naraburns
nihil supernum
No bio...
User ID: 100
Isn't it definitely worth mentioning that if he were born in the UK, it's not at all a "recent" immigration?
Replying to both of your comments here--I'm not wed to the word "recent." But the consequences of immigration can surely take decades and even centuries to play out, depending on the details. As I noted to FiveHourMarathon,
The children of recent immigrants are often targets for radicalization; indeed, crime rises among second-generation immigrants as they assimilate, though I've seen some recent (I suspect politically-motivated) attempts to muddy the waters on this.
As for whether it's really Labour's fault, I'm not sufficiently keyed in to British politics to say much about that. Very generally, I suspect that people who are broadly anti-immigration will often be the sorts of people who also use words like "uniparty" or "globalist" to describe the way that progressive and conservative elites always seem to be able to set aside their differences when it comes time to screw the average nobody.
Immigration has often been recognized as precisely this sort of thing. Bernie Sanders' opposition to immigration is grounded in the idea that it hurts poor Americans, and the people who disagree with his take tend to just be so globalist that they're willing to accept the tradeoff. From the linked article (emphasis added):
Maybe such harm would be justified if it prevents a major harm from befalling native-born Americans. But immigration does not harm native-born Americans on average. It helps them.
Immigration is indeed good for Americans (economically), on average! But if you're one of the millions of Americans for whom it is actually bad, how should that make you feel? Personally, if I were working class, I cannot imagine being happy to hear that, thanks to increased immigration, people already better off than me were going to, on average, benefit more than I was going to suffer.
If someone can't protest the direct result of immigration policy twenty years after the fact (old news! proximate cause!), and can't protest the immigration policy proposed today (racist!), even when the same party is in control today as was in control twenty years ago, then where does that leave them? I am myself somewhat ambivalent about all this; I know enough about economics to know that trade and immigration are big contributors to prosperity in much of the world, but I also try to be empathetic with people who are clearly harmed--whose well being is being consciously sacrificed by government actors for the "greater good." So I've been a little stunned by the apparent absence of anything approaching sympathy in the UK counterprotests, particularly considering, you know, the murdered children.
But yes: the Taylor Swift thing is weird!
EDIT: I forgot to say! There is a joke: what is the difference between Americans and the British? Answer: Americans think 200 years is a long time, and Brits think that 200 miles is a long way. "Recent" immigration could be a hundred years ago, depending on your culture. Americans of European ancestry are sometimes accused of being recent immigrants even if their ancestors arrived on the Mayflower...
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
Yeah, weird is nowhere near as bad a slur as w*man
It's not entirely clear to me what you mean by this; in the future, please put more effort toward speaking plainly.
Speak plainly.
Read charitably.
This is true only in some trivial butterfly effect sense that is beneath notice, if you mean some deeper theory about it say it out loud.
I disagree that it is true only in some "trivial butterfly effect sense." The children of recent immigrants are often targets for radicalization; indeed, crime rises among second-generation immigrants as they assimilate, though I've seen some recent (I suspect politically-motivated) attempts to muddy the waters on this.
I do not see anything racist about protesting against lax immigration standards when the inciting event was perpetrated by the child of recent immigrants. I find the counterprotesters in question exceptionally blameworthy.
UK, are you OK?
Labour councillor calls for people to 'cut the throats' of 'Nazis and fascists'
Suspended Labour councillor arrested over video ‘urging people to cut throats’
Probably anyone reading this is familiar with the story so far: three gradeschool children in Southport were knifed to death, and ten others injured, on July 29th at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club. The alleged perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, is reportedly the son of Rwandan immigrants and was 17 years old at the time of the incident, but has apparently since passed his 18th birthday. The events, allegedly in part as the result of some false reporting concerning Axel's identity, led to a number of protests, which led to a number of counterprotests.
