Supah_Schmendrick
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User ID: 618
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
My best attempt is that "woman" is being used in two different senses here.
"Woman" in the context of "wlw" (i.e. "woman-loving women") refers to the objects of a certain type of sexual attraction. Thus, its definition is pretty simple and hard to alter - the things and traits that get a wlw aroused, usually ones that the wlw herself also has.
"Woman" in the context of "transwomen are women" at least nominally refers to a particular kind of social presentation, often associated with verbal and interpersonal focus vice objects and processes, physical weakness/vulnerability, and certain aesthetics including but not limited to the use of particular kinds of cosmetics and the wearing of certain types of hairsyles, cosmetics, and clothes.
This causes problems because: (1) no-one can be secure in the knowledge that they are successfully performing "womanhood" without external validation from society (that's the point of something being a "social performance," after all), and (2) for obvious reasons, many central properties of womanhood-as-social-performance are also arousing to men and wlw. Thus, a lack of sexual interest in transwomen from men and/or wlw - or worse, a claim that transwomen can never be arousing to men or wlw under one or more conditions (i.e. if the transwoman still has a penis and/or testes, or doesn't have female-typical breasts) - is a permanent black mark against the transwoman's ability to fully perform "womanhood."
Insofar as the transwoman's identity and self-worth is bound up in the idea that they are, or are meant to be a woman, being confronted with a permanent shortfall must be quite distressing, which in large part explains the vehemence around the issue. The other part, naturally, is explained by the fact that people in general want to have sex, and being categorically-excluded from desirability as a sexual partner would be also distressing in general (e.g. Incels).
This, of course, rings hollow to the wlw who are in effect being told "shut up and fuck someone you don't want to, bigot!" But the people implementing rules like this are on a righteous crusade for an oppressed group's justice. What they think is likely to happen here is beyond me, though some obvious candidates include:
(1) they legitimately think social pressure can effectively gaslight and/or mold people into changed sexual preferences, and that ultimately people can lose specific physical attractions and/or be convinced to deprioritize them in preference to other, trans-inclusive traits. (This would be an ... interesting stance to take in light of other positions common to this group about homosexuality and/or transgenderism, but pace the Caliph here we all know that arguments are very much soldiers in this discourse)
(2) they're in the metaphorical position of Friedman's "distributor of welfare funds" - allocating burdens to other people, to solve yet another group of other people's problems. Under these conditions, there's little incentive to look too closely at the downsides (after all, there's no burden being imposed on the distributor), but every incentive to be generous to the recipient (isn't charity a virtue?).
(3) they personally do not feel their own sexual attraction to be constrained by qualities that transwomen are incapable of having, and are engaging in that most common of failure modes - typical mind fallacy.
(4) they are acting in bad faith.
(5) ???
I am not going to speculate about particular motives, but it's a sad problem - as, I find, are many of the problems associated with the modern space of gender discourse/confusion.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
This (as I understood it) was actually part of a policy dispute about what the HSR project even was for. Was it supposed to be primarily a replacement for LAX-SFO flights? If so, travel time is one of, if not the major consideration, which would be negatively impacted by significant stops in, or meandering routes around, the Central Valley. Or, is it a commuter tool to facilitate Central Valley exurban travel into the major coastal metropoli? That would require, yes, building stops and stations where people actually live in the Central Valley, but do we really need a bullet train for that? And what would the ridership really actually be? And why would it need to run from LA-SF in that case, rather than just building out from existing metro centers in a hub-and-spokes model? Lord knows we don't actually have this in LA yet...
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Galadriel is the feminine archetype, or at least one of the feminine archetypes. She is the embodiment of ethereal beauty, not just in the sense of physical attractiveness, but also in the philosophical sense. She represents purity.
Not really. Galadriel, in Tolkein's telling, is a failure as an elf, full of mortal fires and furies and ambitions. Instead of retreating to the west and eternal communion with Eru and the Maiar, she clung on to dominion in Middle Earth, willingly accepting the corrupting power of her ring (which, remember, draws its power from Sauron and The Ring just the same as the Nazgul's rings did) in order to keep Loth Lorien in a state of protected stasis. Her journey in the LotR is the story of finally learning to let go of earthly loves and trust in the underlying goodness of powerlessness and subsumption into communion with God.
