ymeskhout
1yr ago
You responded to this by interpreting these statements in a much more restricted way, declared them false based on a source showing actual sentences, asking why I believed these false things.
You are not being honest here.
My immediate reply was to ask you to clarify what you meant by "harsh punishments". I then showed my work about what I found after a quick search and asked you if this is what you meant, then again asked you for any specific cases you believed met your own definitions. You didn't respond. So my first top level post showed my work again, explicitly stated that I was relying on an incomplete database, explicitly admitted what you wrote could be interpreted in multiple ways, again asked you to provide any examples you knew about. You finally did reply by citing the Q Shaman guy's case, and I pointed out that your original claim appeared to have been much more expansive than just that guy, then again asked you multiple clarifying questions, to which you did not reply. When I badgered you again about this, it was to again ask you how you arrived at your position, and since at this point you didn't seem eager to defend it, I asked if it was actually based in fact. You responded, but not substantively, and instead implied that I would tie you into knots somehow.
Here's another question: What would you have me do differently? When your original claim was ambiguous, I asked you to define the terms you were using. When you didn't respond, I searched for examples on my own and asked you if this is what you meant. I continued asking you to clarify what you meant even after multiple unanswered prompts. I do not understand what purpose your evasiveness serves. If you're unhappy about being misinterpreted, you can't blame it on the guy hounding you for days repeatedly asking you to explain what you meant.
What you wrote directly above actually cleared up a lot of my original questions (finally!) and had you just said exactly this, we could have avoided much of the long and exhaustive trail of ask-ask-ask-ask I left behind. So once again, what would you have me do differently? I'm actually listening.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
The protestors who who attempted to disrupt the Kavanaugh hearings being arrested en masse and and spending months if not years in prison.
Well the 2018 protestors were accused of trespassing/crowding and were arrested en masse. But I don't get the second part, are you claiming that people accused of trespassing/crowding on January 6th were sentenced to months/years in prison?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
So to recap, your original claim posited that we reached Debs level of political persecution, and that original assertion was based on what you believed were instances of people held without bail just for wandering in. It appears that you are now shifting away from that original position and instead arguing that precedent is broken in part because the ringleaders of January 6th are not offered light probation and because 90% of charges are not being dropped.
Am I incorrect to say that your position has changed? If not, could you explain the thought-process that led you to this change?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
I don't know how that's responsive to my question. You'll notice that I never claimed that none of the J6 defendants were held without bail. I explicitly acknowledged them when I wrote about "defendants are still held in jail (either with no bail or with unrealistic bail)". I even linked to an article explicitly staying "Yes, several people are being held without bail in the D.C. Jail"! What I was asking for was about the people who are "held without bail just for wandering in" as @anti_dan claimed they are. Do these people actually exist?
ymeskhout
2mo ago
What do you believe are my motte and bailey positions on this topic?
could you defend the election stolen viewpoint?
It all depends on what viewpoint we're talking about, which is why I keep asking for specifics. I already believe that some fraud happens in every election but not enough to make a difference, so I can defend that viewpoint against whoever out there happens to believe that electoral fraud does not exist. The overall problem with this topic is the inverse correlation between how defensible vs how consequential an allegation is, which is why there's a see-saw oscillation between "millions of fake ballots were cast for Biden" and "one guy in Nevada filled out his dead wife's ballot".
ymeskhout
2mo ago
but with him everything turns into a trial where you have to prove everything beyond reasonable doubt.
Patently false. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having confidence qualifiers to any of one's beliefs, I myself do this when I express a conclusion I'm unsure about. It's perfectly fine/commendable for someone to acknowledge that they lack ironclad evidence for their belief. The problem is making confident assertions without the ability to back them up.
This is the place for folks to "test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases" after all. We could all save a lot of time if people were more transparent about their foundations.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
I agree this is a concern though we might disagree on how widespread it is comparatively speaking. The best guard against this phenomenon is for the sane actors to disavow the retarded versions of their arguments. I'm someone who has long supported BLM's policy positions (at least the Campaign Zero ones released in 2016) and I'm not shy about acknowledging the retards who are nominally on my camp, or otherwise acknowledging reality and facts adverse to my positions.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
The blog post is dated Nov 5, 2020 and it was just a copy of one of my motte reddit post. I don't recall the issue with the Philadelphia observers being kept behind barriers, but either way that's not the claim the Trump lawyers went with in court. I also don't recall what exchange you're referring to, I was able to dig up this conversation where I tried to ascertain the worst-case scenario from the Georgia water main incident, but that doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.
