anon_
2mo ago
but the degree of force has to be proportionate to the threat.
Right, this I understand.
So if someone attacks with fists, I'm allowed to respond with fists.
Either I don't understand this or it is inconsistent with the previous sentence. A person could be attacking me with fists but threatening me with a noose or threatening to throw me in a van.
The lower bound for the severity of the threat is what the attacker has already done, but a reasonable person might believe the threat is significantly higher based on the circumstances.
In the scenario you describe, where someone is being pummeled with fists while defenseless, then yes, I do believe that a self-defense justification would be appropriate. But that's not most attacks or scuffles, and it's not what happened here.
I think the issue here is that by the time that happens, the opportunity for self defense has already passed. A reasonable person does not wait until they are already on their back getting their head smashed into the concrete before escalating because they know that at that point successful self defense is unlikely.
Of course, one has to have formed a belief that the attacker is imminently likely to use serious force and that belief has to be reasonable under the usual tests. But there is no requirement that I can discern that requires actually waiting until that happens.
A quick flip through the caselaw doesn't seem so clear either. A jury did acquit Bernhard Goetz (except on the carrying without a permit charge) despite none of the attackers even punching him, with the notion that when a group of strangers says "give me $5", they are implicitly threatening serious bodily harm. And there's a few more less prominent cases of deadly force in response to unarmed attacker(s) that I found that seem to imply that reasonable beliefs about imminent threats that are not yet materialized count.
anon_
2mo ago
That does not seem factually true or we are not talking about the same thing.
A person tackled on the ground then pummeled with fists while defenseless is likely to get a concussion or worse.Every single punch to the head is a spin of the roulette wheel.
anon_
2mo ago
The second example is the question of why tickets to the Rose Bowl are so cheap. Lots of people want those tickets at their face value, way more people than there are tickets. Rather than just let the price rise to be market-clearing, they decide that they "have to" hold some back to make sure that vague Bad Things don't happen, and then they get the status of being in control of distribution. They can give something that is extremely highly valued to their buddies, acting like it's really a little thing, really of little value (the face value), but getting widely outsized personal benefits from gatekeeping/rent seeking.
There is a simpler explanation --it's fundamentally a tax harvesting operation. In particular, the tax deduction of a donation must be reduced by the FMV of anything received in exchange for that donation, so the scam goes like
- Donate $1000 to the University
- Receive ticket with a face value of $50, claim a $950 deduction on taxes for ~$400 or so
- University pockets $1000, buyer gets a $1000 ticket for $600, win win
In fact, there is a well-known football university that almost went through with a plan to take 5% of tickets and auction them off, with the proceeds in excess of face value going to some charitable cause. A storm erupted, you see, because an auction for the ticket gives the IRS a very clear starting point for fair market value. Suffice it to say, tickets will never be auctioned off.
anon_
2mo ago
I think the threat posed by an attacker doesn't just mean the attack that has already happened, but what a reasonable person might believe will happen imminently if the attacker is not subdued. This is especially relevant when the ability to change the situation may decrease significantly.
For example, choking someone with a noose or a garrote for a minute or so will not produce any serious lasting injury but continue on another two minutes and it's irreversible brain damage. So I think the question is, if someone has you in a garrote, is it reasonable to perceive this as a threat of serious injury even if, as yet, they haven't crossed that line? And again, especially relevant given that the victim doesn't have a ton of time to wait and see before it's gonna solely be the aggressor's choice whether to stop before or after the line.
I don't know the intricacies of self defense law, but I think it's more than merely unfair if the law demands victims put themselves at the mercy of an attacker.
anon_
2mo ago
Yeah, I agree here -- the officer showing more patience would have just lead to a video that was more flattering to the officer.
anon_
2mo ago
missing demographic on the Motte: married with children. They are too busy to comment here
We read the QCs tho ;-)
anon_
2mo ago
I think what you're describing resides within the civil service. Even Confucius understood that the Emperor is not likely to be the sharpest crayon on every topic and has to rely on ministers and advisors. The art of statecraft that he has to learn is very much more about how to lead that service, keep them in check and point them in the right direction. The art and science of how to actually do things is somewhat less useful at this.
Maybe what I mean is that governance is a meta-skill. And I think modern leaders are failing at it because they are optimized too much on electioneering (as you say), but I think I differ a bit in that I want them to be serious people about employing and empowering the right folks while curbing abuses of a civil service that has been left to fend for itself because the folks that are meant to be overseeing it are AWOL.
You’d probably rather build a business or financial empire or rocket ships or something.
Boy do I have a good story for you that I need to create as a top level post.
anon_
2mo ago
Ideally I would want to get a machine readable version so voting in person was as smooth as possible.
anon_
2mo ago
There are real concerns with absentee ballots, the inability to date them is hardly the most salient.
anon_
2mo ago
I think we shouldn't be relying on the date the voter puts on their ballot at all. In Bayesian terms, it's not very good evidence one way or the other.
But the law apparently required the State to give it credence. Which is silly.
anon_
2mo ago
Well, these days I live in a deep blue state that's completely eliminated friction at the enormous cost of serious doubts about the integrity of the election. But before, I'd say the largest friction points were:
- Narrow timing of in-person voting, sometimes just a single day that I couldn't make work
- Long lines on occasion, or at least uncertainty about wait times
- An inability to pre-fill choices on my own time and then go in person to quickly transfer them to an official ballot
anon_
2mo ago
Ah ok, phrased this way I agree with the sentiment. I must have misread your previous post.
anon_
2mo ago
I think the flip-side is, the lack of acknowledge of the frictions of voting are also frustrating.
