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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29676 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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Escalation is not a great move for the country, even if it makes you personally feel good.

I'm sure Republicans can point to Bork and say it "really" started there. There a million other slights and violations of norms in the past.

Using smaller violations of norms in the past is never a good reason to justify larger ones now since, using the same logic, the other party can retaliate in an even bigger way.

The person you are arguing is on the record that they consider false rape accusations a legitimate political tactic. I don't think "escalation is bad" is going to persuade them.

The person you are arguing is on the record that they consider false rape accusations a legitimate political tactic.

Is that true @guesswho?

I think this is referring to this sequence

ymeskhout Trump got hit by two gag orders from two different judges [...] So with that out of the way, how does it apply to Trump? Judge Chutkan's order restricts him from making statements that "target" the prosecutor, court staff, and "reasonably foreseeable witnesses or the substance of their testimony". [...] Discrediting witnesses is harder to draw a clean line on, because again there's a gradient between discrediting and intimidating. I think Trump should have the absolute and unrestricted right to discuss any of his charges and discredit any evidence and witnesses against him.

guesswho I'm not sure why it's important to discredit a witness in the public eye, instead of at trial where you're allowed to say all those things directly to the judge and jury. Especially in light of the negative externalities to the system itself, ie if we allow defendants to make witnesses and judges and prosecutors and jurors lives a living nightmare right up until the line of 'definitely undeniably direct tampering', then that sets a precedent where no sane person wants to fill any of those roles, and the process of justice is impeded. [...]

sliders1234 [...] Girl who you had a drunken hook up texted you the next day saying how much fun she had with you last night. You ignore her text. 2 weeks later she claims rape. It’s in the newspaper. Suddenly your name is tarnished. Everyone in town now views your condo building as feeding money into your pocket. Sales slump. Now do you see why this hypothetical real estate developer would have a reason to hit back in the media? He’s being significantly punished (maybe leading to bankruptcy) without ever being found guilty in the court of law. Of course Trump has motivations to hit hard against the judge and prosecuting attorney. The more partisan they appear the more it makes him look better and get the marginal voter.

guesswho [...] I guess what I would say is that 1. that sees like a really narrow case [...] 2. I would hope a judge in that case wouldn't issue a blanket gag order [...] 3. yeah, there may have to be some trade-offs between corner-cases like this and making the system work in the median case. [...] I'm open to the idea that we should reform the system to make it less damaging to defendants who have not been convicted yet, but if we are deciding to care about that then these super-rich and powerful guys worrying about their reputations are way down on my list under a lot of other defendants who need the help more urgently.

That technically counts as "considering it fair that a defendant can be bound not to disparage a witness against them in a sexual assault case, even if the defendant is a politician and the rape accusation is false". But if that's the exchange @FCfromSSC is talking about it seems like a massive stretch to describe it that way.

Nope. It was on reddit, under his old handle, and about Kavanaugh. I don't have a link, though, so if he's willing to deny it, feel free to disregard as you please.

So literally some takes from 5 years ago and a different account, which, if I'm correct about which name you're implying guesswho used to post as, are more saying "in practice sexual assault accusations aren't being used in every political fight, so let's maybe hold off on trying drastic solutions to that problem until it's demonstrated that your proposed cure isn't worse than the disease".

Let he who has never posted a take that some people find objectionable cast the first stone.

@guesswho has publicly admitted to being Darwin. It's possible that he's lying and merely an extremely convincing imposter, but I don't think I'm Implying Implications by accepting confirmation on a theory I and others were already 90%+ confident on based on his unique posting style.

As for the rest, if memory serves, I argued that to the extent that the rape accusations against Kavanaugh could be falsified, they had been, and that backing them to the hilt was an appalling escalation. His reply was something along the lines of "politics is a contact sport, get over it." I apologize for not having a link, and freely admit that my comment was a bad one without such a link, and arguably bad even with one. I'm not in a good mood today, and am finding it difficult to care.

Oh man, that explains it.

Lol thank you for pointing this out here. Already started wondering but would have spent much more time reading.

I think the name and content largely gives it away.

More comments

Ah. Good to know. Thank you for this.

It explains a lot, really.

Light the BGat Signal? Gattsuru has an encyclopedia of bad behavior, but you'd have to post it because he's been threatened for mentioning it.

Light the BGat Signal?

He deserves better.

No idea what they're talking about.

I'm sure they'll link something from 4 years ago but who knows what. It's all very tedious.

You were off by a year.

Being removed from a primary ballot in one state is much, much, much smaller than losing a Supreme Court justice.

  • -14

The stated reason for being removed from the primary ballot is that CO does not believe Trump is eligible to hold the office of POTUS. If the GOP nominates Trump, notwithstanding CO's lack of participation, for President, the same logic mandates that CO refuse to list Trump in the November election as GOP nominee. This isn't just about the primary, and claiming otherwise without further argument/support is either ignorant or malicious.

That seems like a logical conclusion, but the courts don't run on logic and everything about this case so far has run on obscure legal theories and precedents rather than logic.

Most specifically, there's nothing about this finding in this case that causes him to be barred from the general ballot, even if it makes sense that he should be based on this finding. AFAIK, there would still have to be a separate hearing and a separate judgement and a separate ruling in order to make that happen.

Maybe that's what will happen, maybe not; the USSC looks to be getting involved, so a lot could change between now and then. But either way, it's something that hasn't happened yet, so blaming people for doing it when they haven't is untoward.

It's not a "logical conclusion" - it's the actual holding of the CO Supreme Court. The relevant language is this (at pgs. 8-9):

We hold as follows:

• The Election Code allows the Electors to challenge President Trump’s status as a qualified candidate based on Section Three. Indeed, the Election Code provides the Electors their only viable means of litigating whether President Trump is disqualified from holding office under Section Three.

