Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
You seem to be giving into unfounded fears. The bureaucratic state isn’t what stops Trump from having all of this power.
No, it's the Constitution, which allocates powers to Congress and the Supreme Court as well, which is what you seem to want Trump to (sorry, can't resist) trump.
Also the president absolutely can stop funding for an agency without congressional action and is probably required to do so. Again let’s say Congress said “50b to USAOD to accomplish Y.” But USAID spent it to accomplish Z. The president would actually be failing his required duty by not stopping USAID from spending on Z. Full stop. And if you determine the people in that agency are lawless then you need to fire them.
Okay. Agreed. But what I have seen so far is a lot of outrage bait and not much evidence that there's been a sober, meticulous audit of what USAID was authorized to spend money on and what it wasn't. Congress almost certainly did not issue a bullet-pointed list of what USAID was supposed to fund, but a more general mission with probably a lot of discretion (quite likely too much discretion). Before you hop up and get het up, I am not, in principal, against curbing USAID. It looks to me like it's overreached and needs a much tighter leash, and I'd be fine with Trump putting the agency under a freeze while they go through things. Instead we have Musk tweeting outrage fodder about trans operas in Brazil and thus shutting down everything. I think it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and you may disagree and think whatever good USAID does is vastly outweighed by Brazilian trans operas, but I don't think the President has the authority to just decide "I don't like what this agency is doing because I'm ideologically opposed to it so I will summarily decide they're breaking the law." Same deal with the FBI; if you want to investigate their prosecution of Jan. 6 because you think it was politically motivated and it made Trump's life difficult, go ahead and investigate. It's good for federal agencies to be put under the spotlight. But unilaterally declaring that everyone who was involved at all (even agents who were assigned to that case - what were they supposed to do, declare "This is an unlawful investigation?" and refuse? Do you think that is actually true?) gets fired (illegally) is not how it's supposed to work.
Re birthright citizenship I think you are probably right but the president’s position is colorable (even Richard Posner seems to think the better view is the constitution doesn’t require birthright citizenship)
I've read pro and con arguments and agree that the case for birthright citizenship is muddy. But given that the current state of things is Constitutional law as enforced today, do you think the President should be able to say "I think the Supreme Court was wrong so I'm overruling them"? If you want to end birthright citizenship you need to either pass a Constitutional amendment or bring it before the Supreme Court with a new argument.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
if the Republicans had the re-institution of Jim Crow as a platform plank, would you not insist they abandon it?
I can't insist they do anything, but it would make me even less likely to vote Republican. Do you think everything that can be categorized under the umbrella of "SJ" is equivalent to reinstituting Jim Crow laws? The way people use SJ here seems to refer to liberalism, writ large. "Criminalize leftism" is literally a position I know at least one poster explicitly advocates (and many others clearly would endorse) but it's dumb to suggest that liberals would seriously consider this proposal. A more appropriate analogy would be me "insisting" the Republicans abandon social conservatism. As a liberal I might like that, but it's dumb to think it's a serious proposition.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
This seems like a violation of separation of powers. Should the President have a say in who Congress hires too? Maybe he can choose Sotomayor's clerks?
Congress passes laws, the President executes them. No, the President shouldn't be able to make up new laws to impose on Congress. Yes, Congress can pass laws that are imposed on the President. That's how things are meant to work. Sometimes Congress overreaches, the President defies them, and there is a fight. (See: Andrew Johnson being impeached for ignoring the Tenure of Office Act, which Congress passed explicitly to screw him over.) Don't like it? Change the Constitution. Congress and the President and the Supreme Court are supposed to be divided and jostling for position. Anything else gives unilateral power to one branch - which apparently you want when your side controls that branch, and don't want when your side does not control that branch.
You think it's a violation of the separation of powers that the President can't order civil servants to violate laws passed by Congress? Or are you only talking about hiring and firing? If you want to give the President the power to hire and fire any government employee at will (what about military personnel?) then you're advocating a return to the spoils system of the early 19th century. Andrew Jackson's handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren, pretty much created the Democratic machine politics you hate so much, and he did it with the patronage system you are saying we should return to.
