This is beyond batshit crazy. MAGA thugs in government are now publicly arguing that for the people djt ordered to be deported to El Salvadore, the lack of evidence of criminal activity proves their guilt. The MAGA administration deported people without providing any evidence that they were either illegal immigrants or confirmed members of the Venezuelan TdA crime gang.
I know, I know, this is beyond nuts. But, Above the Law writes:
Trump Admin Unveils New Legal Standard:
‘We Have No Proof, Which Actually Proves Our Case’
The federal government took a couple hundred alleged gang members that they haven’t been able to actually convict of anything and sold them to a slave labor camp in El Salvador. .... The Trump administration responded with a crackpot theory about laws not applying in international waters followed by the even more batshit claim that court orders don’t apply unless they’re in writing. But this wasn’t even the craziest legal argument they uncorked.For rule of law fans, when the White House call this “a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters” what they mean is “a plane full of people that we can’t prove are criminals at all.”
But don’t take my word for it, that’s actually the administration’s argument!While it is true that many of the TdA members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.
The AtL article muses about whether, if you’re a right-leaning, law and order person who believes that the government should send the “worst of the worst” to a foreign prison, why not send actual convicts? That seems like a reasonable question.
However, there is recent American precedent of this line of thinking here, here and here.*** During the Satanic Panic in the 1980s and 1990s, some of the most crackpot believers argued that the absence of evidence proved their allegations were true. Secret satanic cults were kidnapping and torturing children, sacrificing them in elaborate rituals, but they were SO secret, they were able to hide the bodies and cover up all evidence. Some said they burned the bodies. Some said they buried victims in existing graves atop other bodies, where they would never be discovered. Some even said the cultists used the power of Satan to vaporize the bodies. For those conspiracy crackpots, the complete lack of evidence was taken as proof that a conspiracy existed.
*** If there is recent American precedent, then there probably is ancient, pre-American precedent too. Human brain-minds have not evolved a heck of a lot. Only some societies have noticeably evolved.
A peanut in the gallery, maybe a physicist?, commented: This was my big takeaway from the 2020 election denial movement. It hit me when I asked someone where the evidence for any of the alleged fraud was. He said, “if the media was all in on it, you’d expect to see no evidence!” I called this phenomenon the theory of terminal bullshit. It follows from the bullshit asymmetry principle, which says that refuting bullshit requires exponentially more energy than spewing it. I’ve found that sometimes bullshit reaches the point where the spewer alleges that the lack of evidence is proof itself. At that point, the energy required to refute the bullshit asymptotically approaches infinity, thus hitting terminal bullshit. There is simply no way to counter bullshit when the lack of evidence becomes proof.
