This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I can't find any records involving either person in the Pennsylvania court system, though given how crappy most court records are, that doesn't mean much.
The underlying complaint is here, and seems to be resting heavily on past adjudications by the State Board in 2010 (for Herr) and 2018 (for Wentworth). Like most state licensing laws, the definition of veterinary practice in Pennsylvania is very broad :
It's not obvious that ultrasounds (or possibly(?) selling bull semen?) are covered, and there's not a ton of great pragmatic arguments for it, but the courts have given near-complete carte blanche to regulatory agencies to anything even remotely near the borders. And for a wide variety of reasons this sorta thing is near-impossible to practically challenge even were courts willing to push back on it.
Given some of the coverage, though ("both men were advised by their former attorneys not to pay the fines or appear in court"), I'm not sure what happened was completely without any court behavior -- this may be referring to the 'court' of the board licensing group, which is more court in the kangaroo sense, but it also could be about enforcement summons for a conventional court. An actually fake arrest warrant wouldn't be unprecedented, but it's left me noticing I'm confused.
That said:
godsdammit.
While I don't expect a total fix anytime soon, this is why I'm hoping for rollback on Chevron deference and related doctrines. To oversimplify, I want to shift from a position of tie goes to the government to tie goes to the private party. If a court can't figure out whether the regulatory body is correct and the regulatory body can't providing compelling factual evidence for their assertion of power, they should just lose, not get to claim that they have special expertise that's just too special for a non-expert to understand.
Maybe. There's a lot of people who came away from Loper v. Raimondo thinking that SCOTUS was pretty willing to toss the Chevron under the bus, but then Cargil had a place where the regulatory agency claims to have read the law wrong for twenty-plus years, disclaims Chevron, and most tea-leaf-readers are thinking it'll come out okay. It's just too useful to leave the actual law to the regulatory agencies.
But maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
More options
Context Copy link
Roberts won't do it. He'll "lay the groundwork" forever but never pull the trigger.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link