wemptronics
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User ID: 95
Sink or swim? If or when legislators spit them back up, then an additional decision can be made whether to cram the nominee down their throat.
He commuted George Santos's sentence, for the stated reason that Santos always voted Republican, which is a pretty strong method, but is he doing anything to prove his reliability to non-criminal members of the party?
Trump was charmed by his saucy, sassy gumption and fashionable friends. Seriously, the guy could be cast as The Gay Friend in any Hollywood romcom ever made. Straight out of Sex in the City.
Santos “was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump wrote
He showed initiative, he showed gumption. What's forgiveness for a little fraud? Another theory: Santos was doing very poorly in prison, or presented himself as such, and Trump took pity on him after an advocate got the president's ear. Santos is reprehensible to me and I wouldn't believe a lick of what he says, but mercy can be a demonstration of power.
Determining who the real hypocrites are is an invitation to the Seventh Circle of Hell. Contextual bickering could occur, but the main difference between Jay Jones and Ingrassia I see is:
After the texts came to light, several Republican senators said they would not support his nomination. They included some of the most conservative and stalwart Trump allies in the Senate.
I assume Ingrassia can be sidelined and replaced with ease. He might even have enemies or competitors with reasons to want that. Dems had no such out with Jay Jones. So, yes, I think it's fair to say Democrats are the hypocrites™ here. The respectability standards, as ever, are fluid and contingent. That doesn't mean they aren't real or are permanently unilateral. I do think the Young Republicans got offered as an unnecessary sacrifice to the altar of respectability. Vance was correct about that.
Platner has the support of people who cheered Charlie Kirk's death and faces off against the establishment. They would be happy to see him drop out. At least one of his fellow primary challengers has demanded such. People still go on about how Bernie had the election rigged against him. That may be what Dem operatives are thinking anyway. It does appear less than ideal some reddit communist has garnered a groundswell of support and a real campaign.
What is not believable is that Platner didn't have knowledge of the lineage of his cool skull tattoo. A veteran marine of multiple combat deployments, who then served as a military contractor -- one that, according to his now former campaign aide, "prides himself on his extensive knowledge of military history" -- certainly knows what kind of tattoo he wears on his chest. Weirder things have happened, but if I could bet money against his total ignorance of the design I would bet a good deal. I don't know why he didn't just say he was inspired by any number of killing-is-rad coded skulls as a young marine, and that the Croatian skinhead who gave him the tattoo only had one design to pick from.
questionable reddit posts "suggested people concerned about being raped shouldn’t be inebriated around people they don’t feel comfortable with."
Now that's just good advice.
It looks like that case laid the groundwork here. It was a 5-4 decision. Roberts I am less sure of, but Kavanaugh concurred in part:
the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future. But Alabama did not raise that temporal argument in this Court, and I therefore would not consider it at this time.
"Hint hint", says Kavanaugh, "what a shame." In the same year as Allen v. Milligan, the "temporal argument" gets applied SFFA vs. Harvard. He brings it up in oral arguments for LA vs. Callais. There might be other details in how each state framed their cases that dissuaded Roberts, or other tactical considerations. I briefly looked through the history of this one after netstack asked a question one comment below.
I find the temporal argument agreeable, but am less sure what it is based on. Times up! I guess lots of talk was had in the 60-70s about many of the positive discrimination stuff being limited and we just kind of forgot about those?
Wow. Yeah, the majority said Purcell! The stay preserved the map for the election. Jackson dissented and wrote it's not applicable there's totally enough time for remediation.
"Purcell has no role to play here. There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out... I would have let the District Court’s remedial process run its course before considering whether our emergency intervention was warranted."
The District Court has not yet selected a remedial map, and, were it not for this Court’s intervention, it may have selected a map that complies with both §2 and the Equal Protection Clause. I would have waited until after the remedial process concluded (when it would have been clearer if the intervenors’ faced irreparable harm) to consider their arguments.
I have no idea if the Purcell time crunch was real or a pretext.
Why did the rest of the court want a stay? Was it going to get mooted if the legislature workshopped an alternative to their 2024 map?
