Gdanning
1yr ago
law enforcement has qualified immunity for misconduct (which, practically speaking is basically absolute immunity with a few extra steps)
Not really. A Reuters study found that, in excessive force cases against police, appellate courts granted qualified immunity in 44% of cases in 2005-2007 and 57% of cases in 2017-2019. Another study found lower numbers. And Short Circuit's weekly case summary usually includes a fair number of denials, as well as grants.
The grants of immunity are nevertheless too frequent, IMHO. But it is hardly automatic.
Gdanning
1yr ago
According to Wikipedia, which cites the IMF, Haiti's per capita GDP, in purchasing power parity, is $3,188. Jamaica's is $11,802, and Barbados's is $17,407. Something other than HBD is going on.
And, btw, describing Guns, Germs and Steel as a just-so story seems very odd. The book repeatedly discusses alternative theories, potential weaknesses in its evidence, and avenues for additional research which might confirm or refute his argument, none of which is the norm, especially in books designed for a popular audience. That doesn't mean he is correct, but it certainly isn't a just-so story.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Yeah, she needs to double check her mathematical reasoning; she can't make that claim without knowing the size of the transwoman population. By her logic, according to this data, women are twice as likely to commit drug offenses as men, and are almost as likely to commit violent offenses, which obviously is not true
Gdanning
7mo ago
Why does the employer not simply fire the people doing the organizing?
Because it is illegal
Are the people running factory machines inside of Ford and GM (or starbucks, or a hollywood writers room) really that highly skilled?
Autoworkers and screenwriters? Yes. Baristas? Not so much. Which is why unions have historically been more successful in skilled trades than in nonskilled trades; it is difficult for employers to simply fire skilled workers because it is difficult to replace them. More importantly, if it is more expensive to replace them than to give them a raise, well, that answers your question about why employers do not simply fire them.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Not only is this not a random sample,* you can't assume that only 40% of marriages are satisfying from data that only 40% are satisfied with the sexual aspect of the marriage, despite the mild correlation you mention. Plenty of relationships end despite the sex being good, after all.
*And her linked discussion re its ostensible value changes nothing.
Gdanning
1yr ago
The domino theory was not that A empowers the actor to attempt B. It is it emboldens the actor to attempt B.
Gdanning
1yr ago
I learned recently that Allegheny v. ACLU ruled that a Nativity on public land, as a religious symbol, violates the Establishment Clause but a Menorah on public land does not. According to the logic of the ruling, the Menorah and Christmas Tree are secular symbols of the winter holidays and do not constitute the endorsement of a religion while the Nativity does so. The logic is on its face patently absurd as the Menorah is not a secular symbol in any sense.
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No, only two justices voted that the nativity scene violated the Establishment Clause while the menorah did not. Three judges voted that both violated the Establishment Clause and four voted that neither did.
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The argument was not so much that a menorah per se is a secular symbol, but rather only that that particular menorah was, in large part because it was part of a larger display which included a Christmas tree and a celebration of liberty, all of whuch they deemed secular.
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The Court actually remanded the case to determine whether the menorah violated the Establishment Clause for reasons not addressed in the appeal.
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The Court okayed the display of a creche in 1984 in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668. The difference in Allegheny, in the view of the five justices who voted that the creche was NG, was that "Here, unlike in Lynch, nothing in the context of the display detracts from the creche's religious message. The Lynch display composed a series of figures and objects, each group of which had its own focal point. Santa's house and his reindeer were objects of attention separate from the creche, and had their specific visual story to tell. Similarly, whatever a "talking" wishing well may be, it obviously was a center of attention separate from the creche. Here, in contrast, the creche stands alone: it is the single element of the display on the Grand Staircase." Note that this analysis is the same as that applied to the menorah.
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The creche also included the phrase, "Glory to God in the Highest!"
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And here is how Justice Gorsuch summarized the case law, just last May: "May a State or local government display a Christmas nativity scene? Some courts said yes, others no. How about a menorah? Again, the answers ran both ways."
So, your example doesn’t work.
It is easy enough to look at Biden's campaign site from 2008 and find out. The answer clearly seems to be "no."
It is also easy to look at the 2008 Democratic Platform, which calls for ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell; refers to climate change as a "national security crisis", calls for the "end the tyranny of oil", and says "our response will determine the very future of life on this earth; condemns "inequalities in our criminal justice system"; promises to "restore vigorous federal enforcement of civil rights laws"; calls for "banning racial, ethnic, and religious profiling"; and opposes voter ID laws.
Edit: Biden could not have been "very anti-gay marriage" in 2008, given that he rather famously came out in support of it only 4 years later, much to the annoyance of the Obama Administration.
