There's an equivocation fallacy going on right now around the word "guilty" and I want to address it because it's doing a lot of heavy lifting for the attack on due process. An equivocation fallacy is when you take advantage of ambiguity, conflating multiple meanings of a word to confuse the listener and support an argument that's actually not valid.
What we ordinarily mean by "guilty" in everyday speech is that a person did the thing we're talking about. I'm "guilty" of eating the last cookie the moment I eat that cookie. I did it. I'm guilty. This is true even with crimes, like speeding. I'm guilty of speeding if I drive 90 on the freeway, even if I don't get a ticket.
But that's not how it's used in legal terminology. Although a person who did what they're accused of is guilty before they are found legally guilty, they are not legally guilty until a verdict is reached, either by a judge or by a jury depending on the type of case.
This is where the equivocation comes in. The ordinary use of "guilty" just means you did it, but the legal verdict of "guilty" is not reached until after charges are brought and the evidence is examined by an impartial process called a trial - and this is what's called "due process".
"Due" because innocent people have a right to prove their innocence - they are due the chance to escape unjust punishment. And "process" because in order to make it fair, there's a structured sequence of activities that help us make sure we've given them that chance. We must gather evidence, by subpoena if necessary, we must hear arguments from both sides, including witness testimony and cross examination, and if it's a jury trial, an impartial jury must be assembled to hear everything and make a fair decision.
This is how the "guilty" language is being abused. In plain language, "guilt" exists before due process - so a person who doesn't have residency documents might be described as "guilty". The equivocation tricks you into thinking we don't need due process if they're already "guilty" in everyday language - but without due process, innocent people can be assumed guilty, and that's a big problem.
Because they aren't legally guilty yet - not until a court has found it so. Legal guilt comes *after* due process. And this is what the administration is doing. By conflating the two usages of "guilty" they assert the before condition as the after condition, and so you don't notice that they've tricked you into giving away your own constitutional right.
This matters because we already know innocent people have been sent to El Salvador, including a US citizen. They were not, in fact, guilty - either colloquially, or legally. They were given no chance to prove their innocence, and administration officials are still on TV calling them guilty without showing any proof at all.
Are the other 200+ people legally guilty? We might not ever know, but it's chilling to imagine that any of us could be where they are if we don't stand up for due process now.
In America, we are innocent until proven guilty for a very good reason. The founders, having lived through arbitrary arrests and disappearances under the King, put due process in the constitution to prevent exactly this kind of injustice. So don't be fooled by this flimsy fallacious argument.
Some of the people they took away may have been exactly what they say. But if they were, and the administration can prove it, there's no downside to bringing them to court. The innocent ones deserve a chance to prove it, and the guilty ones will end up where the administration says they deserve to be.
This is an anarchist page so I have to say, I don't think brutal torture prisons are a place anyone deserves to be, but sadly today the overton window of debate is around due process so I wanted to point out that fallacy. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