LA draws one the district court accepts, or the district court imposes one. If you consider a narrow "did LA have good reason to use race here" preferable from a turn into 2025 "Whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution" then punting it back to district court is a way to avoid being in those oral arguments last week with the VRA coming into view.
Is that reasonable?
My only request is that we build a giant dedicated building for it
An open air amphitheater perhaps? One in which we can host bloodsports that better suit the brutal nature of politics in form and function. Besides aesthetics weather adds a new X factor. The arena would also compliment the return of state-sanctioned duels that keeps the massive lower house orderly. We can call it the Polisseum.
wemptronics
4d ago
The Constitution does prescribe equal protection.
Why doesn't this provide equal protection from the state drawing lines on a map every few years with the intent of limiting the impact of my vote/representation based on my race?
Did The Motte talk about the latest set of oral arguments at SCOTUS for Louisiana vs. Callais? The case is a continuation of the NAACP LDF's efforts to turn this big red blob of a congressional district that Louisiana created into a slightly longer contiguous red blob, but with new lines and a new congressional district. If SCOTUS was to affirm the district court's ruling, then the LDF will have won an additional majority black district in a state that is 33% black. For the sake of context, numbers I find put the state at 30% black in 1990, so this is a relatively stable share.
The decision to upend Louisiana's proposed 2022 map, it was be argued, is what Federal law requires. Section 2 of the VRA has been amended, extended, and litigated on several occasions since the 1965. In 1986, SCOTUS described the Gingles test to determine whether a majority-minority district should be created. I'm sure there are pages of nuance before and betwixt each:
- The racial or language minority group "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district";
- The minority group is "politically cohesive" (meaning its members tend to vote similarly); and
- The "majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate.
According to the NAACP, when the LDF received their favorable decision against the state in 2024, a group of "self-described 'non-African American [Louisiana] voters'" challenged this on the basis of 14th and 15th amendment issues. SCOTUS first heard the case in March of this year, but decided to schedule reargument (somewhat uncommon) which occurred last week. (PDF) The nature of the questions now in play led to a flurry of articles concerned that "justices could upend decades of court decisions holding that states may — and sometimes must — use race-conscious redistricting to protect the voting power of minorities." Other outlets like The Federalist take a Buzzfeed-esque dunk list approach to reporting the case.
My understanding is nobody knows just what kind of scope in ruling we should expect, but that the questions to follow suggest something broader than a Yes/No to a district map. There are all kinds of tidbits worth debating. There's my Big Questions which SCOTUS will not answer like: by how much does the fact my US representative is a black man, whose race I do not share, mean he doesn't represent me? It seems every minority whose vote doesn't represent their A) race and B) party can be considered un(der)represented, even if Congress hasn't provided a statute or adopted a different system of representation to resolve this.
At the time the VRA was written the demographics were very different to today's. Kavanaugh asked Nelson, who was arguing for the LDF, whether there should be a time limit on court ordered, law enforced racial voting maps. He receives a frank reply that is basically "lol, never." It's statute it doesn't just go away unless Congress changes it. That makes sense, but seems to force the hand of a potential majority that has questions on how this all works out.
Justice Jackson covers the more popular argument I see in the wild. She says,
"[Louisiana is] not departing. Their map looks fine, but because of all of these race-based [economic] effects, because of the history of Jim Crow, which I appreciate happened a long time ago, but I'm positing and Gingles allows for us to see where those effects are still occurring."
To her credit, she only mentions the word disparity once in arguments. This is the argument that until blacks disperse themselves geographically as other minorities have, or achieve similar outcomes to something, then states are required to continue to grant them majority-minority districts.
If you transported my liberal sensibilities to 1965 you'd probably convince me with ease that this little unconstitutional carve out was justified and workable. Not so much these days. I don't look forward to a total upending of the VRA house of cards. Sounds messy, but this is the consequence of previous pragmatisms of SCOTUS. The pragmatist leverage left, for me, is the fact gerrymandering is cynical by its nature. If you leave it to states without limitation, then they will discriminate by race for the very reason Justice Jackson says: blacks vote Democrat reliably enough to target. Which means we would still have to answer constitutional questions about lines on a map.