It's a good example of what Dean has been complaining about -- you are coming off as a dishonest interlocutor here to anyone who followed events at the time and maybe went to the trouble of digging up links for you.
I take allegations of dishonesty very seriously! That's why I keep offering my full motte archives for others to scrutinize. If I'm ever being dishonest or whatever (as Dean constantly insists I am) then it should be effortless to demonstrate this. You're citing an exchange that you claim to be a good example of my dishonesty, but it's based off your memory. If you're remembering correctly, then I will acknowledge error and issue a public apology. But if you're misremembering, I would appreciate an apology from you.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
Because in that case, they think those are the guilty parties?
If they think the election authorities are in on it, why would they bother filing a complaint with them only to retract it when the authorities asked for evidence? And if they had evidence, why would they ask their lawyer to lie in court and say they didn't have evidence? I posit it's because they're lying.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
I admit I don't understand your meaning of weakman. I tried to sketch out how to define the term a while ago and Julian Sanchez's description seems the most fitting:
With a “weak man,” you don’t actually fabricate a position, but rather pick the weakest of the arguments actually offered up by people on the other side and treat it as the best or only one they have.
I don't see how weakman would fit for TTV unless I'm using them to somehow make a claim about all stolen election allegations. I'm not doing that and I already said that would be an invalid argument.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
Truth the Vote is the group that provided the data and the allegations outlined in the Dinesh D'Souza 2000 Mules documentary, which is by virtually any measure the most popular and talked about expose into stolen election claims. The film was watched by millions of people and received widespread media coverage and promotion within conservative media, and also was extensively endorsed by Trump (for what it's worth) and continued to be regularly cited by politicians and other stolen election believers. This wasn't just some obscure fringe group.
ymeskhout
3mo ago
These guys seem to exaggerate fudge provable fraud.
Why do you think TTV has been so resistant with offering evidence? I think it's because they were lying about having any and that their primary interest was grifting rather than actually uncovering fraud. Is there any part that you disagree with?
Edit: Merrick Garland timeline, and MAGA grandma below
I really appreciate the specifics in your response! I'll go point by point first, from the standpoint of how unusually Ray Epps was treated:
Factor 1: Epps encouraged others to enter the Capitol
It's true that Epps 1) repeatedly encouraged others to go into the Capitol "peacefully" (whatever that means) and 2) did not enter the Capitol himself. Moreover, he's captured on video trying to calm protestors down. I agree #1 is a negative factor for sentencing, but would you agree that #2 is a positive factor for sentencing? I don't know if the two factors exactly cancel each other out but it's fairly routine for the legal system to have drastically lowered penalties for criminals who change their mind at the last minute.
Besides that, both Alex Jones (though he did say "We are peaceful" and "we need to not have the confrontation with the police") and Nick Fuentes ("Keep moving towards the Capitol! It appears we are taking the Capitol!") encouraged others to march towards the Capitol but did not enter themselves, and unlike Epps neither of them were charged with any crimes.
Because far more prominent individuals who encouraged others to go to the Capitol and were not even charged, while Epps was charged with misdemeanors, this particular factor does not indicate that Epps was treated unusually. What do you think I'm missing?
Factor 2: FBI's most wanted
It's true that Epps was put on an FBI "Seeking Information" list as Photograph #16. He still shows up on Twitter, but no longer on the official list, but lots of other photos have also been taken down from that list (they're numbered sequentially so if you start at the beginning you'll see it goes 1, 2, 5, 9, 13, etc). I don't understand how this is indicative of unusual treatment if the FBI is removing dozens (hundreds?) of other photos.
Regarding the timing of charges, it's true that Epps wasn't charged until a mere 3 days after Merrick Garland was asked about him. [Edit: I hadn't looked closely when I posted this, but Merrick Garland was asked about Ray Epps by Thomas Massie on 9/20/23 and charges against Ray Epps were actually filed two days prior on 9/18/23. Epps appeared virtually in court on the 20th to plead guilty, which heavily indicates the plea was negotiated a couple of months prior]. The timing could be more than just a coincidence, but in what direction? You could argue that Epps was treated unusually harshly if you compare his conduct to Jones and Fuentes (who have not been charged) but you're arguing the opposite and I don't understand how.
