naraburns
nihil supernum
No bio...
User ID: 100
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I didn’t say anyone is "bad."
I didn't say that you said anyone is bad. I modded you for violating the rule against weakmanning. Since you were apparently confused by the shorthand, here is the rule in its entirety:
There are literally millions of people on either side of every major conflict, and finding that one of them is doing something wrong or thoughtless proves nothing and adds nothing to the conversation. We want to engage with the best ideas on either side of any issue, not the worst.
Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible. General groups include things like gun rights activists, pro-choice groups, and environmentalists. Specific groups include things like The NRA, Planned Parenthood, and the Sierra Club. Posting about general groups is often not falsifiable, and can lead to straw man arguments and non-representative samples.
Avoid posting solely about gaffes, misstatements, or general bad behavior from prominent people. Discussing policy implications is always fine, and concrete criminal or impeachable offenses are also fair game. For example, "Look at Congressman Jones being a jerk" is not OK; "congressman Jones is under suspicion of taking bribes" is fine, as is "congressman Jones's employment law is bad for these reasons . . ."
Sometimes we get good discussion about the consequences of gaffes, misstatements, or general bad behavior; for example, "here's Congressman Jones being a jerk, let's talk about the underlying reason why congressmen do this sort of thing regularly". In most cases, these should stand as valuable posts regardless of whether they refer to Congressman Jones or not.
Links to news stories should generally follow the above rules, although cannot be expected to adhere to them exactly. For instance, a news story which uses an anecdote to introduce a concept is OK (this is a very common framing discussion), a news story which is about tweets from non-prominent people reacting to some event isn't ok.
You broke that rule, and in particular the group under discussion was this forum, which I am particularly protective of, as we have discussed.
Don't.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I haven't assumed anything. But if you're suggesting that Gdanning should have been modded under "speak plainly" instead, your suggestion has been noted.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
This post and this one are a bit too far into "rant" territory. While each has its merits, it's presented in such a blistering way as to drown the light in heat. Snappy rhetorical questions, pithy comparisons, passionate appeals, none of these things are forbidden, exactly, it's just that you've turned the rhetoric dial too high. Please dial it back.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Meanwhile OP doesn't have any goal besides idly amusing himself with rhetoric and all of his logic will never lead him to the truth, only to "owning the libs".
This is all heat and no light. Don't post like this please.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I would guess that most of the people complaining are more concerned about who he was running against. And for some of those people, more specifically the race of that person.
Do not weakman in order to show how bad a group is. Especially when that group is "this forum," please.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
It pains me to read these tired talking points on the Motte of all places. This reads like the equivalent a woke college student listing off their usual combination of strings handed down to them from the hivemind.
This adds heat to your post, but no light. It's totally unnecessary. Please don't.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
In simpler words, who gives a shit? u know what I meant.
Too much heat--better to step away from the conversation than let others get to you.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Those who bring up the example are simply bloodthirsty warmongers.
Too antagonistic, don't post like this please.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Posts don't appear until approved. Though apparently by linking it you did make it available for people kind of?
Anyway, I've approved the post now. It's technically culture war outside the culture war thread, but also you've framed it as a megathread and those are often allowed with culture war rules applied. On reflection I supposed this constitutes something of a loophole if we allow just anyone to post a "megathread" but so long as it doesn't get abused I, at least, am unlikely to do anything about it.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Apropo, I was recently helping clean-out/de-clutter my mom's basement and came across a Rubbermaid tote full of my old ExoSquad and Dino-Rider toys which we're fixing up and repurposing into Christmas gifts for the eldest. I expect there's probably some collector somewhere cringing at the thought but come on... Kid's already big mecha fan, and actually has a pretty good track record of taking care of his toys.
What a fun Christmas gift! Fasa v. Playmates Toys was actually one of the first IP cases to catch my interest (you may remember how that ended); the Robotech/ExoSquad crossover toys (especially, the Veritech Fighter) occupy a really interesting place at the intersection of fandom and licensing.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Edit: holy crap, for the record, at time of writing I didn't know that @naraburns had already made effectively the same comment down thread.
