Rov_Scam
9hr ago
That argument might make sense if this were like any other wedding where they're essentially relying on the honor system that uninvited guests don't show up, but this wasn't the case. This is a wedding that was held at a secret location that was difficult to get to and guarded by staff checking names. There's no trust involved here. It's also worth mentioning that even though the grooms weren't celebrities, there seems to be an epidemic of celebrities crashing normal people's weddings and other events on the premise that nobody will mind if a celebrity unexpectedly shows up. Bill Murray is notorious for this, but Taylor Swift has been known to do it and even lower tier celebrities like Zach Braff feel entitled to, even though they'd go to extreme measures to prevent normal people from getting anywhere near their weddings.
It should be mentioned as well, that the level of security behind this wedding had less to do with the family involved and more to do with the fact that Lady Gaga was making an appearance. If they had gotten married at a normal venue and held the reception in a hotel ballroom and hired the band fronted by the guy who sings the national anthem at Pens games as entertainment, I doubt they'd attract any more crashers than any other wedding. But when a celebrity of her stature is involved the risk increases greatly, made all the worse by the fact that she was almost certainly staying in the resort hotel and a little detail like that leaking would mean superfans booking rooms there for the sole purpose of trying to get a bit more close than the typical guest who booked a thousand dollar a night room for other reasons. And this just makes the whole mess more complicated because now that they're paying guests you can't just ask them to leave without refunding their money.
Of course, I had no reason to concern myself with this, because I'm not a fan of Lady Gaga, and when you're at a billionaire's wedding a private performance by an A-list celebrity doesn't exactly take you by surprise, and, after all, I'm acting like I'm supposed to be there. Anyway, given that the hosts didn't actually extend any trust that could be taken advantage of, I don't see how my actions erode that trust. And it was only that lack of trust that made the event appealing to crash. If my friend had just said that Joe's grandson was getting married at Nemacolin and he was glad his part in it was over, the idea of crashing it wouldn't have occurred to us. It was only when he got cagey about the details that the whole thing became intriguing, and when he insisted that we couldn't get anywhere near the place, it became a challenge.
Semi-related probably Friday Fun Thread Material But It Fits So I'm Posting It Here Anyway: A couple years ago I crashed a billionaire-adjacent wedding. To avoid burying the lede, it was this wedding, which, being a flamboyantly gay wedding was a lot kitschier than anything Bezos could ever dream of. The lucky groom was 84 Lumber magnate Joe Hardy's grandson, and was held at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, which resort was owned by Mr. Hardy and is now managed by said groom's mother, and which I'm surprised hasn't changed much since Mr. Hardy's death since it was a vanity project that lost money and that his daughter was supposedly planning on changing to make profitable after the old man kicked.
ANYWAY, I serve on the board of a nonprofit that was having our annual kickoff party at a nearby bar and was attended by a friend of ours who happens to work at the resort. My friends and I had no idea about this wedding, but our friend was talking about how he worked long hours getting ready for this elaborate event, the point of which was to avoid actually having to work the event, and mentioned a few details like that it was taking place at a certain golf hole. It was at this point that someone, possibly me, suggested that we should crash the event. Although the resort wants you to think otherwise, most of the roads on what appear to be the resort grounds are public, as there are several in-parcels with private houses on them beyond the front gates. It would be trivially easy to park alongside the golf course and sneak into the wedding, especially after dark.
No dice, our friend said, while the ceremony itself was at the hole, that had already taken place in the morning, and the actual reception was being held in a tent at a different part of the golf course, and it wouldn't be possible to just slip inside unnoticed. It was at this point that the plan began to crystalize. Outside would have actually been worse, since it was early June and didn't get dark until after 9 pm. Our attempts to pump him for information were only marginally successful, as he was under strict orders of confidentiality and only revealed the location of the ceremony because it had already happened that morning. We reminded him that he was leaving his position in a month as he had just passed his home inspector's test, but he wouldn't budge. Luckily, I had already established that the festivities were expected to go rather late into the night, but weren't starting any later than normal, so we figured 8 pm would be the ideal time to go.
