Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Buttons840 714 days ago
We ask every soldier to put their life on the line. But do we dare ask our President to subject himself to our laws?

I mean, if Obama went to prison for the drone strikes he ordered, his sacrifice would be less than many common soldiers have made.

I want Presidents willing to put their lives on the line and their actions under the law. Is that too much to ask?
3 comments
jkic47 714 days ago
Great rhetorical question, but do consider these points: 1. we ask everyone to do their individual jobs. In a soldier's case, loss of life is a job hazard. In the President's case, making tough decisions that could kill soldiers and civilians is a job hazard 2. The assassination rate for US Presidents is 8.7% (4/46 Presidents were assassinated). 3. There were 1,922 US combat deaths in Afghanistan (ref 1) and at the peak of the war, there were 100,000 troops there (ref 2). If you ignore all the other years of deployment, a US soldier's death risk in Afghanistan was 1.9%

Numbers are hard when they go against our intuition, but every US President is taking a comparable risk to being a soldier according to these numbers.

Obama took the risk of being a President while Black Trump took the risk of being a President while Orange

Ref 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan... 2. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2016/07/06/...

link
JamesBarney 714 days ago
Not less than the average sacrifice a soldier made. The average soldier would not sign up if they had a significant chance of going to prison afterwards.

Yes it's too much to ask every president to significantly risk jail time for being president.

link
InTheArena 714 days ago
yes, because throughout history this has been abused. This was the reason that Caesar crossed the Rubicon - his opponents were all queued up to sue him into oblivious on his term as counsel ended.
link
Buttons840 714 days ago
Why are we okay asking soldiers to die, but asking the President to risk prosecution and be subject to the law is "too much"?
link
InTheArena 714 days ago
Because we need governments and can't afford to make it so that anyone who ever wins elections spends the rest of their life fighting off lawsuits. Wars happen, and governments exist, people forget that laws are used as much to impede good governance as they are to enforce good governance.
link
Buttons840 714 days ago
What would be the consequences if we did allow Presidents to be prosecuted and some of them did spend the rest of the life fighting prosecutions?

It seems to me the consequence would be that we would have Presidents who act carefully to not break the law. Are there any other consequences?

I've heard it said that "democracies are where the people in power lose". We've all seen "democracies" where the party in power never loses; those aren't real democracies. Likewise, I would say nations that are truly governed by law are where those in power face legal prosecution.

(Also, what's so bad about prosecution? If a person is innocent, the legal system will find them to be innocent, right?... Right?)

link
jkic47 714 days ago
The consequences would be Lawfare.
link
Buttons840 714 days ago
And what's the consequence of that? Presidents who are extra careful to obey the law because they know they will be highly scrutinized?

All this seems so rooted in "what do we owe the President?" while my questions here are more assuming the President is a servant of the people and is thus making a sacrifice to serve the nation and is willing to accept the risks that comes from making hard choices while being subject to the law.

link
tick_tock_tick 714 days ago
Because doing so gives the President tons of incentives for bad behavior. It's a fun case where "risk of prosecution" would result in tons more questionable behavior then less.
link