site banner
ymeskhout  10mo ago (text post)   2922 thread views

The Bailey Podcast E035: Ray Epps Does Jay Six

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, and RSS.

In this episode, we talk about the deep state, J6, and Ray Epps.

Participants: Yassine, Shakesneer.

Links:

Jack Posobiec's Pipe Bomb Allegation (Twitter)

Pipe Bombs in Washington DC (FBI)

Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears to Have Led the Very First 1/6 Attack on the US Capitol (Revolver)

Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign (DOJ)

'I started a riot for the sitting president': Why Ali Alexander won't go to jail for his role in Jan. 6 (Raw Story)

J6 Select Committee Interview of Ray Epps

Ray Epps Defense Sentencing Memo (Courtlistener)

Proud Boys Sentencing Memos (Courtlistener)

Wishing For Entrapment (Yassine Meskhout)

Recorded 2024-01-19 | Uploaded 2024-01-22

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I wasn't given a metric for the phrase "purposeful stocking of the DC bureaucracy with partisans" so I went and looked for my own. Coming up with your own interpretation is a natural response when encountering an ambiguous statement. Even if we establish that political donations among federal employees shifted between 1993 and 2001, how do we rule out other causes besides whatever "purposeful stocking" was supposed to mean?

If you're going to criticize political donations data for not answering the question of whether the hiring and firing decisions that made it so were purposeful, it makes even less sense for you to put forward the number of federal employees as a metric, as it cannot prove or disprove the purposeful nature of the shift, nor there even being a shift in the first place.

Mostly I'm just annoyed at the rat sphere's insistence on quantitative analysis, and it is the next exhibit in the case for dropping the entire framework in political debates. There's no guarantee something will even be arguable with quantitative data in the abstract, in the case it will be, there's no guarantee the data will be gathered, if it is, there's no guarantee it will be available to the public, so expecting someone to actively provide it to back their argument makes no sense. It makes even less sense to act like dropping some random number not even related to the question provides a valid counter argument. It's fine if you want to ask why he think Clinton stocked the federal bureaucracies with supporters, but then just ask that, instead of doing this weird dance with "evidence" that can't even answer the question.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats