ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
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User ID: 1098
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
10mo ago
There's a difference between consequences from the state and consequences from private actors. The jail term is just the least-common-denominator solution society has agreed on for punishing his crime. Any private person can also form their own independent opinion of what consequences he should face, and share their opinion.
From the perspective of private actors, it is deeply unfair to expect them to treat someone who has served a sentence for a crime the same as someone who never committed the crime. Clearly the fact that someone committed a crime predicts their future behavior in a Bayesian sense. People should be allowed to use that information to inform how they treat the perpetrator. Imagine the state, for reasons, fines criminals just $1 for committing, say, date rape. This is the right balance of deterrence, justice, incapacitation, and bureaucracy that meets the state's needs. If you're a woman considering having a drink with a man who's paid out $200 in such fines over the past year, you should be allowed to know and to act on the man's criminal history! Your own judgment of the severity of his crime can be wildly different from the state's.
However, I also believe in rehabilitation. I see no reason to report on this any more than if he had served a year for insurance fraud in 2016.
I assume that any competitive male athlete has a higher level of sexual aggression than average, so this article doesn't shift my judgment of him by much. But it's reasonable for other people to get value out of learning this part of his history. It's also reasonable to want to strike fear in the hearts of future statutory rapists to prevent them from acting. So I can't condemn this article; people have a right to know.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
10mo ago
The costs are not symmetric, and the woman bears costs no matter which option is taken.
| Right to financial abortion | Right to physical abortion | |
|---|---|---|
| Woman | Impossible; still has to bring the child to term and give birth, a huge cost. | ✓ |
| Man | ✓ | Reprehensible; would be forcing the woman to have an abortion. She still bears medical risk. |
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
11mo ago
HuffPost misrepresents the ruling:
In overturning Martin and Grants Pass, the Supreme Court found that homeless people do not constitute a class with an immutable status that confers protections from cruel and unusual punishment.
This is completely wrong. The Court found that laws can target a wide variety of behaviors, and that the 8th Amendment prohibition on "cruel and unusual" is just on the punishment after conviction. Homelessness is still a status that can't be criminalized.
Sotomayor's dissent in the ruling is also lacking:
the majority focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.
...or leave. This really cuts down to the roots of ideological disagreement between left and right: who are we ("we" meaning local government in this case) responsible for? Left says everyone, right says not everyone.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
11mo ago
Glenn Loury and John McWhorter discuss this on a recent podcast, motivated by the recent example of Ibram X. Kendi’s waning influence:
- NYTimes: Ibram X. Kendi Faces a Reckoning of His Own
- Washington Examiner: Ibram X. Kendi’s intellectual implosion (up for four days then deleted, make of that what you will)
There definitely is a vibe shift and it feels safer for critics of the social justice movement to speak publicly.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
11mo ago
Reaching verboten conclusions through 'rational means' on topics long decided by the 'ruling class' doesn't protect you from the consequences.
This is... true in a black-pilled way, but the way you've stated it sounds like you're defending the ruling class's morals as correct. The whole point is that the rationalists are starting from reasonable moral principles and following logical reasoning using the available evidence and reaching different conclusions than the ruling class. The ruling class's morals either don't incorporate the available evidence (i.e. are unscientific), don't follow from logical reasoning (i.e. are inconsistent), or start from different principles. All of these apply to various extents. I think the most parsimonious explanation is that the ruling class uses morals as tools, and chooses the set of morals that get them what they want. It's reasonable to criticize the ruling class on these grounds, and to think it unjust that people are punished for advocating for a less selfish set of morals.
Exactly. People change their party affiliations over time. Parties change their platforms over time. Ascribing a consistent principled philosophy to a political party, a group that is a Ship of Theseus in both membership and in ideas, is a fool's errand. It would be more accurate to treat the parties as brand new groups every election. Republicans_1984 is not Republicans_2024. And criticizing a party based on the platforms of past parties that share the same name is invalid. It was different people and a different platform.
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