Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man. No one yet has guessed multiple people, or a scholar. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Why not bother?
By the sounds of it, you've become disillusioned by a sense of your impotence at changing others to your preferred views. Congratulations! You are recognizing a truth that already existed.
Be at ease. You have not become less persuasive over time, nor have humans become more unreasonable. Political tribalism did not begin in the last decades. The internet just brought the filters that already existed into clearer focus, by putting people who were previously behind regional media filters in contact with each other. The nature of connecting people is that you can now disagree with people who you previously never would have known strenuously disagreed with you.
But again, this was already the case. What has changed isn't the circumstances, but your cognition. If you only bothered to talk rather than fight because of a flawed and faulty cognition let you convince yourself that you were cleverer and more persuasive than you actually were, then perhaps you should not bother. (With either, obviously- if you can't trust your judgement on how well you can talk, you certainly shouldn't trust your judgement on whether and when to fight.)
But bothering doesn't require that sort of self-importance. And thanks to that, even if you can't force others to change, you can change your own thinking, and thus your reason to bother.
Why bother continuing to argue (and especially why bother continuing to argue online- an exercise in futility if I ever heard one!) when doing so is unlikely to change the other person's mind?
Why do you believe changing the other person's mind is the point of a public argument, as opposed to shaping the audience's opinion?
An internet forum is called a forum precisely because it involves more than two people. There are the debaters, and there is the audience, and the prize of any public debate has always been the opinion of the people not directly speaking. This is why the public fora have long been the political centers, and why part of rhetoric has been how to manage the appeals to the audience's sensibility.
The audience is almost never the opponent in the exchange. The audience is, by its nature, curious enough to pay attention, but ambivalent enough to not be taking part in the first place. The stage of a forum is for those who show up to speak, but the audience is many times larger. The prize is when successful arguments get echoed by people other than your opponent at the time, and/or when someone else re-iterates your previous rebuttal if the opponent tries that same line of argument again. Or, in a specific argument, when someone else enters with an unexpected concurrence, because you've written in a way that gives them something to build off of rather than focus on a solely personal bickering.
However, it is very hard to sway the audience if you do not bother to show up and try.
Why bother continuing to argue when the people I'm disagreeing with seem to have beliefs & experiences so wildly opposite of my own that I have to wonder if we're even living in the same country?
Because you live in the same country regardless of what you wonder, and your audience knows it.
If you are posting on this forum, you are part of a continental-scale civilization. There is no 'everyone has the same experience' commonality when some people face burning summers and others freezing winters, let alone more nuanced local institutional effects. Local political machines, dominant themes and trends in schools, different religiosity (let alone which religion), and so on. If you are only able to bother disagreeing with people who you have very similar beliefs and experiences, that is a limitation on your ability to persuade.
This limitation on persuading the audience is best addressed by.... interacting more with people whose beliefs and experiences contrast with your own.
Why bother continuing to argue when people I disagree with just seem like they fundamentally can't be reasoned with at all?
Because the validity of fundamental reasonableness is a judgement for the audience, not the arguer.
To paraphrase a certain book, if a man accuses his fellow of being fundamentally unreasonable, one of them is. If there are specific people you want to write off as being in bad faith, then by all means do so. The ignore feature is there for a reason. But when speaking with categories of people, part of intellectual humility is recognizing that we can stand accused of the same things. You can make any accusation you want, but the merit / weight it has comes from the people needing to be convinced. Namely, you have to convince the audience that you are not the unreasonable one.
Fortunately, the best way to win a challenge of reasonableness, and thus disqualify the other person's influence on the audience, is to publicly and persuasively be a more reasonable person.
And especially why bother continuing to argue when doing so is only likely to be """rewarded""" with mass-downvotes and distributed dogpiles by commentators on a forum you don't even really like, and only stick around on out of some sort of... IDK, perverse masochism, I guess?
Because there is an audience here that will recognize good effort, and good rhetoric.
The Motte is a place of contrarians, not conservatives. It is not hard to be north-of-neutral on even contentious topics if you phrase well. Distributed dogpiles, on the other hand, are consistent indicators of often substantial issues. This could be a lazy pejorative, blatant bias, or letting your personal contempt for others show through.
This is valuable insight to learn about one's self. If one actually wants to become persuasive, then they need to learn to recognize, and mitigate, their bad habits.
