site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27830 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm secretly hoping for Trump to be elected while being in State custody. What actually happens in the situation? Do Federal Marshals show up at the prison demanding Trump's release?

Bidens term ends at noon and Trump's begins

Amendment XX, Section 1.

The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

However, Trump as President can't DO anything until he takes the oath:

From Article I, Section 1:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:– I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

So who has the power to act as President? No one. Note that the old executive department head's terms do NOT end when the President's term does; traditionally they resign, but perhaps they'd refuse in this case. So while Trump's VP could try to invoke the 25th Amendment and become acting President, he'd need the majority of Biden's cabinet to go along. Otherwise, there's no President until Trump takes the oath, and (perhaps) Biden's cabinet can still act.

Leave it to the Nybbler to interpret the Constitution in the most unreasonable and negative way.

Honestly, the Founding Fathers could have used you at the convention. Your fertile imagination might have warded off some of the Constitution's most obvious flaws, such as the lack of a limit on the size of the Supreme Court.

But I still maintain there is no document (or for that matter any entity or concept) so robust that a Nybbler couldn't find a legalistic way to make it suck.

As annoying as @The_Nybbler's doomerism can be, you need to engage with the words on the screen and not turn it into digs at the person.

If a State is holding the President-elect in prison, with the passive assent of the current President, you will have a constitutional crisis. Why would you expect anything different? Where have I made an error?

I would expect that the secret service requires his attendance at the swearing in ceremony, regardless of whatever else is going on.

"my people rules-lawyer God, you never stood a chance"

I don’t think Nybbler is Jewish.

As @ArjinFerman notes, half Ashkenazi -- on my mother's side -- and half Italian. It's practically an ethnicity in NJ. I think I've even repeated a variant of that joke before.

Yeah, I shamelessly stole it from your post about Orthodox communities abusing welfare state bureaucracy with their rabbinic skills

I missed that one!

I'm pretty sure he's mentioned it before, and do you really think he'd be at this level without the +2 racial bonus to kvetching? He's too good.

(Edit: sorry, only a +1 bonus for half-jews, my mistake)

Half Jewish half Italian, from what I remember.

Huh!

Started to ask "but which half" and nearly died laughing that the question makes sense.

There’s no prescription on where the oath be taken. It could hypothetically be the Chief Justice answering a collect call from prison.

Correct, but perhaps NY will not allow him that. Even if they do, you now have the crisis of a President held in prison; they're not going to let him call Seal Team 6 (or the Border Patrol) to break him out.

Supremacy clause.

Supremacy clause.

And who enforces that? Through what means?

The Supremacy Clause says that the Constitution, constitutional laws, and treaties are supreme over state laws. It does not make the person of the President inviolable. Senators and Representatives are privileged from arrest in certain circumstances; the President is not.

The constitution requires the president to faithfully execute the laws. The president being in Rikers due to state law interferes with his constitutional obligation and therefore supremacy clause.

Do you think that John Roberts will buy that rather broad interpretation of the Supremacy Clause?

Yes. Just like I was quite certain he would buy the general federal election argument to kill the silly Colorado decision. The only thing I got wrong there was I thought it would be 7-2 when it was 9-0.

What did you predict?

More comments

I think chief justice roberts would want to end the constitutional crisis as fast as possible and with a minimum of bloodshed, and if that means forcing New York to release trump to the White House, that is a better outcome than a civil war.

More comments

Quite possibly. What, do you expect him to want the supreme court to rule that the president of the united states is stuck in jail?

Or it could be Calvin Coolidge taking the oath in the parlor of his father's vacation home, before his father who was a justice of the peace.

I'm secretly hoping for Trump to be elected while being in State custody. What actually happens in the situation?

It makes for a banger anecdote in popular histories about the American republic 100 years from now.

Truthfully I am fed up enough. That I don’t care if Trump cancels the 2028 elections and just appoints himself Emperor. The system feels too rotten to save at this point.

Yeah. The mainstream media has been warning of imminent fascism since 2016. Time for him to shit or get off the pot.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats