site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   24186 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Lawyers arguing in new ways to new situations is just standard legal practice, e.g. when Trump's lawyers argued the presidency is not "an officeholder of the United States".

Sorry, that one goes back to the debates around the adoption of the 14th amendment. It is not new at all.

It's a novel argument because whether the president is an "officer" hadn't come up in this context. If you disagree with this, feel free to cite the court case that specifically argues this point in an identical context.

You're effectively arguing that lawyers should never be allowed to make new arguments even if the situation is different.

  • -11

It's a novel argument because whether the president is an "officer" hadn't come up in this context.

It came up in exactly that context in the debates on the 14th amendment.

I dug up some facts and brought the receipts. In the Colorado court that heard this play out, their decision you can see starting at the bottom of page 95.

It indicates that exactly once when the Amendment was first debated in Congress (not yet law) the issue was briefly mentioned. Mentioned as in we have literally only this one tiny and brief exchange. From the section summarizing the key points made in the Colorado case:

The most compelling testimony to that effect was an exchange between Senators Morrill and Johnson during the Congressional Debates over Section Three, where one Senator explained to the other that the Presidency was covered by “office, civil or military, under the United States.” Professor Magliocca also testified it would be preposterous that Section Three would not cover Jefferson Davis—the President of the Confederacy— should he have wished to run for President of the United States after the civil war.

So the brief worry was that Davis, as an insurrectionist, was obviously barred from running for most offices, but maybe he could run for President only? Morrill thought no, he was barred from basically everything including President.

No other court cases, legal opinions, or even history is cited. Meaning they couldn't find anything else. There's other arguments too both for and against listed in the decision, but overall the decision says there is "scant evidence" and most of the other arguments have to do with the text of the Constitution in other places.

So yeah. In my opinion, if a legal theory is mentioned exactly once, and back in 1866, it is for most practical purposes "novel". It's not novel in the sense that literally not a single person ever had ever thought about the concept (clearly at least two people had, if extremely briefly), but certainly was novel in the sense that we had gone 150 years and no one had ever brought it up again as such.

It might also bear noting, when it comes to novelty, that this conversation formed a legal theory (if you can even call it a theory, it's not like they went into big detail) claiming the President WAS in fact an officer. Trump's team did not advance this theory! They advanced the opposite! It wasn't even the same claim! So it wasn't so much a "legal theory" as "one person worried about it once 150+ years ago and then decided it wasn't a big worry". And then over a century later someone came out and claimed the opposite thing. Sounds pretty novel to me!

Edits: last paragraph.

Senator Johnson: But this amendment does not go far enough. I suppose the framers of the amendment thought it was necessary to provide for such an exigency. I do not see but that any one of these gentlemen may be elected President or Vice President of the United States, and why did you omit to exclude them? I do not understand them to be excluded from the privilege of holding the two highest offices in the gift of the nation. No man is to be a Senator or Representative or an elector for President or Vice President

Senator Morrill: Let me call the Senator's attention to the words "or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States."

Senator Johnson: Perhaps I am wrong as to the exclusion from the Presidency; no doubt I am; but I was misled by noticing the specific exclusion in the case of Senators and Representatives.

So Johnson brought up the theory, Morrill denied it, and Johnson chose not to argue further. But I didn't say the theory was accepted then; I said it wasn't novel. It's not novel.

Jefferson Davis was not involved. Jefferson Davis was disqualified by the fact that he was a Senator before he joined the confederacy; it is true that if the Presidency was not an "office" he would not have been disqualified from running for President, but nobody was worried about that; they were worried about him re-entering the Senate. Nor was anyone worried about some rebel President or Vice President running for office, for the simple reason that there weren't any.

it is true that if the Presidency was not an "office" he would not have been disqualified from running for President, but nobody was worried about that;

“I am anxiously looking forward to Jefferson Davis’s Trial,” the Columbia law professor Francis Lieber wrote to Sumner at the close of Wirz’s trial. But “suppose he is not found guilty; is he not, in that case, completely restored to his citizenship, and will he not sit by your side again in the Senate? And be the Democratic candidate for the next presidency? I do not joke.”

If Lieber said that, it was not part of the debate over the 14th Amendment, since Lieber was not involved in that debate, and if it concerned Sumner, he did not mention it.

Please link the court case.

I don't have to dance to your tune. The debates on the 14th amendment were (obviously) prior to any court case involving it.

I don't have to dance to your tune.

It's because you can't, because there's going to be novel legal theories somewhere, because that's how common law systems work and this entire line of argument is silly.

  • -11

It's not, because civil tort common law, or even what a defense attorney may argue on behalf of his client, is worlds away from the standards of behavior and judgment expected of a prosecutor. Prosecutors, precisely because they have the imprimatur of the entire state and people, and have the authority to take away people's freedom and even lives, are expected to behave in a more restrained way and not go haring after novel theories just because it gets them the result they want.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats