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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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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.

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.

Yes I am aware of those, you clearly lack a basic understanding of law to know the details of what happened there. The Biden Admin choose to interpret certain Covid era laws in a specific way, and the Supreme Court struck those particular interpretations down.

Did the Biden admin defy the courts ruling and continue interpreting those rules in that way? Despite his (irresponsible) posturing, he did not. The Biden admin pivoted onto a different narrower set of rules that it believed (or at least claimed to believe, law is not a mind reader) gave such powers from Congress.

The Supreme Court ruling on the Biden admin was not a generalist denial of student loans or eviction moratoriums as a concept, it was them denying the specific interpretations of specific passed laws.

Your failure to understand the complexity of law and the limits of specific rulings does not change anything there. Congress could have passed bills giving that authority, the Biden admin interpretated certain bills as giving that authority, the SC said "no, it's not." and the Biden admin obeyed, pivoting onto a different legally distinct argument.

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.

If you don't know about him, that's on you. I grew up in a family of lawyers and was planning to attend law school myself for a long while before I decided for a better work life balance for my kid. I still am interested in a lot of it, and I'm aware of Wilkinson from way before this. He is well known in the field. Also he's not a Bush era nominee, he was under Reagan. Not the biggest importance but such failure at basic details is a great highlight of why you don't understand the complex details.

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

Well tell that to the courts, maybe you'll be the one to convince Roberts and Alito and Thomas and all three Trump nominated justices that it's just a minor paperwork mixup. I'm sure you can find the contact info of a staffer or something somewhere online who will listen to your expert understanding of the law and pass it on.

Or perhaps instead of projecting idealogical capture onto me, you could look inside yourself and go "Do I really understand this better than a 9-0 ruling with six conservative judges, three of whom were appointed by Trump's own first administration?", realize the answer is no and then ask yourself why you're so invested into it that you had thought that was the case at all.

Either Trump managed to pick three secret compromised liberals for the court, had no involvement in his own admin's selection (that's concerning and poor leadership if true, I hope not) or the case is more complex than your layman understanding of law leads you to believe.

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".

I am more libertarian minded and grew up respecting plenty of conservative figures. My parents were both Reagan voters, they were split in 2008 (Obama was pretty widely popular so it's understandable), and I voted Trump in the first term as he was the Republican candidate against Clinton.

But I am also a person raised on fundamental American values, both my parents are lawyers (while, were, one is retired) and they took pride in it. I was originally going to follow until I decided to have a better work life balance for my kid.

There are lots of very conservative people on the court who are friendly to Trump's goals, but they are also (like many judges) obsessed with the proper procedures and rule of law being followed. The 9-0 ruling didn't happen because all the conservative aligned SC judges hate deportations, it happened because the Trump admin violated the lower court ruling and they are expected to do their due diligence and try to make a wrong situation right. The exact terms of this are yet to be ironed out in the courts, but process matters and the judicial authority should and must be followed for a healthy legal system.

So again I ask you, does it not intrigue you why the "activist courts" aren't blocking most deportations, but only these particular ones?

I am more libertarian minded and grew up respecting plenty of conservative figures. My parents were both Reagan voters, they were split in 2008 (Obama was pretty widely popular so it's understandable), and I voted Trump in the first term as he was the Republican candidate against Clinton.

I used to be a libertarian myself, and again would expect that the experience of being shat on by everyone from Bush to Obama stans, not to mention the lockdown madness, would leave one scarred enough, that they'd at least understand where "the system is fake and gay" people are coming from. Even your stated reason for voting Trump is going to be seen as downright weird by most people posting here.

You're wondering why you keep getting questioned and second-guessed, I'm just trying to point out that there's a reason why this is happening.

So again I ask you, does it not intrigue you why the "activist courts" aren't blocking most deportations, but only these particular ones?

I haven't really jumped into this to talk about the specifics of the case, just to point out the reason for the dynamics between you and the other posters, but no it doesn't intrigue me in the slightest. Politics is not about applying principles, it's the art of knowing what you can get away with.