Factor 3: Undercharged relative to others
It's true it's difficult to draw a direct comparison about conduct regarding what the "baseline charge" should be, but you're begging the question by saying Epps was undercharged "relative to other major J6 figures". Regarding his specific conduct (and not the attention he's garnered) why should Epps be considered a major figure to begin with? To conduct any comparison it would be helpful if you can identify an illustrative example of a J6 defendant who acted similarly to Ray Epps but was charged/sentenced much more harshly.
Factor 4: Victim of Conspiracies
This is a recursive argument. The judge at his sentencing said "While many defendants have been vilified in a way unique to Jan. 6, you seem to be the first to have suffered for what you didn't do". I don't deny that's a unique situation, but to establish that Epps was treated uniquely generously you need a baseline to compare against. I don't know the grandma you're referring to [Edit: Found what I think is the grandma, who entered the capitol and got 2 months in jail], so all I have to compare against is the fact that Epps avoided jail just like 37% of other convicted J6 defendants.
Maybe if we had a hypothetical Ray Epps Two who was the subject of similarly intense conspiracy theories but whose sentencing judge did not acknowledge his suffering then you could argue that Ray Epps One was treated unusually generously, but if it's not reflected in sentencing why would that matter?
Factor 5: Epps' suit against Fox News
I don't understand any of this. Why is the suit shameless? How could the DOJ possibly stop Epps from suing Fox News? Even if somehow they charged him with triple-digit felonies, he would still be able to sue (almost a quarter of federal lawsuits are filed by prisoners!). This is a baffling point.
TL;DR
- Other people also encouraged others to go to the Capitol and never even got charged
- Other people were also put on the FBI "Seeking Information" list and later removed
- To argue he was undercharged, you need to provide a comparable example
- I fail to see the relevance of a judge acknowledging Epp's unique status as a victim of conspiracy theories
- DOJ cannot "allow" Epps to sue Fox News
ymeskhout
4mo ago
Epps was charged with a misdemeanor, uniquely leniency for J6 protesters...
Given his uniquely generous outcome...
What is your standard for what counts as uniquely lenient/generous? 40% of all J6 defendants (505 out of 1,265) plead guilty to only misdemeanors. 37% of all convicted J6 defendants (282 out of 749) did not receive any jail time. Of those sentenced to jail time, the median appears to be 45 days.
ymeskhout
9mo ago
Ohio Republicans' Inexplicable & Baffling Abortion Blunder
I support expansive abortion access purely as a matter of practical considerations because of how legal prohibitions encourage horrific black market alternatives. I part ways with the pro-choice crowd when they respond to a difficult morality question with flippant dismissal. So at least from that standpoint, I sympathize with the earnest pro-life crowd because they're helplessly witnessing what is (by their definitions) a massive genocide made worse by the fact that it's legally-sanctioned.
So if you're in that unenviable position, what are your options? The major practical problem is that abortion restrictions have been and continue to be extremely politically unpopular. The Dobbs decision generated a lot of what basically amounted to legislative reshuffling at the state level. Some states had trigger laws banning abortions, that awakened from their long slumber only for courts, legislatures, or voter referendums to strike them back down to sleep.
Ohio's law banning abortions when a fetus heartbeat could be detected (typically occurs within 6-7 weeks of pregnancy) was struck down by a court last year, and so currently abortions there are legal up until "viability" (typically understood to be 22 weeks). On top of that, a referendum was set to be voted on this upcoming November election which would solidly enshrine abortion access within the Ohio state constitution (worth noting that this is the only referendum on the ballot). Given where public opinion is at on this issue, the amendment is virtually guaranteed to be approved by voters. What can you do to stop this train?
Ohio Republicans responded in a very bizarre and inexplicable manner (part of a pattern it seems). Apparently aware that the November referendum was going to be a shoe-in, they organized a whole special election in August as a preemptive maneuver to increase various thresholds for constitutional amendments, including raising the passing percentage from 50% to a 60% supermajority. That measure failed in the special election held yesterday, with 57% of voters against it.
Where to start? First, asking voters to vote against themselves was always going to be a challenge, and Elizabeth Nolan Brown notes the rhetoric supporters of Issue 1 had to resort to:
One talking point has been that it protects the Ohio Constitution from out-of-state interests. (For instance: "At its core, it's about keeping out-of-state special interest groups from buying their way into our constitution," Protect Women Ohio Press Secretary Amy Natoce told Fox News.) Another has been that it signals trust in elected officials to safeguard citizen interests, rather than letting a random majority of voters decide what's best. (The current simple-majority rule for amending the state constitution "sends the message that if you don't like what the legislature is doing, you can just put it on the ballot, and soon the constitution will be thousands of pages long and be completely meaningless," Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, told Politico in a prime example of this tack.)