Both are valid, IMHO. We have a system that manages to be both awful at integrity and awfully painful to use.
anon_
2mo ago
This seems like a pretty good scenario to go back to the basics: ballots should be counted if the relevant authority can be assured they arrived on time should not be counted otherwise. The remaining effort is on how to ascertain that for a given set of facts.
If an early MIB arrived on October 15th and the relevant authority has strong assurance of that (it went into a chain-of-custody and blah blah blah) then not counting it because it was dated wrong seems unjustified. Other fact matters might lead to different conclusions.
anon_
2mo ago
I guess prior to recent decades, everyone occupying or campaigning for that office had the sense not to pull a political stunt on hallowed ground. That practice didn't spiral out of control.
anon_
2mo ago
I’m convinced that most politicians have no idea how to actually identify, study, and solve problems in the real world.
I don't think they ever should or did. Since you mention Moldbug, it's not like the King was meant to personally be an expert in infrastructure or coinage or agriculture. A few were, no doubt, but I think the job of politicians is largely to select the right folks to advise him, to choose wisely amongst their counsels and to mediate accountability to the public will.
the plucky Ukrainian military run by a former comedian can win a war against a former KGB agent
And yet.
anon_
2mo ago
Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,”
Obviously the Army can regulate uniformed soldiers, but it does not seem that the statute (or any ensuing reg) can specifically single out political or campaign-related speech, since that would be a content-based restriction. Congress could (directly or through authorizing regulation) prohibit all speeches within the cemetery, since that would be a neutral time-place-manner restriction.
Of course the left "he broke the law" folks are just banging that drum without thinking through whether the law is even plausibly constitutional.
My take would probably be to ban all these shenanigans without distinction. For one, that's in line with our constitutional tradition of not distinguishing between speech on different topics, but also because none of that shit belongs in a cemetery for fallen soldiers.
anon_
2mo ago
People with depression should be encouraged to do normal person things. How far up the list would you put voting?
I would probably put it reasonably high given that they have to do it literally once in a year and then feel good they have performed their civic duty. Especially for people that likely feel significant sadness about not fulfilling many of their other duties.
There's plenty of functional, healthy people that don't find voting necessary or worth worrying about.
Traditionally we've described this as a minor abdication of duty.
yes we are a D political advocacy group that aims to register more Ds. We offer registration resources to other non-D voting demographics. As this allows us to call ourselves non-partisan and more effectively recruit potential doctors to help our political cause. We will not try nearly as hard to reach non-D voting demographics, either through resource allocation or messaging, but that is not our mission
Sure. That seems like bread and butter stuff in the advocacy world.
Maybe the disconnect is, I don't see non-partisan to be the same as non-political. Obviously any kind of GOTV is political in nature.
anon_
2mo ago
He didn't say it definitely wouldn't help.
For a college age kid with a vague complaint like "I feel disconnected from my life and don't take pleasure in a lot of things", it's completely sane advice. And, as you said, it's certainly lower on the scale of burden than "spend $$$ on in depth psychotherapy to discover what it is".
It's the mental health equivalent of "take two advil, get a good night sleep, and call me in the morning if it's not better". Treatment proceeds from least invasive to most, even if the former has somewhat lower probability of success (if only because many health issues, mental and physical, abate on their own anyway).
anon_
2mo ago
Notably, women's suffrage in most Western countries was not the result of women using violence to coerce men into accepting them as political equals. Rather, it was the result of successful ideological persuasion of male franchise-holders, achieved in no small part via the critical contributions of women to the collective industrial efforts in World War 1.
I think this explanation discounts a number of other critical aspects that ultimately resulted in suffrage.
One notable one is that the political foundation of the United States (consent of the governed, no taxation without representation) lends itself straightforwardly to universal suffrage. It is possible, temporary, to sustain contradictions in those foundations (consent of the male property holder) but, like putting epicycles onto the orbits, it eventually collapses.
anon_
2mo ago
When the program extends to mental health institutions and picks up a motto of Voting Is Great For You Actually Because Anecdote this seems like it should be made an issue.
I think the issue here is really just the honesty of presentation.
A while back, I was feeling a bit unmoored and ahedonic, a uni counselor said (among other advice) "drink lots of water and take a walk outside every day". I asked if that would really help and he said maybe not, but in any event it was a good idea to drink water and take a walk outside.
Encouraging patients to do the things they need to do even if (and I agree) it very likely won't help with their condition seems OK if done with candor.
anon_
2mo ago
I don't think anyone should hold Trump or Vance (or anyone else) to the wacky things they say that aren't realistic policy either.
I think it's bad to propose wacky things that aren't realistic policy for political points, but it's not the same as actually trying to do those things.
anon_
2mo ago
"Payments of the minimum tax would be treated as a prepayment available to be credited against subsequent taxes on realized capital gains to avoid taxing the same amount of gain more than once"
I have altered the deal. Pray that I do not alter it further.
anon_
2mo ago
As some detail, there is a proposed 25% tax on unrealized gains for the super wealthy coupled with a 44% tax on realized gains.
The term "proposed" here is giving it way too much credit. It's been proposed in the sense of "included in a campaign speech" and not "included in a budget sent to Congress" let alone "included in a bill actually sponsored in the House of Representatives".
Why is "the nation" relevant? It's not too far to the left of the subset of Americans that are very online.
Another way to think about is that if you look at the crosstabs the last election by age and compare with the average demographic of Reddit's readership you'll get the idea.
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