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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   31683 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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The FBI this morning arrested a Wisconsin state judge on charges of concealing an illegal alien from arrest.

The initial criminal complaint is here. For those of you who prefer to watch TV instead of read, here is attorney general Pam Bondi giving the details on Fox News. The accusation is that upon seeing federal agents waiting outside her courtroom to serve an administrative warrent for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz (who is an illegal alien currently being charged with battery), Judge Hannah Dugan escorted Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom through the jury door so that he could evade arrest.

For all of the "Kash Patel Arrests Judge" headlines I saw this morning, this seems totally fine? It looks like an open and shut case if the facts alleged in the complaint are true. It sounds like there ought to be plenty of witnesses (it literally took place in a courthouse). State-law judges don't have jurisdiction over federal agents executing federal functions. An illegal alien in court for an unrelated violent crime is an incredibly unsympathetic defendant. All of the smarter left-leaning commentators I follow seem to be keeping quiet on this, which seems smart.

Paragraph 23 is about Judge Dugan asking if the warrant was judicial and saying a judicial warrant was necessary, after being informed that the arrest team had an administrative warrant.

If Flores-Ruiz had been in state custody, I'd think this was a state vs fed issue, with the state wanting to preserve its ability to prosecute the intrastate crime. Since he wasn't in state custody, the intention is unclear, so I'm curious what Dugan's motive was and how she will defend herself.

An illegal alien in court for an unrelated violent crime is an incredibly unsympathetic defendant.

H. L. Mencken:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

I've commented multiple times that I support both mass deportation and due process for illegal immigrants. A defendant being unsympathetic is irrelevant.

I've commented multiple times that I support both mass deportation and due process for illegal immigrants. A defendant being unsympathetic is irrelevant.

There must be a dozen of us.

Well that sets up some fucked incentives for illegal immigrants to skip bail. Not the judge's job to try to fix that though.

Although maybe the judge is aware that it's not her job, and chose to do it anyway as deliberate civil disobedience. If her goal was to get the issue into the public eye, she certainly succeeded. And as a judge, she's probably both more aware of the consequences of deliberately breaking the law here and also relatively well-positioned to deal with those consequences.

State-law judges don't have jurisdiction over federal agents executing federal functions.

The question is if they are required to render aid to federal law enforcement. Based on the warrant, it is generally illegal to "conceal an individual to prevent his discovery or arrest" and "obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the US". The latter requires corruption, force, or threats. The former seems prone to selective enforcement, I can't imagine the DA going after every grandma who conceals her grandson from the cops.

The affidavit states that it is very convenient for ICE to arrest people in courthouses because they know that they will be unarmed. This is of course the equilibrium if the worst thing which can happen to you in a court house is getting arrested for whatever crime you are accused of in the first place. Few fugitives accused of murder answer their court summons, after all. If the worst thing which can happen to you in a courthouse is getting shipped to some hellish megaprison in some country where human rights just are not a thing, then you might think twice about appearing in court unarmed. And while the affidavit claims that so far, ICE is restricting this practice to criminal defendants, it might already have a chilling effect on witnesses and participants in civil cases.

If an accused is willing to show up in court when summoned, that is saving the state system the resources they would otherwise have to spend on tracking, arresting and imprisoning that person. If the feds freeload on the state system, in the end it will be state police who will have to spend a lot of resources on tracking illegals wanted for some minor infraction like they are wanted for murder.

Of course, some other judge signed the arrest warrant, so it seems somewhat likely that they will make that one stick.

FWIW, 1505 reads:

Blablabla Antitrust Civil Process Act blablabla or Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress— Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, blablabla

1071 reads:

Whoever harbors or conceals any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States, so as to prevent his discovery and arrest, after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant or process has been issued for the apprehension of such person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; except that if the warrant or process issued on a charge of felony, or after conviction of such person of any offense, the punishment shall be a fine under this title, or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.

From my layman's perspective, I think that it is probably more likely that they will get her for 1071. Escorting a known fugitive through a non-public area seems the kind of thing which qualifies.

For 1505, she obviously did not use threats or force, so she would have acted corruptly. Now, if she had learned in her function as a judge that there was a investigation against her defendant and then proceeded to warn him about that, this would be a textbook case of corruption.

However, it does not seem clear-cut that she learned of this due to her function as a judge.

The courtroom deputy observed Attorney A (the individual who had photographed the agents) enter and approach Judge DUGAN’s clerk. Attorney A stated that there appeared to be ICE agents in the hallway. Attorney A told the clerk where the agents were seated and what they were wearing. [...] The courtroom deputy reported that the clerk then got up and talked with Judge DUGAN.

Arguably, this constitutes a chain of gossip, not a formal court communication. (Of course, it could be that things learned through gossip are also subject to 1505, like if a cop learned through gossip that another cop was planning an arrest.) But then she proceeds to use her power as a judge to get the confirmation about who they are after, which seems really stupid of her -- because she no longer can claim that she did not know of the arrest warrant. So it seems likely that they will get her for that, too, if the FBI agent's account is substantially correct.

It seems that you are leaving off the very first paragraph of Section 1505, which precedes the one you posted. It reads:

Whoever, with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance, in whole or in part, with any civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act, willfully withholds, misrepresents, removes from any place, conceals, covers up, destroys, mutilates, alters, or by other means falsifies any documentary material, answers to written interrogatories, or oral testimony, which is the subject of such demand; or attempts to do so or solicits another to do so; or

It would seem to me that if they can establish the alleged facts, it clearly fits under "removes from any place, conceals, covers up". It does not contain the required element of corruption which you wrote about, just "intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance".

I just abbreviated them:

Blablabla Antitrust Civil Process Act blablabla or [....]

Let me try to parse this.

  • [subject] Whoever,

    • [intent] with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance, in whole or in part, with any civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act,

  • [act] willfully

    • withholds,

    • misrepresents,

    • removes from any place,

    • conceals,

    • covers up,

    • destroys,

    • mutilates,

    • alters,

    • or by other means falsifies

  • [object of act]

    • any documentary material,

    • answers to written interrogatories,

    • or oral testimony,

  • [required attribute of object] which is the subject of such demand [e.g. of the ACPA];

  • [alternative act] or attempts to do so

  • [alternative act] or solicits another to do so

So, for that paragraph to apply, we require

a) a civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act

b) someone acting with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance to that demand

c) that someone doing bad things to materials, interrogatories or testimony related to that demand (or incites others or attempts that).

To my knowledge, there was no ACPA demand, the judge did not act to obstruct compliance with such a demand, and a person is not a valid object to act on to fulfill the act being criminalized by that paragraph.

It looks to me that this is meant to criminalize "oh shit, we are under anti-trust investigation. Let us quickly shred all the documents, or cook our books". In one dimension it is extremely broad (anyone can commit it), but it requires intent (which is often hard to prove) and pertains only to something very specific (demands under the ACPA).

I have no clue why the hell Congress would put that specific case of destruction of evidence (of which there are certainly more, my guess is that you will also go to jail for shredding evidence you are required to surrender in labor, racketeering, or environmental investigations -- just not under that statue) with obstruction of justice.

Now, if she had learned in her function as a judge that there was an investigation against her defendant and then proceeded to warn him about that, this would be a textbook case of corruption.

“Corruptly” there just means that she is doing that willfully, with improper purpose. It does not have anything to do with corruption as in misuse of the office. See eg this. This charge clearly applies given the allegations.

I can't imagine the DA going after every grandma who conceals her grandson from the cops.

I think it depends on the specifics. But it would seem reasonable under some imaginable set of facts and completely bonkers in another imaginable set of facts. So much is riding on how you actually operationalize it.

If an accused is willing to show up in court when summoned, that is saving the state system the resources they would otherwise have to spend on tracking, arresting and imprisoning that person. If the feds freeload on the state system, in the end it will be state police who will have to spend a lot of resources on tracking illegals wanted for some minor infraction like they are wanted for murder.

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, it might be more resource efficient to send him to jail longer (because of the failure to appear) in a single go. Moreover, an FTA charge is an extremely easy one to stick because you don't need a ton of facts or motions practice or anything else -- it's extremely well documented whether or not the guy was required to appear and whether he didn't.

In that respect, it's like the felon in possession of a firearm charge: not always the most serious but the easiest one to charge, try and prove.

Well, that certainly won't help in the broader judiciary-versus-executive political fight over deportation processes.

In the short span of time since I've heard this case, I've been trying to digest how exactly this fits in, and it's just so remarkably brazen that I can barely articulate it. I already thought that the more immigration-sympathetic judges played fast and loose with the rule of law, but it's on a completely different level to personally aid and abet the attempted escape of an illegal alien. When it's a legal proceeding with a decision I don't like, there's at least some pretense that we disagree about the law. This doesn't even have that fig leaf.

