Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man. No one yet has guessed multiple people, or a scholar. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
Mearsheimer looks like a better geopolitical analyst so long as you ignore not only his pre-war predictions, but his pre-1995 proposals for eastern europe.
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
Agreed, and I tried to include a reference to it. I doubt it- my understanding is that a previous incident that would be analogous didn't reach Portugal- but it is the most 'benign' interpretation, and worth saying outright.
The visible-but-non-central dynamic might have been part of a motive.
Fairly or unfairly, the 2004 Madrid train bombings are often considered a case study in 'terrorism can work' due to the subsequent withdrawal from Iraq by the spanish socialist party. Coincidentally, the current socialist/social-democratic ruling coalition recently proposed an unpopular/politically controversial €10 billion military spending hike by decree. This came about a month after Spain disagreed with the EU military fund for Ukraine support, and after last week Spain claimed it was going to meet the 2% NATO military spending goal by focusing on cybersecurity. Spain's contemporary history of not-spending on hard military capacities has been a cause of political friction with allies abroad, and a basis of domestic friction within.
In a correlation-suggestions-motive framing, the cyberattack may have been decided for multiple reasons, including-
- Assessment that Spain is currently too weak / too minor to directly inflict unacceptable retaliation
- Belief that a cyber-attack would cause the ruling spanish political consensus to reject NATO-desired hardpower spending in favor of defensive cyber-spending
- Expectation the Spanish government's cyber-prioritization would preclude cyber-spending from being used on less desirable military spending, i.e. Ukraine aid
- Demonstrate/implicitly threaten other NATO/EU countries from some policies by demonstrating the consequence of vulnerability
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
In a start to the new week in Europe that is certainly a start, the Iberian peninsula has reportedly just been hit by a major power outage affecting both Spain and Portugal, including their capitals, and parts of southern France. The power outage occurred during the day, and is disrupting activities down to the public transportation level. Power is being gradually restored, though how long for full restoration is unclear.
There is no identified cause (yet), but this sort of outage on such a geographically diverse scale does not usually happen by accident. The Spanish government is probing a possible cyberattack.
While it is possible for problems in parts of the European energy grid to cause problems elsewhere, and there was a fire recently affecting a Spanish-French high-voltage cable, I am unaware of any analogous incident where a power grid failure on the Spanish-French side would affect the Portugal side of Spain as well. (For Americans, this is roughly analogous to an incident in eastern texas leading to outages in western Texas.)
Timing is a soft-indicator that supports, but do not prove, a hostile intent.
Purely mechanical system outages tend to either be random breaks or a result of load shifting. Random breaks (key thing somewhere breaks at a bad time) is more randomly distributed over time and thus more likely on weekends and nights rather than week days. Load-shift outages can occur when a power grid fails to properly balance when raising to meet daily production. This increases the impact on the mornings, when industrial centers increase energy demand for the daily work shifts, or possibly afternoons, when post-work tool-downs create a new load-balance challenge. However, this outage reportedly occurred mid-day, when the power load is relatively stable.
Weekday afternoons, and especially early in a work week, are more valuable hostile-disruption windows. Noon and afternoon attacks affect more people out in their days, and cause more social panic as parents are separated from children or trapped without working public transportation. Mondays in particular are the inverse of the 'bury bad news by publicizing it Friday' rule. An event on Mondays is more likely to dominate public discourse and media coverage for the new work week.
Correlation is not causation, and that does bear reminding here. However, that reminder does not mean correlation is irrelevant to anything else. Expect cyber-security paradigm discussions to grow, particularly if a benign fault can't be identified. Even if a benign fault is identified, awareness of the scale of vulnerability is likely to be used either in other messaging efforts, or as inspiration for copy-cat attacks.
My best wishes for anyone affected, and hope for everyone to stay safe and have a power outage plan.
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
Either that or public stops being empathetic to anybody but their tribe, but I don't think that's very likely in America.
