’s lawyers? If they're guilty or not? You may not have seen the final edit to the comment where I made a D&D comparison — I don't know if they're guilty of "real" crimes, nor if they're even guilty of "laws passed by Putin to lock up troublemakers", but those two states are almost indistinguishable without being a constitutional law expert, and I've been (attempting to be) clear on the difficulty there from your first direct response to me. (Discuss: Is {Putin|Trump} "lawful evil" or "chaotic"?)