We have laws and a Constitution, but the way they are enforced is entirely non-evenhanded (both directly politically, as in the Democrats get better treatment, and indirectly, as in deference to the administrative state over its opponents) and we are not going to get to a better situation by the Republicans playing along with that lack of evenhandedness.
Okay, do you have any limiting principal, or is it just, as I said, you want to be the boot? You've been posting that laws are fake and nothing matters because Democrats do whatever they want for years. Rather tedious, really. Could practically be generated by an Eliza script. Now that clearly the shoe is on the other foot, you eagerly embrace Republicans rendering laws and the Constitution irrelevant. Of course when Democrats start doing it again, you will once again be outraged and doom-posting.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
I don’t fuck with pointless hypos—yes if Trump had all of the power he would probably use it. Few men wouldn’t.
Exactly, which is why we should enforce the constraints that are supposed to prevent him from doing that.
But explain how you think curtailing the power of the admin state is akin to DACA.
There are a lot of things that fall under the category of "curtailing the power of the admin state." Some of them are legal, and are even things I would agree with. Some of them aren't. The President can't just dissolve agencies that were created by law, or redirect or deny funding that was appropriated by Congress. Ending birthright citizenship is another example - even if you think birthright citizenship should be abolished, that requires a Constitutional amendment, not just the President saying so. DACA was the President making new law with his pen, which he's not supposed to do. It's directly equivalent to a lot of the things Trump is doing now.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
So the only people in existence are righties like you who can handle the truth and thus arrive at "aesthetically unpleasant views," and everyone else who can't, or else is an evil liar?
Do you think there is any possibility whatsoever that you could be wrong about anything?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Banned for punning.
(Just kidding. This was reported for "Quality Contribution" and "Crime against humanity.")
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
Have you lived recent American history?
Indeed I have, and I'm older than you.
The administrative state is not, formally, a branch outside the Executive.
No, but we have laws (which the other two formal branches have a say in) which the Executive can't just override. Just as every military officer, in theory, serves at the pleasure of the President, his ability to unilaterally dismiss officers has been constrained by law (since around 1950, IIRC). The civil service works for the President, but he can't just order them to ignore laws imposed on them by Congress and Supreme Court rulings, or fire people because they aren't personally loyal to him.
I am not against the president "reigning in" a bureaucratic state out of control and probably agree with you about some of the ways federal agencies have inappropriately balked his intentions in the past (so I understand, if not agree, with why he's acting the way he is now). But either we actually have laws and a Constitution, or else stop talking about laws and civil society and admit you just want to be the boot.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
I agree with you about DACA. I do not agree that what Trump is doing is different in kind, or "a return to norms." I think you just like what Trump is doing and disliked what Democrats did.
What do you think is his limiting principle? If granted success in unilaterally abrogating the power of Congress and the Supreme Court, do you think he will refrain at any point from doing other things he wants on Constitutional grounds?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
I feel I should point out that there's a middle-ground here: specifically, "fix it so that SJ is a political non-starter" such that there might be another Democratic administration but it wouldn't get there without abandoning SJ (and then wouldn't want to roll all of it back).
Do you really think "SJ" is the biggest problem? Are you putting every single disagreement about how society should operate under that umbrella? Trans issues and DEI make the most noise in politics today, but I really do not think they are actually the biggest problems facing the country, and while 90% of discussion on this forum is about culture war issues, it is, as always, the economy, stupid. (A quote- not actually calling you stupid.) We're trillions of dollars in debt, facing major issues from cans that have been kicked down the road for decades, we've got China and Russia and maybe WWIII, and AI that may or may not be civilization-threatening issues on the horizon - all of these things, IMO, are more important than the "SJ" stuff we like to argue so much about here.
I'll also note that several people replied to me saying, basically, "You're ridiculous for suggesting two sides compromise and work together, that just means one side unilaterally disarms (because the other side is evil)." But when you say "make SJ a political non-starter" - as much as I personally think most SJ stuff is a distraction, it's a major plank for Democrats, so you're just saying they should unilaterally disarm (i.e. abandon all the things they stand for). Sure, it's nice to dream your opponents will abandon all the goals you don't like and focus on the things you care about.