My plan took advantage of one simple idea: Act like you're supposed to be there. The problematic thing about a wedding like this, though, is that it's a sit-down dinner with a strict guest list that's been planned and executed in secrecy precisely to keep people like us away from the thing. But, do to our unique circumstances, this presented an opportunity. While acting like you're supposed to be there is essential, it isn't always enough. We also needed a plausible reason to be there; simply saying my name and demanding entry probably wouldn't work. So that gets us to the third thing we could take advantage of, that these billionaire events always have lots of people involved, both as guests and as staff. Our being admitted wouldn't be dependent on getting past the host or hostess, but getting past somebody who ostensibly knows who is supposed to be there but realistically can't pick any of the guests out of a police lineup.
The one snag was that our event didn't end until five, and as board members we couldn't just leave. I happened to live an hour away, optimistically, from both the event venue and the wedding venue, more like 60–90 minutes, and the cover story I had in mind wouldn't work if we got there too late, and I didn't happen to bring a suit with me when I left the house that morning. One of the participating couples that lived close said I could just shower at their house, but that didn't solve the suit problem, and going home and coming back would be a tight squeeze that might hold up everyone else. At first, I saw no way around this problem, until I realized that I didn't have a date. So I frantically began calling women I knew to see if they were interested in crashing a billionaire wedding on short notice, if you happen to be free tonight, and also wouldn't mind stopping by my house and rooting around for suitable clothing. Luckily, this is where having a good bartender comes in handy, and since I knew she was off that night she was thrilled to engage in a bit of semi-illegal fun.
Shortly thereafter, having made a serious omission, called my friend back and instructed her to stop at the liquor store and pick up a bottle of Jim Beam, two handles of Vladimir vodka, and a bottle of the most ridiculous liquor she could find that wasn't super expensive. She was then to go to Dollar Tree and get cards, two gift bags, tissue paper, and delicate wrapping paper. By the time she arrived two of us had showered and the third was in there and would be putting on her face soon, giving my date plenty of time to shower and get ready herself. In the meantime, the we put the Vladdy in a large box and wrapped it, and put the Beam and the other bottle in the gift bags. To my friend's credit she picked up Slivovitz, which was such an obvious choice that I was embarrassed that I hadn't thought of that myself. For those not aware, it's a plum brandy that's behind the bar at every hunky bar in Pittsburgh that nobody ever drinks except on a dare. We then filled out the cards in the most ridiculous way possible. Mine was full of Yiddishisms and sentences like "Your cousin Nathan is going to be a pharmacist. Good money in that." My gift of choice would have been a set of towels that said "His" and "His", but we were unfortunately under a time crunch. The third couple arrived and we all piled into my friend's 2004 Lexus SUV that he ironically brags to everyone about owning, figuring that a. We can all fit, and b. If we have trouble getting in, he can say "Did I mention I own a Lexus?"
We got there a little after 8. It being light out was a better break than we'd originally thought; since we didn't know where the tent was, it was much easier to drive around looking for it fully exposed without headlights making us more noticeable from a distance. We located the tent and found a place to park. The first hurdle came when it became readily apparent that most of the guests were staying at the hotel and that they were shuttling them back and forth in golf carts. Minor detail; the cover story takes care of that. Just keep going. Act like you're supposed to be here.
We arrive at the entrance to the tent, which is of course heavily guarded by black-clad hospitality employees with walkie talkies. "Hi, Rov_scam and guest". I give my real name, which the guy is frantically looking through the clipboard and not finding. My friends give their names, which of course also aren't on the list. This was the first point that I considered that giving three uninvited names in a row might raise some alarm bells, but no worries, act like you're supposed to be there. "You know what, we're coming from the Schwa Foundation fundraiser and we left notes with the RSVPs that we wouldn't be eating dinner. That might be why there's a mixup." I had actually thought of this well beforehand, but it seemed to allay the guy's concerns. "I'm sorry, but none of you are on the list."
At this point, the weaker-willed among us might have given up. The odds were stacked against us. We had just given three names that weren't on the list and a cockamamie story about why we were late. This guy was in no position to let us in. But one thing I do not stand for is being denied access. Asked to leave? All the time. Escorted from the premises? Almost weekly. You can keep the jeans if you promise not to come back to this store? More than once. But I will at least afford myself the opportunity to be thrown out. "Well, I don't know what to tell you," I said, standing there, my date holding a gift bag and two other couples with us similarly situated. Act like your supposed to be here. Someone who was actually invited wouldn't just leave because they weren't on some list. He gets on his walkie talkie and a woman who looks like a supervisor comes over. He explains that we aren't on the list, and looks relieved that this conundrum is out of his hands. I explain everything to the woman, this time adding that I'm on the board of the Schwa Foundation, my friend is on the board of another nonprofit that she may have heard of (which he is), and my other friend is associated with the local tourist bureau, which she is for the next two weeks before she gets canned in a shakeup.
