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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For me personally, "Paedo guy" and "Funding secured" were enough to push me from "Hooray for the eccentric genius" to "This guy may be smart, but he is not a fit and proper person to be CEO of a strategically important company". That applies for different reasons whether he was on drugs at the time or not.


At the time, this combined with the obviously dishonest SolarCity deal and the rapid turnover of Tesla CFO's to make me suspect that Tesla was the next Enron. I'm happy to admit that I was wrong there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Didn't a bunch of states create mail-in-ballot rules that undermine ballot secrecy just for that election in particular before some of them got taken out by courts due to their irregularity?




Before 2020, nobody thought that mail-in ballots were per se fraudulent. In 2016, three states including one swing state had all-postal elections (Washington, Oregon and Colorado), and most other states had no-excuse postal voting for anyone who applied. 23.7% of all votes were cast by post (see pp 9/10 here). And nobody on either side of the aisle thought that this was a problem that would justify overturning a close election.


Trump made specific allegations of fraud which were not true. He could have made the purely legal argument that slightly easier postal voting introduced in an irregular way was grounds for tossing the election on a technicality (as of 2016, it was a colourable legal argument based on the independent state legislature theory, which wouldn't be rejected by SCOTUS until Moore vs Harper in 2022) and allowing Republican State legislatures to choose electors, but that wasn't the argument he made. He said that he won by a landslide, that there was "massive fraud", that Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines meant that the in person votes were invalid, and that rogue election officials had added large numbers of fake ballots to Biden's tally.




Wasn't the whole Covid psy-ops leading to these rule changes in the first place?




You mean the pandemic with an impact visible at the macro-demographic level? Or are you telling me that governments outside the US faked 6 million deaths (by official count) or 25 million deaths (based on demographic statistics) in order to allow slightly easier postal voting in a US election?




If there was evidence of a massive conspiracy showing all level of governments and media building up the Covid scare with the ultimate goal to undermine the integrity of the elections, wouldn't that be some kind of coup, or at least conspiracy to commit a coup?




Yes, which is why it is good that there is no such evidence. The pre-2020 conventional wisdom was that easier postal voting helps Republicans (because of the military vote), so if there had been a large-scale conspiracy to steal the election for Democrats, the main goal of the conspiracy would not have been slightly easier postal voting.




Well yes, of course the average rich and powerful American is a honest guy.




I didn't say that. I said that by the (low) standards of rich and powerful Americans, Trump is unusually dishonest. Heck, even by the (even lower) standards of greater-NYC real estate operators, Trump was unusually dishonest, this was common knowledge on Wall Street, and was in fact sufficiently common knowledge that a joke about it got into Sex and the City.




and not Epstein's buddies




Epstein's buddies like one Donald Trump, who allowed Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit girls at Mar-a-Lago, who was a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express, and who promoted the corrupt prosecutor who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal the first time he got caught? Even by the (very, very low) ethical standards of Epstein's social circle, Donald Trump went above and beyond.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Legislators have the right to ask questions relevant to potential legislation (and to compel answers if the person being asked is within the jurisdiction) - - in Con Law textbooks this is called the investigative power of the legislature. Since the UK has no written constitution, everything is a potential subject matter for legislation by the Westminster Parliament (and regulation of offensive speech on social media platforms is, in fact, a current subject of active political debate). So she isn't violating any constitutional principle here. She is being a grandstanding idiot, and if I lived in Gosport it would make me significantly less likely to re-elect her. OTOH, in the UK right now everyone hates Russel Brand except the actual fans of his show, so I'm sure she will gain votes on net.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That's bribery




That's lobbying. The professional lobbying industry is rife with legal-but-sleazy cash-for-access schemes. It is completely legal, and SOP in DC, for a government official to meet with people because they hired a lobbying firm that donates to their campaign/hires their failson for a cushy job/promises to hire them for a cushy job after they leave office/block-books a large number of rooms in their hotel at an above-market rate. A lot of this stuff can't be banned, because petitioning the government is 1st amendment protected activity.


