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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   35138 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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At least until some judge reverses it all.

Judicial power ultimately relies on popular buy-in. The courts don't have very many divisions. The energy of this moment is so intense that an attempt by courts to stop it would do nothing except damage the legitimacy of the court. A few more "Hawaiian judge" rulings and the administration will begin covertly defying the court. A few more after that, and the administration will openly and brazenly defy the court. This is a civilizational moment and it can't be stopped by some guy in a robe.

The courts don't have very many divisions

This is an anti-civilizational ethos. When you say "fuck the rules, stop me if you can", you can't then complain if people take you up on your invitation. And, uh, the outcome of that is a massive lose-lose.

Gonna suck for you when thenother side wins by 1.5% and starts their "civilizational moment", huh?

They already did. This is the reaction, and we're not even close to it being symmetrical.

No, because that would 5x what is happening now. It snowballs. That's how it works. Like when Trump barely beat Clinton and Wokeness went into hyperdrive. Dems winning by 1.5% and trying to restore Woke hegemony would be the ideal case for the opposition. It's a counter-culture gaining momentum.

There is a genuine "they have made their ruling, now let them enforce it" aspect here.

Okay so a judge says you can't fire them without process. Doesn't stop you from disposing of their work equipment, repurposing their buildings, and basically proceeding along as if they've already been fired.

Okay so the judge doesn't let you freeze their funds. But you can slow walk the distributions, or turn them over to friendly elements within the departments, or earmark them for long term spending goals so they're still sitting there.

For better or worse, Judges have a limited toolbox to impose their will on other branches, and it is thus sort of easy to guess which ones they'll use and route around those.

IF the legislature decides to play along (big IF) then they can also start defunding courts or reshuffling them and making Judges themselves decide its a good time to retire.

Okay so a judge says you can't fire them without process. Doesn't stop you from disposing of their work equipment, repurposing their buildings, and basically proceeding along as if they've already been fired.

Man, you are going to be so pissed when you learn about how constructive dismissal works.

The good news is that if the legislature is on board, they can just rewrite the statutes on these departments and then there isn't any intra-executive conflict needed at all. Want to abolish USAID, just have Congress do it in a one-liner. The courts have long since deferred to Congress' authority over the purse strings.

In fact, the only reason the courts have as much power as they do is that Congress doesn't go back through and amend statutes when they are interpreted wrong. Largely because Congress can't be assed to do much of anything, let alone their core function. So much of the dysfunction of the US government is downstream of that power vacuum caused by a Congress that can't or won't legislate.

Man, you are going to be so pissed when you learn about how constructive dismissal works.

I'll show you my Bar card if you can explain which remedies a court can apply in response to a constructive dismissal/termination claim.

It'll save us all some time.

Point is, a Judge can't really force an employer to keep an employee if the employer really wants to let that employee go. They can impose monetary penalties, but in this case they'll probably be paid happily.

Well first would you agree that the elements of constructive termination would be met and we’re just haggling about remedies?

On to remedies, I think front pay could end up being quite a bit.

Under Whittlesey an ambitious plaintiff could argue they would have likely worked till normal retirement and would be entitled to their entire future pay.

Less ambitiously, a plaintiff still does alright. Maybe it’s in the realm of “pay it to go away”

Maybe it’s in the realm of “pay it to go away”

And this is where I think it'd end up if they kept the person on the payroll but just denied them the ability to actually do their job while the situation was worked out.

Okay so a judge says you can't fire them without process. Doesn't stop you from disposing of their work equipment, repurposing their buildings, and basically proceeding along as if they've already been fired.

The judge right now is saying they can't even put them on paid administrative leave. I'm not sure exactly what that means; if they don't put them on leave but also don't assign them any work nor give them access to any government systems, how is that any different? But if it isn't different, can they hold the administration in contempt?

It depends on the judge but it seems like he is focused on the very narrow cases where a aUS employee is abroad and this will cause them immediate harm. The judge isn’t trying to extend it months but weeks to allow them an orderly repatriation to the US.

This seems like an excuse, and if it were the true reason the TRO could have been narrower.

if they don't put them on leave but also don't assign them any work nor give them access to any government systems, how is that any different?

Sounds like the Japanese method of pressuring workers to quit: stick them in a room with nothing to do, wait for them to quit out of boredom.

That kind of power hara(ssment) is illegal in Japan as of two years ago.

Which is nice in many ways but will cause problems. Japanese employee protection is very strong so power hara was often the only way to get dead weight to quit.

That may be why the penalties are relatively light: small fines and public shaming by being put on a public list.

https://www.kojimalaw.jp/en/articles/0003

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220329/p2a/00m/0op/013000c

Sounds like the Japanese method of pressuring workers to quit: stick them in a room with nothing to do, wait for them to quit out of boredom.

I am fairly sure this would not work with the modal federal government worker. But I'm pretty sure a lot of these people have been "working" from home since COVID anyway.

See NYC schools' 'rubber rooms'- it's easier to reassign teachers accused of sexual misconduct to sit in a room and do nothing all day than to adjudicate the case, so they... sit in a room and do nothing all day.

Here's a cracked interview with someone who was in one- https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2564-what-if-your-job-paid-you-to-do-absolutely-nothing.html

Can't you just assign people to work in Alaska or somewhere they don't want to work instead of firing them.

SDNY judge would say no to reassigning them to Alaska.

Why does only one of your sides not hesitate to show up at the houses of judges with a crowbar and zipties?

One side actually believes in all the procedural and institutional stuff; that's one of the reasons the other side is always going on about it. Though the way the Trump II administration is behaving, it seems they may have twigged to the fact that the procedure is not in fact being followed evenhandedly and the institutions are captured. Still, they have options better than that one, so far.

From what I heard, they don't let you just sit on your phone or otherwise occupy yourself. You have to stare at the screen where nothing is going on. Otherwise, I doubt it would work on the Japanese either.

What are they going to do if you ignore that and bring a book in your pocket? Fire you?

One thing I've noticed since I entered the workforce is that you can get away with simply ignoring your boss's stupidest orders surprisingly often as long as you don't confront them about it and pretend you made a mistake if you get caught. They don't notice, or they forget, or they give up on enforcement.

If you are a generally productive employee the organization wants to keep you can just ignore the stupidest things your boss asks for until called out about it, in a 'I'll get right on that, it's going to the bottom of the pile so I can remember it' way. If they already want to get rid of you that's what insubordination clauses are for.

You can probably do this if you are producing. If you aren't producing and also not playing the game then things might be difficult unless you are working in a dysfunctional organization.

Somehow I doubt they will just cave to a random Obama appointee from Hawaii, but I'm so glad that you are blackpilled again. For a second it seemed that you were optimistic. It was then that I wondered "has Trump gone too far?"

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