Why would you counterprotest a protest against the knifing of schoolgirls? Well, apparently the original protests were racist. It's pretty important to not be racist. Sufficiently important, I suppose, that people would rather talk about that, than about the dead schoolchildren who, but for recent immigration from Africa, would likely still be alive. Not that Axel is an immigrant, of course. He was born on the magic soil of the UK, so it's apparently racist to notice that his parents weren't. I saw one article suggesting he might be autistic? Good sources are hard to find.
That brings us to the current events! Labour councillor Ricky Jones apparently found some inspiration in Axel's extracurricular activities, as he is very clearly articulating additional knife violence as the proper response to people protesting the murder of little girls. I actually had a surprisingly difficult time finding the original video; most of the articles throwing around the word "alleged" did not judge me fit to judge for myself. I assume Ricky was born tone deaf because throat cutting seems like an especially poor choice of words given the circumstances--though I guess I don't know for certain that Axel managed any literal throat cutting in the process of (EDIT: ALLEGEDLY) butchering schoolchildren. The UK does not have any particularly meaningful or toothy Free Speech legislation, either, though in this particular case I can imagine Mr. Jones facing consequences even here in the United States. Remind me, is it still okay to call for the punching of U.S. Nazis? Was it ever? I seem to have lost track.
Axel's knifework is not being treated as a terrorist attack (yet?), but here's where things get weird.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
Taylor Swift shows in Vienna canceled over alleged planned terrorist attack
Suspects in foiled attack on Taylor Swift shows were inspired by Islamic State group, officials say
Will we hear more about Axel's motivations? I suppose Taylor Swift is just so famous that at this point any plot to kill large numbers of people would, statistically, run into Taylor Swift events eventually. But now I'm wondering if Axel was just, you know, reading the same weird terrorist handbook as the Austrian terrorists. They were even the same age--the two arrested in Vienna are 19 years old and 17 years old. If I had a nickel for every time a 17 year old boy tried to murder Swifties en masse, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!
I'm sure much smarter and well-connected analysts out there are way ahead of me on this one. And probably it's nothing! And it wouldn't really matter if it was something, beyond maybe bankrupting a handful of Taylor Swift event ticket scalpers in the near future. But it's all very weird.
Especially the part where counterprotesters started literally calling for and cheering on more knifings.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
In what context?
It does seem to be a popular meme on reddit, where literally anything critical of Republicans has had a solid chance of becoming a popular meme for approaching twenty years.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
What kind of attempts do you have in mind?
Red flag laws and assault weapons bans, specifically as they are likely to be unevenly applied against more conservative groups, would be annoying at best. A continuation of Biden's "what border?" policies would be annoying at best. Following her running mate's record on transing the kids or preventing religious universities from promulgating their own views would be annoying at best. Under a Harris administration, we could expect the Department of Education to do everything in its power to undermine SFA v. Harvard, which would be annoying at best.
These are all things that aim toward shutting down the ability of the "deplorables" to defend themselves from government overreach, to maintain democratic influence in their own nation, to protect their children from politically popular social contagions, to participate in society on the basis of merit, and so forth.
The limiting factor on the Democrats is not the Supreme Court.
I'm not so sure about this. I agree that she probably will not enjoy the assistance of a particularly unified Congress, but that remains to actually be seen. Court Packing remains unlikely, but it is certainly more likely under Harris than under any alternative administration.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
"It" was a blog that a FtM (that's chick-to-dude) transitioner was keeping about their ... transition. It was well written, deeply personal, and absolutely without trans ideology talking points or vibes. It was a wonderful example of an honest seeming person without any sort of ideology-induced hangups. It was incredibly and (unfortunately) uniquely informative.
Many years ago I read something fitting this description, but the entry that I read was explicitly discussing testosterone-fueled sex drive rather than anger, and the view being expressed was exactly as you've put it here. I'm pretty sure it was a blogspot thing, but whether or not it was the same author you were reading, I'm afraid I'm no help in pinning down the source.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
If it couldn't be done from the start (which was your point), then why would you ever think it could be now?
I did say maybe ever, and I was being perhaps a touch hyperbolic. This is... complicated... but I think that the aspiration toward enumerated powers is often almost as important as actually achieving it. I do think there have been efforts in that direction, many times throughout our nation's history. I think they have in general been for the best. I also think that opposition to that principle has also been present from the start, and that said opposition has generally operated for the worse.