Can you explain this a bit more?
Not with much clarity. OP has a point, many societies have priestly class, social role, and some part of it is filled by the Priestly-type, individual psychology. The psychological need is constant, but the available options are historically contingent.
I listed some of the things that help guide the psychology of Priestly-type to meaning and zeal. The printing press and the October Revolution happened. The former helped democratize literacy, thus enabling the spread ideas to more Priestly-types, and the latter was added to the catalog of ideas that the Priestly-type now access and maintain. The catalog grows, and Priestly-types continue to splinter, branch, and find novel doctrinal positions.
I didn't mean to imply that we can't find zeal in the past, only that we won't find Marxist Priests there. That sounds boring and obvious to write, but it doesn't feel boring in my head. The catalog of ideas has exploded in size, and it continues to grow at an incredible rate. So if we were to say the population is 15% Priestly-type psychologies, accept they have "an outsized effect on society," then it seems relevant just how many varied positions of meaning Priestly-types defend now. But, I need to think about thinking about it some more.
Oh, a Nietzsche-type destined to to be "consumed by powerful manias" or "paralyzed with fear over not being able to fulfill the momentous duties" should be very rare, but real. Was Diogenes the first recorded Nietzsche-type? It is difficult to discern to what extent the Nietzsche-type, the Grill-type, and the Priestly-type are conditionally generated or individually driven. The printing press, plow, literacy, the Enlightenment, and the 20th century provides tools to enable the Priestly-type that simply didn't exist at other points.
I think it is fun to think of this piece as reactionary. RETVRN! The philosophy of individualism fallen prey to anti-materialist, post-modernist witchcraft contradictions. "We must go deeper and wider." The heretical sect -- that which has sapped vitality of the faith -- has not sinned such that they cannot be forgiven, but only if they repent and, once again, condemn capitalism the evil that corrupts them.
wemptronics
11d ago
Such individuals are often consumed by powerful manias to the point of self-ruin, or else they become condemned to inaction, paralyzed with fear over not being able to fulfill the momentous duties they have placed upon themselves.
What names come to mind?
Forms of talk therapy are commonly and can be reasonably considered medical treatment as self_made points out with CBT. I have sympathy for the gay teens whose parents shove them into therapy to talk the gay away. I can see why that experience could be stressful or even counter-productive in cases where a predisposition works against the effort. *
I did not put 2+2 together until now, but I am moderately confident I know someone who had a hand in this law. Colorado has interests pushing for it to be the trans state. Apparently they are in dire need of lobbyists who can craft more sound legislation. Colorado thought it solved the the speech problem by limiting it to licensed professionals who could be doing a medicine by exempting priests or your WoW guild leader.
No one seems to have posted the text of the law in question or the transcript for oral arguments:
"CONVERSION THERAPY" MEANS ANY PRACTICE OR TREATMENT BY A LICENSEE, REGISTRANT, OR CERTIFICATE HOLDER THAT ATTEMPTS OR PURPORTS TO CHANGE AN INDIVIDUAL'S SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR GENDER IDENTITY, INCLUDING EFFORTS TO CHANGE BEHAVIORS OR GENDER EXPRESSIONS OR TO ELIMINATE OR REDUCE SEXUAL OR ROMANTIC ATTRACTION OR FEELINGS TOWARD INDIVIDUALS OF THE SAME SEX.
