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Fiat justitia ruat caelum

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Fiat justitia ruat caelum

				
				
				

				

					5 followers  

					follows 2 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 01:56:25 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Cody, specifically, became a problem.  Cody doesn't seem like the person who would shoot Obi Wan in the back.  Cody could rightfully assume that Obi Wan would be one of the good ones.  He just took down Grevious in front of him!  Sure, some Jedi were evil, that had been demonstrated elsewhere in the Clone Wars.  But not Obi Wan.


They had the choice to give Cody an arc where he started distrusting Obi Wan, or they could do the chip thing instead.  They chose the chip thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The chips became narrative necessary in the Clone Wars TV show because the Clones and Jedi developed such a trust from working together that, in the above scenario, the clones would have sided with the Jedi over the political leaders. The clones also had evidence that the "evil witch coven" was alive and active, they saw Count Dooku slaughter many clones, fought Ventress, etc.


Absent all that development, it makes sense without the chips.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I always assumed, by the context is is often used in, "Victim of Circumstance" means a person victimized by who they are and how their life has gone.  A short person unable to play professional basketball is a victim of circumstance because they cannot control how tall they were.  Brown cannot control how crazy he is, therefore he's a victim of circumstance.   This is not mutually exclusive of him being 100% responsible for murder. I don't think I can explain it in any more granularity. If this isn't what "Victim of Circumstance' means then I apologize for using the wrong word, but I don't think we disagree on anything substantial here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
God, nature, the criminal justice system, molecules bouncing together in a predetermined way, take your pick.


Except I already said several times on this thread that I do think Brown was responsible so I don't know why you keep asking me this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I said, "Absolutely not," in response to the question of "Should [this] absolve him of responsibility?"  It absolutely does not absolve him of responsibility.


However, it does seem like there were a lot of failures from other people that lead to this happening to Brown.  The insane asylums closed down before he was even born.  He was allowed to walk free from jail many times when it was clear that something like this was inevitable.  He was born with mental illness, which can't be his fault, strictly speaking.


I would definitely support some kind of law that held people accountable for going under sentencing guidelines if there is a reoffence.  Don't know if it would be jail time, but victims should certainly be able to sue judges for this.


I think I am realizing that "Victim of Circumstance" doesn't mean what I thought it did.  I saw it used in all kinds of situations where the "victim" was obviously vicious and committing severe moral faults, so I assumed the definition required that.  But it seems that people think "victim" must mean "innocent."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Absolutely not.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
07mk gave the response I would have but also I didn't mean "innocent" when I said "victim of circumstances."  Brown is clearly not in the drivers seat of his life, even if he's (allegedly) guilty as sin of cold blooded murder.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ah, my bad.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In addition to what ABigGuy4U said, the 19th letter of the Alphabet is S, so 1919 is SS.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The pharma industry benefits from regulation because it prevents competition.  If a company is large enough before regulation, it can easily use its already-existing compliance department to comply with regulation.  If a company wants to lobby, they should lobby for regulations they would find easy to meet but they know their competition will find onerous.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
He also has a 1919 tattoo that hasn't been getting as much attention. (Visible in the third image here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/22/politics/graham-platner-tattoo-senate-candidate)


How many Nazi symbols does someone get tattoed on themselves before they start to wonder the providence of them?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think it's paradoxical - the more woke someone is the less they follow the old norms of "give everyone a fair chance and make sure the system doesn't abuse its power over people" and are more likely to be unwilling to defend really bad people.  Sure, most of the work a defense attorney might face will involve protecting the rights of someone who's just a victim of circumstances, like Decarlos Brown.  But sometimes you might be called to defend someone who you cannot in good conscience, like someone homophobic or racist.  It's better to be able to pick clients and then take on a few pro bono cases to feel better about it.


I worry that we will start to see the same shift in Medicine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I misread this as international travel, so this is advice specifically for that, but if you get mugged or lose your passport, go to the embassy.  I traveled in a group to Australia and one of the guys lost his passport (WYD Sydney, so we were mostly 14-18 years old with a handful of chaperones.)  He went to the US embassy, made a few phone calls to his parents, and was back home before the rest of us.


As far as establishing identity goes, you weren't born with an accurate photo ID.  At some point the government just takes it on faith that you are yourself if you have the right papers and someone willing to vouch for you.  You hopefully keep your birth certificate, marriage certificate, SSN card, etc at home (in a fire proof safe if you're forward thinking.)  People routinely lose everything in fires and floods and then start over again.  Not great or convenient, but they don't suddenly become non-persons.


A lot of the advice is along the lines of, "Don't travel alone."  You might lose your phone, but your travel buddy would hopefully still have his.  Even if you are traveling alone, hopefully you still have some phone numbers memorized - family members, best friends who would be willing to drop everything for a few hours and help you out.


A lot of travelers wear something like this under their clothes with some cash and their ID.  It's not going to deter a serious mugging, but it does protect against pick pocketing


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The article goes into it a little, but right now we already have 9,000 congressional staffers.  It already takes about 10,000 people to run congress, but only a small percentage is elected.