Gdanning
1yr ago
I have never understood the word "groomer" to be a synonym for pedophile, and in fact it is not a synonym for pedophile. It is explicitly a term for people who violate trust in an attempt to harmfully and secretly modify children's sexuality
I have literally never heard it used that way except by you. Rather it has always, and for years, been used to refer to a strategy employed by child abusers: RAINN defines it as "manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught," and a search of Google Scholar's case law database for cases which include the terms grooming and pedophile turns up 420 hits. A search for grooming -pedophile "sexual abuse" leads to 2600 hits. Some of those are mishits, but most are not, and at least as far back as 1987, in State v. Hansen, 304 Or. 169 (1987), the court quotes a police officer using the term to describe the process used by pedophiles to lure victims.
This review article notes several definitions used by researchers, including "A course of conduct enacted by a suspected paedophile, which would give a reasonable person cause for concern that any meeting with a child arising from the conduct would be for unlawful purposes[,] "the steps taken by paedophiles to ‘‘entrap’’ their victims", "The process by which a child is befriended by a would-be abuser in an attempt to gain the child’s confidence and trust, enabling them to get the child to acquiesce to abusive activity."
Dictionary.com has the pedophile definition, but not yours. Ditto the urban dictionary Ditto the Cambridge Dictionary
The idea that the people who make "groomer" claims re trans activists or whatever are not familiar with the standard meaning of the term is dubious in the extreme. It is meant to imply that those persons are akin to, if not actual, sex offenders or wannabe sex offenders.
Gdanning
1yr ago
This commission is being sent by the state government rather than by a political party. Surely such a commission should indeed be non-partisan.
But that would be sacrilege if you're a classical liberal.
Would it? It would certainly be sacrilege to a modern libertarian, who tend to not be overly concerned with threats to individual liberty from powerful non-state actors. But I am not sure if that is necessarily 100% true of classical liberals.
Edit: Eg, Mill wrote at length about the threat to liberty from non-state actors, esp society at large, and Adam Smith was far more friendly to the welfare state than are libertarians. So, libertarian beliefs are not entirely congruent with classical liberal beliefs.
Many people cherish free speech.
Almost no one cherishes "free speech" -- most people cherish free speech for themselves, but not so much for those with whom they disagree. They cherish free speech instrumentally, not intrinsically. Which is really not cherishing free speech at all.
Gdanning
5mo ago
the Iraqis and taliban helped them come to their senses with a firm and proper lessons in not sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong
Yeah, the Iraqis did such a great job teaching that lesson that they are still using the constitution that Americans wrote for them. Let's be clear: the Iraqi "insurgency" was not some sort of anti-Imperialist endeavor; it was a civil war. That is why the "insurgents" killed vastly more civilians than they did coalition troops.
And the Taliban was so good at teaching that lesson that they killed all of an average of 100 US servicemen per year
Gdanning
6mo ago
I'm pretty sure OP isn't proposing the killing of literally every Palestinian in Gaza,
I'm pretty sure OP is proposing precisely that, since OP said, "But if Gaza had been erased from the world years ago, everyone from squalling infants to doddering grandfathers, you would not have this problem."
Gdanning
10mo ago
Hm, Germans electing a leader whose policies destroyed his country? Nosiree, can't think of a single historical example of that!
Gdanning
1yr ago
March 28, CNN: "DeSantis plans to travel to Jerusalem as tumult strains Netanyahu-Biden relationship". So, the destination was known.
Washington Free Beacon April21: "Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is set to begin a trip abroad on Saturday taking him through Japan, South Korea, Israel and the United Kingdom." Note that that was before the bill passed, and that he visited several other places. So it is unlikely that the purpose was to sign the bill.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Other areas of human life like the ability to be moved by beauty seem similarly lacking in a civilization whose pre-1800s painting and sculpture never approximated that of Ancient Rome, much less Michael Angelo, when portraying human subjects (as opposed to landscapes were they admittedly excelled).
Michael Angelo, you say? But the real question is: How does their art compare with that of Leo Nardo? Or Carol Vaggio?
Gdanning
1yr ago
Victoria Lee was pretty clearly a suicide, given the admonition in her sister's announcement of her death to "please check on your loved ones." As for Damar Hamlin, "According to Tadwalkar, Hamlin likely experienced a rare complication called commotio cordis — ventricular fibrillation, a type of cardiac arhythmia, caused by the injury to the chest when he made a tackle.".
There has been an increase in heart attacks among relatively young people, but that increase started [at the beginning of the pandemic] (https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/covid-19-surges-linked-to-spike-in-heart-attacks/)
Gdanning
1yr ago
I cannot think of anything that less "fully counts as culture war" than the removal of a symbol of imperialism by country X against country Y at a time that the military of county X has invaded country Y. If THAT is a central example of the "clown world" we supposedly live in, then we are in much better shape than I had supposed.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Am I crazy for thinking her first paragraph is negated by the second?