The difference between selling influence and selling access is hard to prove, but it is critical to bribery law. It also matters to the situational ethics of the DC swamp - selling a policy change for cash is against the "Code" even if you manage to do it in a way which skirts bribery law.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Counterreminder: Nixon knew what Liddy and Hunt were after they botched the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. He had ample room and opportunity to fire them, and chose not to - presumably because he wanted them to do something similar to Watergate. The fact that he didn't know about that particular burglary in advance is good mafia opsec, but it doesn't affect his culpability.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trump doesn't need to offer red meat to his base. His base already love him so much that they are still supporting him even after he has been indicted twice for serious crimes of which he is obviously guilty (and once for some bullshit process crime in NY). His problem is that his base are not close to a majority of the electorate - they are barely a majority in a Republican primary.


Trump either needs to convince more NeverTrump Republicans to hold their noses and vote for the crook, not the Democrat, or to convince more Reagan Democrat types that trannies are more of a threat to their kids than Russians.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting. That would imply that Thiel is a fully paid up member, and “no billionaires on the dissident right” is a No True Scotsman of the word “dissident”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trump going after his personal enemies within the GOP (as discussed upthread) isn't turnabout - it's an escalation (viz-a-viz normalcy) or a distraction (viz-a-viz what Alvin Bragg is doing). Trump going after a druggie fuckup like Hunter Biden (which seems to be what most of the MAGA crowd away from this forum want) would also be a distraction. Turnabout would be Trump going after the key players on the other side of the table - particularly potential presidential candidates and key congressional leaders.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
???


Are you saying that sending classified information over unsecure e-mail is equivalent to putting it on the open Internet? I suppose it might be in terms of possible harm (although in the case of Hillary Clinton's e-mails this would be mitigated by the fact that they were probably never routed outside the US), but in terms of legal culpability it definitely isn't.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So the books and records of the Trump Organization show the payments to Cohen (which would ultimately go to Stormy Daniels) as a corporate legal expense. That would end up being claimed as a business expense on the corporate tax return.


I think you could argue that Cohen negotiating a hush money agreement with Stormy Daniels was legal work, in which case he could bill the actual hush money as a disbursement, and paying a lawyer's bill including disbursements could be included as a "legal expense" in the accounts. But it would be the Trump Organization paying Trump's personal legal expenses, which would need to be accounted for as an employee fringe benefit. I am not familiar with US tax law, but in the UK that would be taxable on the employee (i.e. Trump).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Car "free" cities ARE a future




If the scare quotes are intentional, then it is worth pointing out that low-car-use cities are the present, not the future. Above a metro area population of about a million, the city where most people don't drive most of the time is the default in Continental Europe and first-world Asia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Ok so Exxon tells the other firm their spending $100 million defending the case. Now it’s a bet the company case for the smaller but well capitalized firm.




And the judge tells them to knock it off. I am starting to wonder if the real problem is that US civil cases are mostly heard in State courts where the judge is an answer to the joke "What do you call a lawyer with a room temperature IQ? - Your Honor"


With a few exceptions (like the Delaware Court of Chancery), the US is egregiously unable to make sure important civil cases end up in front of judges who know what they are doing. As far as I can see, there are a few things going on that drive this - the thing that is most unusual internationally is elected judges, but I suspect that a bigger deal is the American tradition of handling all first instance cases in the County they are filed in - most states have no equivalent to the English High Court or the Superior Courts in the Canadian provinces as a dedicated first instance court for important civil cases.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My guess is the majority of people who self-define as Georgists favour a land tax close to 100% (80% of the rent attributable to land and normal income tax rates on the part of the rent attributable to improvements is what I would favour in dath ilan, but in the real world I am not a full-on Georgist and favour incremental moves towards higher land taxes and lower other taxes).


If you accept the basic libertarian arguments that unavoidable taxes are confiscatory, and that non-sovereigns can "own" land the same way they own chattels, then full-on Georgism is indeed a confiscation of land (but not improvements), and a Georgist-inspired shift towards higher land taxes and lower income taxes is a partial confiscation of land. In fact, of course, you only ever "owned" the land at the pleasure of the State* and Georgism is a change in the terms under which the State allows you to continue "owning" it. Land taxes no more violate the property rights of landowners than Uber violates the property rights of taxi medallion owners.


    

  • At this point I am only making this as a factual argument, although I think it is more right than wrong as a moral argument.
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


On one hand this is fair. Elon definitely has more strings to pull than the protestors right now, but that's a pretty short-sighted view. In 20 years, the current class of Columbia isn't going to have access to the corridors of power, they're going to occupy them. The attitudes at Columbia are going to be beltway consensus in 20 years. That's a much bigger issue than people mouthing off on twitter.