(b) "CONVERSION THERAPY" DOES NOT INCLUDE PRACTICES OR TREATMENTS THAT PROVIDE: (I) ACCEPTANCE, SUPPORT, AND UNDERSTANDING FOR THE FACILITATION OF AN INDIVIDUAL'S COPING, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND IDENTITY EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT , INCLUDING SEXUAL ORIENTATION-NEUTRAL INTERVENTIONS TO PREVENT OR ADDRESS UNLAWFUL CONDUCT OR UNSAFE SEXUAL PRACTICES, AS LONG AS THE COUNSELING DOES NOT SEEK TO CHANGE SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR GENDER IDENTITY; OR (II) ASSISTANCE TO A PERSON UNDERGOING GENDER TRANSITION
Helpfully, the law doesn't define many or any of these terms including sexual orientation, gender identity, and affirmation. Perhaps Colorado courts figured that out. I haven't. The Solicitor General argues that of course the law doesn't ban all treatment to change an individual's sexual orientation. That would be silly, because then the statute would also prevent the affirmation practices it seeks to protect. Only the bad version of A-B is illegal in her and Colorado's view, though it is not clear why this is the case to Alito. From oral arguments:
JUSTICE ALITO: -- a difference between the argument that you're making now and the argument that I thought we rejected in NIFLA that professional speech is a special category that's outside normal First Amendment scrutiny, but I'll -- let me put that aside and ask about your interpretation of the statute at this stage in the litigation. And let me give you this example. Suppose an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he attracted -- he's attracted to other males but feels uneasy and guilty about those feelings, and he wants to end or lessen them and asks for the therapist's help in doing so. Under your interpretation of the statute, is that banned?
MS. STEVENSON: So, Your Honor, our interpretation of the statute turns entirely on whether the purpose of the therapy is to change the person's sexual orientation or gender identity. If that minor --
JUSTICE ALITO: Yeah, what's the answer to -- what is the answer to my question? Is that banned or is it not banned?
MS. STEVENSON: If the therapist told him or he asked can you help me become straight, the answer would be it would be banned. If it was can you help me cope with my feelings as to how I am and how I want to live my life, that's permitted... This is the way we've interpreted the statute from the beginning of this case. It's the way both of the lower courts interpreted the statute. It's the way every state that has this statute interprets it. And the reason why is because the harms from conversion therapy come from when you tell a young person you can change this innate thing about yourself, and they try and they try and they fail, and then they have shame and they're miserable, and then it ruins their relationships with their family or --
JUSTICE ALITO: I understand -- I understand all of those arguments. What I don't understand is how you can square your interpretation with the plain meaning of this statute
[...]
JUSTICE ALITO: Are you suggesting that everything beginning with the word "including" is irrelevant? That just -- you just want all of that deleted from the statute
MS. STEVENSON: No, it's -- it's illustrative [...] But, if the -- if the minor wants to start dressing like a boy to match his gender identity not because --
JUSTICE ALITO: -- that's just not the way language works...
If you see someone receive talk therapy to turn themselves gay, well, you know that's legal. If you see someone receive talk therapy to turn themselves ungay you know it's illegal. Simple as.
I find it difficult to approach these concepts in a legal setting with any credulity. Sure, I usually have an understanding of what an individual refers to when they mention something about their gender identity. I have ideas on how certain identities are shaped, and an opinion on what extent a "gender identity" is "innate" or the result of repetition or persuasion. An opinion is the extent of it. Someone tap me when there's overwhelming empirical evidence that you can't talk the trans away.
This is the most positive report in the series that I can recall. At least from the California YIMBY perspective. How would you rate it on a scale of Worse Than Nothing to Thank God, I Can Finally Put This Revolver Down?
Every compromise, every amendment, every watering-down was necessary to get this across the finish line.
Ah, so it sounds like it is somewhere between Not Great But Progress... to Oops, I Guess This Revolver Thing Does Work After All. I wonder how it goes from here. Domino effect that has broken the camel's back, or a doubling down from opposing interests? Congratulations!
There's an even stronger selection effect. If your club gets banned by the city you have no choice but to follow them out of city limits to stay in the club. This club wasn't ever banned, so why go through the trouble unless you care a lot?*
Does X qualify as "explicitly right-wing" or do we see an exception to Robert's Law of Conquest as applied to the internet?
Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
I would consider myself a moderate X user. I check it 3-5 times a week. On the site, I follow some users who progressives consider unsavory characters, but the majority are normal interesting people, moderately annoying pundits, and domain experts. The max vitriol content is on the site, it's not hidden, but it's also not pushed in my face. Where I run into the uber based right content is usually because I signaled interested in a topic, like a big culture war murder story, and the algorithm asks just how based I really am for a time. (Not very.)
Conditions might now only require an organization be perceived as explicitly not left-wing to avoid conquest. "Any organization that cannot be made explicitly left-wing will see leftists leave for greener pastures."