Supah_Schmendrick
9mo ago
The course of political, social, and technological change is very hard to predict
And yet for much of human history it was very easy to predict - functionally zero for the vast majority of people. A Roman from 100 AD might be surprised that the brightest minds of 1600 were in misty Brittania or burned-over Germania, but he wouldn't be surprised at the way the vast majority of European people ate, lived, and farmed up 'til the Columbian exchange. The Mongols would have been instantly cognizable to anyone who saw the Hunnic incursions (or the Scythians, Pechenegs, Avars, Bolghars, Magyars or any other number of mounted steppe confederacies crashing into Europe from the east). Medieval black death? Meet the plague of Justinian. Most of the major political developments in pre-modern Europe had classical counterparts (if they weren't directly aping classical models - the Catholic church's parish system is a carryover from Roman secular organization), and the technology levels waffled around, with changes here and there but few true revolutions in material conditions.
Things have only really started going crazy in the last few hundred years, and yet even then people keep being eerily prescient about major technological and social developments (or maybe there was just something in the Star Trek writers' room's water).
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
That is an underlying assumption on both sides that if only all the existing social barriers/contracts could be knocked down, utopia would be achievable. This is a fundamentally Rousseauean viewpoint where in violence, inequity, and injustice are all products of living in a society. Meanwhile I find myself barrowing pages from Hobbes and Burke, grand ideas are nice and all, but social barriers/contracts are what ensure that the trash gets picked up, and that supermarket shelves get stocked and that I would argue what makes a civilization.
I don't mean to nitpick, but wouldn't Hobbes agree that other people really are the source of quite a lot of the violence, inequity, and injustice that humans have to deal with?
So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is, that Kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring it a home by Lawes, or abroad by Wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some, of Fame from new Conquest; in others, of ease and sensuall pleasure; in others, of admiration, or being flattered for excellence in some art, or other ability of the mind.
(Leviathan, Ch. XI)
Which is why, the only thing for it is precisely to have some omnipotent force come in and enforce order through threat of overwhelming, insuperable force:
Againe, men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deale of griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all.
(Id., Ch. XIII), and
Justice And Propriety Begin With The Constitution of Common-wealth But because Covenants of mutuall trust, where there is a feare of not performance on either part, (as hath been said in the former Chapter,) are invalid; though the Originall of Justice be the making of Covenants; yet Injustice actually there can be none, till the cause of such feare be taken away; which while men are in the naturall condition of Warre, cannot be done. Therefore before the names of Just, and Unjust can have place, there must be some coercive Power, to compell men equally to the performance of their Covenants, by the terrour of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their Covenant; and to make good that Propriety, which by mutuall Contract men acquire, in recompence of the universall Right they abandon. . .
(Id., Ch. XV)
Even for Hobbes, a society is only actually civil if it accords with certain precepts of justice; if it does not, then no matter the fripperies and trapping of life, the base warring nature of man takes over again:
[N]o man giveth, but with intention of Good to himselfe; because Gift is Voluntary; and of all Voluntary Acts, the Object is to every man his own Good; of which if men see they shall be frustrated, there will be no beginning of benevolence, or trust; nor consequently of mutuall help; nor of reconciliation of one man to another; and therefore they are to remain still in the condition of War; which is contrary to the first and Fundamentall Law of Nature, which commandeth men to Seek Peace. The breach of this Law, is called Ingratitude
(Id., Ch. XV)
I think that's perfectly compatible with many alt-right claims; particularly the claims that current society has broken down (or is in the process of breaking down) and no longer follows the basic precepts of justice. Under those circumstances, it no longer makes sense in Hobbesian terms to "be modest, and tractable, and performe all he promises," because doing so "where no man els should do so, should but make himselfe a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruine, contrary to the ground of all Lawes of Nature, which tend to Natures preservation."
Once someone realizes they're being defected against in the game of civilization, they've been thrown back into the Hobbesian state of War, and are justified in looking out for the Big Idea - the "coercive Power, to compell men equally to the performance of their Covenants, by the terrour of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their Covenant..."
Of course the big idea isn't actually perfectly realizable, any more than Hobbesian man is capable of "assur[ing] for ever, the way of his future desire." But the point is that in pursuing it, one attempts to reassert sovereignty over warring passions and defections - the prerequisite for the formation of a just society in the first place.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
I have two (anecdotal, sadly) examples - 1. Medicare disputes, and 2. Alcohol license administrative hearings.
(1) When I was in law school, I briefly worked an externship as the equivalent of a judicial clerk in the Department of Health and Human Services' Medicare Appeals Division. My primary job was to work up the administrative appeal case files for the Administrative Appeals Judges to look over and make a decision on. MAD got tens of thousands of appeals every year (despite being the third appellate layer of administrative bureaucracy concerning Medicare coverage decisions), but only had nine or ten AAJs at the time, so naturally we had to triage the cases. The ones without legal representation got priority, so every casefile I saw was an "unrepresented beneficiary."
Their appeals came in on everything from unevenly-scribbled letters, to perfumed stationary, to erratic, bullet-point-ridden emails. The exact same thing happened to them as one might expect - they got steamrolled. They didn't know the guidebooks that were used to make the determinations, weren't familiar with the procedural regulations, and even in a nominally non-adversarial process where everyone involved was bending over backwards to be charitable and understanding of these factors (or at least was making convincing mouth-noises to that effect), they lost, and lost, and lost. I finally checked out when I saw a case involving sticking an unrepped-bennie with tens of thousands of dollars of medical transportation costs because his doctors and durable power of attorney didn't know that a smaller local hospital had just started performing a complex heart procedure the guy needed (in fact they hadn't even mentioned it on their webpage as an offered service yet), and so referred him to a major city teaching hospital which was known to perform the procedure - while the bennie himself was completely unconscious and in such bad health that hospice care had been considered. Too demoralizing.
(2) In my current practice, I work a lot with state alcohol licenses. My state, like most, has a separate law enforcement agency that deals exclusively with alcohol licenses and alcohol-related crime, and within their sphere they are nearly omnipotent. I represent a lot of clients in administrative hearings before the Department where there's some accusation that my client has done something wrong, and so deserves to have their license suspended or revoked. I don't win much (as I said, nearly omnipotent), but the poor licensees I see try to handle the disciplinary process without an attorney? Again, steamrolled. And administrative proceedings, like arbitrations, are supposed to be stripped down, less-legalistic processes accessible to the layman. The problem is that the agency does keep a stack of lawyers around to represent themselves at these hearings (before their own judges, natch), and the laws and processes are written so broadly (in an attempt to be approachable and easy to understand for the laity, mind), that the agency can do whatever it wants. The successes I have are precisely because my legal training puts my clients on something resembling the same informational plane as the enforcement agency.
Now, I'm not a great attorney - Yassine is almost certainly better than me from pure experience if nothing else, and he probably is baseline smarter than me too - but I'm not a moron, and my experience tells me that no modern legal process, no matter how "informal" or "accessible" it is supposed to be, should be touched by a layperson without at least getting some advice or contextual information from an attorney..
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
I suppose about 8 years ago I can remember people saying 'Faux News.' I can remember some measured comments from Obama bemoaning conservative media and echo chambers, but it really pales in comparison, doesn't it?
Fox News is apparently "uniquely damaging." Activists trying to block Fox from getting any ad revenues get sympathetic write-ups in nationally-funded media. "Civil Rights" groups try to get the hosts of popular programs taken off the air.
And that was just the first page of one google search.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Historically all societies have been obsessed with their ancestors. It’s basic evolutionary biology. We are programmed to not be the end of our line. The only close to political similiarity is Julius Caeser adopting Octavian (not sure if he was nephew in law or shared some blood).