If the situation in the Ivies is anything like my experience of Oxbridge, students who are going to grow up as pillars of the establishment have always LARPed as anti-establishment rebels on campus, and "Free Palestine" has been the hardy perennial of anti-establishment left issues since I was in primary school. The views of the pro-establishment left in the US on the I-P conflict have not materially changed during this time, despite the modern pro-establishment left incorporating a generation of kids who went on Free Palestine marches for campus-left clout as undergraduates 20-40 years ago. There is a lot of media coverage indicating that the average non-Arab attendee at the pro-Palestine protests doesn't understand the conflict and is just showing up in order to support the Current Thing - this is an example of social copying, not successful indoctrination.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And Stockholm Syndrome makes them turn on anyone who does anything about it privately...




Stockholm has a clean, crime-free metro.. Since mass immigration altered Swedish demographics, this requires significant spend on graffiti cleanup and Metro-contracted security staff who are willing to use the necessary force to keep it that way. This continues to happen despite Swedish politics being what it is, because voters are neither morons nor masochists.


For the avoidance of doubt, so does every other sufficiently large Continental European or first-world Asian city. The fact that America can't police public spaces without a level of lethal violence that normies won't tolerate doesn't mean that it is impossible, just that America sucks at policing. The absence of research interest in "Why can't Americans convert taxpayer dollars spent on policing into an absence of crime the way other first-world countries can?" is exhibit A in why criminology as a discipline is a waste of space.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is a long period of negligible net foreign migration in the 70's and early 80's. There appears to be a glacial slow uptrend in both gross immigration and net foreign immigration between about 1985 and 1997, but the data is too noisy to say when it begins. See figures 1.1 and 1.2 (which should, but don't, match) in this old ONS report. The ONS have since stopped publishing immigration statistics from before 2010 because it became clear that the numbers were such poor quality - in particular they are not stock-flow consistent when cross-checked against the census. But you don't need high-quality data to see the increase after 1997, which was deliberate government policy.


I remember that non-refugee immigration was not a political issue during the Major administration - there was a tabloid panic about the number of people claiming refugee status in the immediate post-Cold War period, but the numbers peaked at about 50,000 refugee arrivals per year and about 20,000 asylum grants.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Navy isn't there to defend one 30-billion-dollar factory. It's there to defend all the 30-billion-dollar factories, and the capacity to make more of them. Among many other things of course.




The important thing about TSMC is the tradition, not the 30-billion-dollar fabs. The current saga about TSMC seeking exceptions to CHIPS Act Buy American requirements strongly suggests that if America spent 30 billion dollars on a 3nm fab built and run by Americans, they wouldn't end up with a working 3nm fab. And moving the tradition to a non-Chinese-speaking country is hard because of the language barrier - Paul Graham says you could definitely transfer the tradition that makes Silicon Valley Silicon Valley by bringing over 10,000 people and you could probably do it with 500 people, but he is thinking about moving it to another English-speaking city. The other problem bringing the tradition to America (although not to a hungry middle-income country like Malaysia) is that America is still too proud to let in 500-10,000 Taiwanese and treat them like authority figures to be learned from - and a political culture dominated by MAGA populism and left-populism optimised as a foil to MAGA populism is even less able to do that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Fair and Unfair in Bilateral Monopolies
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think it's theoretically defensible to claim that parents ought (in an economic / game theoretic sense) receive a significant fraction for the value their kids provide society. It definitely screams against most people's moral intuitions though.




Does it? That is an interesting question to me. Based on my social circle, the norm "people who are unusually financially successful compared to their parent should give something back, unless those parents were abusive" is a supermajority view even among white people. The moral intuition against making this a legal entitlement is strong*, but the intuition in question is "The State should not intervene in families" not "adult children should not support parents." AITA normally rules in favour of the kids in "am I obliged to give my parents money" cases, but the cases that come up are normally abusive parents or absurdly entitled South Asians - the basic case of a rich kid who doesn't want to help a poor parent doesn't seem to come up.


In the Anglosphere, the whole thing is of course complicated by Boomer housing wealth, which means that an adult child making a top 1% income can have a lower material standard of living than their middle-class parents who bought a house in the right place at the right time (particularly if they have children of their own), but still read as rich.