Is there something in this 5000 word essay you find interesting? I sped through it, but tech->fascism->tech->fascism doesn't provide much insight. The 30 additional mentions of fascism don't make up for it either.
The best time for Bluesky to put its foot down and set the tone was a few months after the platform received the influx last Summer. Enough time for the new users to create networks, get situated, but with enough anti-X relevancy that they can soften the reaction. Make a great big point of it, do the waffle bit, and get the 'we only moderate content on our site' policy riots over with.
Bluesky has been an ideological monoculture for as long as I've paid attention to it. Whenever I endeavor a visit, the main feed advertises this culture as the heart, blood, and soul of the site. There's a smaller, but significant slice of the main feed that is cool friggen' astronomy photos from reddit, but mostly it's Twitter resistance posting and its professional pundit version from anti-Elon diaspora. I believe the CEO when she says she doesn't like it, but the non-activist left-liberal tech networks -- which I assume she likes -- exist in quiet corners.
Does Bluesky ever plan to make money, or is it Jack Dorsey's pet project and it never needs to? There is close to zero demand for a truly decentralized social network, and this preference is no more apparent than in the stereotypical Bluesky user.
It seems that it is hard to make large scale "microblogging" platform that caters to heterodox political culture and I'm a little curious if there is any insight for why it is hard to make one?
I'd argue that the heterodox platform is called X. On the platform you can find unrepentant racists of all stripes, from the deranged ramblings of black nationalist Hoteps to teenage frogposters in Malaysia. You can find content from US representatives like AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene, or you can hear from award winning economists, rocket scientists, CEOs, and lawyers.
The platform may not cater to heterodox political culture, but that's because few people demand or prefer one. The Motte encourages a heterodox political culture, but it can't conjure one.
Just make America enough of a soccer country to start having real soccer ultras/hooligans (from what I've seen, the American ones seem to be considered quite larpy)
For our domestic national league you are more likely to get punched by "ultras" for not being suitably anti-racist than be punched by a racist. The Hispanic population could probably lay the foundation for a proper hooligan culture, but I don't think it'd be tolerated. Soccer is not the working class sport of choice in the US and the fandom for professional soccer came of age after the suits figured out how to fully commodify sports. Riots and fist fights are considered bad for business here unless you're from Philadelphia.
wemptronics
17d ago
They aren't entitled the courts have said as much.
Blasting drivers after they: form convoys, interdict Federal vehicles, ram those vehicles, and do so with pistols sitting in their lap is an outcome, but it is not one I would consider just fine. I place ICE/CBP beyond the ATF on the meathead-unprofessional gradient for Federal law enforcement agencies. They will handle business in accordance to this position. The fact they didn't shoot more than one person or any caged pets might push them to be on par with the ATF. We'll have to see more cases.
This is more in the concerning or bad category of outcomes that, yes, would be easier to mitigate with some greater effort of cooperation or support from local officers. If for no other reason than for the city to protect its residents from dying for The Cause.
You, personally, have an assuredly principled line in the sand -- or a consideration of factors -- that allows you to move abacus beads on the appropriate exchange-pogrom language scale. I agree that this is not pogrom language. I don't think the gap is as wide on this reportedly accidental, unprompted exchanged, but my point was the accurate placement on the pogrom scale is not so important to the politics.
We The People transcended opprobrium. The Motte is not supposed to partake in the enlightenment, so in that regard you deserve kudos for working on the details. There is a lot of grievance bleeding in. Voters, not party, will get the chance to decide how much such things matter anyway. That's probably for the best or worst.
That would be so much more damning and would totally fuck him
Why do you think that would fuck him?
If there is a threshold that causes a party to lose political interest over words then the words have different targets-- or, the act of withdrawal has lesser consequences. I can only speculate where the threshold is, but it requires certain political conditions to be lowered. All else being equal, if this was a three year old text of the candidate writing, 'March the whole family against a wall and shoot them all, yes including the evil fascist breeding babies,' then this receives roughly the same response. This is not so different as to what was was provided. Obviously he's not serious, context, Trump and whatabout, says NarwhalRedditor along with the state party apparatchik having a bad day.