Suppose you're a judge, and you issue a warrant to arrest a murder suspect. Before the police can execute the warrant, he is detained by ICE and set for deportation. Would you consider this a satisfactory outcome?

State and Federal power are concurrent. No one gets to tell the other's LE what to do.

Would it be boneheaded to deport a murderer pre-trial? In most scenarios, yes. Almost every jurisdiction would detain the murderer ONE THEIR OWN DIME IN THEIR OWN FACILITIES, then when the murderer is finally released, they'd notify ICE.

But this is not even closely analogous. This illegal has a pending misdemeanor DV charge. The girlfriend is probably going to ask the prosecution to dismiss the charges soon enough (>50% of these end up this way). Even if she's committed they are in front of this hyper liberal judge who wouldn't imprison a "dreamer" or whatever this fellow is classified is in her mind if she knew ICE was anywhere near his trail. In other words, if ICE doesn't detain him, the most likely outcome is the case is dismissed and he waits out ICE for a while then goes about his illegal immigrant activities until he hits this, or another girlfriend again, repeat ad nauseam.

Whether I consider it satisfactory or not is hardly the point. There are many legal outcomes that I don't consider satisfactory, none of which I think I can remedy by electing to personally override the federal government's actions.

Maybe the judge thought that was better than ICE personally aiding and abetting the escape of a wife beater.

Given how often domestic violence charges result in a metaphorical slap on the wrist, I don't think this really passes the sniff test. Theoretically, these charges could hit a little over two years imprisonment, but in practice the Milwaukee system gives 'nonviolent' domestic abusers (a category that looks to include these charges, because why would words mean things?) a median sentence of 50 days, and a third of those sentenced walk.

So I'm pretty skeptical at the first glance.

At a deeper level, I would be absolutely fascinated by a principle where state judges are allowed to determine what actions of federal law Act In The Interest Of Justice, but I think that's pretty settled.

The part you're forgetting is that doing the 50 days doesn't mean he gets to stay. It's not a choice between 50 days in jail or get deported, it's do the 50 days in jail and then get deported.

After the past head of Catholic Charities shoes him out the back door?

Again, doesn’t pass the sniff test.

EDIT: to be more clear: Dugan had the choice of maybe 50 days in jail, or getting deported, and took this action, which made either less likely. Literally while the victim was waiting in her court.

Given that he still has the option of turning himself in to ICE for that great "escape plan", this seems rather implausible.

In this hypothetical are you a state or federal judge? Demanding the feds remand someone they've detained to state custody seems like something you at best could ask nicely for (see the precedent of Grant v. Lee on the subject). I would generally expect them to agree for major crimes absent other major political concerns. If federal (and assuming Article III), then no. If federal and Article II, then I think it's at least unclear which parts of the executive can order which others around.

I'm talking about state judges, because that's what's at issue here. And yep, ask nicely is what they do, by which I mean put in a formal request. And they generally agree for minor crimes as well as major ones, unless there's some compelling reason to get the guy out of the country ASAP. I remember a DUI case in Washington County, PA where the defense attorney was arguing for a dismissal since the guy was going to be deported and the case was moot. The fairly hardass judge wanted the attorney to request a release from ICE detention because he wanted to keep the guy from driving drunk and could require an interlock device and testing if the guy stayed here until the case was resolved. I don't know how the case ended, but I got the impression that the judge was convinced that they guy would end up killing someone in Mexico if he didn't dry out first.

The judge wanted the case off his call permanently. That is the most likely reason for this attitude.

*Edit

Here is how I imagine the thought process of a tougher on crime in my jurisdiction going:

  1. Damn it, another dumbass not coming to court.
  2. Oh counsel with another lame ass excuse is it? OOO WAIT a decent excuse this time. ICE CUSTODY! I havent had one for years!
  3. Crap. The state is right, this is actually the defendant's fault. I might have to issue a warrant.
  4. AHA! I can just order them to ask ICE to release him to me! Then I can be rid of this and go to my luncheon on time for once!
  5. Oh crap, no one actually has power over ICE to make that happen.
  6. Now I have to make the hard decision between issuing the warrant and risking he comes back and NOT issuing the warrant and he commits some crimes without a warrant issued! GAHHHH. I didn't become a judge to make choices, this is my paid retirement!

Whichever way it comes out, it's a point towards "Calvinball" in the "All this is the result of the right not understanding the orderly business of governing" vs "The business of governing is Calvinball."

It looks like an open and shut case if the facts alleged in the complaint are true.

Not really. There are two issues here one legal and one practical. As far as legal arguments go, the problems is that it isn't clear if what she did was actually illegal. She was charged with violating §1505 (Obstructing an Official Proceeding) and §1071 (Concealing and individual to prevent discovery or arrest). The Obstructing part is problematic because what the judge did doesn't fit into anything that's actually described under the obstruction statutes. chapter 73 of the US Criminal Code has 21 sections, and while §1505 doesn't specifically define obstruction, the sections that do make references to things like destroying documents, intimidating witnesses, bribery, and suborning perjury. Nowhere does it mention helping someone avoid apprehension by Federal agents. You can make the argument that a plain reading of the statutory language suggests that it would cover this, but the Supreme Court explicitly rejected such and argument in Fischer, saying that the context of §1512 made it clear that the statute only applied to the destruction of documents. In any event, I couldn't find any examples of §1505 being used this way before. I'm not saying this isn't going to work, but it certainly isn't open and shut.

Prosecuting under §1071 is even more of an uphill battle. Everything I could find suggests that it only applies to criminal warrants, such as the diffeing penalties for whether the concealed person is being charged with a felony or a misdemeanor. Immigration proceedings aren't criminal proceedings, though, but administrative proceedings. Again, I couldn't find any evidence of §1071 being used for an administrative proceeding.

From a practical perspective, ICE fucked up by attempting to detain the guy before his case was resolved. Typically, when a Mexican national commits a violent crime in the United States and then flees to Mexico, we don't leave it at that; we specifically request that the Mexican government extradite him for prosecution here. If he gets deported this is just the administration facilitating his escape. It may not be what he wants, personally, but even for minor crimes, the normal course of business for a criminal defendant in custody awaiting deportation is for the attorneys to request he be released from ICE custody pending the resolution of the case. This is true even for minor offenses like drunk driving, where the defendant is typically out on bail.

So even if this guy is out on bail on domestic battery charges, deporting him to Mexico makes his case impossible to prosecute, and even if ICE is willing to allow him to return for court appearances, it's impossible for the court to monitor his compliance with bail conditions, and he has little incentive to return to the US for criminal prosecution. The ideal situation, from a criminal justice perspective, is to allow him to stay in Wisconsin until his case is either dismissed or his sentence complete, and then begin deportation proceedings. By deporting him now, you only get half a loaf.

From a practical perspective, ICE fucked up by attempting to detain the guy before his case was resolved. Typically, when a Mexican national commits a violent crime in the United States and then flees to Mexico, we don't leave it at that; we specifically request that the Mexican government extradite him for prosecution here. If he gets deported this is just the administration facilitating his escape. It may not be what he wants, personally, but even for minor crimes, the normal course of business for a criminal defendant in custody awaiting deportation is for the attorneys to request he be released from ICE custody pending the resolution of the case. This is true even for minor offenses like drunk driving, where the defendant is typically out on bail.

This isn't how this usually works. ICE will go through the rigamarole of bringing someone back for some very serious felonies like murder and other Class X (or A, or 1 depending on what state we are talking about) violent felonies. They aren't bringing someone back for a DV unless someone was at least seriously permanently disfigured. In this specific case the case number is 2025CM000814. Although I am not a Wisconsin criminal attorney, I have >90% confidence that stands for "Criminal Misdemeanor" as it does in dozens of jurisdictions I am more familiar with.

In fact, the bail issue is why ICE probably detained him instead of letting the case go to pendency. If he was a murderer, ICE could be fairly confident Wisconsin's courts and law enforcement would detain him, or put him on EM+home confinement or something similar. Instead, his paltry DV charge means he will be walking around Wisconsin for months, if not years only for the victim to probably recant and/or for him to be sentenced to something like 12 months of court supervision. All that time he will have freedom to flee from ICE. ICE also simply doesn't have the space and manpower to detain him themselves and bring him to all his court appearances. Of course defendant's attorneys request that ICE let the case be resolved prior to detention. 1, that is how they get paid, and 2, its ultimately a lot better for their client, PARTICULARLY with misdemeanors. One of the worst things for an illegal alien is to miss court because you got deported because then the next time you get a traffic ticket (and lets be honest you will, that's probably how you got caught in the first place for whatever case you are in court for) there will be a warrant for your arrest. Then you get sent back to that courtroom and ICE can find you all over again. If you clear up the DUI, then get deported, you can sneak right back in and local law enforcement won't run you through the list of deported persons, while the would have run you through the list of nationwide warrants.

