site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think you are incorrectly framing this as though the ability to make inconsistent arguments is a unique power held by prosecutors. Any party in any kind of litigation is always free to make inconsistent or alternative arguments. The catch is that typically the jury gets to hear about your inconsistencies, and can choose to hold this against your credibility if it wants to. I didn't read your links, but from your description of the case it sounds like the jury was told about the inconsistent arguments and ultimately still believed the defendant was guilty.

I for one would like to apply stricter standards to the prosecution.

For example, the fact that the defendant can misrepresent the facts as much as they want is not a good reason to also allow the prosecution the same leeway with the truth.

The standard for criminal trials is generally "beyond reasonable doubt". If A and B commit a crime, and prosecutor X convinces their jury that A was the mastermind, and prosecutor Y convinces their jury that B was the mastermind, and they both worked from the same evidence, then at least one of the prosecutors is grossly miscalibrated about what reasonable doubt should mean.

Prosecutors who try to convict people of of stuff they are actually guilty of will not show this behavior. OTOH, with this lower standard, you could have multiple persons be convicted for having fired the same gunshot.

Yeah, the old joke that I've heard frames it as coming from the defense: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I wasn't even there! And if I was, I didn't do it. And if I did, it was self defense. And if it wasn't, I was insane!"

I think you are incorrectly framing this as though the ability to make inconsistent arguments is a unique power held by prosecutors.

No, I've definitely never said that--I've just only talked about prosecution in this thread. You are correct that defendants may also make arguments in the alternative.

The difference is that the defendants (usually!) only have to successfully defend themselves once. Whatever the jury decides, that's the account of the facts that will (usually!) be relied upon through the appeals process for that defendant.

The prosecution, though, is the same party (figuratively, as the state; literally, in some cases, the same person) across multiple cases, and in theory the party being held to a higher standard--because the power of the state is presumably extremely vast, we place a variety of hobbles on it (Bill of Rights, e.g.). Elsewhere in this thread I linked a law review article arguing that cross-case prosecutorial consistency ought to be regarded as part of Procedural Due Process. I find myself amendable to that position.