There's little this guy could have written of his enemy that would disqualify him via October Surprise. If we found a much older text from 10 years ago where he referred to his constituents/neighbors as 'greedy kikes' and 'dumb niggers' that might not be recoverable. He becomes a much greater liability then, but a text the opposition sat on about them? Fat chance. If evidence arose he was soliciting prostitutes and severely beat one of them this past Summer that might disqualify him, but then we're beyond the realm of words. If there were other opportunities or further damage to party interests these could be considered. Here, where withdrawal is simply losing, much can be justified.*
I forget who, but in one of the past couple threads someone wrote about war footing language. Groups of people speaking themselves into a position where they should and must prepare for war. Politics found this neat little hack with most important election ever, End of Democracy, and many internalized it. I don't know why we should be surprised that people would be willing to forgive their allies who merely say they want to to punish their enemy with their fascist bred babies.
wemptronics
20d ago
American Democrat, blue no matter who, woke, feminist, BLM, big fan of trans and Gaza at the same time, blank slatist, protects (favored) groups as legitimate victims but doesn't really protect individuals
"Woke, politically engaged 18-35 college educated Democrats" or "Blue tribe idpol illiberals"? "Common Bluesky beliefs" or "Resistance Twitter beliefs" might get you dinged for the same comment, but if you adjusted the context you could probably get away with them. You replaced it with progressive and I think that is the best choice.
I am not sure it does work very well. Any message which comes down officially from the school, no matter if it is about drugs, rape, abstinence, civic pride, the glory of communism or whatever is inherently uncool and cringe. Good luck competing with TikTok.
Not all propaganda efforts are effective or worthwhile. I don't feel compelled to stamp out teenage contrarianism, rebellion, or progressive resistance.
The mandated schooling already does some indoctrination. That indoctrination doesn't spit out perfect American optimists, no, but it doesn't try to do that. I don't think it needs to. Nations shape culture through education all over the world. Maybe my ideal program isn't more myth based story telling in history. The program could be physical, fun, and/or charity focused. I'm open to better ideas.
At its core, pressuring young people into service is fundamentally gerontocratic, democratic only in the "two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner" kind of way.
If we speak only of compulsory military service, then it's more accurate to say using bodies to achieve physical tasks is fundamentally a young man's game. I like the idea of a civil service that ships you around to travel, help with charity or maintenance work, and creates bonds with Americans. FEMA disaster relief that uses our college aged manpower 19 year old. The goal isn't to only reduce propensity for violence, but to increase our commonalities through exposure, shared experience, and civic duty. If achieved, these could do more than reduce a trend of support for political violence.
I am sure the PBs see themselves as ultra-patriotic. Of course, different people had very different ideas about what being an American was all about, from lofty ideas about the relationship between the state and the individual over an entity who protects their god-given right to own other humans to run of the mill nationalism you find in any nation.
It doesn't seem we disagree too much. 'Capital W-ord' isn't a plain construction it's shaded with some irony. I don't consider their branding, self-image, or claim to 'patriot' as legitimate. I explain what I recall of their image in the following sentence and mentioned January 6th prior. "Real American Patriots®" might have been a stronger form. Perhaps a case of thinking myself clever.
This tracks with my experience in a roughly similar age bracket. I'd guess you were in accelerated tracks and likely took AP courses. This is the basic way we teach history: start with basic myths then add nuance as a child develops. Myth making has taken a backseat to nuance at earlier ages, but your mileage may vary. There's a lot of districts with a lot of different teachers and schools. If I had to guess, your experience with history is still the modal experience of American children that attend adequate schools.
Most kids don't get much out of history. Girls, especially, consider history boring and irrelevant. History is old and they are young. Which is why I think you deploy my brainwashing program in a national civics curriculum. That's my thought anyway.
Semi-mandatory is a dangerous line to ride.
I consider semi-mandatory as preferable to an amendment. The US is at least relatively accommodating for conscientious objectors, although that's more a necessity determines grace deal. The cost to living in a powerful nation that likes to wage war is sometimes you're a slave for dumb and unnecessary reasons. That's a fair enough thing to object to.