So even if this guy is out on bail on domestic battery charges, deporting him to Mexico makes his case impossible to prosecute, and even if ICE is willing to allow him to return for court appearances, it's impossible for the court to monitor his compliance with bail conditions, and he has little incentive to return to the US for criminal prosecution. The ideal situation, from a criminal justice perspective, is to allow him to stay in Wisconsin until his case is either dismissed or his sentence complete, and then begin deportation proceedings. By deporting him now, you only get half a loaf.

There really is no loaf for criminal justice in these charges. He's certain to get minimal to no punishment. The only purpose not deporting him serves is to enable his escape. And again, his failure to appear is kind of a hidden benefit because a more reasonable judge (obviously this one would not) would put out a warrant for his arrest and if he ever came back he'd be right back in that courtroom.

Wisconsin has open court records, so you can view the case details here: https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2025CM000814&countyNo=40&index=0&mode=details#summary. It does indeed appear to be three charges of misdemeanor battery.

The Obstructing part is problematic because what the judge did doesn't fit into anything that's actually described under the obstruction statutes. chapter 73 of the US Criminal Code has 21 sections, and while §1505 doesn't specifically define obstruction, the sections that do make references to things like destroying documents, intimidating witnesses, bribery, and suborning perjury.

After the January 6 charges, there can't possibly be any limits on "obstructing an official proceeding".

You missed the reference to Fisher, which is is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_v._United_States That was the January 6 case where the Supreme Court placed limits on “obstructing an official proceeding.”

Well, the Supreme Court ruled that there are. If the court had ruled differently, we could have that discussion, but they didn't so here we are.

Prosecuting under §1071 is even more of an uphill battle. Everything I could find suggests that it only applies to criminal warrants, such as the diffeing penalties for whether the concealed person is being charged with a felony or a misdemeanor.

Why? The text of the statute refers to "any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States". The text seems pretty broad. Any valid federal warrant must be issued under the provisions of a law of the United States right? Or am I missing something?

EDIT: Also, wouldn't 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(3) apply? Does having ICE agents show up and present an administrative warrant count as knowledge or reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law?

The issue is that an administrative warrant doesn't really count as a warrant. The whole point of warrant requirements in most situations is that a neutral party (i.e., a judge) has the opportunity to review the evidence and determine that certain actions are, well, warranted. An administrative warrant is issued by the enforcing agency itself, and as such has certain limitations. Most notably for our purposes, ICE agents with an administrative warrant can't enter a private residence to look for a subject the way normal police executing an actual arrest warrant can. So if you're my roommate and you're hiding from ICE and they show up at the door and I answer I can simply tell them to go fuck themselves and there's nothing they can do about it. Since this is the case, they usually have to resort to ruses like pretending they need a guy to sign for a package or acting like they're local police (without actually pretending to be local police) in order to get the guy to come to the door.

Since it's widely recognized that a judge's courtroom is a private area, upon learning that the agents only had an administrative warrant, she told them they couldn't do anything in her courtroom and would have to arrest him in one of the common areas of the courthouse. And she was accordingly under no obligation to make sure that the guy got into the common areas of the courthouse, anymore than a roommate is under an obligation to allow ICE agents inside.

As for §1324, I'm not going to comment on that since the judge wasn't charged under that statute. It's possible it could apply here, but I don't know.

Dugan was under no obligation to permit ICE in her courtroom but she exceeded passive refusal into affirmative acts of concealment and harboring when she warned Flores-Ruiz and escorted him through the jury door. You don't have to let ICE in, you can't warn your roommate and say "I'll keep them busy while you book it." She should face those as charges in addition to obstruction.

Since it's widely recognized that a judge's courtroom is a private area, upon learning that the agents only had an administrative warrant, she told them they couldn't do anything in her courtroom and would have to arrest him in one of the common areas of the courthouse.

I don't really think that follows. A federal officer in furtherance of their job cannot be arbitrarily prohibited from entering a State courthouse. This is approaching 'standing in the schoolhouse door' levels of nullification -- after all, a schoolhouse isn't a public space either, it is a private area for students and teachers only. I can't imagine anyone defending 1960s Montgomery officials telling the 101st Airborne they can't step inside.

[ I agree with respect to a private residence and the 4A, but a courthouse gets zero protection from the 4A and the analogy is extremely tenuous. ]

But even accepting this (dubitante, as they say), it would be still be obstruction to use that 'private area' to play a shell game with federal officers.

And finally, on a subjective note, this seems like ICE agents doing the right things due-process wise. Having been downvoted to hell for insisting on due process, I feel honor bound to turn around and say that ICE officers who do follow the procedure are due some deference.

So if you're my roommate and you're hiding from ICE and they show up at the door and I answer I can simply tell them to go fuck themselves and there's nothing they can do about it.

What Judge Dugan is alleged to have done is basically this, so... seems like she's in the clear.

Kind of surprised a federal judge signed off on her arrest.

An individual home or place of residence (even temporary, like a hotel room) is due special protection from the 4A.

This is not true for a judge in a courtroom, any more than it is for any other employee at their place of work.

Kind of surprised a federal judge signed off on her arrest.

How likely are federal judges to sign off on "contempt of cop" arrests? I would guess "not very," but perhaps that's wrong or the judge happened to be a bad one. Even if we accept that she didn't commit a statutory violation, "you may beat the wrap, but you can't beat the ride," and the Trump administration seems to be embracing "the process is the punishment."

Wasn’t there a New Mexico judge too?

He resigned, no charges as far as I know.

And a MA one in Trump I for which criminal charges were dropped in favor of a judicial misconduct.

Wow.

Is it normal for ICE to bring along a pair of FBI officers and another pair of CBP guys? Were they expecting trouble? Either way, it paid off. Doesn’t sound like they’d have caught the guy without an extra officer who hadn’t been recognized.

The only way I can see this falling apart is if the “courtroom deputy” turned out to be lying. But enough of his testimony is confirmed that it seems awfully unlikely.

About 2 weeks ago ICE arrested 2 people at the same mikwaukee courthouse and it caused a lot of pushback. They were probably expecting trouble. Also some were plainclothes, they went unnoticed when judge dugan told the rest they needed to talk to the cheif judge. Them going unnoticed and hanging back by the courtroom is how they caught the guy going out the side door.

It has happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v.Joseph(2019)

Not very likely that it will lead to guilty verdict. Probably will be a slap on wrist.

Maybe it is a bet that now times are different. I don't know but I tend to think that this bet will fail and it will be another loss of popularity to Trump administration. They are total losers who are on a fast track to self destruction. Good luck to them!

I tend to think that this bet will fail and it will be another loss of popularity to Trump administration. They are total losers who are on a fast track to self destruction. Good luck to them!

Why did I hear that in Stephen Colbert's Trump-tweet impression voice...?

I don't know him.

But I cannot imagine this judge to be given a guilty verdict or sentenced. At most, she will get a plea bargain with some corrective penalties. In the current climate this is proxy war between Trump and judiciary. And judiciary thinks that Trump is just trying to rob accused of a due process and that judge was right to prevent it. Even if it will not be how legal arguments will go, all members of judiciary will think that way and it will greatly influence the outcome of any proceedings.

I don't know him.

American late-night comedy host; would sometimes read Trump's tweets in a funny voice. (https://youtube.com/watch?v=XTEECbSPOKw)

I see, thanks.

I am not big fan of laughing at people with dementia like Trump or Biden though. We all might one day become senile and deserve some dignity despite everything.

Six members of the Milwaukee ICE ERO Task Force planned to take part in the arrest of Flores-Ruiz on April 18, 2025. This included ICE ERO Deportation Officer A, Customs and Border Protection Officer A, FBI Special Agents A and B, and Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) Special Agents A and B. The agents were generally dressed in plain clothes and intended to effectuate the arrest in as low-key and safe of a manner as possible.

No ATF? No FEMA? Not even the Coast Guard or the Marshall service? How could a mere six agents from only four federal agencies possibly hope to prevail against an unarmed immigrant?

And no, I checked, the badge of the "ERO Task Force" features a DHS seal with an eagle, not a scantly clad manga girl. Missed opportunity there. Sad!

I mean, the facts bore out that this was an operation conducted in hostile territory. They really did need the help.

I could not possibly be in more agreement with you.

Everyone knows arrests are Constitutionally required to be fair fights. The fascists have arrived like bullies, like they always do, using strength of numbers to abuse the innocent and violate their rights.

This means a pardon will be on the table as soon as it's an option. My complain is that the FBI and prosecutors have too much power overall whether it's sentence length or the scope of indictments, affecting both sides of the aisle, so this leads to more pardons and preemptive pardons. The abuse of pardons is really to lessen the the power of the judiciary. Compared to the rest of the developed world, the US hands out long sentences and indictments like candy, for all sort of things. The scary thing is how many files the FBI has on people who are never actually charged...it's immense.