"It is not that 'cruelty is the point'- it is that the accusation of cruelty is no longer sufficiently deterring." - was a quality contribution nominee in the last quality post roundup, for what it's worth.
The SIL's job in this case is "accompany the kid on the plane ride from mom to dad after both of them write consent letters and get them notarized".
Not quite. Remember- the father was not asking for custody for himself. The father was asking for custody to be transferred to his sister-in-law. And this sister-in-law who is supposed to be taking both escort and legal custody has no established relationship to the mother, only the father.
A notary might be able to help the plane ride in abstract, but a notary cannot transfer formal or de facto legal custody from a mother to a potentially unrelated citizen of another country. Since the purpose of the plane flight is to remove the mother's custody of the child, after she (reportedly) indicated to the US government she wanted to retain custody...
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
It sounds like the SIL is legally in the united states. With notarized parental consent letters on both sides and the 2 year old's passport I'd be surprised if there was any major issue in having the SIL pick up the kid and bring her back to the US to dad.
That depends on the Sister-in-Law's actual relationship to the mother, not the father.
The SIL and the mother do not necessarily have any legally relevant relationship. This is where the implication of the mother and father never being characterized as married potentially matters.
If the father's SIL is in fact the mother's sister, then as you say it could be legally simple to reverse if the parties are in agreement. That is not the same as administratively simple- I'd be surprised if the child has a passport- but
If the sister-in-law is a SIL due to the father marrying someone else- a currently undisclosed woman who would be unsympathetic to the narrative- then the analogy would be more akin to an adoption than familial custody.
Following from @Quantumfreakonomic's post yesterday on the judge who was arrested for trying to sneak an illegal migrant out of a courthouse to avoid ICE, that media storm may be prompting a counterstory on the latest Trump immigration outrage to be outraged about.
Reuters: Two-year-old US citizen appears to have been deported 'with no meaningful process'
New York Times: 2-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Deported ‘With No Meaningful Process,’ Judge Suspects
CBS News: Judge demands answers on whether 2-year-old U.S. citizen was deported to Honduras
Washington Post: Three U.S. citizens, ages 2, 4 and 7, swiftly deported from Louisiana
Rolling Stone: Trump Has Now Deported Multiple U.S. Citizen Children With Cancer
CNN: Federal judge says 2-year-old US citizen was deported with mother to Honduras
Yes, the new scandal for the new week, just in time to replace coverage of the somewhat embarrassing judge from last week, now presents a heroic judge objecting to the deportation of US children. While multiple cases are there, the focus of the current not-at-all coordinate push focuses on the 2-year old from Louisana.
Admittedly, the CNN article did make the mistake of letting the headline reveal some of the possible nuance as to 'why'. Being the only headline to mention 'mother' was what started this little media dive.
The key sequence of events from the CBS article include-
According to a petition filed Thursday by Trish Mack, a friend of child's mother, the girl, her 11-year-old sister and mother were taken into custody Tuesday morning while attending a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at an ICE office in New Orleans. The mother had attended meetings like this regularly for four years, often bringing her daughters with her. They were taken to the meeting by the girl's father, the petition reads.
After being detained, the mother and her two daughters were transported to an ICE field office in New Orleans, court documents state. When the father arrived at that office, ICE officers gave him papers stating that the mother "was under their custody," documents read, and that she "would call him soon."
That day, an attorney for the family contacted ICE and informed authorities that the girl was a U.S. citizen, the petition said, and also emailed a copy of the girl's U.S. birth certificate to ICE.
But that night, an ICE agent called the father and informed him that "they were going to deport his partner and daughters," documents read.
On Wednesday, an ICE agent spoke with the family's attorney, and "refused to honor a request to release" the girl "to her custodian, stating that it was not needed because" she "was already with her mother," court documents read.
Some of the potentially relevant context, not all of which was in the CBS article, and which different organizations provide different framings for.
On some differences in filings and timings-
CBS
When Doughty, appointed to the bench by President Trump during his first term, sought Friday afternoon to arrange a phone call with the mother of the girl, Justice Department lawyers informed him that a call with the child's mother "would not be possible because she (and presumably VML) had just been released in Honduras." The girl is identified in court documents as VML.