It's a process, in other words. Attempts to adhere to principle allow that process to continue. Circumventing that process by abandoning principle entirely, not so much. There are many, many things in the world that I suspect genuinely work in this way, that is, aspirationally. But I've not found a really good way of communicating that even in a book-length work, much less a forum post. Sorry.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
I think the biggest concern is that Harris/Walz really don’t seem like a pair who understand that their ideological enemies are allowed to survive and flourish and even win occasionally, and think they need to change the rules if that’s going on.
This seems right to me. Something that has long niggled me about Trump is that he often talks in the same way--but he doesn't seem to actually mean it. Like, "lock her up" was his big 2016 thing, and immediately upon victory he was like, "nah, we don't say that anymore." Clinton was not prosecuted, that was the end. Like for Trump, it was all just trash talk over a game. Whereas, Harris seems to be genuinely interested in putting a permanent end to the possibility of flourishing deplorables. I'm skeptical of her ability to do that even if she wins, but living through even her failed attempts promises to be annoying at best.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
But it isn't the same as not understanding.
People who make themselves deliberately stupid, are still stupid. People who consistently act as if they are stupid, just are stupid. The kind of person who answers "what is a woman" with "I'm not a biologist" is being a stupid person, even if they could in theory generate a wall of text explaining to me why in context it was better to pretend to be an idiot than to give an intelligent answer--that is, even if they have the ability to not be a stupid person.
This is what it means, to be a mistake theorist: I genuinely believe that the people who disagree with me, are making a mistake, and that if they were smarter, it is not a mistake they would make.
For if she is not stupid, well, what remains is for her to be actually evil.
As a mistake theorist, I'm open to the possibility that it's a mistake to be a mistake theorist! But that's where I am right now.
it is clear she isn't a moron who doesn't understand that the Constitution is there to put limits on government action
I think it's clear that she is kind of a moron (see: "I'm not a biologist"). That aside, there is understanding, and then there is understanding. I'm sure she knows what enumerated powers means. I'm also sure she doesn't give a shit about enumerated powers if the principle happens to get in the way of the result she wants, which constitutes a failure to genuinely grasp the principle and her responsibility to it. That's the problem with results oriented jurisprudence. It's a naked exercise of power; it's illegible and thus illegitimate as a jurisprudence.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
Exactly, if it wasn't carefully adhered to, from very early on, there is no reason it should be now.
This is straightforwardly fallacious. There are many reasons why it should be adhered to now, but even if there were not, "no one has ever does this so there is no reason to do this" is clearly bad reasoning.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
Eh she seems to at least be marginally smarter than Sotomayor. Sotomayor consistently has the most braindead opinions of the entire court.
You may be right about this, I don't have a strong view here. Either way, people who find themselves in high political office based more on their skin color or sex than on their demonstrated merit often end up in over their heads. And yes, when I say that, I get a lot of pushback from people who want to tell me all about Jackson's merits, but like... Biden himself said it. He wasn't even looking for the best candidate, just the most plausible black woman for the job.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
Then she should have sided against J6 surely? That was a Federal case.
It was still "local LEOs" on the ground, though. DC's unique character makes it a special case.
That is one of the reasons I like Jackson, she consistently pushes for them to make actual real decisions
The extent to which we agree or disagree on this probably depends on what you ultimately mean by "real decisions" and "results oriented." In legal theory, "results oriented" is a term of art specifically connoting "uses the law to achieve particular outcomes (whether in the particular case or in more general sociocultural ways), rather than pursuing a consistent jurisprudence grounded in clear principles." So for example, Roe v. Wade was a badly-decided case (even RBG thought so), but the clear outcome was so desired by certain people that they enshrined it in their jurisprudence anyway. Was that better than a wishy-washy dismissal? Maybe, but I'm skeptical, and "wishy-washy dismissal" is of course not the only alternative.
