Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
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User ID: 551
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
5d ago
Mask mandates remained in place. Mask mandates are hysteria.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
6d ago
I don't believe so, no. I'm just riffing off of the claim from Sotomayor and the dissent in Grants Pass or the even more bewildering claims in Powell that claim that many behaviors are actually just statuses and can't be criminalized. I have trouble treating these as serious claims that are intended to work consistently.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
6d ago
Terry Nichols could meet Jones’ penalty at only $7.70 an hour.
I don't know if this is a fun fact or unfun fact, but it is amazing either way and I say thank you for it.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
6d ago
Apparently, Jones should have just claimed that being a kooky conspiracy theorist is a status.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
8d ago
I find that I agree with you across the board, but one footnote on my annoyance with the current state of affairs:
I argue we can reasonably say you're being extremely negligent (and therefore at least partially responsible) if you didn't provide people with adequate warnings, safety equipment, and AT LEAST a guardrail around the edge to keep people from sliding in.
I feel like these online services already do this. They advertise, but they close with a line about gambling addiction. Everyone is simultaneously bombarded with advertisements for gambling and admonishments about how you need to be really careful. To me, this feels like the worst of both worlds, where we legalized something that's apparently quite destructive for quite a few people, but with the caveat that everyone has to be antagonized about how dangerous it is. I bet $2 on Josh Allen to score a rushing touchdown because I think it's fun. Leave me alone. Stop telling me over and over and over that I'd better watch out about how addictive it is. Either let people ruin their lives or don't, but don't do this stupid in between thing where we all acknowledge that it's ruining lives and therefore everyone needs to hear about that.
Overall, I guess I just increasingly believe that the typical person should pretty much not be extended credit on much of anything. They just don't seem to be able to conceptualize how credit lines work, what interest is, and so on.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
15d ago
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I have previously argued at some length in favor of abolishing absentee balloting outside of military service.
My claim isn't that 2020 was good, but that it just turns out that the simple model of 2020 has plenty of explanatory power.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
15d ago
I consider this pretty strong evidence that the sloppiness of just spamming mail-in ballots to just about everyone successfully increased turnout in 2020. Whether you consider that rigging, illegal, totally fair, a desirable state of affairs that should be permanently implemented... whatever, it just seems like that's actually the explanation. If that's not it, we need to explain the big fluctuations in the Trump vote as well.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
15d ago
I remain firmly in favor of restoring secret ballots. While I trust that you and your partner have a lovely relationship and are free to vote your conscience in full view of the other, that is plainly not the case for everyone. Mail-in balloting provides too many opportunities for coercion or otherwise illegitimately changing the votes of others.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
15d ago
Every ad actually aimed at voters has been basically "do it for the women in your life."
Even that seems based almost entirely on the idea that one of the most important things in the life of the women you care about is elective abortions. The people writing these ads don't seem to have any meaningful theory of mind for normal men.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
This guy from China voted and only got caught because he brought attention to it.
There is no reason to believe that this is "very rare" when there is no meaningful process to catch it. No one knows what the rate of non-citizen voting is because there is no meaningful source of truth database to reference against.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
This all just seems absolutely bizarre to me. Like, I'm capable of understanding the words and following the train of thought, I'm not saying that you're being incoherent, but I'm just completely baffled that this doesn't seem insane to others. The idea that it would delegitimize democracy to tell people that they need to vote by election day seems quite literally crazy to me. The idea that we keep accepting votes that come in well after election day just seems like something that everyone knows is wrong. The fact that states can't even tell you how many people voted a couple days after the election seems impossible to justify. I feel like if I explained that process to someone that was voting for the board in the local running club, they would be confident that I was doing something janky to steal an election, that obviously everyone should cast their vote by the time the polls close on election day.
I don't know man; this just seems like an unbridgeable divide.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
I still cannot fathom how any reasonable, good-faith interlocutor thinks this is a good way to run an election. Not having a denominator for vote count on election night is just staggeringly irresponsible if you actually care about legitimizing your democracy.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
Busy day at my local poll mines! I was at the polling station a bit after 8am and there had already been over 200 voters this morning. There remains something wonderfully non-cynical about everyone going to the voting booths on election day, secure in the knowledge that they can vote their conscience without fear of reprisal. I am in a deep, deep blue city and it's all civic good cheer here.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
To illustrate my point, there was a Chinese national in Michigan that voted because LOL apparently? And when he went out of his way to report that he shouldn't have been allowed to vote... well he's in trouble but the vote is still going to count.