If you know anything about Joe Hardy, it's that he wants to die broke and that he will do practically anything for Fayette County, the poorest county in Pennsylvania. It would be perfectly understandable if he took his money and bought an estate in some old-money suburb like Fox Chapel (where he could hobnob with John Kerry and Theresa Heinz) or Sewickley Heights (where he could hobnob with Mario Lemieux), but instead he lives in a house on his resort, that may be an unprofitable vanity project but one driven by his desire for Fayette County to have a five star resort. He served a term as commissioner, which is like Donald Trump serving on Palm Beach city council or some other local government position that's all work and no prestige. The idea that we might have some legitimate connection to Mr. Hardy's philanthropic activities wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. Actually, his daughter had given us a reasonably generous donation, though it was officially on behalf of the resort, and we never actually met with her.
At this point, it's clear that the supervisor is in a serious bind. There are three options, none of them particularly great. The most obvious option would be to engage the hostess to verify that these were legitimate guests who had been omitted from the list by mistake. Unfortunately, this would mean interrupting Ms. Hardy-Knox in the middle of her son's wedding reception through a tacit admission that her own staff is unable to control something as simple as a guestlist. Even worse, this party was planned under the strictest confidence. The fact that six random bozos were even able to get this close and that she briefly considered letting them in and went so far as interrupting her evening to be sure. It meant that someone had loose lips and various heads would surely be rolling down the fairway the following morning.
The second option would be to simply state unequivocally that we weren't on the list and that if we didn't leave immediately security would be involved. This also isn't a very attractive option. Remember, this event is super secret and the fact that we even know about it means it's highly likely that we were actually invited. We both look and act like we're supposed to be there. We're involved in organization that would plausibly get a token invitation. We have a plausible cover story for being late. For all this woman knows, we are six duly invited guests, three of whom are prominent members of the local community, who went to great lengths to attend, and by categorically denying us entry they would be causing Ms. Hardy-Knox a significant degree of personal humiliation and she would end up having to spend the following week apologizing on behalf of her staff, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, and practically the entire 84 Lumber Corporation, ensuring us that various heads were as we speak rolling down the fairway, not to mention the fact that someone on the event planning staff must have fucked up royally to omit our names from the guestlist just because we weren't eating.
Or, they could, of course, just let us in. Remember, this event is super secret and the fact that we even know about it means we're probably invited. Besides, we're Acting Like We're Supposed to Be There. We come bearing gifts. We're standing there patiently, sympathetic to the conundrum we're putting this woman in. What's the worst that could happen if she lets us in? We're all above the age of 35 and don't look like the kind of demographic that would get drunk and cause a scene. It's dark inside, and loud inside, and Ms. Hardy-Knox may have been imbibing, and there are literally hundreds of people there, and it's highly unlikely that our hostess recognizes all of them personally.
So she let us in, because, when it comes down to it, what choice did she really have? What's the worst case scenario for us? She asks us who we are, and we give her our real names and positions. And at that point she doesn't know that we weren't on the list and either assumes we were legitimate guests or were invited by mistake. In the event she asks us to leave, we at first act incredulous that we're being asked to leave a party we were invited to for no reason, but we eventually comply. Luckily, this never came up. She did approach us as we were leaving and made small talk and it was pretty clear she wasn't entirely sure who we were but she was very nice nonetheless and thanked us for coming.