The most shocking thing here is all the beauty filters Fox News is applying to Pam Bondi's face. The news channel should have some self respect; if they're not willing to show the truth on what Bondi actually looks like how can we trust they are telling the truth on anything else?

And yes, this judge should be charged and sentenced according to the law.

all the beauty filters

You sure it isn't makeup?

For some reason we've decided that manipulating peoples' perceptions by changing the physical objects they're looking at is acceptable, while manipulating peoples' perceptions by changing the images directly isn't.

See also fast food commercials. They are (or at least were) genuine footage of actual objects...which were only superficially related to the food they sold.

I thought it would be but having looked at the video there’s definitely a heavy filter effect of the kind you see on reality TV shows where the cast have final cut / editing rights (like the Kardashians).

If it's makeup it's the film stage set voodoo makeup which makes people look decades younger rather than ordinary makeup you do by yourself at home

A lot of news anchors basically wear a latex mask that is then painted to look human. They aren't in any position to call out the guests.

Expensive makeup gets away with being expensive because it works. People going on TV pay some professional to do their makeup because the results are worth it.

A lot of news anchors basically wear a latex mask that is then painted to look human.

This definitely isn’t true. The weird latex mask things are memes for Chinese viral bait TikToks.

A lot of news anchors basically wear a latex mask that is then painted to look human

This is news to me and sounds hard to believe. Also Gemini thinks it is False, source?

In asia perhaps, they love the fake nose bridge prosthetic makeup

Not in Japan. Yes there is such make-up but not in news readers or anchors. At most the pearly white tooth caps (sashiba, crowns).

Expensive makeup gets away with being expensive because it works.

To be sure, a lot of that stuff only works at a fixed set of angles and with controlled lighting.

It works better but in a narrower field of application. You can't wear that stuff out to a nightclub.

For some reason we've decided that manipulating peoples' perceptions by changing the physical objects they're looking at is acceptable, while manipulating peoples' perceptions by changing the images directly isn't.

That seems perfectly comprehensible to me- the object does look like that, after you changed it.

I don't see a moral difference between different levels of deception.

If you can buy X (a squished Big Mac) after being shown Y (a shiny, perfect Big Mac), then I don't really care if the intermediate step is X' (a squished Big Mac, which will be photoshopped) or Y' (a physically perfect, inedible big mac, which will be faithfully photographed).

I suspect that the image manipulation will become more accepted over time, as features like crowd deletion, de-blinking, and smart panoramas move from specialized desktop applications (eg. photoshop) to simple buttons in a camera.

I once had a reddit discussion about this, and how every Big Mac you get in Japan looks exactly like the ad. It's never been not true for me I was of course doubted and dismissed as a weeb or whatever. I sent my antagonist a photo a month or so later when my in-laws took the kids to McDonald's. Sure enough, a perfect Big Mac.

Could be down to High Definition TV and film? The problem with that, as soon as it started being used, was that now every tiny flaw and imperfection could be seen in high detail, so new kinds of makeup were needed to 'smooth out' features.

Seriously, though, if you're surprised that "public figure looks different in real life unposed shots than in polished, professional performance" well then I don't know how to break it to you about food stylists.

There's a difference between "Makeup used to conceal blemishes revealed by HDTV" and "Making a 60 year old look like a 30 year old" (which is what's seen here).

The news channel should have some self respect; if they're not willing to show the truth on what Bondi actually looks like how can we trust they are telling the truth on anything else?

That video is 360p and Youtube will not let me increase the resolution. Which makes your complaint a nothingburger.

360p doesn't make a 60 year old look 25.

It smooths out fine details, so it pretty much does, since you can't see skin wrinkles, at least not easily (and it's compressed, besides).

Found higher quality video at 720p here: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6371935854112

Also available here on youtube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=pHXo18bFo64

Bondi still looks 25 facially but in this video you can see the dried out neck more clearly showing her true age.

Either it's makeup or she had a hydrafacial appointment in the last 24 hours (can personally recommend). That's the only think I know of which can make tired and aged skin look so radiant.

Either it's makeup or she had a hydrafacial appointment in the last 24 hours (can personally recommend). That's the only think I know of which can make tired and aged skin look so radiant.

As a beard guy, should I actually shave so I can get a facial and then regrow my beard?

If you know you want a hydrafacial it's generally recommended you shave the previous day but not necessary. Depends on whether you're happy losing your beard for the procedure. Btw, the short term glow effects wear off after a few days and after about 2 months your skin will be back to a state as if you'd never had the facial, it's a routine thing you have to repeat regularly if you want the results to maintain over time and not just a one/few shot procedure.

No, in the time it takes to regrow your beard the effects will wear off.

As others have gestured at, this is just a rehash of the sanctuary cities arguments from Trump 1. The problem with using state courts/police as a convenient piggyback for immigration enforcement is that is encourages illegal immigrants to never show up at court or co-operate with police ever, either for their own minor offences or as witnesses etc.

I don't think most of the country finds 'we should not use effective tools to enforce our immigration laws because it will encourage illegal immigrants to engage in more criminality' to be a very persuasive argument.

Do you think we should attach immigration enforcement to the census? Why or why not?

Nah. It'd be tremendously ineffective. People would just lie. If we wanted to effectively do immigration enforcement bureaucratically, it should be handled by drivers licensing or E-Verify processing. A point of contact where people need to show up in person, and we're already expecting you to present and verify documents.

But there's no political will to do that, and deporting people who commited minor crimes lets the masses lap up blood without doubling the price of berries at Walmart.

That will just lead to a presumption of flight for illegal immigrants in all red states and therefore bail will likely be abolished for them in many cases, making ICE’s job even easier. This kind of heightening the contradictions stuff is good for the right, let there be a thousand headlines about illegals migrants skipping bail.

This seems different from Sanctuary Cities. The Constitution prohibits the Feds from commandeering the States (& by extension localities) but it certainly can mandate that they do not actively obstruct it.

Oh sure legally but the object-level principle at stake is basically the same - whether or not we should avoid using participation in local legal proceedings as a means of deporting illegal immigrants.

In that sense, I don't think it's a rehash of the sanctuary cities argument, not least because that entire debate was far larger than just "avoid the courthouses".

An Attempt at Bringing Back the User Viewpoint Focus Series

I'm attempting to bring it back, and I'm attempting to bring it back with a template so it isn't just an expectation of writing a ten thousand word essay at the drop of a hat. If you have suggestions, feel free to drop them in a comment.

Self description in motte terms

I'm an actual IRL tradcath with classical conservative political views in the continental tradition rather than the British one. More de Maistre, less Hobbes. I'm inherently skeptical of central planning as a solution for long-running problems; the role of a rightly ordered state is more that of a gardener than an engineer. There might be some planning involved but the government's job is more to promote good things and suppress bad things than to build a mold; nobody and no technology can tell what the end result will be. I'm techno-skeptic and HBD accepting-but-minimalist, with strong utopiaskepticism.

I'm also not rationalist in that I don't think we can reason through our problems all the time. Thinking isn't a bad thing, generally speaking, but it's probably not going to solve our actual problems. There's some we're stuck with and some we haven't figured out the solution for but the solution is generally a doing and not a thinking or talking. And in a lot of cases we're not going to figure out the right doing by sitting around and reasoning through it, we have to go try stuff. Like capitalism- nobody in an ivory tower came up with capitalism from first principles. It developed over time until Adam Smith wrote down how it worked from observation. That's why it works and communism doesn't.

Finally, I'm a western supremacist. The west is the best civilization and that's just factual. But the west has a boom/bust cycle of decline before growth, measured in centuries. This isn't usually a technological decline although it sometimes is; it's a civilizational malaise which drives political fragmentation and lower accomplishment until people rebuild. In other words decadence, but I believe decadence isn't just a feeling, it can be measured(by someone who's better at math than I am). The west in its boom overtakes every civilization; the chinamen will stick to their tea and incense when a western boom spreads to Mars and then the stars, just as the last western boom spread to every corner of the earth. The west is unfortunately in a decadent part of the cycle but we as individuals can build functioning institutions to rebuild it, as our ancestors did in the middle ages to claw themselves back up to greatness. And we do need to learn from the past; tradition is not necessarily a perfect guide but the alternative is fartsniffing until we've figured something out. Recommended Reading

Family and Civilization by Carle Zimmerman- account of the boom and bust cycle of western civilization. Read with Soldiers and Silver by Michael Taylor to read a snapshot of one of his examples(republican Rome overtaking the Hellenistic kingdoms).

The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Heinrich- on western institutions and their organic development into the greatest civilizational boom their ever was.

The Case against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry- on a failed experiment.

The Hapsburg Way by Edward Hapsburg- on applying traditional lessons to modern life.