Among your solutions, I agree (obviously) that WWIII (or American Civil War II) would be bad. Likewise a reTVrn to sodomy laws (and repealing the 19th Amendment, and expelling the Jews Edward I-style, etc.) Dismantling the "SJ lock" on academia I'd be in favor of, which is why (I whisper so my friends in academia don't hear me) I'm not entirely against abolishing the DOE, though I'm not sure the bull-in-chinashop way Trump and Musk are going about it is legitimate (or legal). But I really don't think breaking woke hegemony in academia, even if it can accomplished, is our biggest issue. It just makes lots of Red Tribers cheer and forget about the more pressing economic issues that affect them more.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
There are two possible outcomes. One: The Democrats do it when they are in power, and the Republicans refrain when they are in power. Two: Both do it when they are in power. The second is less bad, unless you're a Democrat.
There is another possible outcome. Can you see the one you are missing?
And this was a major error. Better that the civil service change political valence with elections than it become a power bloc of its own which remains aligned with one side regardless of who is in power now.
Having actually read American history, I strongly disagree. There are ways to rein in excesses by any branch or segment of the government that doesn't require the entire government simply become spoils for the victor, or one branch ignoring the other two. Of course I don't think you have an accurate conception of the "Deep State" any more than you have an accurate conception of people who are not aligned with you.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
If you can ask "so what?" when it comes to Bush and Obama, why can't you do it regarding Trump?
That's what I'm doing - I don't really care much about the hypocrisy on either side. I expect both sides to be hypocritical. "We are upset when their side does it, but when our side does it it's good" is practically a default in politics.
Show me a path to sustainably reducing abuses of power in the future, and you'll have a compelling argument, but right now you're asking for unilateral disarmament.
I don't know that there is one, but it would require people to actually value bipartisanship again, because you'd have to have people in both parties actually negotiating with each other, instead of treating a political victory as the opportunity to sack and pillage until the party's over.
Look, I understand (and expected) your "You're just asking for unilateral disarmament" argument. I can tell you with lots of Dems (and very liberal ones) on my Facebook feed, that they absolutely feel the same way every time they were asked not to get carried away under Biden, or when they were gloating about all the things Harris was going to do to own the conservatives, and now, when they are being asked to reflect on where it brought them. You are, after all, evil, and norms and rule and law don't really apply when you're trying to fight Nazis. Wow, you say, how terrible and unreasonable! This just proves we should crush them harder. Yup, and so we get exactly the same argument from the right - Democrats are so evil, so unreasonable, so unhinged, that norms and rules of law don't really apply.
So it goes. I'm not quite a doomer yet, but there's no way out unless at least some people want a way out that isn't "unilateral disarmament."
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
I'm not a libertarian either, and I also didn't like seeing the expansion of executive powers under Obama, or much of anything that Biden did.
Mostly what I see here is arguments over who smashed the Defect button first. If we can't get back to a stable equilibrium where everyone isn't choosing Defect, then whatever America becomes, it will just be wearing labels like "Democracy" and "Republic" as skinsuits. (I'm aware some people believe this is already the case. But if you're an accelerationist who thinks we should just abandon the pretense and make Trump God-Emperor, then I'm not interested in your opinions about executive authority.) There is very little Trump can do that a succeeding Democratic administration can't undo (except perhaps fix it so there can never be another Democratic administration - is that what you are actually hoping for?), and of course, they will continue following precedent and the next Democratic president will act even more like a monarch. Everyone cheering for Trump and Musk now will be outraged - outraged! - at this abuse of power and violation of norms.
Yes, a lot of the people outraged today are hypocrites who thought it was just fine when Obama and Biden were abusing their authority. So what? Do you think it's actually bad for presidents to do this, or do you think it's only bad when it's not the president you voted for? If the former, then what do you expect to be the outcome of each president being encouraged by his supporters to expand his powers? That your party will be in power forever so it's okay?