So I ask again- why bother?
Why not?
Are you the sort of person who only bothers to engage people you disagree with when you expect to win?
Is the time for talking over?
If the time for talking wasn't over during much larger and more violent political violence years ago, why would it be over now?
Dean
Flairless
8d ago
Are there enough Dems who genuinely want infrastructure / railroad / whatever funding to pass a bipartisan budget?
My recollection of the last decades was that the Democratic Congressionals were more than happy to raze the commons they might have shared with Trump, and that this inclination has only gotten stronger.
Dean
Flairless
8d ago
It wouldn't be a singular benefit, but benefits. As long as both parties have their own interests being advanced, they don't need a singular.
As for specific potential benefits: the clearest benefit is for Elon getting to politically distance himself from Trump and Doge as he returns back to being 'just' a business man and the various other actors who might want to capitalize on a Trump-Musk 'split.' Benefits to Trump are more nuanced, but could serve an internal political party management- the nominal straw that is breaking Trump-Musk is the budget, annd this could be used as a circle-the-wages call (demand) to get the Republicans on board to pass the bill despite the fiscal conservative objections.
If this was a coordinated break, however, I imagine it would be to bait the Democrats in Congress towards the Epstein file that Musk called attention to. This feud is the insinuation that it incriminates Trump, which is catnip to the Dems, but if this were coordinated, then both parties could know that Trump himself is not condemned, but also that other (mutual) political opponents might be. If the Epstein file was released by Trump directly, it could be dismissed as a political attack fabrication. If the Democrats 'force' it open during Congressional hearing discovery, they'd be owning the responsibility / consequence for any fallout. When you consider how MeToo ended up scalping more notable Democrats than Republicans....
(And- at the same time- the previous individual benefits listed above.)
To be clear- this isn't saying/claiming this is the reason. Merely that this is an example of a political ploy a fake falling out could serve.
Dean
Flairless
8d ago
If the Democrats were capable of that level of self-control, they would have worked with the 90s-era democrat who got elected in a repudiation to the Republican establishment a decade ago.
This, more. Seeing the Bannon position (which- to be clear- is really old) being passed / smuggled as 'Trump is seriously feuding with Musk' has put this firmly in the 'can't trust initial reporting: ignore for now and come back in a few days to see what, specifically, has changed' zone. Both Bannon and the democratic media have been trying to meme a Musk-Trump blowup into happening for some time, and the information environment is already contaminated. Maybe that's what's happening now, but then Musk has been distancing from DOGE since its disruption phase was done in the first two months, reporting already indicated his allies were/are still there, and he's been reportedly wanting to go back to focusing on his business. It's not exactly hard to think of various kayfabe reasons* for a quote-unquote 'staged' breakup fight in a way that serves both his and Trump's political interests.
Or he could be ketamine-influenced and this will spiral. Who knows. I'll wait regardless.
Key things I'll look for to validate this being a Big Deal include-
- Are Musk's allies purged from DOGE?
- Are Musk's contracts frozen / suspended?
- Any immigration-specific action against Musk.
*One amusing proposal from a friend: the Dems demanding the Epstein file log, which will be less damning to Trump than hoped, but catch some Democratic VIPs in a way that leads to inter-Democrat fratricide.
Dean
Flairless
9d ago
Say what you will about them, but what they were not lacking in is/was ideology.
I note you conspicuous avoid attesting to any of us having 'morality' here.
(Wink / nudge / laughing at self in good humor.)
Dean
Flairless
9d ago
This is all occurring while the Democrats have loudly signaled, and been mocked relentlessly for, plans to find inroads into the minds of young men.
On one hand, I can understand this, but on the other, I have to question the idea that somehow young, disengaged, skeptical men will respond positively if the Democrats only... checks notes... force paid advertisements into youtube videos, in-game video game ads, and sports and gaming podcasts.
These are three hobby spaces that are notoriously known for being escapist hobby vectors for people who do not want to be bothered with Serious Things. Paid ads are not exactly popular in any of them, and the anti-ad industry that, by its nature, is skeptical of establishment forces (that would prefer such bypasses not exist).
One of those spaces in particlar- video gaming spaces- was the subject of a multi-year culture war in which Democratic party allies circled the wagons against a non-trivial part of the consumer base who, among other grievances, felt their hobby space was being encroached upon by partisans who didn't care for them.
It really begs the question of if the person making the proposal had any awareness of Gamergate back in the day, or if they remember the progressive framing but think this is a good idea anyway, or... just what this is supposed to be besides a grift for a wave of blocked/skipped ads that people allready block/skip in mass.
Dean
Flairless
10d ago
A number of people did, but DOGE being bounded and only able to work in a department with the consent of the department secretary was the thrust of a couple of AAQCs in February / March.
Dean
Flairless
11d ago
Dean
Flairless
11d ago
Assets that, if some reports are to be believed, were in some locations recently relocated and possibly preparing for an upcoming major strike that would coincide with the peace talks ongoing offensive.
Dean
Flairless
13d ago
I had to get this done a day early, or it wouldn't get done until several days late.
Thank you for doing so. The 1st of the month roundup is, well, a highlight of the month. The new month wouldn't start off right without it.
Dean
Flairless
14d ago
Why does it seem like so many conservatives
Glenn Greenwald is a 'conservative' in the same way that Cindy Sheehan was a conservative for running against Nancy Pelosi.
Which is to say- he was a highly acclaimed / respected public voice when he was criticizing the Bush administration and Iraq War, and then quickly lost support when his criticisms continued despite the party in power changing.
Can you quite where anyone said that Unikowsky's argument is correct based on who he is?
Can you quote where I made any claim that Unikosky's argument is incorrect based on who he is?
Congratulations on wasting so much of my time. I sincerely believe that was your sole intent.
And this is why sincere belief is no a substitute for accurate understanding.
You just chose to ignore in favor of arguing their identity.
Questioning who the OP is appealing to and why they should be is taken as an arguer-by-proxy is the antithesis of an argument over their identity. It is an invitation for their identity to be established in ways to improve their credibility beyond poor stereotypes.
Variously people have done so poorly, appealing to credentialism of a distrusted profession or the smuggled assumption of a former employer, but that is the issue with poor stereotypes instead of individualized endorsement.
Blah, blah. Still refusing to make an argument that 12 hours is sufficient for the Supreme court's order. Shame on you, and shame on the Motte for not having drummed you out with laughter.
'Blah, blah' is certainly an amusing dismissal warning of increasing habeas harms to people claiming a need for habeaus relief for non-habeas motives.
It truly is absurd to expect people to explain why a source is good and should be taken at face value. It's not like anyone with experience in the field might recognize the source as less-than-credible and inclined towards motivated reasoning. Or to have made critiques of the source more than a year ago, before the current culture war subject of discussion.
Thankfully, this is the Motte. Positions are for defending, and that includes positions based on outsourcing an argument.
I think not, but I'd like to hear an argument for why it is a reasonable amount of time.
Because there has not been an argument for why twelve hours it is not a reasonable amount of time for due process in the context of deportation, besides that it interferes with a habeas relief process, which the law does not require occur for due process in the context of deportation.
So I return to my question: is 12 hours a reasonable amount of time for them to seek relief?
Do you think it is reasonable to demand that people should be detained longer against the inclination of a government that wants to release a person sooner, even though this will increase the amount of time people are detained overall instead of free?
Remember- [habeaus relief] and [due process] are not synonyms. [Habeaus relief] is a specific relief against wrongful detention. As a matter of heabaus harm minimization, less time in wrongful detention is better than more time. This principle even applies to rightly-detained individuals- hence the right to a speedy trial. A 'more reasonable' time period for involuntary detention is shorter, not longer.
An habeas-based argument to extend a 12 hour limit is saying a 12 hour potentially wrongful detention is too short, and that everyone wrongly (or rightly) detained should be detained longer.
If this seems a weird, this is because [habeas relief] is in this case being instrumentally treated as [deportation appeal]. The habeas concern itself is resolved upon deportation. Extending the habeas harm (the effect justifying habeas relief) is the tool to try and prevent deportation.
At a minimum, "scalia clerk" means "Justicr Scalia, hero of the conservative legal movement, thought this person was smart enough to aid him."
Scalia was also well known for hiring people he thought were wrong on substantial political issues. 'Smart enough to aid him' does not mean or imply 'political judgements were considered sound and trusted by even Scalia's standard.'
This would be a smuggled insinuation, both invalid and dishonest if claimed explicitly. (Which it has not been, hence pressing for further clarification).