Crazy? No. But it is entirely possible to "serve the needs of all District 3 residents" while "working towards justice" for specific groups. For example, it is certainly possible that some groups have been the victims of injustice, and hence have a need for greater justice, and some groups have not. So, no, the two statements are not logically inconsistent. [NOTE: If history is any guide, there will be people who might be tempted to comment re whether the groups listed by the candidate, as well as those omitted, are or are not the victims of injustice. Please don't, because I am not expressing an opinion on that. I am merely pointing out that the OP errs when he says that the two statements are necessarily inconsistent].
I see white people irl supporting her. I don't understand their motivations.
Well, first, they don't read it the same way you do. Second, and more importantly, why did I vote for a property tax increase to fund new athletic facilities at local schools? I don't use them, and don't have kids in school. Why did white people support the Civil Rights Movement? Whites were not the victims of Jim Crow. Why would I support a candidate who pledges to never waterboard suspected terrorists, over one who explicitly pledges to do the opposite, but cut my taxes? I am very, very, very unlikely ever to be taken for a terrorist, but I certainly pay taxes every year.
The fact is, principles do matter to people. Not to every person, certainly, and they do not always trump other interests, but they do matter. So, no, contrary to what others have said, it is not all signaling.
I suggest taking a look at the section at the beginning of this paper on value rationality and what motivates suicide bombers and the like. A key quote:
Recovering a duality first proposed by Max Weber, I suggest that ethnic or national conflict is best conceptualized as a combination of “value rationality” and “instrumental rationality.” Both of these rationalities are expressions of goal-directed behavior, but their conceptions of costs widely diverge. Instrumental rationality entails a strict cost-benefit calculus with respect to goals, necessitating the abandonment or adjustment of goals if the costs of realizing them are too high. Value-rational behavior is produced by a conscious “ethical, aesthetic, religious or other” belief, “independently of its prospects of success.”6 Behavior, when driven by such values, can consciously embrace great personal sacrifices. Some spheres or goals of life are considered so valuable that they would not normally be up for sale or compromise, however costly the pursuit of their realization might be.
Gdanning
5mo ago
Muslim immigrants from where? India, home to about ten percent of the world's Muslims? Indonesia? The Balkans? Even Trump's original "Muslim ban" did not apply to 90% of the world's Muslims.
Gdanning
7mo ago
Here is the problem with advocating censorship of "bad" ideas: If it is permissible make rules about what ideas can be expressed, then someone has to make those rules. And who will that be, people with power, or people without power. Obviously the former.
Btw, I am referring to censorship of ideas, not obscenity, not child porn, and not any of the 1000 other things that those who favor censoring ideas they don't like want to conflate therewith.
Gdanning
10mo ago
But I was struck by a particular take on the religious freedom in commerce case that I saw popping up in a few places today.
303 Creative is a freedom of speech chase, not a religious freedom case.
But taking CNN's "just asking questions" article at face value, it makes me wonder where all the real gay people are, and why we can't seem to get a gay rights case in front of SCOTUS with parties who aren't being puppeted, Chicago-style. Okay, that's a bit of hyperbole, but still, two points form a line.
There is only one point in the line. You seem to think that 303 Creative was an enforcement action brought by the state of Colorado against the company. It wasn't. It was a lawsuit brought by 303 Creative and its owner, for an injunction, because she planned to enter into the wedding website business, but had not done so yet, because she feared that she would get embroiled in an enforcement action. From the Supreme Court decision:
For its part, the Tenth Circuit held that Ms. Smith had standing to sue. In that court’s judgment, she had established a credible threat that, if she follows through on her plans to offer wedding website services, Colorado will invoke CADA to force her to create speech she does not believe or endorse. Id., at 1172–1175. The court pointed to the fact that “Colorado has a history of past enforcement against nearly identical conduct—i.e., Masterpiece Cakeshop”; that anyone in the State may file a complaint against Ms. Smith and initiate “a potentially burdensome administrative hearing” process; and that “Colorado [has] decline[d] to disavow future enforcement” proceedings against her. Before us, no party challenges these conclusions.
Note also that the fact that the standing issue was not disputed before the Court means that the whole issue of whether or not anyone asked for a wedding website is essentially a red herring.
Gdanning
10mo ago
And Eugene Volokh seems to think it applies only to flags flown on city flagpoles rather than a ban on people carrying the flag on city streets, in parks, etc (such a ban would almost certainly be unconstitutional).
No, in Texas, as in pretty much every state, once the defendant has produced some evidence that he acted in self-defense, the prosecution has the burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he did not act in self-defense. Saxton v. State, 804 S.W.2d 910 (Tx Ct of Crim App, 1991); Hernandez v. State, 804 S.W.2d 910, 910 (Tx Ct of App, 2020).
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