The party itself? It was dope, as the kids say. It seems like over the past 30 years there's been an arms race in middle class weddings, where what was once a buffet dinner at a fire hall is now a plated dinner at a special wedding venue with assigned seats and appetizers a waiter brings around. But as much as the doctors, and lawyers, and engineers of the world may break the bank for their special day, they will never even come close to what you can do when money is absolutely no object. For instance, the article only shows a couple pictures from the actual reception, and it looks like those were taken at some point before I weaseled my way in. It mentions some DJ as entertainment, but also has a picture of a stage with instruments on it. The other super top-secret thing about this wedding that no one was supposed to know about and that even the photographer for Vogue had to keep under wraps was that the entertainment for the evening was actually Lady Gaga. Performing for a few hundred people, in a tent. I don't even like Lady Gaga, but I'll admit it was pretty special, especially once I was convinced that armed guards with earpieces weren't about to escort me off the premises. I don't want to suggest that all billionaire weddings are this fun, because the over-the-top gayness had something to do with it, as did the fact that most of the guests weren't the rich and famous but friends and family and other semi-prominent people from Fayette County. So yeah, I did that, and it was awesome.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
There was no buffet of 20 year olds to pick from, it wasn’t like that, and the billionaires who do live that lifestyle are essentially plugged into the party circuit, big time nightclub promoters, model / escort agents and so on on the Cannes/Miami/LA/Mykonos circuit with which Bezos was not really familiar pre-Sanchez given he was a nerd who mainly attended sober economics conferences.
Unless you're Joe Hardy and marry 22-year-old single moms from economic backwaters.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
I think Hood is underrated, but only to the extent that he was merely a bad general and not in contention for the worst the Confederacy had to offer. What frustrates me with a lot of Civil War discourse, especially online, is the same thing I mentioned earlier about judging actions with knowledge of the outcome in place. Yes, Hood's actions look bad when we know they were unsuccessful. The problem is that, at the time, it wasn't obvious that these actions were worse than any of the realistic alternatives.
To put the whole issue into proper context: In the spring and summer of 1864, the overall Confederate strategy was hold off the Union until the November elections, in the hope that war weariness would usher in a new administration with a mandate to make some kind of deal. To this end, it wasn't critical that they score any major victories, but it was critical that they prevent the Union from getting any of their own. Ever since losing Chattanooga the Joe Johnston playbook had been to stake out a defensive position, only to abandon it after getting outflanked. He'd given Davis repeated assurances that he'd hold behind this river or whatever, then not like his position and retreat. After several weeks of this Sherman is on the outskirts of Atlanta, a city the Confederacy can't afford to lose, and Johnston is talking about giving it up.
At this point Davis, who didn't like Johnston to begin with, is getting fed up and is probably getting deja vu about the Peninsula campaign, where Johnston did the same thing around Richmond, which probably would have fallen if Lee hadn't taken over and changed strategy. So Johnston gets cashiered in favor of Hood, who has a reputation for fighting and will at least make an attempt at fending off Sherman and saving Atlanta. Hood, true to his word, launched a series of ill-fated assaults against Sherman that do nothing to stave off the inevitable and only serve to inflict casualties he can't afford to lose. Buffs like to argue that Johnston would have at least kept his army intact, but an intact army is useless if it isn't going to defend anything, let alone something as critical as Atlanta. There was pressure from the president, the state legislatures, and the public to do something, and Hood at least did something. I'm not going to comment on whether what he did was ideal because I'm not an expert on battlefield tactics, but the buffs who criticize Hood aren't criticizing his execution.
So now, to get closer to answering your question, we get to the fall, after Atlanta is in Union hands and Sherman is aiming to push to Savannah. Hood didn't attempt to stop him because he knew that the endeavor was pointless. He could have slowed the march but not stopped it; he would have fallen farther and farther back, desertions and casualties increasing with every passing mile, and there would have been nothing left of his army by the time Sherman got to the ocean. Furthermore, there would have been no reason for Thomas to keep his troops in Tennessee. He could have either invaded Alabama unopposed, or joined up with Sherman to give him 120,000 men to Hood's 40,000. So Hood made the decision to move toward the Alabama line, cutting off Sherman's communications. This would purportedly compel Sherman to leave Atlanta and divide his army, sending one wing to protect the threat to Tennessee and the other to hunt down Hood, who would get the opportunity to fight the remaining forces in Georgia on the ground of his choosing.
