Immunity, barring from office and all that

[hitmouse]

Just a fairly pointless little thread, sparked by thinking about the fairly different cases of Ilaria Salis and that yankee fella who's been having a bit of trouble with the law lately.
I've seen a few people saying things about how they're shocked that a felony conviction wouldn't necessarily bar Trump from the Presidency, and I'm pretty confident in thinking that it shouldn't - Debs was a better candidate than almost anyone the US has had since then, I think the fact that Sanders was arrested during the Civil Rights movement is a point in his favour rather than one against him, and I'd rather see Peltier or Abu-Jamal in the White House than either Trump or Biden, etc etc.
On the other hand, while I'm obviously happy with how the immunity thing is playing out in Salis's particular case, I am a bit surprised that the EU parliamentary immunity is quite as strong as all that. It'd be a bit useless to just go "I think immunity is good when it leads to results I'm happy with and bad otherwise", so is there a prinicipled position to be had on it? Is it something that helps protect politicians who might be subject to legal repression for having unpopular opinions, or does it just make the powerful even more unaccountable? Not that it really matters cos it's not like any of us are gonna be actively involved in shaping the limits of immunity anyway, but anyone got any strong thoughts?

 

[emanymton]

Some disconnected thoughts.

Are people saying Trump shouldn't be able to stand or that they are surprised he can stand?

I have no issue with convicted criminals being able to stand and vote in elections. If for no other reason than crimes are political and campaigning for a change in laws involves standing and voting in elections.

I do see a trend on the left of applying double standards to the right and the left. A lot of this is fairly minor things like lieing or not fact checking claims properly. Now for somethings a cases can be made for having different standards, but you need to make that case or you are just a hypocrite