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I think you often weakman my arguments like this.
I agree with this.
I'd be more equivocal about agreeing with this. There are certainly a lot of liberal institutions dedicated to deplatforming conservatives, but I don't think they have as much power as you seem to, nor do I think it's a grand Soros-like conspiracy aided and abetted by President Biden and whoever else you think is part of this "enemy action." This reminds me a bit of the radical feminists' construction of The Patriarchy. Do I agree with them that society has a patriarchal bent that often gives women the shitty end of the stick, and that there are some very dedicated misogynists who'd like to make society even more capital-P Patriarchal? Yes. Do I actually believe in a Patriarchy, acting in any kind of concerted or directed way, according to any group's design? Or that society is actually ordered as a capital-P Patriarchy? No.
And to be uncharitable? Never mind, I probably don't want to know.
Seriously, yes, it is possible that I am underestimating this. I have said that the last couple of years have pushed me - slightly - closer to your way of thinking. But I still think you, and especially FCfromSSC, the_nybbler, et al, are catastrophizing, and also suffering from presentism.
I honestly do not know. What was Scott's post about seeing evidence of ancient Atlantean highways at the bottom of the ocean, and how if you are dedicated to finding a pattern, you will find it? That is sort of what I think you are doing, and which I perhaps inelegantly referred to as a gish-gallop. You have a hundred examples of "conservatives being oppressed" you can link to on demand, and I probably don't disagree with most of those, individually, being bad. I don't "engage" with them because any one, by itself, I am probably not claiming didn't happen or wasn't an abuse of power or an example of leftist censoriousness. What I am disputing is that they add up to what you claim they do. As I said above, if I had your skills and dedication, don't you think I could drag up an equally long list of "evidence" that The Patriarchy exists, or that white supremacy is the single greatest threat to POC in society, or that trans people are the most oppressed demographic in history?
I realize that this is not an entirely satisfactory answer ("I could rebut you if I cared enough to spend the time on it") but I hope it explains why I can nod along to almost all of your examples and still not be convinced by your core argument. What would convince me of your core argument? I am not sure, but probably some sort of tipping point, some sort of event (or series of events) beyond the pale of normal politics and culture war. I understand you and FCfromSSC think those events have already occurred (e.g., the Floyd riots, Kenosha). Maybe if you lay out why you think we have already reached a tipping point, why you think there is no possibility of the pendulum swinging the other way, or even moderating, I'll be persuaded, but not by examples 1 through 50 of Wokes Gone Wild.
First, I'll point to Too Many People Dare Call It Conspiracy: it's not a particularly strong claim to start with, and it's even weaker when I'm saying a lot of this is publicly coordinated or recognizing that it may well have been independently developed in parallel across the country.
((Also, I've literally mentioned Soros once in the entire existence of this site, and only in a quote of another poster here, and only to say it's not a great joke.))
What level of power do you think I'm claiming this broader movement has, that isn't present or supported by evidence? I gave a list of concrete facts; if you want me to show the links demonstrating them, I can.
Don't remember that one. Contra fideism was about pyramids, and so were Pyramid and Garden. Building Intuitions on non-Empirical Arguments was about the Sphinx. And none of them seem particularly on-point.
But I've asked, repeatedly, for people to try to find counterexamples. Ymeskhout especially for gun-related enforcement specifically, but ChrisPrattAlphaRptr and others on the broader problem. I've repeatedly asked you. I've looked myself! I've even noted, in this thread, some times I've genuinely been wrong!
And yet the model remains the best prediction I've gotten. The closest I've gotten in terms of serious engagement has been Ymeskhout, and that was to find out that the more serious statistical analysis may not exist or even be possible to gather data for.
... at the risk of echoing what Dangerous-Salt-7543, this seems like the sort of description where either you'll have gotten used to the new "beyond the pale" (December 2020! Did you have 'riots invading Congress' or 'movement to pull a major party candidate from the ballot wins at a state supreme court' on your card back then?).
Or, well... setting the standard you won't declare so high that "Obviously if I'm wrong, you'll never be able to collect, but anyway."
Bluntly, "Wokes Gone Wild" is neither a fair nor complete description of the claims I've made: the point of my posts are always more than just some rando on the outgroup trying something.
We're in this thread because Trace thinks that "Republicans are rapidly losing the capacity to run public institutions at all levels other than electoral, and this trend cannot realistically reverse within a generation." I disagree with him on the cause(s) (and that 2rafa actually engaged with that matter), and there are even some hypothetical ways I can see this trend reversing.
I think there's quite a possibility of the pendulum swinging the other way! But I didn't join the ratsphere because '10% chance of avoiding a horrifying result (possibly for a /different/ Red Tribe-flavoured horrifying result), I sure love my high-stakes gambling!' What I'm worried about is that I'm not seeing any evidence of or cause of de-escalation for either side.
Positions held by large portions of the Republican electorate (and even a not-trivial number of progressives!) are, as matters of law and regulation, potential sources of serious liability for employers, even if discussed off-campus and after-hours. Courts and executive branches have routinely defied the clear text and obvious intent of the law to get their way and/or fuck over their political enemies; lower courts and state-wide politicians and the sitting President of the United States have taken to simply thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court. Federal investigators simply ignore due process protections for serious actions and happily bring down the hammer on even sympathetic cases for the Red Tribe, while lobbing softballs at life-threatening violations from the Blue and simply ignoring 'lesser' ones. Major Red Tribe political organizations have state attorney generals who campaign on destroying them and then tried it in court.
