Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4mo ago
Why do you think I would ban you? If you want to vaguely hint that we've banned a topic, I want to know what you think we've banned, and whether I agree with you or not, I'm not going to ban you for answering the question.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4mo ago
Can you tell me what views you think have been banned?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4mo ago
Trump is a traitor to the USA, and we need to start seriously discussing imprisonment or a bullet to the brain. I'm serious.
No, we really don't.
If there is one view we are going to ban here, it's "serious" discussions of assassinations.
Despite your username, you've managed to hang around for years without being banned, but I'm giving you a week off, and if you ever fedpost like this again, I will just go straight to permaban.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4mo ago
Attempting to ban a view
This hasn't happened.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Yes, that was long before I was a mod. Even then, it was a temporary ban because the HBD threads had become exhausting. I personally think it was a mistake, but if one single topic is taking all the air out of the room it's tempting to be fed up with it.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
We've been hearing it since reddit days. For how constantly we're being told we're making some views inexpressible, it's amazing how often those views continue to be expressed.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
The mods had a little discussion about this. Your post isn't against the rules on content - "I don't want more Indians here" is an allowable opinion - but it is veering close to consensus building. (You cannot speak for how most people on the Motte feel, let alone presume to speak for the entire country.) And we have noticed that your two posts so far seem to be harping on your dislike of Indians. I'm pretty certain this is an alt you are using to grind this particular axe.
Contribute something other than how much you don't like Indians if you want to keep posting with this account.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Yes and no. First, "signed off on it" means literally puts his name on it. If Elon wants to send out emails that are supposed to have the weight of presidential authority, he needs to show that they actually have presidential authority. Are the heads of every government agency just supposed to assume that anything Elon says is effectively a presidential order? Lots of people talk to the president daily, but that doesn't mean all the president's friends can order federal agencies around.
If Trump issues an EO tomorrow saying "Yes, in fact, everything Elon Musk says is a presidential directive" (or at least, "All federal employees must respond to the OPM email or be fired") then we're back to testing your Unitary Executive Theory. But up to this point, agencies telling their employees not to respond to the OPM emails while they handle it are not, as several people here have suggested, committing treason or insubordination. They are being perfectly sensible in reacting to a ridiculous and probably illegal demand.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Even if you were commenting from an informed point of view (you are not), you are missing the point. Compromises don't mean you just throw in the towel and stop trying to protect anything.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Even if I bought your Unitary Executive Theory, the President has not issued any orders to the effect that OPM is now in charge of every other government agency. It's literally just Elon Musk issuing orders to his DOGE minions, who then send emails from OPM.
If Trump does indeed issue an Executive Order to that effect, or some new EO saying "Effective immediately, all federal employees with SSNs ending in an odd number are fired," it's at least a test of your theory. But just claiming everything you do is legal because the President said on Twitter that you're doing a great job is not.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Clearly the OPM can get emails because they spammed every .gov email they could get. I am sure that the OPM does not have the authority to demand activity reports from other agencies or threaten to fire people outside the OPM itself.
That's assuming we're actually following the law, that is. If you're asking me "Are you sure they can't get away with doing whatever Musk wants them to do because lol", no, I'm not sure. You can certainly take the position that laws are just words, words, words. It seems to be a pretty popular sentiment right now. May the victory you think this is prove to be so. I have doubts.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
He's not speaking clearly, but basically gesturing at the classes of people he thinks are responsible and advocating we Do Something about them and their enablers, using abstruse language.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
It's not the President asking for the information, it's an anonymous email from OPM. Which, contrary to what people keep saying, is not the "HR department" for the federal government. They have zero authoriity to do this. Musk does not have unlimited authority, transferable to whoever he has sending emails from OPM, because Trump told him to "be more aggressive."
If they are executing a request from the President, the President needs to say so.
The President can presumably ask for anyone's .gov email address, but that's not what's happening here.