Kinda, but like all human things the instinct gets molded and hijacked and adapted in weird ways. For example, I am given to understand by people who have spent time studying the subject that medieval japanese society was absolutely obsessed about family, yes, but that the name was, in fact, in many cases just as important as the blood. Adoption of proteges for the sake of continuation of a childless house and partition of family estates was described as quite common even among middling peasant/free-hold farmer equivalents.
Who is building beautiful things these days in the public realm? Beautiful schools, libraries, railroad stations, hospitals, parks, museums, even apartment buildings?
Many fewer people than otherwise, because:
(1) ownership of land and the ability to build beautiful things in places where the internet will notice is stupendously expensive (if the construction is private), or locked behind layers of bureaucracy, procedure, and stultifying local politics that few people have the stomach for (if the construction is public).
(2) Many of these things (e.g. libraries, museums) have been rendered culturally obsolete as sites of mass access by the internet.
(3) Most of these other things (railroad stations, parks, apartment buildings) are not worth building beautifully because public administration is unwilling and/or unable to patrol and enforce order in public spaces, and the populace does not recognize public order as a goal worth pursuing and personally-enacting. If everything is just going to be defaced and graffiti'ed and have drug addicts sleeping and shitting on it, what's the point?
(4) Substitution of mass industrial production for individual skills has rendered the construction methods and skills necessary for classical ornamentation styles either extremely expensive or generally unknown.
[edits for format and readability]
Supah_Schmendrick
11mo ago
Mexicans staying in Mexico are obviously not the ones immigrating, are they?
No, but their brothers, sons, cousins, fathers, or uncles are, and they are benefitting from the nearly $60 billion in remittances sent home annually by those expats - roughly 4% of Mexico's entire GDP.
Supah_Schmendrick
11mo ago
Here's Biden's 2023 follow-on 'whole of government' "Equity" EO: https://www.whitehouse.gov/equity/
It's chock-a-block with the government's plans to:
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stuff every agency full of DEI commissars ("requir[ing] agencies to designate senior leaders accountable for implementing the equity mandate")
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giving those commissars increased control and oversight over the agency's policymaking and enforcement decisions ("instruct[ing] agencies to consider bolstering the capacity of their civil rights offices");
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directing the agencies to slant everything they do through DEI analysis ("direct[ing] agencies to produce Equity Action Plans annually and report to the public on their progress");
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ensuring that resources will be allocated to the DEI commissars to carry out this new institutionalized and systemic racism/sexism/heterophobia ("direct[ing] the White House Office of Management and Budget to support agencies’ Equity Action Plans");
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increasing the amount of racial, sexual, and gendered discrimination and graft in federal contracting ("formaliz[ing] the President’s goal of increasing the share of federal contracting dollars awarded to small disadvantaged business by 50 percent by 2025"); and
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carefully pruning the collection and dissemination of federally-collected data and statistics so that these progressive DEI shibboleths can't be challenged ("focusing [agency OCR] efforts on emerging threats like algorithmic discrimination in automated technology" and "further promot[ing] data equity and transparency").
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Cleopatra was greek, not egyptian. She was a Lagid, descended from the subordinate of Alexander the Great who claimed Egypt after the great conqueror kicked the bucket at 33. Even the name "Cleopatra" is greek, which means "Father's Glory" ("Kleos" = glory, and "Pater" = father). The people she ruled were Egyptian.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
because everyone is the same colour.
They're not the same ethnicity, though. And they hate rather harder than even we do in the U.S., given that there was a genocide going on until last year.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
"African-American Studies" (hereinafter "AAS" because I'm lazy) is not "African-American History." In fact, properly understood, a student isn't really able to engage fruitfully with AAS until they already have a reasonable familiarity with the relevant history, sociology, anthropology, music/cultural studies, etc. The whole point of the various "X Studies" programs is to be interdisciplinary - to take extant bodies of information, place them in dialogue with each other, and attempt to figure out what insights they may have to offer each other, and identify blind spots in prior, monodisciplinary analysis.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Jews are absolutely correct to rain condemnation on the appropriation and theft of their history by black revisionists
Only some Jews do this. As intermarriage and admixture has become much more common in the last few generations, there has arisen a large number of people who are vaguely "Jewish" in the same way that a random person in Cleveland with the last name "Schmidt" is technically "German" somewhere up the tree but isn't likely to speak the German language, eat traditionally-German food, or care that much about Germany and "German-ness." With Jews, even ones that retain some connection to the culture and religion, this can dissolve into essentially modern progressive orthodoxy - not without reason has Reform Judaism been called "the Democratic Party at prayer". These people are far less likely to be hypersensitive to critiques of "the Jews," because they don't really feel themselves to be attacked when such a statement is made (unless, of course, the statement comes from a source which also flags as an enemy of their generic progressivism. Then, of course, it's "as a Jew..." all day).