Sherman did indeed give chase, and Hood found the area he wanted to give battle, but Sherman showed up with his entire army, which was more than Hood could handle. At this point, Hood was stuck; if he took up a position, Sherman could do the same, and hold him there while Thomas came down from Nashville to hold him while he turned toward Savannah. Or he could hold him while he sent Thomas into Alabama, before turning toward the sea and forcing Hood to give chase, which wouldn't do anything but waste Hood's time. So instead he decided to give up Georgia and head north to Kentucky, hoping he'd have better luck where he wasn't at such a numerical disadvantage. If nothing else, it would keep the Union out of Alabama.
It's worth also noting that the Confederate army was having serious problems with desertion at this point, largely driven by the hopelessness of the situation. The buffs who talk about how Johnston would have at least preserved his army don't realize that no one wants to spend weeks putting his ass on the line in rear guard actions defending land you intend on giving up in a few hours without any immediate prospects for taking the initiative. On the other hand, if you go to Tennessee where you can win a few battles and keep the Yanks out of Alabama, there's much less temptation to desert. If nothing else, it might force Sherman to pursue and backtrack out of Georgia.
For Hood's part, he was wildly overambitious, thinking he could march straight into Kentucky, replenish his army with locals, and force Sherman to abandon Georgia to keep him from crossing the Ohio or, alternatively, that he could march from there into Virginia and hit Grant in the rear, crushing his army. Fantastical, yes, but at this point in the war, the only way to keep morale up and preserve any chance of winning is to go for a knockout blow. Even defeating Schoefield would have been enough to effect a short-term reorganization of Union priorities. Again, we can argue about whether poor tactical decisions led to Hood's downfall and the destruction of The Army of Tennessee, but criticism of Hood isn't that he blundered away good opportunities; to the contrary, if anything good is said about him it's that he was a competent corps commander under Lee but was too aggressive to command an army. His actions were all failures, but it's not like there were a ton of obvious alternatives.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
There's been a recent study which shows a lot of people do not retain a lot of information when they use AI to write essays for them.
A teacher I know says that the kids (except the really smart ones) use Chat GTP for everything and don't give the impression that they even read the output beyond a cursory look to make sure it was in the general ballpark of answering the question, so this shouldn't be too hard.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
There was a group of so-called "Cotton Whigs" who were in favor of industrializing the South, but they operated under the assumption that slave labor could be used in factories just as it could on farms. Whether they were right or wrong about this is subject to debate, but it's useful in examining the arguments you see sometimes from amateurs that had the North laid off the slavery question and focused on industrialization the institution would have died on its own. Like I said in my other comment, we know that know, but it wasn't obvious at the time, when advocates like James De Bow were talking about the ways slavery could be used in an expanded non-agricultural economy.
But altogether I think you're correct in the sense that an industrialized South doesn't view the expansion of slavery as necessary for self-preservation. I think the more interesting hypothetical is what would have happened had the South considered the slavery matter settled, whether by extension of the Missouri Compromise line, popular sovereignty, or some other mechanism.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
If you're not modifying existing plans, the architect should go through all that with you. Some architects are hacks, but those ones don't generally do custom builds. Assuming you want an architecturally correct Southern style and not some ersatz version, an architect excited to dive into the details of the exterior will be more than competent to guide you away from making the kinds of mistakes that end up in builder designed houses.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
It's been around longer than gen z has. It's probably more well-known than the Toastmasters, as that Moth Radio Hour has been on various NPR stations for over 15 years, and while I'd never make a point of listening to it, late on a Sunday afternoon it's often the only thing on the radio worth listening to.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
To attempt some answers:
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It seems obvious now because we know it happened, but you have to put yourself in the position of someone who would have been observing things at the time. For most of the 1850s, things were looking pretty good for the South. There was a string of Northern presidents with Southern sympathies, who weren't about to rock the boat on the slavery question. Dred Scott happened. The Whig party collapsed. Democrats had a 2 to 1 advantage in the Senate and Congress. There were certainly huge problems, but it wasn't until the 1860 election where the Democratic party split along sectional lines and the Republicans swept the North that the writing was on the wall.
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Lee is certainly overrated. Jackson is as well; both he and Longstreet are examples of guys who maxed out their own competence. Jackson was good at semi-independent commands but didn't have the political skills to be in charge of an entire army, and didn't do well when fighting directly under Lee. Longstreet was the opposite, in that he was a good general when serving under Lee but not so good independently.