I can even provide Blue Tribe versions of (some of) these claims. People have, for you. But in addition to a lot of them being weaker, they don't really solve the 'we're no longer trying to persuade each other, or even prevent the other side from winning, but prevent the opposing side from playing the game' problem.
Do you need more categorical claims, or do I need explain why these feed back into themselves?
Am I not allowed to use an example that you personally have not used? This is another thing you do a lot - I'll use a common public figure or trope and you object "I never mentioned George Soros." No, you didn't, but Soros-like social manipulation seems to be the sort of thing you are alleging.
A level of power that goes beyond cyclical swings in public mood and political temperature. That is, capable of doing what nybbler claims (no Republican President will ever be elected again) or of always getting their way regardless of who is in the White House and Congress. A level of power that is, figuratively speaking, going to stomp on your face forever.
I admit the Colorado Supreme Court has inched me slightly further in your direction. Not so much the decision itself (which I find troubling, but not being a lawyer I cannot say whether their legal arguments are really that absurd) but the fact that basically all the Democrats I know think it's just great, for no other reason than "Removing Trump from the ballot, hell yeah."
Look dude, this is the new "You are not oppressed," something you feel like you have to bring up every time you argue with me? I did not then and still do not understand why Dangerous-Salt went off on me or what my sin was. No, I do not think the standard has to be literally apocalypticaly high.
I begin to see one of our problems, at least. You tend to take me very literally when I'm using a flippant turn of phrase, while on the other hand when I am being very precise, you ignore it. Maybe the fault is mine for being poor at expressing myself, though somehow I don't think you literally thought I meant all your examples are just crazy college kids on campus. (That, by the way, was another flippant turn of phrase, not literal.)
I suppose the only way forward is to break apart this:
Broadly speaking, I see your point. In the fine details, I would nitpick each of those statements (to take one example, saying you think transwomen are men or homosexuality is a sin is certainly a cancellable/fireable offense in a troubling number of cases, but how true is "as matters of law and regulation" really? As opposed to almost every university and corporation being quislings cowed by HR Karens? Which I think is very bad! But not quite the same as "a matter of law"). To take another, courts and executive branches have been "routinely defying the clear text and obvious intent of the law" (at least according to their opponents) since before the ink on the Constitution was dry. Any specific examples you give, I might or might not agree with, but it would take more than a list of (actual legal cases, not "Wokes Gone Wild" or crazy college kids on campuses, mea culpa mea culpa mea maximum culpa for ever being flippant and cheeky) to convince me that this is categorically different today than 10, 50, 100, or 250 years ago.
I suspect we'll be stuck going back and forth on those. Until I fatigue and then you'll cite Dangerous-Salt again for my "failure to engage."
No, I'm just being extremely clear because I don't want to fuck around and guess at what level of precision you want to use today.
And that's why I separately discussed the figurative meaning (complete with SSC link!) first. Which you didn't engage with.
And then, on the other hand : "No, I do not think the standard has to be literally apocalypticaly high." (Is that literally-literally? Because I'm highlighting merely "Obviously if I'm wrong, you'll never be able to collect," which doesn't require an apocalypse in either the Promethea sense nor the nuclear war one.)
And fair, there's a sliver between this figurative face-stomping and the apocalypse, or even sufficiently aggressive online censorship that you or I'd never show up under these nyms again. Not the same sliver as that which merely excludes “laws I don’t like get passed”, for some reason. Yet if I point to the Tale of Defense Distributed, again, would the current situation be a further update to you? Or would it merely be one in a "list of (actual legal cases)".
If you're not going to engage with it, while trying to draw lines around what level of injustice is sufficient? Yes! But less flippantly, I'm using it as an example because it's your own words, and I don't want to be accused of weakmanning you, and I want to contrast the positions you've stated in the past with the ones we're trying to discuss now, to see if this is a change or a difference in focus or a misinterpretation on my end.
... I would very much appreciate an example of me ignoring a precise claim from you, or for that matter a precise claim from you in this context.
No, I think the bigger problem is that you're ducking to flippancy when I keep requesting specific examples, either of your position or your disagreement with mine. There's a good many interpretations of "Wokes Gone Wild" that includes the EEOC and federal courts -- but in turn they make it increasingly hard to come up with examples you'd care about that could exist before such time that they wouldn't matter.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeee, good thing I've not talked at length about this matter in the past, including in this thread.
Do I really need to point to and litigate the Alabama Association of Realtor case history, and if I did would that mean anything more than a point on a list of actual legal cases? Gustafson? Would it say anything, or would we just need to talk about how some political opponent described something poorly in the last two hundred years and fifty years (uh, I'd hope that's figurative? Or are we back to literal-Civil-War fitting that sliver between figurative face-stomping and literal apocalypse?)
And if I point to things that have been categorically different like the growth of social media or the administration state, would they mean anything?
Fine, if you're sick of it, I'm not exactly having a good time, either. Have a nice rest of your holidays, and enjoy your new year.
Honestly, I wold prefer to, but I was already starting to write responses to your latest shots above. On the one hand, I do not want to be accused of "failure to engage." And to be fair, if it is any comfort to you, you have identified some areas of miscommunication where I will strive to be more precise in the future, if for no other reason than because I need to keep in mind any one-liner I type ever will at some point reappear in one of @gattsuru's "citing evidence for why this thing you said two years ago proves you don't actually mean what you say now" link roundups. But after all this back and forth, I see some of the contours of our disagreement, but I still do not see where you think I am being dishonest or "ignoring" things (as opposed to - quite possibly! - just being wrong in my assumptions), nor do I really understand what you want (other than, I guess, "Stop arguing and just admit I'm right and you're wrong").
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