The problem with a results oriented jurisprudence is that a clear answer to this question may actually muddy the waters on many other questions. That's the point of principle: if I know how the Court has ruled in relevant principle, I can get a sense of how the Court is likely to rule on similar and related questions that are not answered by the case under immediate consideration. And one of the most important principles of American governance is the doctrine of enumerated powers, which has not been carefully adhered to since, well, maybe ever... but the accrual of power to the federal government certainly accelerated through the 20th century in a trend that seems to be continuing into the 21st.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
The only time I genuinely couldn't comprehend where she was trying to go in terms of jurisprudence was her questioning in Murthy v Missouri.
This was certainly my top example, but I don't think it was hard to comprehend. I think it was stupid.
So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods. I mean, what would — what would you have the government do?
Like, seriously? "The Constitution limits government power, but sometimes we don't like that. What are we supposed to do when the Constitution limits government power in ways we don't like?" This is almost as straightforwardly embarrassing as her inability to answer the question "what is a woman?"
She is similarly stupid in her engagement with issues on race (though Sotomayor has similar problems).
This is not a person who is sophisticated but merely wrong. She's probably smarter than, say, Kamala Harris. But she's definitely bottom-of-the-barrel for SCOTUS, maybe even for the Circuits.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
I am not saying she is conservative by any means, but she does have a very specific jurisprudence that can lean what has been described as libertarian on criminal matters.
To the extent that "Woke" is downstream of stuff like BLM, this would appear to be a case-in-point of my read on her decisions. A consistent libertarianism (e.g. on Murthy, where the Democrat appointees sided with Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh to empower the federal government against the First Amendment) would have shown some sophistication. Someone who is libertarian when it protects petty criminals from local LEOs but statist when the federal government wants to bully corporations into doing things the federal government is forbidden from doing, does not have a sophisticated jurisprudence. They have a results-oriented political agenda.
And I do think that Murthy shook out in approximately that way, split between plausibly principled jurists and mere creatures of the state. Barrett is the one I have the hardest time pinning down, it seems I am as often disappointed by her as I am impressed. They all get it right sometimes, and they all get it wrong sometimes, and that's to be expected. But the "freedom contingent" is small, and gains allies only inconsistently.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
Indeed she has been slightly less liberal than Sotomayor or Kagan
I'm pretty skeptical of the use of the word "liberal" in such contexts, and cases where justices don't line up with what the news media "expects" of them often come out that way precisely because the case does not neatly align with orthodoxies like "Woke." I suspect SCOTUS analysis carried out along "blue tribe/red tribe" metrics could be more helpful than "Republican/Democrat" or "conservative/liberal" metrics--but I haven't actually done the work, so that is only a suspicion.
(With specific respect to the 2020 protest, I did see some discussion of Jackson and Barrett "swapping places" but in the end I think far less attention was paid to that peculiarity than was maybe warranted.)
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
It's such a weird thing to say. Doing that for real absolutely has big incel energy. And the movie's pretty neckbeardy even as a movie.
Trolling is bad enough, but this one isn't even an artful troll. If you're going to spend time contributing nothing of value to the conversation, you could at least aim for a little originality.
Banned for a week.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
The fix was in in 2016 too. What makes this time different?
Eight years.
Specifically, eight years of learning how to deal with Trump. In 2016, Trump played the media like a fiddle. Their exasperation and outrage only increased support for him. He was slinging mud while they were trying to coronate their queen in the most manifest destiny play since the days of Polk. Well, now they're slinging mud. Now they're pointing and laughing. It's probably not the sort of thing that would be sustainable through a contested primary... so the Democrats did away with the primary.
Furthermore: Trump already won! He defeated Joe Biden. He shot his shot, he achieved the victory he set out to achieve... but it was too early to make the difference that mattered. The only question now is whether three months is long enough for the fresh polish to wear off the Harris campaign. I won't say it's impossible! I have been wrong about Trump's chances before. Maybe I'll be wrong again. But I'm skeptical that Americans have the energy to prevail against the will of the media elites twice in a single year.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
Certainly the corporate news media has been spinning wildly in hopes of a Trump defeat.