now we just need whites more generally to begin reacting just as strongly to the theft of our own culture by Hoteps who would have us believe that blacks were the real first inhabitants of Britain, that blacks invented every major technology and that whites stole the credit, that blacks were Viking chieftains and Roman emperors, etc.
Extremely unlikely, because the progressive movement you'd be struggling against is, itself, a white movement. Ironically, abnegation of one's own history and patrimony appears to be a uniquely (at least at this point in history) white thing to do.
Supah_Schmendrick
24d ago
If Ethan Crumbley had run over 4 people with the family car, would the parents have been prosecuted for leaving the keys on the counter?
Civilly, quite possibly! (Caveat, I'm not a Michigan lawyer so this isn't legal advice, but my Westlaw subscription includes Michigan cases and I'm bored). Michigan recognizes the tort of negligent entrustment, and there are several cases in which parents are found liable for permitting incompetent minors to drive. Dortman v. Lester (1968) 380 Mich. 80; Zokas v. Friend (1984) 134 Mich.App. 437
Supah_Schmendrick
4mo ago
If the south kept resisting then a simple policy of "take the children of whites from them at age 6 and indoctrinate them in the memes of the north, only sending them back after the age of 18" would clear away the problem in a single generation
Ah yes, and this is why the implementation of the Residential Schools resulted in the complete erasure of Indian/First Nations groups, which today are mere memories with no relevance or political salience at all.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Getting rid of most cars in inner cities would also be a good start and many European cities are moving in this direction. Some faster (Oslo) and some slower (Paris) but it's slowly coming together.
Here, as with all regulation, the problem is with execution instead of intention. You can pass the most wonderful laws in the world, but if the people doing the enforcing of the laws lack the capacity, will, or desire to actually put those laws into effect, then you have a serious problem.
For example, take laws against driving a private passenger vehicle in a city center. The law will obviously be enforced on John and Jane Smith, pro-social middle class types. Enforcing the law on the Smiths is easy because:
(1) there are few violations in the first place (the Smiths may grumble that it's suddenly really inconvenient to nip out for a quick date night downtown and get back before racking up a huge babysitter bill, but they will probably obey the law in the first place),
(2) investigation of violations are easy (the Smiths' are always current on their car registration, are invested in a nice home in the inner-ring suburbs, don't obscure their licenseplates, and don't run from the cops if pulled over), and
(3) compliance with imposed penalties is both high and exercises a deterrent effect (the Smiths will likely pay any ticket they get because losing their license or having a bench warrant issued would be devastating to their professional careers and ability to maintain their expected quality of life for themselves and their family. They will also likely view getting ticketed in this way as a mark of shame or at least bad behavior, and so will be vigilant to not violate again.)
But the law doesn't need to deal with just the Smiths. It also needs to deal with the "street takeovers" and community push-back about the ban restricting culturally-specific "cruising" which involve potentially-controversial enforcement efforts on people who it is (a) difficult to catch in the act, (b) difficult to investigate (because poor or itinerant), and (c) difficult to deter or punish short of imprisonment (which may result in worse outcomes through exposure to prison gangs, etc.)
If the law does not deal with those things, you have textbook anarcho-tyranny; a restriction on the privileges of the law-abiding, but little or no effective effort to restrain lawless elements from engaging in significant nuisance activity which further diminishes the law-abiding's quality of life.
