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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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((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.))

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.

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.

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.

(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?).

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.)

Do you need more categorical claims, or do I need explain why these feed back into themselves?

I suppose the only way forward is to break apart this:

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.

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."

Am I not allowed to use an example that you personally have not used?

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.

No, you didn't, but Soros-like social manipulation seems to be the sort of thing you are alleging.

And that's why I separately discussed the figurative meaning (complete with SSC link!) first. Which you didn't engage with.

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.

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)".

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?

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.

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.

... 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.

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.)

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.

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")

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee, good thing I've not talked at length about this matter in the past, including in this thread.

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.

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?)

Any specific examples you give, I might or might not agree with, but it would take more than a list of (actual legal cases...) to convince me that this is categorically different today than 10, 50, 100, or 250 years ago.

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?

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."

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.

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").