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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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Great. I'm sure you have a large backlog of posts making this same point at progressives, right? Are you familiar with the concept of an "isolated demand for rigor"?

Are you implying that you a stranger, not knowing everything I talk about by the nature of being a complete stranger have any means whatsoever to accuse me of hypocrisy here?

If you're gonna argue with the made up vision of other people you don't know that you have imagined in your head, then enjoy yourself.

Just for the record, going to someone's userpage by clicking on their handle does, in fact, allow you to see everything that person's posted on theMotte. Also, theMotte is small enough that some people (though not me) do read basically everything.

That's still incredibly flawed to assume reading through my limited postings on a single website make you meaningfully less of a stranger who does not know me or what I believe/have previously done.

This is no excuse to conjure up an imaginary strawman of a conversation partner and make unfounded allegations against them because of the mismatch between reality and strawman.

That's still incredibly flawed to assume reading through my limited postings on a single website make you meaningfully less of a stranger who does not know me or what I believe/have previously done.

100 posts would be enough to get a decent start on a picture of me. Not a complete one, certainly - even a hypothetical person who'd read all 35,000+ posts I've made on the Internet still wouldn't know everything, and I'm the sort to randomly admit to crimes if they're relevant - but it'd be meaningful.

If you want your partisan arguments to gain extra consideration because you claim to have a costly non-partisan virtue, it is completely reasonable for other people to ask you to prove you've paid that cost.

And when you appear to struggle to grasp what that would even entail in the first place, it is completely reasonable for people to notice that, and adjust their impressions of you accordingly.

because you claim to have a costly non-partisan virtue,

Now this may be where we disagree on, because I do not view it as costly at all. The rule of law and obeying the judicial system's rulings are written into the fabric of America since long before any of us were born. Perhaps it is because I had lawyers for parents but this concept was instilled in me since I was a kid.

Yeah, this is back to not understanding the concept. Genuine non-partisan concern for the rule of law is costly because it pisses off everyone, eventually. If you're going to be big mad about due process for deportations now, that pisses off conservatives. And if you were actually principled, then you'd have already pissed off the progressives by spending the Biden administration writing scathing critiques of their utter disregard for the law. You'd be criticizing at least some of these activist judges for overreach. You'd be carefully mindful of all the laws and evidence demanding that Garcia must be deported.

The fact that you don't recognize this, the fact that you seem totally unaware of the tribalism that infuses most political discussions, the fact that you don't have a gut-level appreciation for how progressives treat heretics and enemies are very strong signals that you've never actually insisted the law be applied to them, too.

FWIW, there are members of this community who do have such a track record, and I highly respect them for it.

already pissed off the progressives by spending the Biden administration writing scathing critiques of their utter disregard for the law.

How do you know I didn't? And at what point did a court ever charge the Biden admin with contempt? There were plenty of rulings against them so it's very hard to imagine they're willing to rule against him but not enforce it. More likely you just misunderstood the specifics of the rulings or the response to it by the administration, as most people often do. Law is complex, there's no shame in not understanding the intricacies.

You'd be criticizing at least some of these activist judges for overreach.

And there is a process if you believe you were wrongly ruled against, it's called an appeal. The Trump admin appealed the original case up to the Supreme Court got a 9-0 ruling, and remember many of these SC judges were literally by his first admin. And the judge in question, Wilkinson, who denied that recent appeal is a well known conservative minded Republican aligned judge who was appointed under Reagan and on a short list of SC nominees for Bush.

If these are "activist judges" to you then it seems you've skewed far from the American norms.

You'd be carefully mindful of all the laws and evidence demanding that Garcia must be deported.

There are plenty of legal ways to deport immigrants! Even Garcia had multiple ways the Trump admin could have done it without violating the withholding of removal order, including seeking to get it overturned.

Does it not intrigue you why the "activist courts" aren't blocking most deportations, but only these particular ones?

How do you know I didn't?

Exactly. I don't know that you did. Because you're a new account with no history, and nothing you've said makes me think you're being honest, based on my own unhealthily expansive experience on this topic, which you can double check since I've been discussing these things on this account name since two site migrations ago.