Lean into sports and competition.
The US still has a relatively healthy recreational sports industry that still can create fads and innovate. Disc golf or pickleball as two examples that come to mind. Underwater hockey might yet take off for you. I'd prefer to subsidize getting the youth outside, but if video games are a reality (I like video games too) then competition e-sports are of higher value. Team based games at least provide a way to develop teamwork, communication, and leadership ability. Might even be able to route around the Hitler Youth comparisons by promoting e-sports in addition to real ones.
wemptronics
27d ago
I am behind reinventing accountability for officials, functionaries, and politicians. Bring back competence while you're at it. The likelihood we bring back competence or accountability depends on what you mean by fighting back. If you mean random, indiscriminate killings of various public figures that increases in frequency over time I don't think this will end up constructive or constitutional. If you have some Washington-Cincinnatus figure in your back pocket to lead the cleansing fire of rebellion, then I say bring him forth let's just vote him in 3 or 4 times. It'll be easier.
A new post then. Below @samiam linked to a National Review piece that mocks a recent article in The Atlantic titled "Left-Wing Terrorism Is on the Rise".
The Atlantic is a center-left institution of American journalism. The not-magazine is capable of pushing certain signals over the hill into respectability status. This signal: it's okay to acknowledge left-wing violence as a problem, because we can remind ourselves the right's stochastic terror was successfully defeated, but not forgotten. How significant is it that a couple CSIS think tank goons can send this signal, and how much impact can they have?
Actually stanching political violence will require America’s leaders to commit to fighting all forms of extremism, not just those associated with their opponents. The Trump administration has prioritized combatting the rise of left-wing terrorism but not right-wing terrorism, which remains a concern despite its decline this year. Developing the programs and expertise to suppress different forms of terrorism takes years, and ignoring a long-term threat to go after a more immediate one could be deadly over time.
In the previous paragraphs the authors set-up their prescription of "programs and expertise" only this time aimed leftward. They justify this by granting the Biden admin (and probably themselves) credit for throwing the book at Oath Keepers and Proud Boys following their January 6th doings. If memory serves the Proud Boys were a group of capital P-atriots who showed up to protests, dared their opposites to do the same, then engaged in fistfights. This is political violence and its escalation can be a concern, but it's not the same risk as a growing number of political assassinations. Assassinations seemingly perpetrated by culture warriors first, not ideologues.
The programs and expertise of think tank goons are unlikely to bring about an effective reversal in cultural trends. Disaffected radicals aren't in the habit of being persuaded by them. I offer two actionable alternatives:
Idea #1: Indoctrination works. Reinvigorate civic indoctrination in schools. Sell this one as renewed civic literacy and try not to pollute it too badly with culture war. Federally fund it as an opt-in for states to participate.
I suspect we do a piss poor job of teaching civics, politics, or anything in the shape of political philosophy in K-12. We do a poor enough job educating kids on subjects we care enough about to measure. We do not even attempt to teach kids to think about social fabric. Instead, we water it down to be meaningless or replace it with with diversity-isms and sin. Then we are surprised the kids go on to be demoralized by short-form videos which they accept as valid belief generators.
Idea #2: Semi-mandatory service. Want Pell grants or Medicare? Better sign up, 18 year old you. You can join the military, or you can go to a national forest to survey land for a year. Compulsory-but-not-compulsory service might sound like state violence to some, and fascism to others, but maybe we can find a few programs in addition to the military that a supermajority could support staffing with conscripted teens.
If the alternative of New Deal conscripts is instead waiting to figure out how to best Balkanize I say we give it a go. What might be other ideas for actionable things to combat the misery and cultural malaise?
The maximum if I recall which is the nastier end of the example making stick. We don't jail politicians for lying to voters, but he did stick to denial and defiance until there there was nothing left. He probably would have gotten a softer touch had he bowed out with any amount of grace or contrition. In the end he serves 4 or 5 months? If he goes away forever and moves on it seems fine. I don't know if he has that in him.
The guy called someone else a RINO! Absolute mad lad.
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