The hope is that if races become smaller, each congressman needs to fundraise less money and spend less time campaigning.  Smaller races will be won in the tens of thousands instead of millions.  They will have more time to actually run the country and can decrease staff accordingly.


Committees are already divided into subcommittees.  It's not unreasonable to divide that even further, into sub-subcommittees.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We need a bigger House.  If we have 10,000 Representatives split proportionally, we wouldn't be squabbling over how to best gerrymander each little slice.


Pros:


    

  • Less money being raised - representative spends more time governing than fundraising.
    • 

  • Representatives would be "Friends of Friends," the ratio would be back to 30,000:1 citizens:representatives, which is where it was at the start of our country.  It would be easier to know your representative and for the representative to actually represent a geographic area.
    • 

  • Much harder for parties to whip/control the House, which would lead to less gridlock/conformity.
    • 





Many other questions are along similar logistical lines: how would voting work? Would they use clickers? What if the clickers break? How could C-SPAN get the cameras in? Wouldn’t a large House end up more under the sway of leadership than ever? It’s like nobody’s ever seen a parliament of a few thousand people!






In fact, we know how to run a legislative body consisting of several thousand people, because Americans do just that all the time. I’ve even participated in one!






The 2014 Minnesota Republican Party state convention had 2,020 voting delegates at its opening. I was an alternate, but ended up serving as a voting delegate. It was a pretty thrilling day! The GOP senate endorsement was closely fought, and we went to ten ballots over two days. (I had to drop out after the first night.) We followed Robert’s Rules of Order, which work just fine for huge crowds, with standard convention rules. We cast paper ballots and handed them to trusted ballot-counting teams. The House floor “debates” you see on C-SPAN are mostly on-camera onanism to an audience of six or seven people, but, at the MNGOP convention, we fiercely debated the merits of each candidate among ourselves—not so much on mic, but person to person. The candidates courted us. Their surrogates courted us. Candidate teams were back in their offices just off-site, printing up supportive flyers and (as the losing candidates grew desperate) nasty slanders for rapid distribution on the floor.






It was a blast. In the end, the body reached a collective decision. Our candidate was not my first choice, but he was far from my last. Similar conventions happen everywhere in the country, year in and year out, for both parties, without major drama or disaster. The House can run just as smoothly! This is what a republic looks like!




Combined with an amendment about making districts boundaries as close to their geographic center as possible, it would create a more fair system overall.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The comment lacked a lot of background information that would be necessary to have a decent conversation without many people googling around.  Which isn't against the rules, but we get used to Top Level Comments providing/linking to background information.


It was also phrased weirdly and I had to do a double take to see that Good Fortune wasn't a ship but a movie.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trying real hard to be maximally charitable, but it appears you misread that statement and might need to reread the comment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's Computer-Mediated-Communication, which lacks several important features of in-person communication, like tone, body language, and synchronous feedback. Most importantly it is easy to reproduce/leak by malicious actors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, in person.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think it's an inconsistent opinion to believe that:


    

  1. 

    These are obviously jokes and that this is substantially different than actually wishing death on political enemies and doubling down on it in public.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    I want serious people to be staffers and serious people don't put jokes like this in writing these days.
    

    3. 



Have you never jokingly pretended to eat your toddler? I have of course. But if I wrote out the joke it's different. We've begun to treat writing like it's conversation, when of course it's not.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suspect that this was a state actor, maybe Russia, maybe China.  No one took credit, which makes it pretty difficult for the talking heads to make hay on it.


For what it's worth (nothing at all), someone I follow on X says he's done tours of the facility and their safety standards were top-notch.  I saw other people on X pointing and laughing that it's a woman-run business and this is just what you get when you let women make explosives.


I don't know if the American public will ever know what caused this, but hopefully there is someone in Homeland Security or the Military who is figuring it out and how to prevent it from happening again.


Why aren't the tinfoil hats all over this?  Maybe they're too stupid to make the obvious inferences.  Or maybe they are being suppressed to prevent a panic.  I think there is just too little information.  No cameras, no suspicious messages to decipher.  Just an explosion at the explosion factory.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I found it really confusing on mixing up shame and guilt together.  Rumi is ashamed of being half demon but she's not guilty the same way the guy who sold out his family for a comfortable life.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You mean the guys who drive pick up trucks and already destroy the environment with their capitalist spending habits?  Guys like those will turn Nevada into even more of a wasteland?  Anger!  Let the culture war commence!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Environmentalism vs Reindustrialzation in the US.  For Military purposes we need to reshore rare earth refinement.  This will undoubtedly lead to some desert in Nevada getting radiated and risk the extinction of some heretofore undiscovered species of jackalope.


Alternatively, bringing freedom and democracy to Venezuela.  The latest Nobel Peace Prize winner was practically begging Trump for it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The thing people mess up the most is that the CEO isn't competing with them for their salary, the CEO is competing against other CEOs.  A bad CEO can absolutely destroy a company, so a company will pay as much as it can afford to have a good one.