And at what point did a court ever charge the Biden admin with contempt? There were plenty of rulings against them so it's very hard to imagine they're willing to rule against him but not enforce it. More likely you just misunderstood the specifics of the rulings or the response to it by the administration, as most people often do. Law is complex, there's no shame in not understanding the intricacies.

See, this is the exact kind of shit I would expect from a smug ideological child, not an experienced civil libertarian. The civil libertarian would have immediately thought of multiple egregious incidents, such as the eviction moratorium or student loans.

well known conservative minded Republican aligned judge who was appointed under Reagan and on a short list of SC nominees for Bush.

Again, this strongly predisposes me to think you're college aged at best, and deeply embedded in ideologically progressism. "Well known", because Politico and NYT described him that way last week when you and everyone else heard of him for the first time. If you'd actually been adult enough to be politically minded for longer than your account existed, you'd be expected to be aware that there's a wee bit of friction between the Bush Republicans and the Trump ones.

Even Garcia had multiple ways the Trump admin could have done it without violating the withholding of removal order, including seeking to get it overturned.

Oh, good, you did eventually, inadvertently, acknowledge that all this furor is over a minor paperwork mixup.

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How do you know I didn't?

Maybe it's just vibes, but the way you talk doesn't sound like it could come from anyone spending any relevant amount of time arguing against liberals and progressives. Usually that sort of thing leaves one with enough scars that they'd be able to implicitly signal they're aware of the issues with the other side, but your writing style just screams "basic Trump-bad Redditor".

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Unless they have a private account of course, which I've noticed is never a good sign.

accuse me of hypocrisy here

I'm heavily hinting at it, while offering you every reasonable opportunity to demonstrate that the accusation is inapplicable.

Needless to say, I shant be holding my breath, and absence of evidence is very much Bayesian evidence of absence.

"if you don't entertain my made up accusation of a stranger I don't know anything about, then it must be true" is an interesting way to look at the world

I've been arguing about politics online for seven presidential administrations. If called to task for being a partisan, I can reference my old flame wars about the war in Iraq and W-era abortion laws as evidence that I am at least historically willing to be angry at Republicans. Can you really not think of a single time you made a post or comment or argument or shower tirade in which you were upset at progressives for some violation of procedure?

Cause that seems kinda telling.

I am no under obligation to dox myself or other accounts of mine on the internet for the satisfaction of a stranger who believes they can read my mind. If you wish to know my views on anything in particular, ask me. Otherwise I request you to stop assuming things.

You really can't imagine how to reference such a prior belief/argument without doxing yourself?

FFS, just briefly paraphrase.

If your standard of evidence was so lax as to take "Just take me trust bro, I believe X and Y", why were you seemingly unwilling to accept it beforehand? You start off accusing me of something with no evidence beyond a lack of, and I quote "a large backlog of posts making this same point at progressives" and only when I point out the absurdity of what you're asking requires me to dox myself and my other accounts did you dial back.

If you want an example where I criticized progressives, I believe Biden's covid era eviction moratorium was a bad thing. While not on the exact level (such a thing was not ruled against yet), Biden had previously suggested he knew it was likely to get struck down and proceeded anyway. He then tried a second plan importantly, it was distinct from the coverage of the original ruling with the same knowledge it was likely to get struck down.

Now in this case procedurally, the rules were followed. A law or policy being implemented that gets struck down (in that case because it is on Congress to pass such laws, not the executive to decide) is par for the course and as long as they obey the courts and cease their actions it's all normal. There is no rule, and can not reasonably be a rule that says "If you think it's >X% that you will be ruled against you can't do a policy but if it's <X% chance you can". But it was still morally incorrect of the Biden admin to do so with the knowledge they were (highly likely at the time and now confirmed to be) overstepping their authority.

If your standard of evidence was so lax as to take "Just take me trust bro, I believe X and Y", why were you seemingly unwilling to accept it beforehand?

Because you wouldn't even give a single example.

If you want an example where I criticized progressives, I believe Biden's covid era eviction moratorium was a bad thing. While not on the exact level (such a thing was not ruled against yet), Biden had previously suggested he knew it was likely to get struck down and proceeded anyway.

See, this is a reasonable and good example. Thank you. Was that so hard?

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