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The "rich man's war poor man's fight" thing didn't have so much to do with who was taking casualties in the army but who was fighting in the army itself. The perception arose that thousands of men who would never be able to afford a single slave were fighting to retain an institution whose primary beneficiaries were plantation owners who weren't serving and who had an inordinate amount of political power.
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There's a difference between treating your enemy with respect and going out of your way to honor him. I doubt there are any statues of Petain in France commemorating his work in WWII.
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The commanding generals in Virginia take up most of the slack for the idea that the South had better generals than the North. In my opinion the opposite is true, with the North's generals being somewhat better on the whole. In Hood's defense, he didn't really have a choice at this point, as the war in the West was already lost and he had to do something. It's like a runner at third trying to score on a sac fly to left field when the team is down 7–2 in the 8th. Bad idea overall, but sometimes you just need to get something going. As for Davis, I think he had the idea that he wasn't going to cave until he absolutely had to. Most of the Deep South and large parts of the Trans-Mississippi never came under Union occupation, and I think the idea was that he'd make them fight for every inch, because the Union couldn't really claim victory unless every state came back.
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Yup
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It's easily the best single-volume work about the Civil War ever written, and it's required reading for anyone who wants to claim familiarity with the war. It's of "read this before you begin to discuss it" variety. The Great Courses series by Gary W. Gallagher covers similar ground, but in more depth, and he and McPherson seem to be like-minded about most things, so it makes an excellent supplement if you're looking to go further without risking running into a dud or something controversial.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Forget the Duolingo. It looks like most of the "teaching" this school does is plopping the kids in front of computer education modules that give them feedback on the problems. One wonders why they need "guides" who make 100k a year to not teach them. Presumably the effect of a good teacher is proportional to the amount of teaching they actually do.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
It's more that people advocating for certain rule changes often do so based on the presumption that they will only be used against other people. OP thinks that it's fine to deport native-born citizens with non-native parents, confident in the belief that he's protected. In reality, he probably can't meet the standards he imposes on other people, and even if he can, the vast majority of people can't. If we were to take this idea to its logical conclusion we'd end up with an America that looks vastly different than the one we have now. I don't think the OP sees the end result of this being that a second-generation Mexican and a naturalized Bangladeshi have a much easier road ahead than someone whose ancestors have been here for hundreds of years.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Well, you should be concerned, at least theoretically, because I can all but guarantee you can't do this. The only chance I'd give you of actually being able to is if your parents are relatively recent immigrants who naturalized before you were born, and you have access to their naturalization papers. Otherwise it's damn near impossible. I did a fair amount of genealogical work when I was in oil and gas and simply proving a bloodline back 100 years can take a significant amount of work, and that's including unofficial sources like obituaries and affidavits. In particular, anyone whose ancestors came here before about 1890 you can forget about entirely, as vital records simply weren't kept before then and estate records didn't normally include a list of all the heirs. And this work didn't even get into naturalization records, which are filed with the District Court where the person was naturalized, which, good luck that they were properly archived. So I guess you'd agree then that we should establish a system where the most recent immigrants and their descendants are the most likely to be allowed to stay and the people whose families have been here the longest are the most likely to be given the boot?
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Great! Let's start with an easy question: Who was the most recent immigrant in your lineage? You don't have to give a name, just tell me their relation to you, the date they immigrated here, the date they naturalized, and the birthdate of the descendant through whom you're claiming citizenship.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
I'm not sure what you're failing to understand. If your great-grandfather immigrated here in 1910, had your grandmother in 1925, and naturalized in 1930, he couldn't have possibly passed his citizenship to your grandmother because he had no citizenship to pass. And since your grandmother isn't a citizen in this scenario, neither is your mother, and neither are you. What's the problem here?
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Oh, I was born to two citizen parents. Citizenship is mine by blood.
At least you assume so. Unless you can prove that their parents had the power to transfer citizenship, I'm just going to assume you aren't, and that goes all the way back up the chain. You'd better hope that a sufficient number of immigrants in that chain were either here before 1789 or naturalized before they had your ancestors, or else they couldn't have transmitted citizenship to their children and I'd prefer you'd be deported to South Sudan or some other country that will take anyone. At that point you can get in the back of the line behind all the other South Sudanese who want to live in the US (Good luck!).