By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.
Also how am I only just now realizing that Nara Burns was/is an ExoSquad reference?
Presumably you just haven't looked at my profile page or avatar in the last... 12 months? Prior to that, well, it is relatively obscure despite the cameos in 2018's Ready Player One (where both Marsh's Aerial Attack and Weston's Field Repair E-Frames make brief appearances).
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
As a small follow-up, I found this article interesting. Even though all justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were appointed by Democrats, three dissented in this case.
The four Colorado Supreme Court justices who ruled Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot all attended Ivy League institutions or otherwise a top-ranked elite law school on the East Coast for law school.
The three dissenting justices, meanwhile, all graduated from the University of Denver's law school...
The "cognitive elite" strikes again!
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I don't disagree, but it's not obvious to me that the Court needs to reach the First Amendment question, which sometimes (though certainly not always) means that they won't. The First Amendment question is substantial to the question of insurrection, and however this ultimately plays out I would expect SCOTUS to prefer a procedural holding over a substantive one. So I expect the Fourteenth Amendment to play a more decisive role than the First--but you may be right!
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Parties are private organizations, though. They can just disregard the Colorado primary in deciding which candidate to back in the general election, can't they?
It's an interesting question! It depends on what you mean by "back," and also on how each state handles the primary process. I'm not familiar with Colorado's primary election laws so I don't have a direct answer for you, but in general states do not assemble their general election ballots based on what political parties want, but based on how relevant procedure (including primary elections) dictates.
For example, even if, say, Ron DeSantis won the Republican primaries generally, and the Party decided to back him, he could in theory still be excluded from some state ballots for, say, failing to get the right paperwork filed on time.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995) ruled that states can't add additional qualifications for Senators and Representatives. The same rules should apply to Presidential elections.
I doubt this simply because Article I gives Congress a say in the election of Senators and Representatives. Article II doesn't. But you may be right.
And Colorado is pretending that Trump is disqualified by the 14th Amendment, not exercising its discretion to exclude whoever they want.
They're definitely saying this now, but they're saying that Trump's Fourteenth Amendment disqualification can be litigated (very broadly, see this comment) under the state's election laws. This creates a fact/law question (leading to the Fourteenth Amendment problems I tagged but should have pondered at greater length) that SCOTUS seems likely to want to avoid, but... hard to say. It would be interesting to know how far the Colorado court is willing to go to keep Trump off the ballot, but depending on how quickly SCOTUS remands (assuming they do), we may get to find out.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Yeah, looking at this after sleeping on it, I'm less satisfied with my analysis than I was. In addition to being a pragmatist, Roberts has a tendency to aim for narrow, technical rulings, and if he can remand this in a way that (as you say) "punts on the ugly questions" I could see him pushing for that route. I agree that US Term Limits is a bad fit simply because we're in the wrong Article with this case. But the fact/law distinction on the question of insurrection potentially tees up the Court to either do Trump or his opponents a huge rhetorical favor, no matter the legal result.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
However, if the case is decided based entirely on a state court’s interpretation of the federal constitution, can’t the Supreme Court tell them their interpretation of the federal constitution is wrong and remand the case?
Yeah, this is correct, I should probably have waited to post until after I'd gotten some sleep.
If you read the decision, the Colorado Supreme Court is not basing its case entirely on the federal constitution, but rather saying that Colorado statutory law provides a judicial remedy for voters seeking to remove a disqualified candidate from the ballot, and further that they are removing Trump from the ballot in holding that Trump is so disqualified. But there are two prongs to that--a question of fact, and a question of law. On the question of law, SCOTUS isn't going to hold that insurrection doesn't disqualify, but they could (even though supposedly appellate courts don't like to revisit findings of fact, they often do) hold that Trump has not actually been proven guilty of insurrection (the Due Process/Fourteenth Amendment question I mentioned but didn't elaborate upon).
The question then becomes, how far is the Colorado court willing to go, on remand, to keep Trump off the ballot anyway--but as others have pointed out, by then the issue may be moot.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I do agree States get to run their elections but in this case the State Court is citing constitutional law to remove him.