CNN
Lawyers for the family filed an emergency petition Thursday, asking the court to order the child’s “immediate release” by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying they “lack any statutory or constitutional authority” to detain her as a US citizen, according to the petition.
Washington Post
Lawyers representing the father of the 2-year-old U.S. citizen who was deported, identified as V.M.L. in court documents, filed an emergency petition in the Western District of Louisiana on Thursday seeking her release. The child was put on a plane to Honduras the next morning before the court opened.
CBS
In an effort to halt the deportation of the two daughters, the father on Tuesday filed for a temporary transfer of legal custody, which under Louisiana law would give his sister-in-law, a U.S. citizen who resides in Baton Rouge, custody of both.
CNN and the Washington Post did not raise the legal custody issue raised on Tuesday, which frames later decisions. The Post in particular removes the child from the context of the mother in the plane to Honduras, treating the 2-year-old citizen as the only relevant individual on the plane as opposed to the mother and older sibling.
CBS did raise the custody case, but does not raise the Thursday petition for immediate release that could be understood in the custody decision.
Only CBS raises that the court session sought Thursday afternoon occurs on Friday afternoon. The Washington Post emphasizes the time of the departure flight as before court could open, insinuating without explicitly claiming a motive for the timing of the flight. No context is provided by anyone on what time the flight actually was, what time the court was, or the other normal times of possible flights to Honduras from the local airport are.
Additionally, no media actually characterizes the relationships between mother, father, and sister-in-law. There's no claim that the father and mother are married. Therefore, there is only an insinuation that the 'sister-in-law' is meaningfully related to the mother in a sense that would normally sway custody fights.
On the basis of the child's removal, for sources that did so-
CBS
The immigration status of the girl's father, mother and sister was unclear. The girl was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in January 2023, according to the filing.
"The parent made the decision to take the child with them to Honduras. It is common that parents want to be removed with their children," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News Saturday.
Washington Post
The government is not disputing the immigration status of any of the three children. Instead, officials contend that the undocumented mothers opted to take their citizen children with them back to Honduras. In their court filing, Justice Department lawyers attached a note they say was written by V.M.L.’s mother saying that she was taking the child with her to Honduras.
CNN
The federal government said in court documents the mother wrote in a letter she “will bring my daughter … with me to Honduras.”
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with someone the parent designates. In this case, the parent stated they wanted to be removed with the children,” the official said.
“V.M.L. (the child) is not at substantial risk of irreparable harm if kept with her lawful custodian mother,” the government said.
Different sources provide different strengths of agency to the mother. CBS only attribute a mother motive via government statement after the fact, and makes no claim of the mother herself expressing an interest. CNN reports that the government claims the mother wrote a note, but does not mention the note itself was included in court submissions. Washington Post notes that there was an actual note attached, but disassociates veracity via 'they say' to open door for doubt.
Only CNN directly addresses a claimed government policy of asking the migrant parent their preference.
On the status of the father-
Washington Post
Justice Department lawyers argued that “the man claiming to be V.M.L.'s father” had failed to prove his identity to the government despite requests that he present himself to ICE agents, adding that he had also “demonstrated considerable hesitation” regarding the inquiries into his immigration status. The man’s lawyers included V.M.L.’s birth certificate in their fillings, which shows she was born in Baton Rouge and lists the names of both her mother and father.
CNN
The father then moved to give provisional custody of his two daughters to his sister-in-law, a US citizen who lives in Baton Rouge, and the mandate was notarized in Louisiana, the documents say.
The petition alleges ICE refused to honor the father’s request to release V.M.L. to the sister-in-law, stating “it was not needed” because the child was already with her mother, and informed the father he would be taken into custody if he tried to pick her up.
The government said the “man claiming to be V.M.L.’s father” has not presented or identified himself to ICE despite requests to do so, the court documents say.
