zeke5123
11mo ago
Why? Why would no reasonable person fear for their lives?
It seems pretty clear that Neely was a bad dude with a history of violence. While the people on the train likely didn’t know that, violent weirdos give off an aura.
Second his language certainly indicated he was willing to do extreme things.
Third, people read of crazy people like Neely doing crazy dangerous violent things.
zeke5123
7mo ago
I am a tennis fan. On the tennis Reddit page, they are discussing Novak’s comment that he isn’t anti-vax but stood for the proposition that bodily integrity meant he shouldnt be forced to take the vax.
The five bullets you list explain perfectly how the propaganda affected the main heavily upvoted response on Reddit.
The highly upvoted poster makes the claim taking the vax isn’t about freedom but that Novak was selfish putting others at risk by refusing the jab and thereby not getting to herd immunity.
This was a common refrain during the pandemic. It appealed to people’s emotions, it repeated a simple idea, it didn’t wrestle with other arguments, and it vilified a small subset (the selfish people refusing to take a safe jab to protect everyone else).
The poster never seemed to stop and think about the particulars. For example, Novak already had covid. Why did he need a vaccine? Why would a vaccinated person need protection from non-vax? How far did this principle go (ie should fat people be required to have medical surgery to lose weight given that their fatness imposes a strain on the health system)? How effective were the vaccines at creating herd immunity compared to a prior infection? How deadly was covid? If someone was very scared of covid, what protections could they take themselves instead of demanding everyone else take precautions? Did susceptible people have the right to force medical interventions onto others so that susceptible people could live their lives more normally? What amount of risk is appropriate to impose on someone for the good of the collective? Who gets to determine what is the appropriate risk? What process should be used?
There are a ton of meaty issues there. Maybe you determine on net you are still pro socially sanctioned vaccine taking but it isn’t obvious and it isn’t obviously selfish to oppose it. Indeed, in Novak’s case he sacrificed a lot for his principle (skipped numerous tournaments which could’ve cost him the all time slams lead) so kind of weird to even call him selfish — seems a lot more selfless compared to the redditor smugly denouncing him with no cost to the redditor. But I think it’s because propaganda worked. The pro vax redditor repeated the simple talking points drilled into his or her head during an emotional time and identified Novak as a villain.
What’s really odd is that the propaganda still works on vaxes! The redditor continues to make these claims in light of the severe underperformance of the vaccine in stopping the spread. You would think that would cause him or her to say “did I make a mistake somewhere in my thought process” but nope.
Makes me think “where do I have these blinders.”
zeke5123
1yr ago
Social credit system effectively replaces market transaction. In doing so, it replaces effectively allocating scarce resource with allocating scarce resources based on what the government believes is best (which I think is less efficient).
Consider the classic I, Pencil. The argument was no one in the world can fully build a pencil. But via market transactions, a vast swath of people can interact to build a pencil. Moreover, if there are disruptions (eg Forrest fire destroying a lot of trees) prices send signals to change the composition of pencils (eg if I’m a pen manufacturer, then I raise the cost of wood pencils and likely increase the production of say plastic pencils; the public reacts on the margin to buying more plastic pencils thereby rationing the now more scarce wood.)
The brilliance here of course is that consumers don’t need to know why wood pencils cost more; they just need to shift their consumption. In the end reality trumps belief (despite how one might feel that pencils should be wood ultimately there will be a shift — either perm or temporary to plastic pencils because wood pencils relatively become more expensive)
Stated differently the market is of human action if not human design.
But let’s say social credit system replaces money. Let’s say the person in charge decides wood pencils are better and gives bonus points for manufacturing wood pencils and punishes people for raising prices on wood pencils. What happens there? Well, I the pencil manufacturer follow my incentive and keep the cost of the wood pencil the same. But reality is still reality and there is only so much wood. Thus, there is either a shortage of pencils (as consumer patterns don’t change) or there is a shortage of another good that uses wood. And maybe the person in charge of the social credit system institutes a cross subsidy for that other good further distorting the picture.