I have a number of criticisms of Harris, but historically, the most consequential impact of most Presidents has been through Supreme Court nominations. And Harris has always been a "no friends to the right of me, no enemies to the left of me" sort of politician. The independents/undecideds are rarely sufficiently dialed in to understand or care about the intricacies of law and its long-term impact on culture. Justice Jackson has already shown herself to be an unsophisticated jurist who simply votes for whatever seems Wokest, and Harris would appoint more of the same.
The fact that we've reached a point in our political history where every cultural disagreement turns into a Constitutional Question does not really bode well, I think. We are supposed to have a federal system; not every question of importance is supposed to be answered the same way for the entire nation. To the contrary--questions of importance are precisely the questions that states should be free to disagree about. Trump's nominees have moved the needle in the right direction, albeit only slightly. Harris would move us more toward totalitarianism and ruin than Trump could ever hope to manage, assuming she gets an even slightly sympathetic Congress (and I do expect her to win in November, as a direct result of the corporate news media being the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party--the fix is clearly in).
I don't like Trump, I've never liked Trump, and he has been a disaster for the Republican Party. But he was genuinely a kind of bland president who made okay SCOTUS picks. I would expect Harris to be essentially his equal-but-opposite--actually a much more boring President than one might expect from her public buffoonery, but something of a jurisprudential catastrophe in the long run.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
What they wrote was
Call an online rightoid weird and he responds with thousands of anti-trans memes that he has saved on his phone for some reason, starts talking about drinking horse semen...
As a repeat offender they got escalated to a week ban. It's been a long time, I think, since we had someone break the "accept bans as a time out" rule and get perma-banned for it, though.
This is all "boo outgroup," which you've been warned and banned over before.
Stop, or the next ban will be longer than the week I'm giving you this time.
EDIT: User permabanned and comment removed for post-ban comment editing.
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
naraburns
nihil supernum
3mo ago
We clearly disagree about some important things, but at this juncture it seems like you are more committed to making personal attacks and aggressively mischaracterizing my position, than you are to understanding and dialogue. So there doesn't seem to be anything else to say. I am only responding now to note to anyone else reading this thread that you've put a lot of words in my mouth, here, and all of them are wrong.
No, I'm asserting that choosing to say stupid things because the incentives are strong is stupid. There are strong incentives to commit a variety of crimes. Depending on where you live and a host of other factors, there may be stronger incentives to not commit crimes, but on the whole society is better off if people choose to not commit crimes even when they would not be punished for it.
This is like, foundational Western political theory. It's the primary concern of Plato's Republic--should you value what is good and true, or only what is to your advantage? I tend to find Plato's conclusion compelling: that being bad is bad for you, and being bad is actually worse for you if you get away with it, because that makes you a worse person. Whether Justice Jackson is genuinely confused about what "woman" means, or is instead just so corruptible that she thought it would be better to pretend she was confused--either way, she showed herself to be a poor nominee and a stupid person. Sly, maybe? But not intelligent. Not honest. Not the sort of person who values justice above her own social standing.
"But lawyers do this all the time!" You bet they do, and people rightly hate us for it. I left the practice of law because I simply couldn't handle it. It was entirely too much work to live by my principles and make a profit at the same time. I won't say it was impossible, but it often felt that way. I make less than a tenth of what most of my old classmates are pulling down now, the opportunity costs of going into academia were so severe--and I've never once regretted the sacrifice.
Now, you can call that "illogical" if you want, but if you're going to accept that
I'm just going to disagree. It's not impossible to be truthful and also be appointed to the Supreme Court--just very, very hard. So yes: if Jackson is not stupid, then what remains is for her to be actually evil. And yes, maybe it is the kind of piteous evil that infects the vast majority of human beings everywhere in every age, the simple and banal evil of pretending to be good only when doing so will yield direct benefits, or avoid obvious costs. But I'm not going to hold appointees to the Supreme Court to a lower standard of truth and justice than I hold myself. You are free to make a different choice.
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