Immunity is All Corrupt Self-Dealing
The following is the transcript of my troop deployment (i.e. ending rant) from episode 113 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast
Everyone’s probably forgotten by now because it was like 1,000 years ago, but last episode we covered the Trump immunity decision! And we talked about how terrible it was because it gave the President absolute immunity for “core” official acts - which somehow means “asking your attorney general to do crimes” - and presumptive immunity for all other official acts. And it was terrible! But it was just the latest in a long long tradition of courts and legislatures placing people in certain positions above the law. In fact, all grants of immunity are corrupt self-dealing by the powerful to protect the powerful.
Any time a person is given legal immunity, it’s saying that this person, by virtue of their office, is too busy and important to bother following the law, and we don’t want them to have to waste their time with pesky litigation. Meanwhile, every other person in the country is subject to civil or criminal liability at any time, but they don’t have any connections, so they can go suck eggs.
To see the obvious corruption, one must look no further than the granddaddy of all immunities - sovereign immunity. In the United States, no federal or state government can be sued unless it gives permission. The justification for this is, no joke, the divine right of kings. The king can do no wrong! And therefor, it’s up to the government to decide what it will allow itself to be liable for.
We’ve covered extensively the disaster that is qualified immunity, but there are many others! Judges have immunity for their decisions, no matter how corruptly, arbitrarily, or maliciously they are made. Gee, I wonder who came up with that rule. Lawmakers have immunity for legislative acts. Prosecutors have immunity for charging decisions and various types of misconduct. I, personally, have immunity from defamation for anything I file in court.
Meanwhile, people who don’t work for the government, or in government-adjacent jobs like lawyers have no protection. They just have to, you know, follow the law. And if someone wants to file a bullshit lawsuit, they have to defend against it. This is how our system works and how it was always designed to work. Legislative or judicial grants of immunity are just judges and politicians exempting themselves from the system because participating in it is inconvenient for them. It is the definition of abuse of power, but everyone just accepts it because it’s become so normalized.
So when you get angry about the Trump immunity decision - and you should be angry about it - remember that this is just one part of a corrupt, comprehensive scheme by government actors to exempt themselves from the consequences of the laws they created. It’s all bullshit, and it shouldn’t be tolerated.