Prices are an elegant spontaneous order system that clears markets precisely because it doesn’t require human design (just human action). As communist bloc showed, economies are too difficult for human design. Social credit system is again trying to put human design back into the system which will cause the same problems.
zeke5123
8mo ago
Yeah if you exclude all of the things Biden has done then he is centrist.
Instead Biden has:
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Tried to unilaterally cancel about 500b of student debt that everyone (including Pelosi) thought required congressional approval since you know generally congress has to approve buildings.
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Required effectively all working adults to take a vaccine they didn’t want to try to stop the spread of a virus when they knew the vaccine couldn’t do that once again without congressional approval.
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Sic the FBI on parents calling them domestic terrorists for..being involved with school board meetings in a way that went against his beloved teachers union.
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Engage in significant censorship and tried to create a disinformation board.
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Used the bully pulpit to support gender affirming care calling laws to stop it “close to sinful” or used that bully pulpit to claim benign voter lawyers as “Jim Eagle.”
It really is tiring hearing supporters of Biden continue to claim “he is centrist” when he has been anything but and the only reason he didn’t have more progressive policies passed was because Manchin.
Also of course there appears to be the vast amount of bribes he took so that you know undermines the whole “don’t do illegal acts” thing.
zeke5123
8mo ago
To add to this, Obama didn’t campaign for gay marriage. Now you have Biden actively promoting gender transition and calling attempts to stop it in minors as “close to sinful.” This is by far the most leftist administration in American history yet we are being told it is centrist? I hate the gaslighting.
zeke5123
8mo ago
Yes you can acknowledge the differences and remain a classical liberal. The problem is it does very much matter why there is a difference contra Hanania.
It matters because government, corporations, and academia keep trying to solve problems that can’t be solved due to HBD. Their premise is Group X performs worse than Group Y therefore it must be discrimination. Let’s do all of these programs (transfer wealth, affirmative action, decry success) to help alleviate the difference. That is, they are willing to incur a cost because they think at the end of the day the status quo ante is not optima due to racism (ie if you do enough, Group X will act like Group Y resulting in a benefit that exceeds the cost).
However, if the status quo ante is not due to racism but merely gene luck, then it doesn’t follow all of the costs should be borne because the payoff will never be realized.
zeke5123
10mo ago
I actually think that is most people’s gripe. They know something is wrong but have trouble sorting it out so they latch onto things like “not historically accurate” or “ruins the immersion” when in reality it is that the creator of this new work hates you the white consumer and therefore wishes to vandalize works you love with vulgar political displays.
zeke5123
7mo ago
I think the whole “Vivek is smarter than Trump so he will succeed” totally misunderstands how government (or even very large) organizations run. In very large organizations, the CEO needs to rely on trusted lieutenants to help implement the CEO’s vision.
The government is an even more extreme version of this. The president being smart is a necessary condition but not sufficient to the president being successful. The main ingredient is predicated on the team he can build combined with knowing when and how to burn political capital.
Edit: Vivek has shown zero ability to delegate successfully in a large organization. Instead, his business success seems to have come from the ability to bamboozle investors instead of running a successful business venture.
zeke5123
11mo ago
Not homeless per se, but the honeless who make life miserable for everyone else. That is, no one hates someone that lives in a shelter but is (1) either working or seeking employment and (2) trying to get out of the shelter. But the people who shit on the sidewalks, harass people on the train, etc.? Those people suck.
zeke5123
1yr ago
I am a pretty law and order guy. But there is something untoward about running for office on the idea of prosecuting person X or persons Y for activity Z performed prior to becoming DA. It is side we prosecute crimes; not men. This seems the opposite.
zeke5123
1yr ago
Forget racist. If your main claim is “buy from me because I’m black” that signals to me other stores have more quality etc.
zeke5123
8mo ago
A couple of points.
