Lula: Brazilian Democracy and Sovereignty Are Non-Negotiable

It looks like he simply failed to secure the support of all branches of the military and decided against going through with it. That's why I think it's silly to claim there was a coup attempt. At the end of the day, a coup was not actually attempted. They could have charged him with something more accurate like conspiracy. Conspiring to do something is obviously a much lesser crime than actually doing it. They specifically chose to call it a coup for political reasons. Giving up was pretty stupid in hindsight, he's being judged as though he had actually gone through with it. He might as well have tried.

Oh well. Bolsonaro's fate is much less important than the fate of the thousands of people who went to jail in January 8th. I don't believe there was a coup attempt there either. They asked the military to do it and the military did nothing. They can be charged with vandalism, incitation, whatever. They can't be charged with an actual coup attempt. That requires actually picking up weapons and trying to depose the government by force. Asking the military to do it on their behalf doesn't amount to a coup attempt.

For the record: I don't think Bolsonaro is wrong from a purely moral standpoint. My position is that the supreme court itself enacted a silent coup years before these events unfolded. That makes any manuever from Bolsonaro a counter-strike against the real tyrants. Especially since these same tyrants nullified the corruption case against the current president and violated the constitution on a daily basis in order to get him elected in 2022. Now that Bolsonaro's been defeated, the only hope for this country lies in Trump's sanctions as well as diplomatic and economic pressure.

Yes, and the result is transparently political decision making that overrides written law. These judges are supposed to apply the law as written, not reinterpret it however they want to fit their political needs.

It's literally illegal for these justices to engage in politics and partidarism. It doesn't stop them. Nobody even tries to hold them accountable for it. They'd just judge themselves innocent anyway.

> I only see conservatives and right wingers bring up this argument about judges not being elected

The left used to criticize Alexandre de Moraes quite a lot before he started to persecute the right. They too accused him of tyranny, coups and whatnot. I'm not unique in holding this position.

> the only purpose in making it is de-legitimization of the judiciary.

That's the point. I don't really respect this court as legitimate.

Judges in Brazil are selected via concurso público. Lawyers compete with each other via standardized tests and the best ones get the position. It's entirely possible for lesser judges to be more qualified to apply the law than supreme court judges.

They are supposed to be impartial but that's impossible due to the fact they are appointed by politicians. Lula rejoiced in his current mandate because he was "finally able to get a communist into the supreme court". He obviously aims to use the court to implement his political agenda, subverting its actual function. Thus we end up with totally absurd situations where one of Lula's communists and his former lawyer are passing judgement on his main political opposition.

They just decided that social media companies were liable for user content despite written law saying liability only exists if court orders are disobeyed. Leaks from their office show that they decide things monocratically and then ask their paralegals to draft arguments in support of the decision. When they rejected attempts to add a paper trail to the voting machines the arguments they used to justify their decision were total nonsense like "it can't be implemented quickly enough". They're the supreme court so they get the last say even if the argument is bullshit. I'm inclined to dismiss any arguments they put forward and consider only the political context surrounding the decision instead.

There's also the fact they don't have a lot of respect for the constitution they're supposed to be interpreting. Numerous times I witnessed them do the exact opposite of what the text says. In Brazil censorship is unconstitutional and political censorship doubly so, yet that's exactly what they did. And that's far from being the only one example.

> You never hear people saying 'we should change the constitution to have judges elected rahter than appointed'.

Well that's exactly what I'm saying. If these judges are gonna be politicians in disguise, then I demand the ability to vote them out after a few years. Their lifetime mandates are unacceptable.

Normally in Brazil, judges are selected via concurso público. Lawyers are tested and the best performing ones get the position. I suppose that's also a viable alternative.

> that's how you feel, then implicitly you're rejecting the constitution

You're right. I hadn't realized it until now.

> In that case you should probably begin by conforming your opinions to legal reality as outlined above.

Truth is I'm not sure this country has laws anymore. The law is whatever the judges write down on a piece of paper.

> It's hard for anyone to have a logical argument with you if your conclusions are built upon hidden premises like 'the constitution is wrong'.

I seriously doubt the writers of this constitution anticipated that the judiciary would usurp the powers of the executive and the legislative and that senators and congressmen would be unwilling to put a stop to it due to fear of retaliation.

I definitely object to the parts of the constitution that gave rise to this sorry situation. It should definitely be amended so it doesn't happen again.

I don't know. As far as I can tell it's a recent phenomenon. I can't recall any other instance where failed political maneuvers were judicialized like this, can you cite any?

> Which bring us to this failed model of the executive being able to appoint judges to the supreme court

> Something I'm sure we agree on here.

We absolutely agree on this.

> Here you are replicating talking points from Bolsonaro

Not at all. I've always doubted these voting machines. I'm even more of a radical than Bolsonaro ever was. Being a programmer helps. It's just that before Bolsonaro won I didn't even bother with politics because I had written off this country as a lost cause.

The only talking point I replicate is that of Germany. They ruled that voting machines are unconstitutional because laymen do not understand the technology and therefore cannot audit elections. That's the most sensible argument in my opinion.

> who couldn't find any trustful source to back his claim

The report provided by the armed forces was plenty for me. It revealed that unaudited libraries were downloaded from the network and linked. It revealed that builds were not reproducible and thus correspondence between source and executable could not be proven. They didn't even have access to source control.

I really feel sorry for all the laymen who asked for source code on the streets. They could have released the sources and it still wouldn't have proven anything. It would have been an embarrassment.

It's a red herring anyway. It's up to TSE to prove beyond doubt that this system is secure. The judge made extraordinary claims: the machines are UNQUESTIONABLE. The standards of perfection he set require extraordinary evidence. He's offered nothing but censorship and persecution. This is the system through which power is transferred from the people to our representatives, any doubt at all and power should not be transferred.

The key issue is whether votes are counted correctly and not diverted to some specific candidate. This concern could have been completely bypassed had they implemented the paper trail as proposed. We could have had the best of both worlds.

> truth is they play their own games individually

We agree on this. Lula is certainly a communist, as is Dino. The other ministers probably aren't. They aren't anti-communists either, so they still help their agenda.

> In my opinion, Moraes go after Bolsonaro more as a personal vendetta because of his stupid attacks against the Supreme Court in 2020.

Agreed, though his abusive conduct certainly precedes those attacks. The "fake news" inquisition began in 2019.

Also, his attacks on the court may have been stupid but were certainly deserved, given their constant interference. For some reason the court would always find a reason to get in his way. Now that Lula's in power, they don't bother to block anything.

> I believe that you believe that, but I also believe that those are not your opinions, are influences from the social bubble your are inserted in.

I don't think so. My views diverge significantly from those of the "bubble". We merely align on some key points.

The only politician who truly represented me is dead: Enéas Ferreira Carneiro.

> You believe the "evidence" that is presented to you when you should really be double checking everything, even what is confirming your views.

Testing my world view is the number one reason why I post these comments here. I actively seek out debates. Either I'll win the argument or I'll be forced to change my world view. I'm relying on adversaries to present conflicting evidence. Obviously this doesn't work if people refuse to debate in good faith.