Why should a government agency need permission to access your data? I guess that's a question whose answer hinges on your opinion of the government and what its limits should be. But if you're okay with the FBI and the IRS and the NSA looking up anyone they want any time for any reason, sure, then federal employees should not be immune. Or are you arguing that by virtue of being a federal employee, you should not have the same privacy rights as other US citizens?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
This is a foolish take. "We already leak, so what's the harm in helping adversaries create a more complete organizational map of IC employees."
Yes, the Chinese probably already know you work on classified projects and the US cares about AI and missile technology. You're still giving them info by saying "I (random government employee) write python code." A tiny bit of information, but they have AI too.
IC employees are deeply indoctrinated in avoiding giving away information. "Respond to this email from someone with no actual authority to demand information, explaining what you do" is an insane requirement that will trigger every red flag.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
The federal government is not one single organization. If you work for the VA or the USPS, you have as much right as any other US citizen not to have your PI (yes, even just your work email) handed over to the FBI or the IRS without going through proper authorization.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
There are a few people who do that when they're feeling petty, yes.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Do not become antagonistic just because you feel like you're losing an argument.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Okay, look, I get that you get dogpiled a lot and it's tempting to respond with taunting and snark, but don't. I am demanding that other people stop with the cheap shots, and I'm demanding that you stop responding to cheap shots with "Nyah nyah didn't even hurt me!"
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
There are a lot of ways you could have rebutted an argument from personal experience without taking cheap shots like this.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Of course it's possible for Congress to pass a law that is unconstitutional, and it's even arguable that some laws have been obviously unconstitutional and would not survive a Supreme Court challenge. But I have never before heard the theory that nothing is an enforceable law until someone challenges it in the Supreme Court, and therefore the President can treat anything passed by Congress as merely their opinion. Will you be okay with Congress impeaching Trump if the Republicans get slaughtered in the mid-terms? Because that is historically what an unfriendly Congress does to a President who decides he can ignore laws- sorry, statutes- he doesn't like.
I'm also pretty skeptical that Trump has a sound basis for believing that a 60-year-old law is unconstitutional simply because it happens to be in the way of what he wants to do. If the Supreme Court decides it's not unconstitutional, what do you think Trump should do?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
What exactly is the difference between a statute and a law? My cursory Google search indicates they are functionally the same thing, but statutes refer specifically to bills passed by Congress. So how is Trump ignoring the Civil Service Reform Act different than Trump deciding any other law can be ignored? Could Trump decide to ignore the Civil Rights Act and issue an Executive Order reinstituting segregation? Would would prevent him, Constitutionally, from literally playing out the Handmaid's Tale? You seem to be saying that nothing passed by Congress has the force of law unless and until the Supreme Court says so.
Arguing that this is different from doing an Andrew Jackson because it's a "statute and not a law" sounds like some SovCit nonsense. (And if the Supreme Court says no, the Civil Service Reform Act is Constitutional, will you then support Trump actually pulling an Andrew Jackson?)
And if the answer to all that is yes, Trump should do whatever he wants, then again, are you okay with a future Democratic President doing the same thing and declaring that "statutes" passed by Congress that he doesn't like can simply be ignored until the Supreme Court rules on them? Will you pinky-swear that there will be zero indignant noises from you in the future when a Democratic president ignores a statute that you think is lawful and legitimate, and then rolls over the Supreme Court when they rule against him?
This breaks several rules, but mostly it's just a low effort snarl without evidence. You have a long string of these and have been skirting a permaban for a while now.
This comment itself is just middling bad and devoid of value, but your history recommends a timeout of anywhere from 3 days to forever. Your last few bans were 1-2 weeks, and you have multiple comments in the log saying "Permaban next time." The fact that we haven't done this yet is because we don't actually like to permaban people, especially when it's someone like you who, when exercising a modicum of self control, is capable of being a decent poster. On the other hand, we can only say "Knock this off or you're going to get permabanned" so many times before it becomes an empty threat.
I'm going to make this one 1 week. If I were in a less forgiving mood, it would have been 2 weeks, and if I had decided to make it permanent, no one would blink. So if you come back to spew more, you'd better be on point and make it worth it.
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