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This puts to lie “trust the experts.” If the experts are willing to lie even if for supposedly noble reasons, then you cannot trust what they are telling you is accurate. No, you need to trust that what they are telling you is for the common good but why would those so called experts be more of an expert of what is the common good compared to you? It also wouldn’t be entirely surprising if they believed that the common good is consistent with what they do (eg I am trying to prevent a future pandemic and therefore what I do is good and anything that gets in the way is bad). But that’s largely self deceit.
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If we know what the institutional pressures are within this area, then it is entirely reasonable to assume publications would skew towards not a lab leak. The fact that people publish evidence supporting not a leak is consistent with the incentive structure people in this field clearly possess. It is akin to being SHOCKED that Phillip Morris’s research indicated no cancer due to smoking. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, but we aren’t looking at honest open science.
zeke5123
1yr ago
Congress does not (and cannot) fully delegate carte blanche authority to administrative agencies. Any delegation is limited and often governed by things like the APA.
Under the APA, decisions of agencies are reviewed under the arbitrary and capricious standard. I haven’t reviewed this case (and I don’t practice in the FDA area so not sure the particulars there). But courts can look at the record and if it is clear the agency clearly just ignored data or otherwise fucked up, the court can say set aside the agency decision. That is, delegations are still subject to checks and balances.
Haven’t read this case so have zero opinion.
zeke5123
4mo ago
So basically Hunter did something that any normal American would’ve gone to prison for a long ass time, the DOJ tried its best to prevent charges from ever being filed, they even seemed to conspire with Hunter in Delaware to slap him on the wrist, but now because of public pressure they are forced to indict him in California.
But of course that now will prevent Hunter from testifying before Congress and will anyone be surprised if when no longer useful the DOJ enters a plea deal (more painful than Delaware but only marginally so)?
Trying to say “it works for both sides” ignores the massive purposeful missteps re Hunter Biden. His lawyers were willing to extend the SOL but DOJ let them expire!
zeke5123
11mo ago
Culture war refresh. Many people are familiar with the Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney controversy. About a week afterwards people on this website noted there wasn’t a large impact on the stock price of InBev, Bud’s parent company,
Well, InBev is now down about 10% from when the whole Bud Light - Dylan Mulvaney sponsorship. Bud light revenue is still down materially. At the same time, other major alcohol companies appear flat or up materially. Therefore, it seems the boycott has had real negative impact on InBev.
Does this mark the start of the right finding it’s muscle or is this a dead cat bounce?
zeke5123
1yr ago
Textualism isn’t giving a strict reading of a text but a fair reading of the text which requires using context and seeking not what Congress “meant but the true meaning of what they said.” Scalia and Garner, Reading Law, P 394.
So the question is whether the true meaning of waive or modify any provision really means the ability to forgive debt?
I would say no.
The first clue is the preamble. The entire thing is about military personal. Moreover, there is a notion that they can be called in short order which can upset among other things their post secondary education. Given that, these “heroes” should be supported. This also suggests a relatively small class of people (even if it is expanded in the text but this gives a clue as to whether this rule can really be fairly read to enact policy writ large).
The next clue is that there appears to be a very large grant of authority for the education secretary to change the statutory or regulatory requirements solely at the discretion of the secretary and outside of normal APA requirements. This is truly an extraordinary grant of authority. The APA notice and comment requirement acts as a check on the administrative state by requiring them to listen to the public and responsibly respond. But here the secretary claims the ability to re-write law sans any oversight whatsoever. Query whether that violates non-delegation principles. Are we sure that is what these words really mean here?
Third clue, related to the above, is the inclusion of emergency and the requirement that the secretary explain him or herself after the fact to congress. . Taken together, this seems to address situations where because time is short (there is a war or an emergency) the change to student loans cannot occur through normal processes (either congress or APA). Thus, the secretary can make changes in the short term but explain those changes to congress (who presumably at such time can make reasoned decisions outside the course of an emergency).
The fourth clue is that multiple places the waiver states it is designed to make the relevant person no worse off while at the same time not requiring a case-by-case determination. Presumably because again this covers emergency situations by attempting to preserve the status quo ante; not legislation.