CBS News
The immigration status of the girl's father, mother and sister was unclear.
In an effort to halt the deportation of the two daughters, the father on Tuesday filed for a temporary transfer of legal custody, which under Louisiana law would give his sister-in-law, a U.S. citizen who resides in Baton Rouge, custody of both.
The ICE agent further said that the "father could try to pick her up, but that he would also be taken into custody."
The Washington Post makes no reference to the legal custody attempt by the father, and thus why ICE might request he present himself to them regardless of immigration status. CNN and CBS do acknowledge the custody shift to the sister-in-law, but do not elaborate why the father could not request custody for himself. CBS alludes that the father's status is 'unclear,' while CNN establishes a threat (custody) but not basis for the threat (possible immigrant status himself).
No media covers the implication of an unverified man requesting custody of a child be revoked from the undisputed mother to another woman of unclear relation.
On the Judge's Comments-
CBS
A federal judge says a 2-year-old Louisiana girl and U.S. citizen may have been deported to Honduras this week with her mother and 11-year-old sister without due process, according to court documents obtained by CBS News. In an order Friday, Judge Terry Doughty, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, wrote there was a "strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
Washington Post
Doughty set a May 16 court hearing to investigate his “strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” The order did not call for the girl’s return or recommend any recourse for the family.
CNN
“In the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process,” Judge Doughty said in the order, a hearing is scheduled on May 16 in Monroe, Louisiana.
The judge added, “It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen,” citing a 2012 deportation case.
The federal government, Doughty said, “contends this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her … But the court doesn’t know that.”
Only CNN quotes the opening section of the Judge's sentence and interest. Both CBS and the Washington Post begins their quote after removing the opening clause, creating a stronger statement.
Trump First Term Child Separation Scandal
Human Rights Watch: Trump’s Cruel Separation Policy Has Not Ended
...I kid, that one is from 2018.
No media references, raises, or otherwise brings attention to the criticisms to the first term policy of detaining or deporting adult illegal migrants without their children.
In summary, if it this starts permutating on the interwebs next week-
The two-year-old american citizen case involves
A larger family(?) of non-citizens migrants with a singular birthright-citizenship daughter
- The non-citizen attributed include the mother who was deported, an 11-year-old-daughter also deported but not claimed to be a US citizen, and the father of unclear-nationality
- The family was allowed to remain under Biden-era Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), which allows individuals to remain in their communities while undergoing immigration proceedings
- ISAP is for illegal migrants, not legal migrant proceedings, as the Biden administration was practicing a remote-application program for processing immigration proceedings pre-arrival, and violating that was a basis of deportation
- There is no allegation that ISAP concluded with a permanent legal status for the family
The American citizen is/was an archetypical 'anchor baby' context without being called such
- Born in Baton Rouge, LA in January 2023
- Which means conception mid-2022, after Biden-era migration policies had become apparent / gained reputation
- The mother either migrated while pregnant, or conceived after arrival.
- The primary legal concern focus raised around this deportation case center around the child's due process rights, not the mother's or sister's
- Unclear legal / policy / political relevance of the sister-in-law to the migrant decisions
More broadly, the headline/surface narratives conflate child deportation with child-custody considerations
- Narratives characterize deportation of the 2-year old child, as opposed to children accompanying deported parents Minimal engagement of process / standards for parents keeping young children with them during processing
- Articles generally avoid acknowledging government policy of offering parents a chance; not mentioned, as opposed to claims it was violated
- General avoidance of parental custody rights and legal expectations of deporting non-citizen adults with citizen minor. For example
-
- If a mother can choose to take an American citizen child with them
-
- If a non-citizen father should be deferred to when requesting custody of children to be taken from the mother to someone else
-
- If the custody dispute between non-citizens must be adjudicated before deportation of the primary parent with their child
Finally- Is there basis for legitimate concern in this scandal?
Yes.
If you thought the lead-up was a the media is totally lying about everything trope, that was deliberate. It was to make a point about why I expect this scandal to hook some and be dismissed by others.
For people who are hawkish on illegal immigration, this case is not your friend. There is a lot of red meat here that could be uncovered- potentially unmarried family unit, a concerned father of uncertain status who in the first minute of establishing contact tries to convey a litigation strategy, child-custody defaults being reversed- but there is a hook that can work against you. And that hook is the disruption of what most people would consider a due process right, even if deportation legalism is different from a criminal court process.
For people upset about ICE and due process, this coverage is also not your friend. The framings- and the not-very-deep undercurrents that go against the framing- will give a basis to dismiss concern as motivated. The children-in-cage's and child-separation critiques are not going to be forgotten. The fact that not separating children from their deported parents is now a basis of criticism is going to undercut criticims of both. The media's rush to present a concerned father is going to run into discrediting disappointing revelations.
But the propaganda doesn't mean there is only propaganda. Even if it's not what the coverage generators wants you to be concerned about, because- again- you need to piece together relevant events not tied together in any single framing.
CBS
When Doughty, appointed to the bench by President Trump during his first term, sought Friday afternoon to arrange a phone call with the mother of the girl, Justice Department lawyers informed him that a call with the child's mother "would not be possible because she (and presumably VML) had just been released in Honduras." The girl is identified in court documents as VML.
Why was Doughty asking for a phone call with the mother?
Washington Post
That [Tuesday] night, the girl’s father was allowed to speak with her mother for only a minute before an ICE agent ended the call, lawyers contend. Lawyers say the man did not get the chance to speak to his partner or child again until after they were released in Honduras.
Why did the Tuesday night phone call with the mother (allegedly) get stopped by ICE after only a minute?
CNN
Before the father could finish providing the mother with contact information for their attorneys, he heard the ICE officer “take the phone from her and hang up the call,” according to the petition.
This is a claim. It is a claim made by someone with an interest in claiming it regardless of whether it is true or not. It is also a valid basis for concern, independent of deportation of the mother or custody decisions of her child.
If true, this would indicate that communication between the woman and potential legal representation was deliberately disrupted. How long it was disrupted is a relevant interest, particularly if other legal advice might have changed her mind of letting her newborn stay with someone else.
This brings relevant questions that may or may not have been precluded.
- Was the sister-in-law a valid close relation of the mother under existing custody precedent? (It is not claimed. Only that the father requested.)
- Was the mother interested / aware of the attempt at custody revocation at the father's request? (It is not claimed. Only that the mother signed an intent to keep her children.)
- Were the father's lawyers denied access to contact the mother? (It is not claimed. Only that the father did not speak with her until post-deportation.)
- Was the mother denied access to any lawyers she was entitled to? (It is not claimed. Only that the lawyers are characterized as the father's or the family's, not if they contacted her.)
- Was the mother, as opposed to the US citizen child, denied due process deportable aliens are entitled to? (It is not claimed. Only that a specific phone call was ended.)
Is there any legal barrier preventing the 2-year-old US citizen from returning to the US, beyond 'typical' international legal custody issues?
It is not claimed. But then, no major media coverage has expressed interest in that paradigm either.
Frustration.
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
And the efficacy of 'memetic hacking.'
Propaganda has been a tool for millennia. Tailored systemic propaganda has been a state practice for centuries. It still has yet to demonstrate the level of social/political control that advocates predict or require for other predictions.
This may, indeed, be an argument tailored to certain bureaucratic political interests... but a key lesson of the last decade of politics has been the increasingly clear limits of political propaganda in changing positions as opposed to encouraging pre-existing biases. And in the US in particular, many of the policy makers most convinced in the value of systemic propaganda are also in the process of being replaced by the previous targets of systemic propaganda campaigns.
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
There is this thing called the Constitution that does ban discrimination against citizens of another US state.
Dean
Flairless
3d ago
I'd say not for lack of trying, and more a result of mis-planning than desire.
The Americans planned to bomb the infrastructure from the start. They set aside stockpile stores precisely to do so. They planned to rebuild it afterwards, even if they didn't have much of a post-war plan as they should have.