And this is all without going into the question of whether the law correctly judges the benefits and costs of the proposed policy; whether the future development of the community will proceed in the manner assumed by policymakers; whether public transit is in a good-enough condition to accommodate the increased demands on ridership; whether the physical geography is suitable for walk/biking with groceries/purchases, etc.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
The framers envisioned a society of men with three hearts when it came to religious liberty: a false secular heart in their mouths in public spaces, a sectarian religious heart in their chests that they shared with their friends and family and coreligionists, and a real true heart of their beliefs that they were entitled to keep private and that no one could punish or penalize them for.
No they didn't; states had individual established churches for years after ratification, and laws at the communal and state level (of course not mentioning the common extralegal clashes) targeted disfavored religions or sects at various times for two centuries.
We just need to face it - communal strife over questions of morality and cultural allegiance are deeply American, and probably endemic to our system and culture absent wild outliers like the post-WWII period
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
What happens if/when China calls our bluff and finally invades Taiwan? Will we have blown our load too early?
What load? The deniable, old stuff we're sending poor Ukrainian dirt farmers to fight a trench war on the black-soil steppe is different from the material we've already sold and cross-trained the Taiwanese on. Remember a few months ago that big controversy over whether we would assist the Poles in transferring old ex-Soviet MiG and/or Sukhoi fighters to the Ukrainians? Yeah, we already sell the Taiwanese F-16s, which we most assuredly have not depleted our stocks of over the Ukrainians. Etc., etc.
That's even assuming the Chinese have the capacity to load a couple million people on boats and drop them off in Taiwan without having them starve 12 hours later, which I doubt.
Supah_Schmendrick
5mo ago
To be fair, Israel has a history of trouncing the Arab powers in conventional conflicts - it would be counterintuitive to conclude from that that they are incapable of defending their position against Arab states.
Supah_Schmendrick
9mo ago
"when professors speak and write as citizens of the campus community and officers of an educational institution."
Hoist them on their own petards. Pass laws banning advocating for race-segregated graduations, student groups, "affinity" groups, or programs. When faculty complain, whoops, that's intramural speech seeking to racially-discriminate in violation of the Civil Rights Act and 14th Amendment; no "free speech" protection there.
Supah_Schmendrick
10mo ago
Those terms are meta-exclusionary. They only exclude people who try to exclude others.
No they don't. Someone can be a "racist" for having the wrong skin tone and singing along to the wrong song, or refusing to give up a rented CityBike. Moreover, as is increasingly popular on the left, there's a categorical denial that anyone who isn't white can be "racist" at all - thus "racist" itself is a term being used to exclude others.
Similarly with "sexist" and "homophobe." The most common use-case is attacking someone who holds disfavored object-level beliefs regarding, e.g., sexual morality or family formation.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Wasn't it illegal in every state before Roe vs Wade?
No. Only Pennsylvania prohibited abortion in all circumstances.
Twenty nine states (Arizona, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) only permitted abortion in the case of danger to the mother's life.
One state (Mississippi) only permitted abortion in cases of rape.
Two states (Alabama and Massachusetts) permitted abortion in the case of danger to the mother's health, which especially in the case of MA resulted in essentially abortion at will because mental distress was classified a danger to the mother's health.
Thirteen states (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, and South Carolina) permitted abortion in cases of rape, incest, likely damage to the fetus, or danger to the mother's health.
Four states (Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Washington) permitted abortion at a physician's discretion.
What does "serious about governing" mean? Does it mean "doing everything possible to ensure that law enforcement is not interfering in politics?" Because that's what some of the holdouts are demanding with regard to the FBI and J-6 committees. Does it mean "do everything possible to ensure that major policy choices are publicy debated and openly voted on, as opposed to smuggled out the back door as riders on unrelated bills, as just happened with the water bill and omnibus?" Becuase the holdouts are demanding that too.
It really seems to me that many calls for "seriousness" or being "the adult in the room," unless tied to specifics, are just about aesthetics, and displeasure with anything unruly or that breaks with current practice in a way that displeases anyone with a megaphone.
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