Taking all of those clues together it seems impossible this bill can be fairly read to give to the secretary the ability to uniformly cancel student loans of every in the US two years after an emergency has been declared (a 500b undertaking here but principally not limited to that number) without any oversight (ie not preserving the status quo ante but changing it). If it did, it raises serious non-delegation questions (which means Major Questions doctrine likely applies).
Moreover, we have the Scalia “no elephants in any hills” to fall back on as well as for others the “dog that didn’t bark” canon.
To me, this statute either doesn’t give the secretary the authority to do this or it is probably an unconstitutional statute.
zeke5123
6mo ago
Which is the whole point behind SOLs. There is no way to mount a proper defense.
Of course, if I was a jury and the defendant merely stated “I was drugged” and there was zero corroborating evidence I don’t see how I could vote to convict.
Feminism has been very successful at changing people’s default assumption (ie if there is an allegation it is probably true).
zeke5123
7mo ago
Not to defend Chapek, but seems to me most of Disney’s problems were Iger problems.
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Iger did the disastrous Fox deal.
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Iger pushed into the disastrous streaming business.
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Iger forced a fight with DeSantis over culture war issues that have soiled the Disney brand.
I don’t know why an activist investors hasn’t put two and two together that Iger is the one who needs the boot.
zeke5123
3mo ago
I have some for your reading pleasure.
Biden supported and gave encouragement to BLM riots which among other things included CHAZ.
Biden knew the renter moratorium was unconstitutional. His advisors told him as such. The SCOTUS said this is illegal but since you told us you are ending it we will let you end it in an orderly fashion. He then said “fuck it — I will extend it and hope it will take months or years to overturn what I knew was against the constitutional Order.
Biden conspired with others in the Obama administration to frustrate the peaceful transmission of power to the Trump administration from by trying to sabotage that admin via the bureaucracy including Biden suggesting trying to trap Flynn using the laughable Logan act (has some similarity to Trump — sure in theory he was exercising what is facially a legal authority but the local authority could say that was pretext).
zeke5123
5mo ago
Why use minor attracted person? First it is three words instead of pedophile. Like all woke language it is ugly. Second, it is often used to try to legitimize something we should keep highly hated.
This is starting with the wrong picture.
Per the Whistleblower testimony (which really needs to be read in detail) the non political appointees that routinely handle tax evasion cases wanted to go after Hunter on more serious tax evasion charges. This is true both of the agents investigating AND the staff level attorneys who review the agent’s recommendation. However, political appointees routinely blocked both their investigation and ultimately precluded them from charging Hunter on these more serious charges. Thus, it appears Hunter got a sweetheart deal before we even get to the charges here.
So it is sweetheart deal on top of sweetheart deal.
Edit—
It is important to note that in addition to the incremental tax issues, the government may have purposefully let other crimes (eg FARA) be statute limited. So you could’ve hit him with multiple tax fraud charges, FARA, gun charges, drug charges (which he evidently used as tender), maybe even bribery.
You could make a colorable case for all of that. Standard practice would be to charge him with all you can and then plea to something that would probably end up with 6-12 months. But here the government is alleged to slow weak charges so they’d fall off giving up leverage they would typically use.
zeke5123
11mo ago
Largely due to the backlash.
But Bragg is fundamentally against self defense as a concept (eg charging and even up charging re self defense) while generally doing everything in his power to take it easy on career criminals. Bragg is truly a despicable person.
zeke5123
4mo ago
District court judge making a grand political conclusion antithetical to the law isn’t exactly uncommon. See for example the Republican judge in Texas and the abortion in the mail ruling.
It is and remains a joke of an opinion.
Follow up post time.
There was a discussion awhile back about whether Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm to help delay a bill relating to the government shutdown.
New footage is out. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rep-bowman-issued-criminal-summons-pulling-fire-alarm
It seems:
Bowman doesn’t try to open the door.
Bowman takes down signs.
Bowman pulls the alarm and walks away without changing how he walks (ie no indication he then tried to use the door).
To me, this seems like very strong evidence he pulled the alarm to cause a disruption.
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