• Congress does not need to pass implementing legislation for Section Three’s disqualification provision to attach, and Section Three is, in that sense, self-executing.

• Judicial review of President Trump’s eligibility for office under Section Three is not precluded by the political question doctrine.

• Section Three encompasses the office of the Presidency and someone who has taken an oath as President. On this point, the district court committed reversible error.

• The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting portions of Congress’s January 6 Report into evidence at trial.

• The district court did not err in concluding that the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, constituted an “insurrection.”

• The district court did not err in concluding that President Trump “engaged in” that insurrection through his personal actions.

• President Trump’s speech inciting the crowd that breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not protected by the First Amendment.

The sum of these parts is this: President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three; because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.

(bolding added for emphasis)

The chief holding is that, under Colorado's interpretation of federal law, Trump is disqualified from the office of President. The result of that finding under the facts of the case at bar is that Trump is disqualified from the primary ballot. However, the underlying holding is already sufficient for the CO Secretary of State to subsequently keep Trump off the November, 2024 ballot, as well as for the CO state government to claim nullification of any action by a future second Trump administration. It would require a second case affirmatively overturning this case in order for Trump to be placed on the CO presidential ballot in 2024.

The logic of the case must therefore hold that he is not eligible for the general in Colorado

What number of states removing Trump from the primary ballot will count for you as being larger than losing a Supreme Court Justice? What number of states removing Trump from the general ballot will count for you as being larger than losing a Supreme Court Justice? Set a goal post in the here and now, before we get to the culmination of this trend, so that we can look back and gauge whether they ended up escalating or not.

What number of states removing Trump from the primary ballot will count for you as being larger than losing a Supreme Court Justice?

I don't know, maybe 500?

Given that doing that would pretty much guarantee the Republicans a landslide win for whichever candidate they run instead and also for the Senate and House, this would have basically zero negative impact on their political aspirations and instead probably help them a lot.

Whereas, a Supreme Court seat is probably the most influential and consequential position in the entire government, it's the holy grail of political footballs, it's why you turn out to elect your side's president even if you find him tiresome or awful and don't really care who governs beyond that.

  • -11

Whereas, a Supreme Court seat is probably the most influential and consequential position in the entire government, it's the holy grail of political footballs, it's why you turn out to elect your side's president

Big oof. You're not going to convince anyone that it's not an escalation unless 500 states remove Trump from the ballot. The fact that you think this is even a plausible response is pretty indicative of bad faith, since you're all up and down this thread saying, 'Don't worry, it's just one, and it's just a primary,' to now see that you actually think that it being literally all of them for the general election would be totally fine. Like you've pre-planned an execution of the Law of Merited Impossibility.

Becoming a banana republic is clearly an escalation compared to parliamentary tactics/heresthetics.

First time:

What number of states removing Trump from the primary ballot will count for you as being larger than losing a Supreme Court Justice?

Second time:

You're not going to convince anyone that it's not an escalation unless 500 states remove Trump from the ballot.

Don't move the goalposts and then call me a freak for aiming at the original ones. I answered teh question I was asked, not the new standard you made up here.

What the hell are you talking about? Like, I literally cannot make sense of what you're trying to say. You said that it wasn't an escalation (i.e., larger than) compared to "losing a Supreme Court Justice". You said that it would take 500 states removing Trump from the ballot to count as being larger. That is simply what you said. I don't see where you're failing to understand.

Is it literally just that there's a difference between "for you" and "convince anyone"? Like, sure, the background assumption is that when you're arguing for your perspective, you're implicitly trying to convince others of your perspective. I don't see how that's a goalpost shift at all. That's the way literally all discussions happen in places like this. You say the things how you see it, so that you can convince others to see things how you see it. That's what literally everyone here is doing.

Lager and escalation are not the same thing. And what it would take for me to feel a way is not the same as what it would take to 'convince anyone' of a thing.

I think that losing a Supreme Court seat is consequentially larger, has a bigger impact on the world in terms of things I care about, than whether the first- or -second ranked presidential candidate from the same party wins a single election.

That doesn't say much about what is or isn't an escalation in political brinkmanship, or whatever we're talking about here; escalations on that metric have more to do with how unusual, unjustified, and blatantly rules-breaking or self-serving something is. I don't think that type of escalation can meaningfully be measured by 'number of SC justices lost' or 'Number of ballots removed from' in the first place, because it's hugely dependent on the context and justifications.

I think that removing Trump from this primary ballot is less escalatory than Garland because there's a more convincing legal justification for it, and a more plausible non-partisan motive (especially considering the suit was brought to the court by Republicans. If 5 other states removed him using similar reasoning, that would still be only a bit more escalatory; if they did it for different reasons that make less sense, that might be much more escalatory, but that won't specified in your hypothetical.

I agree that most of our discussions here are about convincing other people, but you asked me for my personal opinion and to personally stake a goalpost about it. I interpreted that as you asking me to essentially make a reputational stake ahead of time about what would personally change my perspective about which of these events was a larger injustice, which I interpreted to mean larger consequentially (either because that's what you were implying by 'larger', or because that's the metric I personally use to guide my feelings and you were asking how I felt).

If you actually meant all those words to mean something different, or something less well-defined than what I interpreted, then we've had an unfortunate miscommuncation. It really felt on my end like you were asking me about my personal feelings about a specific metric at step one, then misinterpreting my answer into a different context and metric to make me look unreasonable at step two. Most likely we just didn't understand each other.

Not feeding the darwin troll now that I know who it is.

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