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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36144 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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Those criteria are guided by my understanding of culpability in German law, where I live. Particularly the idea of a plausible model is founded in § 23 of the criminal law, where the presence of a crime requires that the particulars are suited to lead to success in principle. For instance, you are committing a crime by shooting at a plane flying overhead even if your gun is fundamentally too weak to shoot bullets that high, but not by attempting to curse the plane down via strategically buried nailclippings.

edit: Reread, correction: it is a crime but may go unpunished or be punished leniently.

I'm not sure how a judge would decide "burning a car leads to Bush not being elected", but I see it as more an expression of powerlessness, a substitutive behavior that is more an expression of psychological defeat than particular criminal intent aimed at overturning the election. In other words, the J6 protesters had hope of an outcome that favored them; an anti-Bush protester did not.

Reread, correction: it is a crime but may go unpunished or be punished leniently.

You just undermined your own argument; this "correction" pretty much says "yeah, I guess it is a crime, even under German law". Of course, you're finely slicing things again by saying that although it's a crime, it's a crime that often goes unpunished.

I'm not sure how a judge would decide "burning a car leads to Bush not being elected", but I see it as more an expression of powerlessness

That's more finely slicing. It's an "expression of powerlessness", so it doesn't count.

Whether something counts as an "expression of powerlessness" is a completely subjective decision, and is obviously not synonymous with "has a low chance of working" (since both cases have a low chance of working). And you didn't state it until it turned out you needed to do so to explain how left-wing protestors are totally different. Of course, you're always going to find some minute detail on which January 6 protestors differ from any left-wing example, if you look hard enough.

Yes, I slice finely. I'm trying to report the model my brain makes. Human concepts are often sliced finely.

I used the term "expression of powerlessness" not as an excuse but to explain why people are putting a lot of effort into a plan that transparently does not affect the source of their displeasure.

There's a difference between "has a low chance of working" and "lacks a plausible model of effect."

IMO, calling left-wing riots "domestic terrorism" is a much easier sell.

Yes, I slice finely. I'm trying to report the model my brain makes. Human concepts are often sliced finely.

How is anyone supposed to distinguish between "I am changing my criteria to best fit my model" and "I am changing my criteria to best fit my conclusion"? Especially when the new criteria are subjective.

There's a difference between "has a low chance of working" and "lacks a plausible model of effect."

"People respond to threats of violence" is a plausible model of effect for burning cars. It's wrong, but it's plausible.

Sure, and if someone went ahead and actually threatened to burn politicians' and election workers' cars and houses, rather than undirected violence, I'd fully expect the state to absolutely destroy them.

Does Germany still have any common law, or did it ever get a full civil code rewrite? I imagine there was some pretty high profile precedent about culpability for witchcraft at one point.

There is apparently a 474 page book on this topic. I shall not read it.

Hey, if I have to suffer through Rüdiger Lautmann's "Die Lust am Kind" to win the groomer argument, other people should be forced to read tedious German academic books too.

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