The Russians did not plan to bomb the infrastructure from the start, because they didn't think they would be fighting a war and thought they would capture it intact. They then used most of their stockpiles on kinetic targets during the phase where they though they would be able to compel some sort of negotiated armistice (month one) or trigger a Ukrainian military collapse (spring-summer). By the time the Russians planned to as part of the long-term war plan, committed to around the fall 2022 mobilization, they'd already used most of their relevant stockpiles. Hence the drones from Iran and Shahed strikes targeting the power distribution rather than generation sites.
Fully granted. Now, overcome the prima facie case that most are good (especially given some conditions on freeness and such) by calling upon some sort of specific external reasoning for the instant case. Not just that there is some tail on the normal distribution, where someone bought some useless gadget from Temu or whatever. Justify that the entire trade (in goods) deficit is "lost".
The prima facie concept itself is what is in doubt / contested. The construct that shapes the [valuation] of trades is what is being challenged.
The question isn't whether there is value in the trade. The question is whether the value-distribution resulting from the structure is desirably structured. Or in other framings, it is a direct questioning of whether the [value] the system delivers is actually valuable compared to other considerations of [value]. The judgements of preferences decades/generations ago are not inherently persuasive.
To bring an extreme historical metaphor- there were a lot of 'good' trades between Britain and India during the British empire. 'Most trades are good' could honestly be made on most trades that were made. However, the macroeconomic structure of the system meant that the [value] that was generated was not mutually beneficial. India economically devolved as these 'good trades' continued. The British Isles certainly benefited from being the seat of empire, but the benefits to the Indians were incidental, not deliberate. This [value] got worse, not better, the more trade occurred, despite the [value] being greater and greater to the British.
So when you say-
None of this refined conversation means that we can just look at the total wages paid by employers in the country and say that this amount is "lost".
The answer is... sure. Similarly, no amount of trade volume can be looked at and say 'this represents [value] gained.'
The only way to make a moral judgement on the nature of the trade is to make a moral judgement on the structure of the trade. Big numbers good if you think the big number implies a good thing. But by a different premise, bad trade structures get worse, not better, with scale.
Now, on a less-extreme historical metaphor, but one more relevant to the United States- the value of the neoliberal model in play starting in the 90s and since.
A lot of neoliberal economists have argued over the decades that this was a Good Deal. Free market liberalization and international trade allowed cheaper imports and increases to the value-added economy. That the [value] to the United States outweighed the [costs]. GDP per capita would go up. And lo and behold, it did.
The issue is that [the United States] is not an individual actor. It is a collective of hundreds of millions of individuals. And the [value] most appreciated gained went to people and actors who did not suffer the [costs]. The system did not produce results in which everyone felt they were gaining [value]. The Rust Belt, once a significant contributor of [value] to the nation, did not become an even larger contributor of [value], except in so much that sacrificing their interests benefited others. The [value] that went into American shipyards was better able to grow in other ways.
Which is fine in and of itself. Winners and losers and all that.
Except that the neoliberals were also wrong on various [cost] estimates. Not only were they wrong about the nature of the [cost] that would be born by people other than themselves. They were also wrong about what future collective values would [value]. The neoliberals did not place much [value] on sovereign supply chains. They placed high [value] on [cheaper supply chains], with things like the just-in-time model reducing [costs] like warehousing and stockpiles and such.
They did not recognize things like, say, global pandemics or cyber-sabotage that could paralyze distribution systems and leave to supply bottlenecks at ports. They did not think profit-minded countries would make deliberate plays at developing global monopolistic power on supply chain inputs, even selling at a loss, and then using economically-irrational cutoffs as a geopolitical weapon. They did not factor in policies intended to result in regulatory capture of global markets beyond sovereign borders. They did not recognize that a military, or paramilitary, could be crippled by attacking the supply chain and replacing cellphones and radios with bombs enmass. They did not think that countries might want an industrial base capable of massive wartime production capacity on short notice.
Or if they did recognize it, they didn't value it very much. But modern governments do. And governments- not just Trump but globally- have begun to hire people who have somewhat different [value] judgements.
So when you say things like-
One can acknowledge that some percentage probably aren't perfect, but then we have to get into details of whether/how we can identify them from the outside, whether/how we have any tools to change that, or if it's best to just acknowledge that the employers are in a better position to judge the value of their employment relations. They have the best incentive to make sure that the lion's share of their employment decisions are positive value, and we should observe that they are, indeed, positive value. Normal curves are normal, but the mean is positive, and probably significantly so.
I'm inclined to agree. I'm also inclined to consider [advocates of neoliberal models] to be equivalent to the [employees] in this metaphor, and that the new waves of [employers] place increasing relevance on characteristics other than process economic efficiency when determining [value]. We'd probably both agree that [employees] who are not delivering the desired [value] to their [employers] quote-unquote 'should' be fired to improve [value].
I'm also fairly sure you'd disagree with their judgements on value. But that in and of itself is the point- the judgement of how to [value] things is a first principle judgement. The [employee's] appeal to a prima facie is not actually relevant if it is not actually the prima facie standard.
Dean
Flairless
3d ago
Probably not the examples you want to use for that argument.
Employers do regularly lose money and value in employing bad employees and producing bad value. We know this because employers regularly go out of business. Those bad employees will be ideally fired before that, but their are reasons from corruption to labor protection laws to conflicts of interests why value-losing employees. Trades are made on an expectation of some sort of value gain, trade is not a proof that the value has bee gained. Especially when there are reasons beyond the initial value-premise that trades keep happening (not least because [value] isn't static).
Shoppers do regularly lose- in the sense of waste- money on goods and services. There are entire industries based around the legal and psychological tricks to make people spend more than they 'rationally' should, particularly for luxury non-essentials. 'Value' is not a fully substitutable nature- hence historic prohibitions against gambling and addictive, no matter how much 'value' that fun has, or against recognition that parasitic corruption is bad no matter how much easier it makes the 'buyer's' life to engage in that bit of society-wide prisoner's delimma.
Not all trades are good, any more than all investments are good. There are plenty of bad, corrupt, wasteful, and outright harmful investments. It is not hard to find histories of similar trade dynamics fully open to critiques of being driven by bad decisions and bad value judgements. Treating either 'trade' or 'investment' as axiomatic virtues because the point of the word is the good thing is not going to be convincing to skeptics of judgement.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
Should we be considering the possibility that Trump has dementia?
Do you think so?
If so, why?
You've not made a position. Vaguely gesturing towards quoted material without taking a position is not taking a position.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
Well, that certainly won't help in the broader judiciary-versus-executive political fight over deportation processes.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
But do you honestly believe the interstate commerce clause grants the federal government the unlimited ability to interfere with how states delegate municipalities the power to decide how they're going to charge people for using vehicles on their roads? If this argument was about interstate highways I'd understand your point, but the congestion fee applies to municipal roads.
New Deal jurisprudence allows for interstate commerce regulation of plants grown solely in a state solely for personal consumption with no commercial transaction intended or engaged in. Road policies that affect the ability of out of state residents to work or travel to or through NYC is far, far, far more proximal than that extreme.
Dean
Flairless
5d ago
I think a US "withdrawal" coupled with an EU "entry" could curiously be the closest to an actual winning strategy for the Western bloc in this war.
If this happens, I actually have an outline of a long-post lined up for how this is consistent with the Biden administration's Ukraine strategy from the earliest years of the war, including it being a potential reason for why Biden took some oft-criticized decisions such as slow-rolling the expansion of aid / escalation options in the way he did. IE, why did the US wait so long before providing [X] asset or crossing [Y] redline.
Long-story short, the US strategy was a long-term strategy that prioritized developing a support-coalition that would survive exit of given members, including the US, after political turnover over maximizing short-term gains the US could provide on its own without European concurrence/co-contributions.