Brief Manifesto

Build something. Do something. Make civilization work. Run in the hamster wheel turning the cogs of society- propose to your girlfriend and have babies, raise them right, work hard, if you see problems in your community go and find a way to solve them. Get people to organize, or infiltrate a preexisting institution. Join the Elks or the Lions. Make a mark that isn't digital. You probably can't be president(unless JD Vance actually is on this forum), but you can make a difference in people's lives and you can start building the machinery of a functioning society.

Senators and presidents can do whatever stupid things they're on about, it's not an excuse for not showing up. Us common folk still need to make shit work. Follow the success sequence and make it so your kids can do the same. Set a good example. Listen to your grandparents. Make being a worker bee OK.

Ping me on

I have specific knowledge of: Catholicism and Tradcaths(the real ones, not the twitterati), Texas politics, trades work(I would like to write an effortpost about the trades shortage but think I would need help with research) and blue collar work in general, and the people who do it.

AAQC's I'm proud of/would like to call attention to once more

https://www.themotte.org/post/1287/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/277989?context=8#context

https://www.themotte.org/post/900/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/194609?context=8#context

I nominate @Dean for the next one. If you can't do it, please say so in the comments so someone can replace you.

You wrote this as a pretext for asking Dean to finally explain what his ideology is, didn’t you?

What's the best blue collar job for me?

Current/former programmer. Dad is a carpenter.

Things I don't mind:

  • Being uncomfortably hot
  • Weird hours
  • Being careful and slow

Things I do mind:

  • Disgusting things, extreme amounts of dirt, any amount of poop, or bugs.
  • Travelling far from home

My father has been a glazier for 40 years, and I've worked with him on occasional jobs here and there. He is self-employed, and primarily does storefront windows and doors for restaurants, banks, retail, offices, etc.

Pros:

  • Nothing gross about it really. All metal and glass. Sawdust, metal shavings, etc., but nothing unsanitary.
  • In growing areas the demand is tremendous. It's a somewhat uncommon trade skill, but required in damn near every building everywhere. For many corporate clients, if you can get on their approved vendor list you can basically name your price, and they'll pay it without blinking.
  • Pretty high-precision/high-craft. Not mindless at all. Lots of practical problem-solving. Your work may be beautiful. You can drive around your city and point at all kinds of buildings and say, "I did part of that."
  • You go all over town or your region each day - no being chained to a desk. But your range wouldn't typically be more than a couple hours from home.
  • Don't have to work for a company or with anyone else if you don't want to. The most he does is occasionally hire laborers to help move very large things.

Cons:

  • Glass and metal are sharp and can be dangerous. You really have to take safety seriously. People do get seriously injured or die in this line of work, but it doesn't have to be you.
  • Shit is heavy. Glass is just very heavy. Finished units are heavier still. A lot is mitigated by various simple machines, carts, dollies, and so on, but there will be times when you must shift some big thing around a corner with muscle force, and you'll feel it the next day. Having said that, my dad is in his 60s and still has all his functions, and tells me he has no unusual daily pain.
  • There is often work at heights, potentially extreme ones, usually on scaffolding. Wear the safety harness. And of course you'll certainly be outside in the heat and cold.
  • It's a potentially hard skill to pick up, in that you either have to get someone to teach it to you, or work for a company doing the scut work for a couple of years while you learn. No legible credentials (in non-union states anyway), which may be good or bad depending on your perspective.

I can say I would be quite happy if children of mine went into it. It's honest work and actually quite deep and interesting.

If I were more optimistic about long term dynamics, I'd quite like this. I've built some large aquariums for fun, with some fish bridges etc. Definitely fun work with potential! May God deliver me from the temptation of becoming a Mormon glazier.

Why didn't you get into this line? Does your dad work with/train others?

I didn't really appreciate what he did when I was a young adult. I was a real whiz kid in school, and it seemed a shame not to use the scholarships and get out into the world that way. In hindsight I might have chosen differently, and now I have a whole mid-level career's worth of sunk cost that would make it probably too challenging to switch.

I think he'd be more than happy to sell all his stuff and his book of business in a few years for a nominal cost, if he knew the right person to take it over; but he's quite solitary and prefers to work alone, so it's unfortunately possible that his knowledge will die with him. Maybe I'll talk to him about trying to find an apprentice.

Don’t be a plumber or exterminator, or a welder or pipeline worker.

I generally recommend that men with white collar careers not try to switch to a trade. This is because tradesmen don’t make very much their first year, have to undergo some hazing(gossip is that electricians are the worst about it but they all do it), and usually need to start out getting experience with physical shitty work that goes easier when you’re 20 instead of 30. Yes, even if you live in an environment dominated by illegal immigrants.

If you insist, there’s electrical trades that work more ‘in a power plant’ and less ‘on a customer’s jobsite’ or diesel mechanics. Maybe some high-skill manufacturing jobs as well(very location dependent, but aircraft factories definitely fit here). But, well, prepare to make $17/hr doing crappy low skill work for a little bit first.

My best friend was a cop for 10 years, got shot, did another 15 years, then finally opted out and took early retirement. Went into welding, took the math classes, became an apprentice, now I think journeyman working toward master. He's 57. Tough as a rhinoceros. Rents out his lake house and he and his wife travel the highways and byways in an RV as he works. His job sounds extremely physically demanding when he describes it. Often he'll send me a photo of a bunch of pipes or something, proud of his work. I usually don't know what I'm looking at but I am sure it's something I wouldn't be able to do. I say this not to disagree, but to agree that it's physically demanding. And he was not at all white collar previously.

He used to bitch about it more, especially when he was around the youngsters, who occasionally gave him shit (until they realized who they were dealing with).

Don't know how it is 'round your parts, but I found out firsthand that there is approximately one full-time mechanical clock repairer/restorer in my metroplex, who is also well past retirement and cannot meet demand.

Maritime bridge systems technician. Always demand for that and the increasing digitization of equipment means you can't just climb the mast and bang on the radar till things align, since the network connections and system settings need to work in concert. Many bridge systems engineers bitch about how turning on one system gimps another system in another part of the bridge, and specialists refuse to learn the capabilities of other departments.

Navigation and comms are the two broad categories that bridge systems fall under, so depending on your future interest for when climbing up and down masts isnt exciting anymore you can transition to some office role.

Another big issue is navigating the unions for work. Federal level unions are basically extortion rackets, and state level affiliates seem to be politicizes shitpiles. Only one I've heard positive news about is Maine, which is generally top tier for anything marine in the USA.

Maritime. Work on a cargo ship. If you're in the engine room it's hot, you can work for 6 months straight, without leaving the ship, and you probably have to be pretty careful not to mess anything up.

Unfortunately it does involve a lot of travel. Pretty sure there's tugs that aren't away from home for as long, but most of the jobs mean you won't be home for a while. At least you don't have to actually travel anywhere in a car or a plane once you're on the ship.

I think that the cliche is that most ship owners fly whichever flag is cheapest (at least until their ship get captured by pirates, then they don't call for the Panama Navy for help, but suddenly discover that they are EU or US or whatever), and that they employ the cheapest workers, which are likely from some developing country.

Taking a contract according to Panamanian law for what might be a living wage in the Philippines does not seem like a great deal for most US citizens.

A container ship will run on a giant two-stroke diesel engine. Depending on where you stand, this might qualify as "extreme amounts of dirt". The fuel oil these engines use is not like gasoline (which generally evaporates without much residuals). Cold, it is barely liquid, tar-like. And that is before you start burning that stuff in a two-stroke engine, and get all the usual fun stuff from Diesel engines, such as soot or nitric oxides. While you might get away with having the chimney of your oil-heating cleaned once a year, a ship will (in my estimation) require a lot more than that.

Of course, YMMV. If you are a nuclear technician on a US navy aircraft carrier (or sub), then you avoid most of these problems -- and will not even have to learn another language to understand your captain.

For ships that sail between US ports you are required to have a certain number of American crew because of the Jones Act. However that only applies for the US. Not only that, the pay is actually pretty good. At least as far as blue collar work goes.

The U.S. merchant marine would dodge the whole ‘foreign scabs’ thing.

I regret that most of these jobs involve a certain amount of dirt and bugs in the field, although shit is generally optional unless you're dumb enough to pick my job.

Luckily a lot of trades have the option to go commercial to avoid the worst of what you'll see going to random weirdos' houses. But that has its own set of problems.

Things I don't mind:

  • Being careful and slow

Things I do mind:

  • Disgusting things, extreme amounts of dirt, any amount of poop, or bugs.

And while we're at it, how about a trade for someone with the opposite preferences.

I understand that these jobs (sewers, undertaking) are both viscerally off putting to normal people and come with quite good pay. As such they are generally monopolised by semi-hereditary guilds, especially undertaking. I believe @SSCReader has that background?

Not unless we're counting being a senior civil servant as a disgusting job!

I have slaughtered and cleaned animals on my grandfathers farm and mucked out cowsheds and unblocked septic tanks and the like but I was never paid for that. Just part of my upbringing with a mostly rural family.