I guess I should say here that I am very much in a "Wait and see" mood right now. As I said before the election, I don't think Trump is going to be a good president, but I'm willing to be proven wrong, and I am enjoying the leftist convulsions. However, the President can't just abrogate the powers of Congress and decide (or delegate to Elon Musk to decide) which pieces of the federal government he'd like to keep and which pieces he'd like to do away with. (And if you are saying "Yes he can!" and triumphantly quoting Andrew Jackson, well, see above. Better lube up for when the Democrats return to power. And Andrew Jackson also ran a notoriously corrupt spoils system, in which federal employment was explicitly conditioned on party loyalty and when your party lost an election, you lost your job. This obviously created undesirable incentives, and led to the civil service reforms some are so eager to dismantle.)
On a slightly more pedantic point, I see a lot of people talking about "$300K laptop jobs." No government worker makes $300K - even the top of the SES pay scale is capped at around $250K, and the GS workers (with or without laptops) are making far less. If you mean NGO workers, maybe some of their executives make that much, but the peons who are mostly the ones losing their jobs don't. Lobbyists, lawyers, and contractors, though? Sure, and oddly enough, I don't see many of them losing their jobs yet.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
I guess as a fan of stoicism, I'm cynic-adjacent and Diogenes does resonate. But I can't take this very seriously, it looks kind of like an astrological reading (something flattering yet vague enough that it could match to almost anyone).
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5mo ago
So, were you trying to get me to ban you? Look, "you're lying to yourself" is a little uncharitable and if I really wanted to I probably could have banned you for being a jerk, but contrary to what some persistent pests insist, we don't go looking for reasons to ban people. If you really want to be a bitter cynic, it doesn't hurt my feelings.
However sincerely I believe that only suckers don't seek to dominate other people, and you're clearly not a sucker.
Well, I doubt anyone can convince you otherwise, but no, I really don't have any particular desire to "dominate other people" except to the extent that I participate in a society that has to negotiate conflicts of interest and competing priorities, and therefore some people will be winners and some people will be losers, and obviously I'd prefer not to be the latter. But the kind of "dominating" that the brutalists espouse, where I wish to drive them before me and hear the lamentations of their women? No, I don't need that.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
Except "speed and methods" would include whether or not kids should be transed at all. Your claim is that he agrees with trans activists about everything and just thinks they need to be sneakier about getting to where they can physically transition children and put trans women into women's prisons, etc. That is not what he "literally says."
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
I don't mean you fedpost yourself -you like it when other people fedpost. Some people very consistently AAQC any "spicy" post no matter how low effort it actually is
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
No, TW is not a trans activist as generally understood, but I think its quite fair to say that the author of this objects on speed and methods rather than principle.
I think TW is actually pro-trans in the same way that Jesse Singhal, the notorious Trans Enemy #2 is. Speed and methods are important.
I think he was extremely obvious the whole time. If hes gotten into holocaust denial now, it certainly doesnt really change much for him.
He was obvious (and explicit) about wanting political violence the whole time. The Jew and race hatred he mostly kept under his hat until he moved to Twitter.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
And I think he will ban me for calling him a liar without sufficient evidence.
If anything, it's the "Bet you'll ban me for this post!" gimmick that I find most annoying. Oooh, reverse psychology, however shall I respond?
As for calling me a liar, maybe you really do believe I am lying to myself about wanting to coexist and cooperate with other people rather than stomp on them. In which case, either I am a fool or you are very sad.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
A major part of Trace's argument was that beatings are a lot less lethal than gunfire, so it's better for a mob to stomp on a person than for that person to defend themselves with gunfire.
I'm reluctant to speak for Trace, who is no longer here, and I'm also reluctant to read a four-year-old thread to get the full context, both because there were probably a lot of other concurrent threads at the time, and also because people change and refine their views (or at least what they are trying to express) and gods know I get weary of people throwing something I said years ago- often out of context- back at me. But if he was arguing that it's always wrong to use lethal force to defend yourself against a mob, I disagree with him. If you genuinely believe he'd rather see you and your family dragged into the street by a mob than allow you to defend yourselves, I can't blame you for your feelings about him, but I'd argue you don't just get to push everyone you consider untrustworthy and potentially dangerous to you across a border. The people here who've made it clear they'd Death Note me in a heartbeat are certainly not people I'd ever trust or want to have any power over me, but I still have to coexist with them.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
As someone roughly nearer the same pole as Trace and also subject to that hostile background radiation, I'll agree Trace seemed more sensitive to it, but I do think you're being unfair. He's spoken up against cancellation of right wingers, and he was a long time Motter - I don't believe he was against the principals of extending charity to his ideological opponents all that time. You know everything you've said about him has also been said about (and to) me. At a certain point you become jaded to people telling you you're an evil liar and you should die (yes, I do sometimes get that too), or else you decide you've had enough and you leave.