Is this a format the judge would have accepted as 'facilitation'? If not, why does it matter as a proposed alternative?
Ok, then why do Russia or America have armies?
In the last 30-odd years since the end of the Cold War?
Russia
To wage wars of territorial expansion and to rebuild a sphere of influence, and because it considers itself an unjustly undefered-to great power.
America
To wage expeditionary wars of choice based on ideology, global interests, or- in some of the worse- inconsistent morality from its position as a great power.
Why does China?
To conquer Taiwan, counter the United States, and because it is fits the CCP leadership's view of what a great power does
Why does Israel?
To fight a regular series of insurgency conflicts based on immediate neighboring terrain, shape how openly certain regional actors support them, and maintain a means of geopolitical influence/favor currying to leverage into diplomatic support via security relationships that also bring in useful income.
Why does France?
To have a seat in the table of any American geopolitical coalition, as part of its strategy to build leadership influence in the European Union to advance french interests with European heft, and because the establishment considers France a temporarily embarrassed great power.
They all have second strike capability, it’s just a giant waste of money for them to have armies.
Only if you think the only non-waste of money use for armies is to defend against invasion.
All of the powers you listed have either fought or indicated an interest of fighting wars of choice against non-invaders.
Dean
Flairless
6d ago
And thus them invading Ukraine does nothing to keep them from dying. It is a false pretense that doesn't resolve the problem it was claimed to prevent.
Why would they lose and die when losing and dying is followed by the end of the world for the attacker who forces them to lose and die?
This is where we get to the sillyness of pretending nukes don't matter or adopting inconsistent nuclear deterrence paradigms. Somehow nukes would be used for the end of the world, but not the end of nuclear state to hostile invasion which will result in the death of the people with nukes regardless.
Dean
Flairless
6d ago
If you're an accelerationist, vote for AOC-aligned candidates in the coming Democratic power struggle. The progressive/PMC caucus is one of the current drivers of the wedge in the black-democrat coalition, and it's likely to make things worse the better the AOC-wing does in its struggle for the 'soul' of the party.
Progressives and the 'black community' are pretty far apart. Part of this is where they are on the cultural war, but part of this is literal- the progressive urban power centers are not the black political machines. The black political machines are mostly along the south-eastern and southern seaboards (because that's where state-influencing political machines exist in those port population centers). The progressive wings are more the pacific seaboards and interior cities. They've co-existed with the neoliberals who are more in the north-eastern coast and also interior. There are overlapping areas, of course, but typically their machines dominate their respective areas.
The black machines are very comfortable with playing Democratic coalition power politic, and they have had a multi-decade alliance with the neoliberal wing of the Democrats that align with Clinton/Obama/Biden. For the last generation, the black-machines have basically been democratic kingmakers in the neoliberal candidate primaries. African-americans don't win the total election, but they do swing the party.
Or at least, they did. The issue with the post-biden crackup of the Obama coalition is that the neoliberal-dominant party is now in question. It's no longer neoliberal vs neoliberal, black machine is decisive. Rather, the AOC/progressive/socialist wing is contesting the neoliberal democrats in the non-black-machine turfs. That is, the internal and northeastern city enclaves.
This is why David Hogg, the progressive DNC leader, indicating he's going to primary various democrats is so significant. We're in the opening phase of a contest for control of urban political machines where progressives could be competitive. That is, well, not where the black machines are. It is, however, a struggle between progressives and neoliberals over who dominates.
The issue is that if the progressives lose that, the generational alliance between black machines and neoliberal machines will be replaced. And what it's replaced with will probably crack the black machines more.
The US Civil War might have also gone very differently had the Confederacy not initiated various engagements, giving Lincoln a stronger basis to send in the troops. Had the civil war started not with the South bombarding Fort Sumter, but with the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, Lincoln would have been in a very different political position.
In some respects, the opening of the civil war was a boundary dispute, and the South had no shortage of reasons to try and set / maximize expected gains, but those proactive efforts placed a greater political onus on them as instigating the violence that followed.
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