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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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In the specific context here--2020 election rules changes, justified on the basis of "COVID emergency"--I wouldn't be so quick to concede that they were legal. Many of the people making structural changes on a state or county level did not have the legal authority to do so, and while there were lawsuits after the fact, the bell could not be unrung.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wisconsin-supreme-court-outlaws-ballot-drop-boxes-elections-2022-07-08/

Wisconsin's state Elections Commission approved the use of ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election. The above article describes the state Supreme Court's decision that this was contrary to the requirements of state law, nearly two years after the fact.

In the specific context here--2020 election rules changes, justified on the basis of "COVID emergency"--I wouldn't be so quick to concede that they were legal.

Did the people responsible go to jail? Did they suffer any consequences at all?

Does the letter of the law matter if it isn't followed? Does the letter of the law matter if the punishment for breaking it is a shrug and a sad face, maybe a brief soliloquy about how mistakes were made, whaddayagonnadoaboudit?

Despair is a sin. There is no bottom to that pit.

I've read your posts for several years, and found them to be eloquent and far far more painfully persuasive than I wished. I do not have a factual rebuttal for the broad sweep of your arguments that either of us would find adequate. I'm not here to blow sunshine up your ass, but for your own sake, please don't reject the ability to see hope when (or if!) it arrives, even in the smallest amounts.

We should not hope only when it is reasonable to do so. Perhaps the horse will learn to sing.