States using courtrooms to punish people who have attempted a coup is hardly unethical, no?

I have to say, it is cute to read your faux outrage over this after Bolsonaro made sure the guy with the best chances to defeat him two elections back would be put into prison in a sham trial right before the election... not persecuting a figure as corrupt and power hungry as Bolsonaro would be 100% ethically wrong.

I think you got your timeline of events in the wrong order. Bolsonaro was just a low-level congressman when Lula was convicted.

Not saying that Bolsonaro has any moral high ground to stand on, though. He is as corrupt as it gets. But if anything, I'd say that his problems really started when he was already elected and colluded with the Supreme Court to get Lula out of prison in exchange of killing the investigation against his sons.

That is false. Lula was freed because a hacker leaked the messages between the judge and the prosecutor, showing the judge's active collaboration with the prosecution. The trial was annulled. The case restarted, and they found that the evidence against him was quite weak.

Yeah, right. And the fact that investigations on Bolsonaro were shelved by Toffoli are a mere coincidence.

If anything it’s way too mild.

I meant the guy had a concrete plan to topple democracy, assassinate other leaders and bring back dictatorship.

People like this should be thrown into prison for the rest of their lives.

If only he had actually attempted a coup and succeeded. Then maybe we wouldn't have had to live in a quasi-communist judiciary dictatorship.

You do realize the supreme court has been grabbing power since 2019 and by now is essentially running the country, right? A few days ago they once again walked all over our elected congress. Our institutions exist to give people the illusion of democracy. In fact, these unelected judges have usurped the powers of the legislative and executive branches of government. They are judge-kings.

How is Brasil right now not a dictatorship led by the supreme court though?

I'm not saying Bolsonaro is any good. Just saying Brasil is cooked either way and I don't get how anybody can take sides. It's like chosing between catshit or dogshit.

So did Bolsonaro have any basis for claiming the vote against him was rigged? If he did, fair enough. There should be an investigation into the rigging.

If the vote was fair, then there may be an excuse of bad advice. He should've known better, but it's possible someone lied to him.

And a third option, he lied knowing well that the vote was fair. I such case this is an attempt to undermine the state and it should be dealt with harshly. It's o E thing if some journalist makes BS claims. It's another if obe if candidates does so.

I genuinely have no idea which of these is true. I know for a fact the claim "we lost because of fraud" has been popularised by Trump and him basically not getting even a slap on the wrist for it. So it gets used everywhere now.

> So did Bolsonaro have any basis for claiming the vote against him was rigged? If he did, fair enough.

To start with: voting machines. Surely we need not debate the problems with such technology in Hacker News of all places? I don't really need to elaborate on this matter, right?

Then there's the fact our elected congress tried to add an auditable paper trail to the machines not once but twice and in both instances was overruled by the unelected supreme court. More details here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423

> There should be an investigation into the rigging.

And who would investigate such a thing?

One of the supreme court judges, Alexandre de Moraes, was also the head of the so called Electoral Court at the time. Yes, the same guy who's judging Bolsonaro now. He was in charge of the voting machines. I have videos of him proudly proclaiming that the machines are UNQUESTIONABLE. One would think he'd have the balls to publish the source code and hardware schematics and offer a billion dollar bug bounty.

> I genuinely have no idea which of these is true

I'll tell you what I saw.

In the months leading up to the 2022 elections, I personally witnessed these judges interfere with the elections in unprecedented ways. I watched them call everything Bolsonaro and his party said "fake news" and issue countless censorship orders. I view it as something of a nationwide gaslighting campaign.

Suddenly, everything was "fake news". It was "fake news" to say Lula had been imprisoned for corruption, even though he had been. It was "fake news" to say he's friends with communist dictators, even though he is. It was "fake news" to say he's the preferred candidate of the country's organized crime gangs, even though he is. They even deemed it "fake news" to say he's a communist and a socialist himself, even though there's literal video evidence of it. I watched them censor a documentary about the assassination attempt on Boldonaro as "fake news" despite the fact the documentary had not even been released yet. A priori censorship, something not seen in these lands since the military dictatorship of the 20th century.

All this happened even though in Brazil censorship is unconstitutional, especially censorship of political speech. Censorship equals dictatorship, it's that simple. People who protested this have been sent to jail already. Brazilian journalists and even streamers have sought political asylum in the USA because of these events.

People keep talking about Bolsonaro's alleged coup that never actually materialized. They ignore the silent coup perpetrated by these unelected judges. They have been relentlessly grabbing power since at least 2019. Now they have essentially usurped the legislative and the executive branches of government. Yes, they legislate and they execute. They recently decided to make social media companies liable for user content, despite actual laws to the contrary. Just a few days ago they raised taxes on the brazilian population despite our elected congress blocking the taxation.

More details about the supreme court's abuses:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382

Brazilian politics are a shitshow and neither Lula nor Bolsonaro are saints.

But Trump exerting pressure like this is another level.

This “both sides” shit has to stop! They are not equivalent in their badness.

People constantly "both side" genocides when they happen, don't be surprised when they both side less significant things.

What's the alternative?

"We're right and you're wrong!"

That's sure to lead to more nuance and critical thought.

That is intellectually very dishonest. That's not what I said and not even close.

The alternative is "we might be bad but the other side is so much worse their continued existence should be literally illegal".

In Brazil, nazism is illegal but socialism and communism are not. They should be.