site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Many easy ones.

  1. Jury verdict has to be unanimous. The idea that the key can pick and choose in a case that is not mallum in se is prohibited under the due process regime.

  2. Federal preemption — congress vested sole authority in DOJ and FEC to enforce FECA because there was a strong interest in a uniform application of the law (in part because it conflicts with the first amendment and in part because it is a federal election). The state can’t use this federal law as a predicate because of preemption.

  3. They could say the judge gave the wrong instructions not explaining FECA well (including botching the willfulness standard).

  4. Evidence was obtained that the recent ruling likely says was inappropriately obtained.

These are probably the most straightforward at the scotus level but there are more.

But I’m not sure it goes to scotus. Trump’s team can pick an appellate judge to immediately hear an appeal to stay the order. There are many reasons to junk this case. I think the NY appellate stays any jail sentence immediately.

Yeah, all fine, but I am thinking of those as idiosyncratic procedural glitches. I mean, suppose that the state convicted him of some dumb white collar crime that he was definitely guilty of and tried to jail him via impeccable process. Obviously it's untenable for an elected president to be jailed by New York State. But what theory would the Supreme Court use to prevent it? Straight-up vertical separation of powers? It would be fun to find out.

If jailed legitimately and elected, then i believe the court would say that because the constitution requires the president to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and doing so is incompatible with being jailed, the supremacy clause tolls the jail time while the president is in office.