Yeah, in morning's light I'm thinking about the difference between the law of disqualification versus the factual question of insurrection. SCOTUS isn't going to rule that insurrection isn't disqualifying, but if they do rule that (e.g.) insurrection requires some kind of criminal conviction then on remand Colorado will need to find a different excuse. But in a way that turns into a gift for Trump, who would then get to walk around saying "the media lies, SCOTUS itself cleared me of insurrection," which... well, I don't know. It would be nice if the Republican Party would just toss him out in the primaries, then this would all be moot, but that seems less and less likely to happen.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Sorry, it would have been more precise to say "if Colorado's legislature says Trump can't be on the ballot, provided they haven't done anything unconstitutional in the process (e.g. racial discrimination or whatever)..."
In morning's light I am less satisfied with the rest of my analysis, though. The legal question of insurrection (and whether and how it may be disqualifying) is at least plausibly separable from the factual question of insurrection, though. So it will be interesting to see what happens.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
If states reign supreme, what’s to stop any state from stripping literally all of their political adversaries from their ballots?
I have heard many people argue that the current two-party system of "Republicrats" is already doing precisely that. Have you ever tried to run for public office? It's not always and everywhere completely insane, but certainly it can be a time-consuming and expensive process. Party machines grease the skids for you, so legislation is typically written with those machines in mind. But that means, if you are a political adversary of the dominant parties, then the laws on the books are overwhelmingly likely to work against you.
Fortunately, in many places Republicans and Democrats exist in small enough numbers that unaffiliated voters can occasionally drive legislation that places limits on the excesses of partisans seeking to strip their adversaries of electability. This is the most likely practical result: states that go overboard in stripping adversaries will face an angry uprising from independent voters. But in places with entrenched one-party rule, this is less likely to pose a meaningful threat.
More expansively: the main thing preventing this from happening in the past has just been good old-fashioned civic virtue. But the news media, education systems, etc. have been beating the "burn it all down" drum long enough that many, maybe most Americans now think that destroying their opponents is more important than finding a way to coexist with them.
If you put a gun to my head, I'd bet that this is overturned, or stayed until moot.
The ruling is absurd, but the Constitution is pretty clear that states get to decide how their elections are run, including their national elections. The only Constitutional caveats are that Congress can weigh in on Article I elections (legislators), and that the states must be structured in a republican way (i.e. representative democracy). Here are the (partial) instructions for Article II elections:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
If Colorado's legislature (or its sometimes-mouthpiece, the state court) says Trump can't be on the ballot, then Trump can't be on the ballot, and from a Constitutional standpoint, that's the end of the story. One Constitutional way out I see here is maybe a Fourteenth Amendment complaint of some kind, but the conservatives on the court are likely to be leery of that, and the progressives on the court will simply refuse to rule in Trump's favor no matter how much they may need to torture logic to get there.
My primary hesitation is Chief Justice Roberts. He is a pragmatist to the core, and may just oppose the chaos that would result: a likely domino-effect of progressive states using this ruling to (definitely) eliminate Trump from their ballots and (possibly in the future) even eliminate conservative candidates through bog-standard abuse of process. I could see Roberts relying on "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" from the Constitution with precisely the intent of preventing political chaos, but in doing so he would do pretty direct harm to the plain language governing Article II elections.
I'm less acquainted with any federal election statutes that may apply, but prima facie I would bet cautiously against this being overturned--on grounds that Roberts, as an establishment man, may find his distaste for Trump encouraging him to affirm the strength of Article II. This would be a victory for establishment Republicans as well as a victory for Trump haters. But I can imagine Roberts imagining the electoral chaos of an affirmation, because that result would make the 2000 and 2020 elections look tame by comparison; faced with such a vision, he could very well flinch. So I would expect Trump's team to work that angle hard--assuming there are any competent lawyers remaining who are still willing to represent him.
Which word in that sentence you quoted is the word "say" or "said?" Can you bold it for me?
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