Some of the TV ads the supporters ran were so incoherent. I don't know how representative this particular example is but the 30-second spot avoids saying anything at all about abortion and instead argues that voting yes on Issue 1 would somehow...protect kids from trans drag queens in schools? The fuck? I guess they knew that "vote yes on Issue 1 to keep abortion restricted" wasn't going to be a winning message so this tangent was the only option.
Even if somehow Issue 1 had anything to do with gender identity indoctrination in schools or whatever (if anyone can explain this please do!) it bears repeating that the only referendum on the ballot in November was about enshrining abortion access. Voters are dumb but they're not that dumb.
Just this last January Ohio Republicans passed HB 458 which eliminated almost all August special elections, but then they insisted on passing another law walking that back specifically to make sure Issue 1 got its very own election. The gambit apparently was to help its chances by leveraging low voter turnout in special elections. This too is baffling, because the timing gimmick very likely energized the "Democrats' highly educated neurotic base" as my boy Yglesias so eloquently put it. Also, the type of voter that is willing to show up to a special election is not going to be the type that is inclined to wrest control away!
None of these decisions made any sense. By investing into a preemptive referendum to raise the threshold, they loudly advertised they knew their issue was going to lose in November. By carving out an exception for an August election, they demonstrated they knew they couldn't win unless they act like a Turkish ice cream man with voters. By conspicuously avoiding talking about abortion, they're acknowledging their policy position's unpopularity.
I'm again acknowledging that the pro-life crowd faces an unenviable challenge in advocating for their position, and clearly their attempts at persuasion over the last several decades have not been panning out. But who actually thought the blatant gimmickry described above was actually going to work? All it did was showcase how weak they must be if the only tool in their arsenal was comically inept subterfuge.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
I just think this topic is a waste of your talent, and specifically wasted on a topic where you're unlikely to change anyone's mind with this kind of effort, so from my perspective it looks more like just doing it for jollies. If you find it worthwhile, then my perspective is wrong, and you do you, man.
I have no real rebuttal that this topic isn't a waste of my time. I'm aware that if someone is immune to evidence or otherwise unwilling to falsify their theory, then they're not going to change their mind, but perhaps there is some residual utility in drawing broadly applicable lessons from the scenarios (for instance, the incentives that people in the media face, why/how so many people claim to believe things that were so fanciful, etc.). I do concede that I find this topic very entertaining in addition to just interesting, but that's also true of many other topics we talk about here. The world is dreary so it's nice to laugh a little.
Regarding the Italian satellite issue, I conceded that I used the motte-and-bailey in an erroneous manner (you may not have caught the edit to my post when you linked it). I do maintain it's fair of me to bring up what a top level Trump official earnestly asked the investigative arm of the US government to investigate. I can't be accused of nutpacking when I'm highlighting the actions of someone so central to the issue. I gather that much of the negative reaction I get when I mention the Italian satellite thing is that it's acutely embarrassing and impossible to handwave away. it's relevant because it's illustrative of the credulity the Trump administration was operating on regarding the stolen election theories, it shows they were willing to entertaining virtually any theory, no matter how implausible it was on its face. I understand it's an extremely inconvenient fact for anyone who wants to argue that Trump was acting in good faith in investigating election fraud, but as Abe Lincoln said, facts don't care about your feelings.
I really appreciate your feedback.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
I think that would be a reasonable assumption, yes. Are you aware of any instances where this happened?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
Then we had some weird shit on election night that still hasn’t been fully explained (eg the water main break that wasn’t).
What attempts have you made to research this issue, and what evidence would you accept that it was investigated satisfactorily?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
That edit's purpose is to be a petty insult, if it wasn't there'd be no reason to mention the person you're insulting. You could have easily just left the name out, but you wanted it to be insulting.
I understand your point about including his name and have edited it out. If you have any suggestions on how I ideally should have responded to The_Nybbler 's claim that my post was a pretext for criticizing Trump I'm all ears. It's weird to be accused of hiding a motivation I'm not hiding, so it seemed logical to respond by double-underlining the core topic of the post with a banner explicitly announcing the topic up top. How else am I supposed to respond to that kind of accusation?