* Even in Asian countries with a strong norm of supporting your parents, the legal requirement is restricted to "children should provide the bare minimum support to stop their parents being a burden on the taxpayer."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is surprising. From a Christian perspective, and CS Lewis only ever wrote from a Christian perspective, everyone's just desserts is eternal damnation (except Mary, if you're Catholic).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Progressive American Jews are not anti-Trump because of his policy - they are anti-Trump because of his coalition (which definitely includes the dangerous kind of evangelical, and arguably includes the kind of people who march through Charlottesville chanting "Jews will not replace us.") This is a perfectly good reason to be anti-Trump in spite of his moving the embassy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The 14th Amendment is rather quiet about how it's insurrection rule is to be enforced: it's not clear who actually gets the power to decide "insurrection" occurred. The federal courts? The states? Local officials setting up ballots?




All the amendments are similarly quiet. The idea that it is specifically the courts that are responsible for enforcing (say) the 1st amendment is quite recent. At the time of the founding, the dominant view was that all political actors were obliged by their oaths of office to act constitutionally - that legislators should not pass unconstitutional laws, presidents should veto them if they do pass, etc.


The same approach to section 3 of the 14th is that it is incumbent on everyone not to allow insurrectionists into office. Parties should not nominate insurrectionists, secretaries of state should not put them on the ballot, voters should not vote for them, presidential electors for insurrectionists should go faithless (the Constitution overrides faithless elector laws) and the joint session of Congress should object to the electoral votes if they don't. The job of the courts is then to handle the inevitable litigation when people disagree about whether Trump really is an insurrectionist. Obviously, this is bad and puts you straight in a constitutional crisis.


But America is already in a constitutional crisis. Either Trump is right and you are a country where elections are routinely rigged, or Trump is lying and you are a country where there are no electoral consequences for spamming false allegations of vote-rigging the way most politicians spam promises of other people's money and demanding criminal investigations of local election officials for doing their jobs, or Trump is delusional and you are a country which is about to elect a madman as chief executive.


This is scary, man. And I don't even live in America.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Given Baude's politics, I suspect the motivation of the original law review article was "Dear Conservative Movement, if you want to yeet Trump and replace him with a more electable candidate, here is how to do it without having to beat him in a primary." At the time he published the article, it had only just become clear that Trump couldn't be beaten in a Republican primary, but non-MAGA Republicans were still assuming that Trump would go down to Biden in a landslide given how badly MAGA candidates did in 2022.


This isn't an area of law where a judge is going to worry about setting a dangerous precedent, so I think the average GOP-aligned judge would disqualify Trump iff he thought doing so would help the GOP. Right now, the core MAGA vote is sufficiently behind Trump that any attempt by the GOPe to change candidate would blow up the party, so Trump is probably safe.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Somehow he's only increased his support as he's been found to have committed sexual assault, fraud, and insurrection.




He's increased his support in the Republican primary, but the primary voters switching to him in response to the indictments are die-hard partisans who were going to vote R in the general no matter what.


538 isn't publishing a poll tracker for the general yet, but the Biden and Trump approval polls have been pretty flat since before the indictments, and anecdotally Trump has consistently been a nose ahead of Biden in head-to-head polling.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If the lack of smart, educated conservatives was driven entirely by institutional gatekeeping, then there would be a lot of smart uneducated conservatives, and the adverts on conservative websites would be for educational trips to Rome and the St John's College extramural programme. In fact, the adverts on conservative websites (except explicitly Christian ones) are for crypto scams and acai berry colon cleanses, suggesting that there is a real difference in IQ.


Richard Hanania isn't trolling when he complains about how dumb American conservatism is in the Current Year - he is expressing frustration. This is new, but not that new. George W Bush had to pretend to be dumber than he was in order to be a serious right-wing candidate for President, George HW Bush did not. The only powerful right-wing tendency that would appeal to an intellectually curious 130+ IQ is tradcath.


[Yes - I know Elon Musk is on the right, and a genius. But his right-wing fanbase don't like him because he builds electric cars, they lie him because of his low-effort shitposting]


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You don't have to, but "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" is a core part of the American civic religion, as is the absence of a hereditary nobility. So not accepting the premise is un-American. Indeed, it is so un-American that it led otherwise honourable gentlemen like Robert E Lee into committing treason against America.


We can argue about the wisdom of forming a more-or-less official Committee on Un-American Activities to punish people who engage in legal but un-American political activity with public humiliation, disemployment etc. (I for one think it is a very, very, bad idea). But the idea definitely isn't new.