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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   35710 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Like who?

Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and JD Vance to name a few. Plus the fact that Eugene Volokh and the rest of his buddies at the Federalist Society have already gotten to pick three Supreme Court Justices and will likely get to pick another two (if not more) before the end of the decade.

The right also seems more inclined to use that power, having slowly learned the lesson, I think, that institutions are not inherently neutral and that if they're not on your side they are probably on someone else's.

Which I think might make those SCOTUS picks and executive branch positions weightier than they did a few years ago. Sure, Reagan was a very dynamic leader, but he didn't revolutionize society the way that LBJ did. And now Trump's first (well technically probably like 2717th given how many pardons and other EOs he signed) move in office is to yank an EO that survived Reagan, two Bushes, and even Nixon.

I agree.

We explicitly discourage one-line "I agree" posts. I get that you wanted to "close out" the conversation with an acknowledgement, but if you've got nothing really more to say, an upvote is sufficient.

I think that's a pretty terrible idea.

If you're having a back-and-forth with another member, responding with just "I agree" shows that you agree with their last point, but have nothing to add.

Not responding at all and just upvoting conveys nothing to the person you are communicating with, and it just looks like you're ignoring the response (or similar). Just upvoting would only be sufficient if votes were not anonymous (which I have seen on some forums) which is not the case here on the Motte.

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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."

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