Not unless we're counting being a senior civil servant as a disgusting job!

Ha! You said it, so I don’t have to :P

In all seriousness, I apologise, I was thinking of @AshLael who write a little about it here.

Ahh no harm at all done, it's hard enough keeping track of peoples politics let alone their personal histories!

Skyscraper window cleaning dodges the whole 'guild' issue simply because so few people are able to handle being suspended hundreds of feet up in the air.

Sheep shearer. Run into maggots? Shear right through 'em, don't mind the splash. You'll never do a hundred sheep a run (2hrs) if you worry about stuff like that.
And if you insist on the uncomfortably hot part, there's always Australia.

Oh my god, that does sound awesome! I'm more of a goat person, but sheep are pretty cool too.

When they're first born, you grab them, spray paint their butts and throw them back! Repeat every so often as they grow.

Plumbing.

Plumbing is rather well-known for having large amounts of poop.

This one was for me, not cjet. I'm ok with poop, but have issues with precision.

Exterminator.

Electrician?

How do you define western civilization, and what makes it best? Especially in light of the industrial revolution and the shift from >90% of the population working in agriculture to <10%, I don't see us as living in the same civilization as anyone from hundreds of years ago, so talk about centuries-long cycles in a civilization that is barely centuries old doesn't compute. Our way of living, dominant beliefs, our heroes and demons, the way our families are structured, how we relate to those near and far, the dominant languages of the elites, all of that is so different from what came before that it feels a real stretch to call Christendom and Western civilization the same.

I nominate @Dean for the next one. If you can't do it, please say so in the comments so someone can replace you.

I decline. I shall expect replacement with a suitable sci-fi allusion!

Proposal: Everyone else writes their own versions of your viewpoint, complete with what they think you do for a living, asl, etc.

@netstack, are you willing to go next?

Sure, I guess I’ll take over for @Dean’s Zakalwe.

What’s the timeline? Next week? Next month?

I figure doing more than one per culture war roundup gets to be too much and doing less than one per AAQC collection would be pointless, so like a week or two?

Great idea!

skeptical of central planning as a solution for long-running problems; the role of a rightly ordered state is more that of a gardener than an engineer

Quite tangential: We're basically identical in belief. However I believe in pro-social gains by simplifying complex systems. If you e.g. have 100,000 accountants normalizing books to match the law, the ideal gardener engineer could change the law and reporting standards, so that work's not necessary (either automatic or performed by only 10,000.) In our theoretical realm, those 90,000 could then create value instead of litigating who captures past value. In practice, I rarely believe this is done (how do you replace legalistic bureaucracies and replace them with trade practitioners who want to replace themselves?)

100,000 accountants? Sounds like heaven.

Quick googling says we have 1.6 million accountants and auditors in the US. Which isn't even factoring in all of the southeast Asians they farm work out to.

I really look forward to seeing these from some of the real characters around here, who I have in my head so clearly but who never expressed themselves in a biography.

Thanks for bringing this back! I think this last happened when it was on reddit and I was only a lurker (still have no reddit account).

"Build something. Do something."

Does it make any difference to you what we do, or is it enough just to have a job? Is the guy selling cigarettes at the same worth as someone making buildings?

There’s an interesting question there which I don’t think I have a very developed answer to. Namely, how socially negative can a job be before we stop being proud to do it.

I tend to see cigarettes as one vice among many but bookmaking as a terrible thing. I may not be entirely consistent.

Two members of my family were, until recently, dealers at a casino. They were both somewhat clear-eyed about it; they loved how much money it brought in, as well as the opportunities to socially interact with a lot of interesting people, but they understood that their jobs only existed because of a substrate of gambling addicts whose hobby has the potential to destroy lives. I don’t know that I’d describe either of them as “proud” of their jobs, and I certainly was not proud on their behalf when telling people what they did for a living.

I don’t know if real problem gamblers go to casinos. I think casinos at least have the virtue of being bounded in time and space.

The person I knew who destroyed himself gambling did so on horses and on (predictive) markets. We never even knew until he died and we discovered he’d leveraged himself and his wife to the hilt. She became absolutely penniless as a result, though friends and family gave her what help they could so she’s not homeless.

Cigarettes seriously harm you when used as directed. Most other vices have to be abused to harm you.

Tinfoil hat double feature:

@Jiro I think smoking causes cancer and is genuinely bad for you, but that smoking was intentionally used as a patsy for a lot of cancers caused by commonly used industrial compounds.

@Tree hysteria over premarital sex and teen pregnancy was intentionally induced in religious conservatives in the mid 20th century to reduce their birth rates in an effort to stamp out Christianity in the United States. You’ll notice that it was combined with induced economic and social factors that make early marriage impossible for a lot of people. The punishment in Leviticus for unmarried people caught fornicating was just to get married. Notice that the hysteria over premarital sex (reduced family formation) was also combined with a drive to get religious people to be much more lenient toward adultery/divorce (increases family dissolution), and abortion (reduces birth rates). So you have mind-broken psyopped evangelical boomers who are on their third marriage but are morallly horrified and indignant over the idea that their children might be having premarital sex at the age of 23.

smoking was intentionally used as a patsy for a lot of cancers caused by commonly used industrial compounds

Sometimes they can compound each other; e. g. asbestos fibres will stay in the lungs of a smoker long after they would have been expelled from a non-smoker's lung due to the former having killed off their cilia.

Wait, you can expel asbestos fibres? I thought once you were exposed that was it? (I may have been exposed in my youth so big if true).

They do damage while they are in your lungs, and that damage may or may not be permanent. However, healthy lungs have cilia which will expel foreign material, limiting the total damage that it can do; but if you kill off the cilia, asbestos fibres will linger for far longer, and do much more damage.

Cool, good to know. Thanks :)

This is great tinfoil. I love it.

Somehow the kids are having less sex and doing less drugs but no one who was upset about the kids having sex or doing drugs is happy about it.

This is simple to understand: it’s because the reason the kids are having less sex and doing less drugs is that they’re less healthy, socially connected, and happy — not because they’re following the social conservative model of being healthy, socially connected, and happy. The ideology of social conservatives is not “the kids must do less drugs, and I don’t care about anything else.”

We could solve drug abuse by just shooting anyone who’s addicted to drugs, but somehow I don’t expect that this would make anyone very happy.

Their lives are also ridiculously locked down. They are tracked by phone apps, social media is read, driving privileges are extremely limited (you can’t drive with more than two friends in the car until 18 under graduated licenses). The ability for kids to just go do things the way that their parents and grandparents did doesn’t exist anymore. We used to ditch school all the time, we cut class, we would go outside with other kids and the adults would not know where we were until we came home. And it was entirely possible to have friends your parents would not approve of. Kids could get drugs to school because it was easy enough for a kid to go to skid row and score some to sell at school. Safetism coupled with modern social media and phone tracking killed this type of independence.

I think this explains the mental health crisis and the no sex and drugs thing. Kids are never allowed to be alone with other kids without all the adults being privy to where they are and what they are doing. It causes a mental health crisis because kids never learn to get out of messes on their own, or to be independent. This means that kids never learn that they are capable of being independent or that problems that come up are solvable, least of all by themselves. The sex thing is because it’s impossible to get alone with a member of the opposite sex. No telling mom you’re spending the night with Mike and then going to Mary’s house. Mom will be tracking you. If you go anywhere other than Mike’s house, you’ll be in big trouble.

Their lives are also ridiculously locked down. They are tracked by phone apps, social media is read, driving privileges are extremely limited (you can’t drive with more than two friends in the car until 18 under graduated licenses).

And this is all taken seriously. When I was a kid we had the start of some of these rules... but I went to driver's ed with kids who drove themselves to the class. Restrictions on passengers and times driving were ignored by the kids themselves and not taken particularly seriously by the parents.

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A bigger factor than external restrictions is that the entire online world decreases the impetus to go out and do any of these things.

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We used to ditch school all the time, we cut class, we would go outside with other kids and the adults would not know where we were until we came home. And it was entirely possible to have friends your parents would not approve of. Kids could get drugs to school because it was easy enough for a kid to go to skid row and score some to sell at school.

To be honest, this sounds horrifying. I understand the rationale behind helicopter parenting a lot more if this is the perceived alternative.

Some level of independence is good but this really seems like too much. Independence is like bank lending - you prove you can have it by proving you don’t need it.

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The social conservatives thought if they could stop the kids from having sex, drugs, and rock and roll that the kids would be healthier, more socially connected, and happier. This turned out not to be the case.

Social conservatives believed that curbing youthful excesses—sex, drugs, and reckless music—would pave the way for a healthier, more connected generation. Yet, while there may be less outright debauchery, the kids are still struggling, isolated and unhappy. It seems you can’t fashion a silk purse from a sow’s ear simply by enforcing restraint. Human nature, it turns out, demands more than just the absence of vice.