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Fistful of Dollars is the weakest entry in the trilogy, and Red Harvest is an overrated novel that I quit reading as soon as I figured out where it was going. I haven't seen Yojimbo, but I have no interest in watching it if it's just another "guy plays two gangs off of one another for personal reasons with a big showdown at the end* film. I mean, seriously, you don't need to be a clairvoyant to see how obvious these plotlines are and how at a certain point you're just waiting for the whole thing to play out.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
I don't think there is an intended recourse. I think the court was uncomfortable with the idea that some judge in Kansas City whom nobody has ever heard of could issue a national injunction preventing the president from exercising power anywhere, and they just ran with it. There was some suggestion that class actions should be used instead, but class actions are notoriously difficult due to class certification problems, and it seemed like the court was recommending class actions precisely because of these problems.
If I were litigating these matters, I'd take a "flood the zone" approach that would call into relief the practical problems of prohibiting national injunctions. It's just as easy for me to file a suit with 100 plaintiffs as it is one with 1 plaintiff, so I'd file suits with hundreds of named plaintiffs in friendly jurisdictions. I'd amend these suits regularly, as more plaintiffs came forward. Do this in enough districts and the multidistrict litigation panel will get involved and consolidate all the pending suits to one district for pretrial matters. If this happens, I then start filing suits in the unfriendly districts, which will immediately get stayed for enforcement under the standing order from the MDL judge.
If the cases aren't referred to MDL, which is a possibility if I'm only filing one case per district, it isn't necessarily a loss, because now I have 94 cases running in parallel. If more than one attorney takes this strategy, then it complicates things further. You could end up with hundreds of suits running in parallel, with hundreds of plaintiffs each, creating one massive headache for the government that will take forever to sort out and make the administration expend resources that it wouldn't have to if it were just one case in one district.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Um, I dunno, suspect's blood found at the crime scene. Victim's blood found on the suspect's clothes, or in his apartment. I could go on but I don't have a decade to list all the scenarios where DNA evidence could be relevant in a murder case.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
I understand what you're saying, but you're imposing a standard on the court that simply doesn't exist. He was involuntarily committed in 1983. He's presumed unfit to own firearms. You may have a disagreement about the process that was in place before 1987, but that's not what's at issue here. The guy isn't arguing that the record should be expunged because his original commitment was invalid, it's unlikely that he would be able to prove that it was invalid due to the passage of time, and the only way such an argument would work would be in the context of a ruling that all involuntary commitments prior to 1987 are presumptively invalid on procedural grounds. But again, that's not the issue here, and the court isn't going to relitigate this on its own.
Operating from that presumption, it's T.B.'s burden to prove that he qualifies for expungement, not the court's burden to prove that he doesn't. So, yeah, the court could have subpeonaed any number of different things, but they didn't, because they're under no obligation to prove that this guy is unfit to own weapons. That's already been established, insofar as the law is concerned, and if he wants the expungement, he has to provide the evidence himself. And what evidence did he provide? His own testimony, which suffered a debilitating lack of credibility, and a note from a psychiatrist which he admitted was obtained under false pretenses. The only thing we're left with that doesn't implicate T.B's lack of credibility is his lack of criminal record, which is persuasive but not dispositive. There's no provision of New Jersey law stating that the court has to grant an expungement just because someone hasn't committed any crimes for a period of time.
There's no legal issue here. All we have is you disagreeing with the factual findings of a judge who met the guy and reviewed the entire record, which, fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But it's no different than people who disagree with a jury verdict based on news reports they saw on TV. It's a factual issue, not a legal one, and no appeals court is going to overturn a finding of fact unless the evidence is so overwhelming that the conclusion is patently unreasonable.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
this conditions the availability of a constitutional right on knowing exactly how to frame a matter for the tastes of whatever judge or judges he was unlucky enough to pick months or years before seeing the court room, having the funds to hire lawyers (and since the guy isn't pro se, instead being represented by this guy, having the funds and knowledge to hire 'competent' lawyers), having the capabilities to act well as an effective witness at trial, and come off nicely-enough presented while sitting in court for a New Jersey judge to like him, (and don't know about a community services organization offering low-cost outpatient services). Few of these matters could be verified without a time machine; none are in the public record to even make sure that the judges are properly summarizing it.
I hate to break it to you, but the same applies to any other area of the law, including whether the state can revoke your own liberty for a period of years. Yes, there's the added protection in that case that you will be entitled to an attorney if you can't afford to pay for one, which attorney will probably do an adequate job but might not, but in any event, all the other concerns you raise still apply. If you have suggestions on how we can idiot proof the legal system so that any moron can act pro se and get similar results to those that lawyers get now, I'm all ears, but a more realistic approach is to do more to ensure access to legal services for those who can't afford them.
As a side note, while that attorney was on record for the appeal, it isn't clear that the guy was represented at the initial hearing. Based on the available record, I'm inclined to believe that he wasn't. It's clear from the appellate record that the guy wasn't prepped to testify, probably hadn't looked at the records he was using to make his case, and relied on the report of a regular treating psychiatrist rather than a forensic psychiatrist who would have testified in court. There are attorneys in Pennsylvania who specialize in this sort of thing and no, it isn't cheap, but it's what you have to do.
The main point I want to make, though, is that you're treating this as though these hearings are prerequisite to exercising one's Second Amendment rights. But they're not; this is the case of someone who was already adjudicated ineligible to purchase firearms based on a separate proceeding, at which the right to own firearms was collateral to the determination. To the extent that he has any right to the expungement of that record, the burden of proof is on him, as the state already met theirs. The procedural posture here is no different than that of a convicted felon petitioning the court for an expungement so he can buy a gun legally. The judge denying that petition isn't revoking any right, she's merely declining to reinstate a right that was already revoked in a prior proceeding.
There is no right to an expungement; it's entirely a creature of statute. New Jersey could just as easily make expungement unavailable in any circumstances, or have a process to restore some disabilities involuntary commitment results in but retain the prohibition on owning a gun, or only allow expungement in circumstances that don't apply here, and the guy would have been SOL from the start, and this case wouldn't exist, and no one would be bitching about how his rights are being violated.
This whole matter is complicated by the fact that we are dealing here with expungement and not an alternative process for restoration of gun rights. Most other states have some process for this, but an expungement is much easier to get in New Jersey than in other states, the standards are similar to those the Feds use, and it's ultimately a stronger system since an expungement's ability to remove the disability isn't reliant on whether the process is compliant with the Federal guidelines. Whether or not there's a constitutional right for there to be some mechanism to restore gun rights to those with a history of involuntary commitment is an open question. The Sixth Circuit ruled that the Second Amendment prohibited the permanent revocation of rights just because someone was committed at one point in his life, but it didn't elaborate with regard to what was necessary to restore those rights.
In any event, it's hard to see what the court did wrong here. The guy has the burden of proof to show he should get an expungement, and he provided very little evidence beyond "I'm not nuts and you should take my work for it". He lied to the court about the circumstances surrounding the commitment. He admitted to intentionally misrepresenting his mental health to the doctor whose opinion he was relying on. How is the court supposed to base a determination on a bare-bones statement made by a doctor whom the applicant admits didn't get an accurate assessment? The applicant's testimony lacked credibility, the doctor's report lacked credibility, so what's left? Even if you can pick your way through the weeds and offer some basis upon which she could have granted the expungement, that's a long way from saying that she made the kind of error that the appellate court would reverse, and the two Republican judges who wrote the opinion seemed to understand that.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
See my comment above, but voluntarily interacting with the mental health system isn't what gets you barred from owning a gun; it's avoiding the mental health system until things get so bad you're forced into it.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
This only applies to involuntary commitments. If you're feeling suicidal and check yourself into a mental hospital for treatment, it's not going to affect your ability to buy a gun. On the other hand, if you attempt suicide and get 302'd (in PA), it will. The way the law is set up now actually encourages people to seek voluntary treatment before it becomes enough of a problem that the state has to intervene.
My argument wasn't that crashing the wedding was morally justified because of the level of trust involved, just that the lack of trust on the part of the hosts meant that my actions didn't contribute to the erosion of trust in the same way they would if they were simply operating on the honor system. You could live in a zero trust society where every box of tic-tacs was sold from behind 4 inches of lucite and two armed guards, and you wouldn't be justified in stealing it. It would just be disingenuous for someone to caution you that your successful theft is contributing to an erosion of trust.
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