If I go through your posting history, how many examples am I going to find of you demanding an explanation of the significance of a commentary source?
Not many. Most people do not hinge their opening posts on a non-characterized source, or happily clarify when asked.
It does happen from time to time, though. Even got an AAQC for a frisking the Seymour Hersh claims that the US blew up the Nordstream pipeline, which was largely based on critiquing the (claimed) source of Hersh. Casting shade on sources is on brand, though in this case I pressed the OP to justify the source he was using to argue by proxy for an argument conclusion the source didn't justify.
Will they all be sources critical of Trump?
Heavens no. Feel free to look for yourself, though.
Dean
Flairless
16d ago
There are a lot of people jumping through hoops to not to validate a source, true.
Dean
Flairless
16d ago
Perhaps!
...but this is not the argument the OP made for their source.
12 hours doesn't seem like enough to me.
'Enough to what to what purpose?' is the natural question.
'To deliver due process' is a predictable response, but this itself isn't defining what 'due process' actually entails in a deportation case. For something to be 'insufficient,' there must be a standard of what 'sufficient' is. However, what is sufficient due process in one context is not sufficient in another.
This has been why a lot of the political opposition to migrant deportations has been on trying to equivocate deportation due process to other due process contexts. Consider the media focus several weeks ago of an illegal migrant mother who was deported and took her infant US citizen child with her. This was raised and framed as 'administration deports American citizen without due process!', as if the due process was a US child custody court case between US citizens, rather than the due process of letting a foreign citizen keep custody of their child when there was no immediate US family. Naturally, that line of argument fell quiet soon after when the 'just give the father custody!' process arguments ran into the issues of the father's legal relationship to the mother (and for being in the US).
The political struggle / contest is who gets to define due process requirements when.
If I directly asked you if you thought due process required being defended in court by a crusading ACLU lawyer, I doubt you would say yes in those terms. Certainly the law does not require that. If it did, there would be no 'you can ask for it with your phone call' option, because it wouldn't be an option, it would be the requirement. However, arguments of 'you are violating due process if you do not give them that' are in practice demanding a procedural requirement.
The issues with this are multiple. First and most importantly, it tends to be a bad idea to let people who are not in the position of creating legal requirements for the state to create legal requirements for the state. Similarly, institutional and professional legitimacy can easily be burned in advancing institutional power increases as a means to win political arguments- see the (probable) result of national injunctions, or the long-running Democratic attack on Republican partisanship in the Supreme Court (pick your preference).
But a third point is that process demands are not inherently legitimate when arguments are used as soldiers, and can gradually undercut the nominally claimed principle's value to/from/by society.
This has already happened globally in terms of how global views of refugee and asylum laws has evolved over the last quarter century. Asylum and refuge was a principle won from the post-WW2 context, it was leveraged to advance economic migration, and public support has declined as people bite the bullet and diminished asylum's social / political sanctity to prevent it's use as an argument-as-soldier for a cause. Similarly, free trade was a political value, until the costs were increasingly untenable, and now market efficiency arguments are hobbled as the people who justified their preferences on the basis of free trade have discredited themselves and the arguments they used as soldiers.
There is no reason it cannot or will not happen with other dynamics.
The point of this isn't that you shouldn't feel that 12 hours and a phone call is enough due process for illegal migrants. The point is that you should be clear what is enough due process for illegal migrants, and where it ends vis-a-vis due process for legal migrants, and where that due process compares to citizens.
There are (well established) distinctions. Careless equivocation will be indistinguishable from those who would use that argument as soldiers, and it stands to lose if / when they lose the social argument as a whole, and take their supporting arguments with them for all others who might have wanted that (no longer shared) principle.
That is a credentialism argument for a trusting a member of a profession that, in the US at least, has been long and broadly considered untrustworthy on matters of ethics, prioritizing the public good, or holding their own accountable.
In a year where extremely partisan use of the judiciary, with substantial support by members of the legal profession in good standing, is a topic on the supreme court docket, and where good-standing in the legal profession is tied to the not-necessarily-apolitical interests.
Which is why the question was not for a resume, but for a reason to trust, and why their characterization of a live culture war topic should be deferred to. "He is a capable lawyer in good standing" is an anti-endorsement.
This is a fair failure mode to keep in mind!
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