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Social conservatives placed their bets on the law—eradicating sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll—to mold a generation of upright, flourishing youth. Yet, even with less vice, the promised redemption hasn’t arrived. The young remain hollowed out, lonely, and adrift. Works alone, it seems, bring no salvation for the masses; true renewal, whether for all or the elect alone, demands a faith that transcends mere rule-keeping.

Sure. Fully agree that a positive vision is needed. But I disagree strongly that social conservatives didn’t have one, or that they aimed entirely to eliminate vice rather than supply virtue. That’s a caricature that could only be written by their enemies.

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The ideology of social conservatives is not “the kids must do less drugs, and I don’t care about anything else.”

No; given that social conservatism has failed to provide health, social connection, and happiness (indeed, it believes that teenagers should not have those things in general, a viewpoint they share with progressives) I judge it completely fair to say that the ideology of social conservatives is exactly that- or at least, it's not opposed to sacrificing health, social connection, and happiness on the altar of "the fun things in life are evil" because those things are not terminal values.

POSIWID.

Are you under the impression that kids these days have grown up under a socially conservative system?

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This is ignoring the massive confounding variable which is social media and the post 2014 culture (much more engagement with politics, for instance)

Somehow the kids are having less sex and doing less drugs but no one who was upset about the kids having sex or doing drugs is happy about it.

I am happy about the kids having less sex and doing less drugs. I'm not happy about some of the things they're doing instead, ie either end of the OnlyFans transaction.

but no one who was upset about the kids having sex or doing drugs is happy about it.

Oh, don't get them wrong, they were happy about it back when their kid was 12-20. Every conservative parent's dream, really- no sex, no drugs, and otherwise content to be seen-but-not-heard. Just follow the process and your life will surely start eventually.

But now you fast-forward 20 years and they're still in the basement. Encouraging their children to reject the more pleasurable (and riskier) parts of life may have had some unforeseen consequences, but if your judgement as a parent is that the best way to make sure your child isn't living in sin is to encourage them to refuse to live then, uh... mission accomplished, I guess?

The idea that you should find a partner by fucking around through your teens and twenties until you find a girl you want to keep is incredibly recent, though. Basically Europe/Anglo only, between 1960s and now.

What makes conservative sexual policy stupid is trying to reject the Sexual Revolution for people their children’s age while keeping all the related social frameworks and assumptions that underlie it.

So you get ‘sex when you’re young is bad’ combined with ‘arranged/facilitated marriages are evil because they prevent twu wuv, as is anything that even slightly impinges on women’s sexual autonomy’. You can have either position but not really both, especially when you cripple your childrens’ game and then throw them into the tinder meat market at 20.

The idea that you should find a partner by fucking around through your teens and twenties until you find a girl you want to keep is incredibly recent, though. Basically Europe/Anglo only, between 1960s and now.

You are right about the recency, but sadly wrong about the spread. Hollywood and Harvard have exported the sexual revolution around the world, with a little help from the US military. The false life plan is now the standard across much of Latin America and Asia. I think Muslims in the Middle East and Africa are the last line of defense humanity has against this poison.

So you get ‘sex when you’re young is bad’ combined with ‘arranged/facilitated marriages are evil because they prevent twu wuv, as is anything that even slightly impinges on women’s sexual autonomy’. You can have either position but not really both, especially when you cripple your childrens’ game and then throw them into the tinder meat market at 20.

In particular, mainstream conservative boomers have brought into the cult of education and careerism, especially for women, and expect everyone to not even think about marriage until after they graduate college at 22 and spend a few more years getting established in the workforce. In this, they are in complete agreement with the progressives, dissenting only in believing that chastity should be preserved until then.

But, of course, humans are not made to be virgins until 25; we reach sexual maturity in our teens. That is when we are meant to start having sex and becoming independent of our parents. Instead, we rot in classrooms memorizing random trivia and practicing useless skills, enforced by a legal and social regime that views teen marriage and teen labor as barbaric abuse.

The only possible results are stunted or disobedient individuals.

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The idea that you should find a partner by fucking around through your teens and twenties until you find a girl you want to keep is incredibly recent, though. Basically Europe/Anglo only, between 1960s and now.

Yes, the ability to have sex and be more or less guaranteed for that not to result in pregnancy is an incredibly recent development; and the kinds of people who take advantage of that technology (and encourage taking advantage of the same) tend to be somewhat less encumbered than what the past several million years of evolution suggest they should be, to the point that someone closer to that prediction would/should believe that a serious malfunction.

You can have either position but not really both, especially when you cripple your childrens’ game and then throw them into the tinder meat market at 20

There are two types of conservatives: those who have realized this and ally with the less-encumbered as described above, and those who turn inwards and die (their daughters become progressives immediately after leaving the house and remain that way for the rest of their lives, and their sons don't figure out becoming progressive is a bad move until it's too late for them to ever leave the basement).

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I think the general script that I see among the more conservative/traditional people in my life is you meet someone in college and marry them shortly thereafter, with varying degrees of whether you sleep with them before marriage (but your lifetime body count is much more likely to be 1).

This puts extra non-academic pressure on college, and most of this happened pre-COVID, so not sure how easy it is now.

I was raised in a conservative family, did not partake in sex, drugs, or alcohol in high school and feel like my life turned out pretty awesomely.

Somehow the kids are having less sex and doing less drugs but no one who was upset about the kids having sex or doing drugs is happy about it.

This is sort of encouraging, isn’t it? It shows that those people weren’t just ‘ah, damn kids today!’ But actually somewhat care about people having happy and healthy lives.

The religious mind may consider harm and sinfulness to be inversely correlated (smoking vs promiscuity). The latter is particularly unfair to the believers and offensive to the gods precisely because the sinners are having fun without repercussions. The greater the temptation, the stronger the smell of sulfur.

The religious mind may consider harm and sinfulness to be inversely correlated (smoking vs promiscuity).

Speaking in generalities, we do not. On the other hand, regardless of what we disapprove of, whether smoking or promiscuity, it seems that the irreligiously-minded are always ready to explain how our disapproval shows us to be terrible people.

The latter is particularly unfair to the believers and offensive to the gods precisely because the sinners are having fun without repercussions.

It's pretty uncommon to see people commit murder over cigarettes, and yet they commit murder over promiscuity all the time and across a wide variety of cultures. This seems odd to square with claims that promiscuity is "harmless".

they commit murder over promiscuity

seems odd to square with claims that promiscuity is "harmless"

Because the harm is attributed to the person who chose to commit murder.

If Alice does $THING (being promiscuous, wearing the 'wrong' clothes for her gender, expressing unpopular opinions, eating rice on Tuesdays, &c., &c.), and Bob chooses to kill or otherwise harm her over it, that does not make $THING responsible for the harm done to Alice; the blame lies on Bob. Otherwise, Bob would have the ability to prevent Alice from doing anything he didn't like. (cf. the Heckler's Veto.)

Because the harm is attributed to the person who chose to commit murder.

They're often choosing to commit murder because they are having what is commonly known as a significant emotional event. Hence the term "crime of passion". Such crimes have been a constant through all of recorded history, indicating that their emergence is not the result of particular social customs. It seems pretty clear to me that sex tends to be deeply emotionally significant for healthy humans, and that perceived violations of trust in these matters cause intense emotional reactions indicates that promiscuity can, in fact, cause significant harm.

Robbery has been a constant through all recorded history too. And greed is pretty emotionally significant. (And I'm pretty sure that greed isn't the result of particular social customs.) But we don't blame the banks when the bank is robbed and an innocent person gets shot.

You use, excuse and legitimise an extreme minority of rage-fueled murderers to condemn everyone’s harmless daily desires. You've catastrophically misidentified who the healthy humans are.

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Selling isn't building. Even making cigarettes isn't building. But building machines to build better cigarettes? Now we have a philosophical discussion about socially beneficial economic activity!

I'd say yes, it's good to design and even make better cigarette making machines. And evil to operate them. Just build them as a fun project, then retool for something good.

The funny thing is, in my experience blue-collar construction workers tend to be big fans of cigarettes. So maybe the two things aren't even all that disconnected!

There's also a weird tension. We celebrate the engineers who make better machines, because it makes our lives better. But there's a limit on how far that can go, eventually we run out of things to automate and create so much industrial abundance that it just becomes harder to get a regular job. EG, I'm worried that industrial fishing has become too efficient and without strict regulation it's just going to make more and more fish go extinct. Meanwhile, a normal traditional fisherman can no longer make a living.

In the end this is what will differentiate the wheat from the chaff, the humans from AI output.

In a move that appears to have largely flown under the radar, President Trump has signed an EO aimed at eliminating disparate impact analysis/theory. CNN devoted a whole 11 sentences to this EO, the Washington Post bundled it with six others, and the New York Times gave it two sentences in an article about another order. I have to wonder how this is flying under the radar, because 🦀🦀🦀 DISPARATE IMPACT IS DEAD 🦀🦀🦀.