But you go out of your way to humiliate and troll other users and get away with it because they made a mistake and were wrong and you are right. It's an aggressive and uncharitable trend you make a habit of and it disappoints me immensely that you can just get away with it because you do it with a smile and a bunch of links.
I remain open to receiving feedback on what I write and I genuinely don't understand how the first post is an example of trolling. I thought I was transparent when I wrote: "If I'm being fully honest, the scenario I would find the most emotionally satisfying and personally motivated towards pulling off would be where motteposting blunders haplessly into my trap and exposes himself as a complete hypocritical partisan about the standards of credibility he applies. I must admit that I did not get that, and I'll specifically give credit for things he did that were commendable." I'm not sure what is ambiguous about that or what else I'm supposed to say. What do you think is missing?
I similarly don't understand the criticism over the second link. DradisPing refused to admit they made a mistake and as far as I know this remains the case to this day. Do you think it's inappropriate to point out when someone confidently asserts false information and refuses to admit error? Furthermore, I maintain that examining why someone's mistakes happen to fall in the same direction is a topic worth examining. Which part do you disagree with?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
Do you know why he was only sentenced to 8 years for a previous double murder and home invasion? What change in policy would you propose?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
He was referring to what the protesters did, not what they were specifically charged with.
I'm not a mind reader. I asked him numerous times to clarify his position. If he chooses not to respond, I can't be blamed for the lack of clarity. I did my part.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
I fully admit you are a better lawyer than me and will always be able to find a wording by which the actions against the January 6 rioters look perfectly in line with the actions against left-wing rioters, or which somehow distinguish the actions those left-wing rioters from those of the right-wing ones.
I appreciate the kind words but I don't have any superpowers and what I did wasn't special. My real-world experience does give me some anchors and generalized awareness, but what I did above just boiled down to googling. If I make an argument that is unsupported by the evidence, I think anyone has the power to demonstrate that. I can't claim that how the J6 defendants are treated is "perfectly in line" with left-wing rioters. I do think it's a reasonable conclusion, but I remain open to evidence demonstrating otherwise.
Regarding Q Shaman, I personally think 41 months is an unconscionable amount of prison time, especially one without even the trial tax applied, and especially given what seem to be clear mental health issues. But your original claim was much more expansive than just the Q Shaman. You said:
"many of the "rioters" who committed no crime worse than trespassing (in some cases not even entering the building, just supposedly-forbidden parts of the grounds) are getting harsh punishments for political reasons"
So I remain very curious to know how you arrived at this belief. Pointing out that the person who was most visibly at the center of the riot got a ridiculously high prison sentence is not going to be representative of the rest of the participants, most of whom did indeed commit no worse than trespassing. So how did you arrive at the claim that "many" of those trespassing were getting "harsh punishments"? Do you still hold this belief? Where did this belief come from?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
Do you think that this action will, on the margins, increase or decrease the chances of someone attempting actual voter fraud in the 2022 elections in Florida?
The answer isn't obvious. These actions will absolutely discourage anyone with a felony conviction from trying to vote, even if they are legally permitted to, because who wants to risk getting arrested years down the line over something as individually trivial as voting? Felony disenfranchisement currently affects almost a million people in Florida, almost 10% of the adult population, so it's bound to have a significant effect.
In contrast, actual voting fraud is extremely rare. Just for perspective, 19 foreign nationals were charged for illegally voting in North Carolina in 2020. To me, it's not obvious how many of those foreign nationals were acting with malicious intent, or whether they made an honest mistake. Jeopardizing one's immigration status to cast one vote seems like an idiotic gamble. Beyond that, the scenarios where voter fraud is clearly motivated by malicious intent are too sporadic to get a comprehensive accounting for. I'm aware of very few cases, like for example this Nevada man who used his dead wife's ballot to cast a vote.
I suppose you can defend the heavy-handedness if your overriding priority is primarily to tamp down on the handful of actual voter fraud that takes place. But if so, I would like to at least see an earnest attempt to address the collateral damage. Is dissuading a handful of bad actors worth putting some innocent people in jail? Worth dissuading large swathes of the population from legally voting? If so, say so.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
That's fine if that's the version of 'stolen' you want to argue, the word is ambiguous enough. I was primarily interested to hear from people who have stridently accused me of weakmanning the overall genre and hoping to hear from them about what they believe are the strongest claims I've allegedly ignored or unfairly dismissed.
The guy was caught on video and is now held without bail. What policy failure point are you identifying here?
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