And also to be fair, FCfromSSCs original posts went beyond "I don't want to live in the same country as you," but to me read more like a near declaration of war.
I realize I'm defending Trace a lot here when I also disagreed with a lot of his stunts (the Schism, the LOTT prank, etc.) But man am I tired of everyone left of center being accused of being a closet Stasi. Yes, I know everywhere else on the Internet everyone right of anything (even to the degree Trace and I are) gets accused of being a Nazi.
I aspire to better for the Motte, but if you saw our mod queue (and especially the "contributions" of people like Steve), it's clear a lot of people don't really object in principal to boots stomping on human faces, only to being the stompee and not the stomper.
Fwiw, I am anti-stomping, and I do believe Trace is too.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
I don't know how much of a "Lee Kuan Yew" liberal he is, only knowing a little about Lee Kuan Yew, but if he ever called himself that (I don't recall), in what way is it deceptive?
What he says he is nowadays is a center leftist who favors the Democrats and dislikes Trump, but he also dislikes woke extremists. He's a gay furry with lingering Mormon sensibilities despite having left the church. That all seems very accurate to me.
I wish he had not left the forum the way he did, but I understand his grievances. Years later, he's still getting flack and being accused of being an entryist or something for starting the Schism. Now, I think the Schism was a bad idea and didn't like it at the time (and said so), but he was always pretty honest about his intent. I don't think it was a secret plot to destroy the Motte.
Calling him partisan just seems pointless and obvious. @FCfromSSC is a partisan too (and the proximal cause of TW creating the Schism). Like TW, FC is quite honest about his partisanship. People are still butthurt that Trace went off because of all the civil war fedposting that FC and a few others were doing at the time. (I think even FC admits he was not in a good headspace at the time.) But FC is popular here (I like him too, despite being much closer to Trace in my beliefs than FC) , and honestly, folks like @SteveAgain like fedposting. So Trace got endless shit and finally left.
I wish he hadn't and I wish he was less bitter, but I see no dishonesty or grift in his game, and he's certainly not, as Steve implies, telling his followers that actually the only problem with trans extremism is that it scared the normies.
Technically not gone, but his most recent post was a rant about how we're all useless for not being out on the streets killing our political enemies right now. Meanwhile on Twitter, he's gone full Holocaust denier and RAHOWA, and his schtick is encouraging his followers to go out and kill their enemies and stop believing in fake gay things like governments and coexistence, tribal warfare is all that matters, and also please subscribe to his Substack.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
Well,. here on the Motte at least I wish more people would be intellectually honest.
(I am frequently disappointed.)
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
We are not on the same page.
Read the rules, reread them, and then contact the mod team if you have further questions. If you wish to have this particular moderation decision reviewed by other members of the mod team, you may likewise contact the mod team, and someone besides myself will do so.
Well, sure, but that's a high risk strategy. Johnson survived impeachment by one vote. It's also basically saying "It's only illegal if you lose."
Well then change the laws, or else the Supreme Court will have to agree that the civil service reforms of the last 150 years are unconstitutional. But believing the President should be able to fire any civil servant at will does not make it legal.
It actually isn't. If a civil servant in theory can't be ordered to commit an illegal act, but if he refuses to commit an illegal act ordered to by the president, the president can fire him, what do you think happens? Especially if the president is telling an entire agency "Do what I want or I will fire you all?" We might hope some brave souls will refuse on principal, and some probably would, but you are clearly setting up a system where in practice the president has the power to direct the entire government to do whatever he wants regardless of what Congress or the Supreme Court says. More indirectly, this is why they changed the system so that federal positions can't all be patronage appointments.
I would like to check both sides. Accelerationism checks neither. And your view that it's only ever Republicans who make concessions and it's only ever Democrats who go too far is ahistorical claptrap.
More options
Context Copy link