Of course it's not gone gone yet, it is still part of the Civil Rights Act (1964), but the EO instructs that:

the Attorney General shall initiate appropriate action to repeal or amend the implementing regulations for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for all agencies to the extent they contemplate disparate-impact liability.

and

Within 45 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shall assess all pending investigations, civil suits, or positions taken in ongoing matters under every Federal civil rights law within their respective jurisdictions, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that rely on a theory of disparate-impact liability, and shall take appropriate action with respect to such matters consistent with the policy of this order.

This will of course result in litigation, which will likely drag on for years, but the fact that this started now, in April of the first year of his term, means that there's a very good chance this ends up before SCOTUS before President Trump's term is up and a new face takes the oval. I'm very excited to see where this goes, and have my fingers crossed that this means we'll see a return to civil service exams and meritocratic hiring.

I'm glad someone finally posted it, but I would not say that it's flown under the radar. TracingWoodgrains also saw it yesterday pretty quickly.

If disparate impact was a part of the Civil Rights act, and if it's been upheld by the Supreme Court previously (I thought it had), how can it be eliminated with an executive order? Is the hope that it gets adjudicated by the courts and eventually stricken down?

It's a different Supreme Court. You cannot at the same time have

  1. Lack of disparate impact according to a protected characteristic

  2. Lack of disparate treatment according to a protected characteristic

  3. A test which truly measures merit.

  4. Merit which is correlated with the protected characteristic.

If the Supreme Court were to confront this head-on, they'd have the job of deciding between

A) Banning tests based on merit. This is practically absurd but legally sound

B) Deferring to the legislature and allowing disparate treatment (discrimination against the group whose membership is correlated with greater merit) in such instances. We are, in effect, here.

C) Ruling that "equal protection" in the Constitution bans disparate treatment and striking down the requirement to avoid disparate impact.

However, the Supreme Court will not confront this head-on; they will do almost anything to allow B) to remain the case while pretending that it isn't and 4) does not attain.

However, the Supreme Court will not confront this head-on; they will do almost anything to allow B) to remain the case while pretending that it isn't and 4) does not attain.

Is that simply because they don't want to rock the boat? Even the current conservative-leaning SC? What if Sotomayor is replaced?

It doesn't matter. Civil rights is like gun control -- the conservatives on the court (with 1 or 2 exceptions) believe one side is in accord with the Constitution, but they want what the other side wants. That is, they want "the blacks" to succeed without discrimination in their favor, but their second choice is the appearance of same, with "Asian and white Harvard" WAY behind. So they will do the "Supreme Court as a debating society" thing where they'll agree that yes, the Fourteenth Amendment means you can't discriminate against white people, but really, can't The Man give a brother a chance for crying out loud?

I'm glad someone finally posted it, but I would not say that it's flown under the radar. TracingWoodgrains also saw it yesterday pretty quickly.

It all over the news as well. This is the most scrutinized president in history, and there is so much attention on social media and elsewhere. Almost nothing goes unnoticed.

Tests and meritocratic hiring already exists. Look at top quant firms or top tech firms. You got to be whip-smart to get those jobs. They already have tests, like Wonderlic, white board/leetcode, or phone interviews (typically multiple gauntlets of testing). These tend to be 'on the fly', so harder to practice. Even crap jobs have huge screening and long applications.

The problem with any exam system is those are really prone to being gamed or people cramming for them. So you end up with a situation where lots of people score well on the exam, yet there isn't much useful information gleaned from this. This is common with the AP exams, where almost everyone gets 4s and 5s, so elite colleges have ignored them. Employers instead have learned to rely more on surprise-- hence phone interviews, Wonderlic (in which it tests for literacy/numeracy, but also acts like an IQ test, and you cannot really raise your score that much for it), on-the-spot coding or other challenges, brainteasers, and so on. or college degrees, which not only screen for competence, but also conscientiousness due to the large time investment.

This is common with the AP exams, where almost everyone gets 4s and 5s

Ouch. 4-pleb detected. The cool kids are over here getting a dozen 5s each and couldn't imagine getting a 4.

But more seriously, getting good AP scores isn't going to guarantee admission anywhere, but getting bad or not enough AP scores is gonna tank your application unless you have something else like dark skin to compensate.

Wonderlic

Wonderlic is the test that literally lost Griggs. The burden of proof is on the employer to "prove" that the test isn't discrimination, and now Wonderlic (and Indeed and co) has a team of lawyers you need need to pay millions to who will preemptively produce tomes of legal documents to prove that, yes, being retarded will in fact reduce job performance on your specific job. Those tomes will of course need to be paid for and recreated for every distinct job title you have.

If disparate impact is actually ended, expect every Walmart level job to have the equivalent of an IQ test.

Wonderlic is the test that literally lost Griggs.

Well, that and the alternative requirement of a high school diploma. But no one ever mentions that part, for some reason.

I honestly don't know how you get anything else at an elite level. I got one 4 out of 8 AP tests, in a class I hadn't taken and hadn't really studied for. The AP tests just aren't that hard.

In fairness, themotte readers are not average. The average IQ here is probably at least 120

Absolutely--but neither are the kids taking AP tests to boost their college applications. There's no reason to do that unless your SAT equivalent score is well above that point.

Ouch. 4-pleb detected. The cool kids are over here getting a dozen 5s each and couldn't imagine getting a 4.

is this supposed to be a diss. Maybe I can send some passages of the math paper I am working on, and you can proofread them, as you've obviously way smarter. You must be so successful at life with that attitude.

If disparate impact is actually ended, expect every Walmart level job to have the equivalent of an IQ test.

This what the Wonderlic accomplishes (along with interview, which also is a screening mechanism), and according to people on reddit, it's very common and many companies use it. AFIK, the Wonderlic or any company that has used it has never been successfully sued for disparate impact on the grounds off the test itself. https://old.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/x5qv4v/an_employer_gave_me_a_wonderlic_test_is_this/

What makes the Wonderlic particularly useful is it's not only very quick and cheap to proctor (no psychologist, unlike a full-scale IQ test), but it screens for both competence, like reading and math, and also functions as an IQ screen/filter on the high-end, due to rarity of top scores, which map to a bell curve and highly correlated with full-scale IQ.

Wonderlic is the test that literally lost Griggs.

The outcome is more nuanced. https://home.ubalt.edu/tmitch/645/articles/Cognitive%20AbilityTesting%20EF%20wonderlic.pdf

While the Griggs case is often mistakenly cited to call into question the lawfulness of cognitive ability testing, in reality the ruling on this case recognizes that these tests, as well as educational requirements and other hiring tools (e.g., criminal background checks, credit checks, experience requirements, physical requirements), are appropriate for assessing job applicants as long as certain criteria are met

My broader point being: The tests are widespread, as shown on reddit. Wonderlic and employers work together to ensure the tests are compliant and used appropriately, hence and there are a paucity of lawsuits, let alone successful ones, indicating it has been a success. I support unconditional use of tests for hiring, but it's wrong to say such testing does not exist or that a full-scale IQ test would be better, when the Wonderlic is by many measures better and already does that.

according to people on reddit, it's very common and many companies use it

Nice worthless anecdote

Jordan v. The City of New London

Absolutely irrelevant in this case

it's not only very quick and cheap to proctor

It's not cheap to get access. That's literally the point of my entire post, that the legal ass-covering needed to give the wonderlic is why testing is not done more often.

It is often, which was my point which you missed. I support the unconditional use of IQ tests for hiring/promotion, but it's wrong to say that testing is uncommon or that Griggs is preventing companies from using screening.

a team of lawyers you need need to pay millions to who will preemptively produce tomes of legal documents to prove that, yes, being retarded will in fact reduce job performance on your specific job. Those tomes will of course need to be paid for and recreated for every distinct job title you have.

I have closely followed every major disparate impact case related to cognitive testing in the US over the last decade or so. One thing they all have in common is that the victims were astoundingly stupid in their lack of evidence.

Since g is correlated universally with job performance, you don’t need to spend millions of dollars on lawyers to obtain enough evidence that a Democratic justice department will decide not to bother investigating you. You simply need to be able to produce (BEFORE the investigation) the most basic evidence that smarter people perform better at the job.

At some point, I really need to do an effortpost on Admiral Rickover's infamous interviews of candidates for the US nuclear navy. He already knew their technical qualifications, so it was a matter of seeing what sort of person he was dealing with.

Please do. IMO there's a huge Rickover shaped hole in the sort of broader rationalist/slatestarcodex universe, he's massively under-appreciated.

Yeah, way I heard it, his daughter was the nuclear navy, and he needed you to explain why he should trust you to take her to prom.

I found these recollections interesting to read


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