site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24828 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Can you respond to his point about the judge that said it does not exist in her courtroom?

That seems to me the bigger issue.

State criminal courts don't do constitutional debates. He broke NY law. Whether that law is unconstitutional (probably yes) is outside the remit of that court.

  • -12

I was pleasantly surprised that ChatGPT was able to produce real court cases where State Courts have ruled on Constitutionality:

  1. People v. LaValle (NY, 2004)
    The New York Court of Appeals struck down the state's death penalty law, citing the Eighth Amendment and the state's constitution. The court held that the death penalty statute violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
  2. Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (CA, 1979)
    The California Supreme Court upheld the right to free speech under the First Amendment and California Constitution, allowing individuals to gather signatures in shopping centers despite private property rights. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision.
  3. State v. Santiago (CT, 2015)
    The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state's death penalty law violated the Eighth Amendment due to its arbitrary application and evolving standards of decency.
  4. Commonwealth v. Wolfe (PA, 2016)
    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed federal Eighth Amendment issues regarding sentencing juveniles to life without parole. The court applied the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama to ban such sentences.
  5. State v. Gregory (WA, 2018)
    The Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state's death penalty law violated both the Eighth Amendment and the state's constitution due to evidence of racial bias in its application.

Older LLMs would regularly hallucinate with this sort of question.

Edit: link updated to include follow up ChatGPT conversation, which included State courts that weren't State Supreme Courts ruling on Constitutionality:

  • People v. Mann (NY, 1992): Ruled on the Fifth Amendment.
  • People v. Lovelace (IL, 2002): Applied Fourth Amendment protections.

Yes, not only do state criminal courts handle federal constitutional questions, it's actual necessary for a plaintiff or defendant to bring constitutional complaints to the trial-level court or they risk surrendering the question on appeal (with a few exceptions not relevant here).

This is not true. Trial-level criminal courts can and do apply constitutional arguments to their cases all the time.

So that implies... that challenging the constitutionality of the state law can still happen, but needs to be pushed through the court hierarchy to the federal courts before that can happen?

Gosh. What a system...

It's not true at all.

Could you elaborate?

To clarify a little more than supremacy, trial courts are triers of fact: did the accused do the thing the state says they did, and is that a violation of what the law says. They do not evaluate the validity of the laws.

If your belief is that the law itself is invalid then you have to make that case at the appellate courts.

trial courts (both federal and state) rule on the validity of laws (both federal and state) all the time

If your belief is that the law itself is invalid then you have to make that case at the appellate courts.

this is not true; in fact, failure to bring up "validity of law" claims at the trial court level typically bars the ability to bring up those issues at the appellate level

Huh, I don't know where I'd heard it but it looks like I'm 100% wrong. Thanks for the correction.

I always wonder if the US wouldn't benefit from a similar mechanism to the French QPC that gives persons a constitutional right to directly ask the high court if a promulgated law that is involved in their judicial proceedings is constitutional or not.

Would save everybody a lot of time and prevents politicians from exploiting the loophole of constantly passing unconstitutional laws faster than they can get taken down.

Sure it would require a constitutional amendment, but it's a sufficiently procedural and bipartisan idea that you may well get it ratified in less than a century.

I would like to see some kind of personal liability for legislators that are clearly flouting previous rulings. You shouldn't be able to use the state to deprive citizens of their rights with complete immunity.

Make it so legislators get their names tied to the laws and if struck down they can't propose any new ones themselves. Make the culpability directly tied to the legislator, no aides.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, both state and federally. State courts are certainly allowed to evaluate the constitutionality of state laws.

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