My whacko conspiracy theory is that he did it to sow chaos. It's obviously very easy for non-citizens in Michigan to vote. So easy, in fact, that the only way they'd ever get caught is if they turn themselves in. This is pretty obvious, but people insist it isn't so. Some Chinese guy saying, "yeah, I voted, can I get my vote back?" exacerbates the obviousness.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
16d ago
The Time article above is still the top hit for me on Google with those search terms.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
17d ago
At the risk of being tedious, what would make even more sense is to just not make laws about things that you're actually willing to ignore the vast majority of the time. Perhaps Squirrel Law isn't actually something that needs to be on the books at all.
Have we talked about the squirrel? Sigh. Let's talk about the squirrel:
Mark Longo, the owner of the Instagram-famous squirrel, Peanut, is mourning the loss of his beloved pet.
On Nov. 1, Longo took to Instagram to reveal Peanut had been euthanized, along with his pet raccoon named Fred, by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
...
Peanut the squirrel is an internet sensation. He's the beloved pet of digital creator Mark Longo, who would occasionally share Instagram videos of Peanut eating treats, jumping on his clothes and scurrying around his house as he does various tasks throughout the day.
...
In a joint statement, the DEC and the Chemung County Department of Health say they are "coordinating to ensure the protection of public health related to the illegal possession of wild animals that have the potential to carry the rabies virus."
The DEC also notes that it is illegal to keep young wildlife as pets since they are "not well suited for life in captivity. Plus, they may carry diseases that can be given to people."
...
"To test for rabies, both animals were euthanized," they said in a joint statement. "The animals are being tested for rabies and anyone who has been in contact with these animals is strongly encouraged to consult their physician."
This story has been making the rounds on my social media feeds, with commentary, countercommentary, memes, and political implications galore. A few people have wondered why the story resonates, given that it's just a squirrel. For me, it's because of how neatly it ties into other election conversations.
A couple days ago, we were talking about an article on SlateStarCodex and I disputed Scott's framing where he felt the need to say that Democrats can be authoritarian too, even if it's not the normal definition. No, I say, Democrats want arbitrary and petty control over the smallest aspects of your life, things you can't even imagine that someone would care about. In this case, a man had a squirrel living inside his house rather than outside his house. Squirrels, you may be aware, are common animals. Rodents, in general, frequently cohabitate with humans both as pets and pests. For some, it seems only natural that the government has a compelling interest in making sure you have a Squirrel License with proper proof of squirrel maintenance. Failing to license your squirrel is proof positive of outright irresponsibility - what kind of miscreant doesn't even file their squirrel paperwork? For others, this is a great example of how under no circumstances will the government ever leave you alone, even if it's on something as small and irrelevant as whether you're sheltering squirrels under your floorboards. These petty, useless authoritarians are willing to show up without warning, sit you outside your house, and kill your pets because you didn't file for a squirrel license.
When I was young and naturally rebellious, I was a libertarian on strong pro-freedom grounds. As a young professional, I made my peace with the bureaucracy and thought this was an important part of being an adult. As I've aged, my libertarian streak has returned as I've realized just how much I despise our governments.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
20d ago
Squeaking in on the last day with a post that I would personally not categorize as "quality" is kind of interesting. We talked about this before, that certain sorts of highly partisan speech get lots of upvoting and AAQC reports, and I think it's probably not very healthy for the ecosystem. This isn't to say that I think my post is bad or that I don't stand by the position, but I really don't think it's particularly insightful.
...keeping Rawlsians off the court really are that important.
I hadn't even conceived of framing it this way, but this is exactly right from my perspective as well. The one that pops to my mind most recently is the Grants Pass case, but really, it's the echoes of Robinson and the later dissents in Powell where I just keep thinking, "what in the world are we talking about?". The idea is that a status can't be criminalized, but an action can. The dissenters in Powell (and Grants Pass) insist that things like alcoholism and homelessness are statuses, so you can't criminalize things that are downstream of that status. What in the world are we talking about? Applying that logic consistently, absolving people of any meaningful agency, is completely unthinkable to me. Yes, even if you really, really, really want to be drunk in public, I think the police should show up and tell you that's enough for the evening. Yes, even if you don't currently have a home, I think the police should show up and escort you out of the park. More importantly when considering the case law, I cannot fathom that there is a federal right to be drunk in public or sleep in parks.
Or, rather, the Democrats may not be “authoritarian” in the strictest sense of the dictionary definition, but that’s because the Democrats wrote the dictionary and defined the term to mean “bad in the exact way that bad conservatives are bad” (this is almost literally true; a lot of the current authoritarianism discussion comes from a construct invented by Theodor Adorno called “right-wing authoritarianism”).
I will grant that we're all going to prioritize different types of authority differently and process various exercises of power differently, but I am baffled that anyone would feel the need to hedge this way while attempting to steelman their opponent. No, my position is not that there's a dictionary problem, it's just that Democrats are flatly more authoritarian than Republicans. Not because of some idiosyncrasy in verbiage or because I think arms rights are more important than abortion rights, but as a generalized temperament with regard to almost all of the things that I care about.
The current Democrat preference is a whole lot of expert-trusting for a massive bureaucracy that meddles in everything. If you're a large business, get ready to record lots of racial and gender data so you don't run afoul of federal equal opportunity statutes. If you're a landlord, get ready to have people funded by the DoJ try to ascertain whether you're being racist. If you'd like to buy a showerhead, make sure you check whether it's one that you can adjust the flow regulator on or you're going to wind up with one that is saving the planet instead of giving you a nice shower. If you'd like to consume some raw milk, well, that's not safe enough for you and you may not engage in voluntary transactions with farmers, even if they label it clearly. For each of these and a million more, the Democrat position is just, "well, yes, that's a good thing". I will grant that it's a sort of benevolent authoritarianism, but with a hat tip to CS Lewis.
This isn't to say that Republicans don't use power, or don't use power in ways that I don't like, but it is to say that I will absolutely stand on the belief that Democrats want to exercise control over many, many more aspects of my life than Republicans. We haven't even talked about Covid, firearms, and taxation! Those are bigger issues, but I really am just referring to the general temperament and style of governance. Republican administrations simply do less than Democrat administrations, and they would do less still if they would get around to firing half the bureaucracy in the fashion that Vance and Vivek suggest.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
21d ago
Any aid sent to Gaza will feed Hamas first, but it does not follow that we should therefore let Gaza starve.
Does it not? That seems like exactly what follows. If you'd like to win, you can't go around supplying your enemy.
I am aware that this line of thinking is both unpopular and putatively internationally illegal. I find the conclusion that you're actually obligated to feed your military enemy so bizarre that I feel like I must surely be misunderstanding something about the position.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
23d ago
Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.
I wonder if Bezos intended the layer of Straussian reading that's available here? Perhaps it's just because it's my pet issue, but I remain surprised at how hard it is to get people to agree with me that electoral legibility is an absolutely crucial part of legitimating democracy. It's not enough to have very serious experts tell people that it's the safest and most secure election ever, it must be genuinely hard to imagine how the election could be rigged.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
23d ago
I would probably default to trying to prevent international organizations from operating in my country if I didn't have a great reason for believing that their actions would be helpful to my citizens. To put it lightly, UNRWA does not clear that bar for Israelis.
I really doubt that this is specific movement is terribly relevant, but I'm willing to buy that there's some small-scale vibe related to it. One thing that's interesting to me about it is that it is the interplay with marriage dynamics - the electoral marriage gap is also quite wide, and married men and women are both more likely to vote Republican. So, who would be conducting an American 4B and whom would be getting punished by it? It doesn't seem like there will be a great deal of success in punishing right-wing men, who tend to already be married to right-wing women. You can see some of that in the dynamic here:
As a now-aging, happily married, somewhat right-wing man, this all sounds absolutely insane to me. The dream is having a cozy home with your partner. This isn't a trap, it really is just the best, easiest, happiest way to live life. To the extent that single women are vulnerable, it's not because of right-wing men, but because of their own failure to arrange their life in a coherent, ordered fashion. In rebelling and insisting on remaining alone, they continue to push further into insecurity and loneliness.
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