This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
June is coming to an end, which means all the most controversial SCOTUS opinions are coming out in the traditional big lump. These opinions are sharply divided, often along ideological lines, with lively dissents and concurrences--pretty enjoyable for a law nerd like me. Relevant to this thread, these cases tend to focus on big culture-war topics like abortion and gender stuff. This week saw the following:
Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic - Abortion. Congress requires States who receive Medicaid funds to, among other things, permit patients to obtain medical assistance from "any qualified provider." South Carolina receives federal Medicaid funding, but excludes Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program because state law prohibits using public funds for abortion. Planned Parenthood files a section 1983 claim (this is important, IMO) arguing that it is a "qualified provider" and that Congress's Medicaid statute created a federal right for any qualified provider to receive Medicaid funds. The court, with a 6-3 conservative-liberal split, says "no." Gorsuch writes the majority opinion: the "any-qualified-provider" provision of the federal Medicaid statute does not create a right for medical providers to receive Medicaid funding. All it does is specify a condition with which participating States must "substantially comply" in order to receive federal funding. If South Carolina doesn't want to comply, the feds can kick South Carolina out of the Medicaid program, but that's not the same as creating a "right" to Medicaid funds. Section 1983 is only for vindication of a person's federal rights; there is no right for a provider to receive Medicaid funding from a State, so Planned Parenthood doesn't have a valid 1983 claim. Jackson writes the dissent; I didn't really read it carefully, because the majority seems clearly to have the better argument here. Everyone agrees that South Carolina could, if it wanted to, simply reject federal funding altogether. Then nobody in South Carolina would get Medicaid funding, and South Carolina wouldn't have to abide by any of the provisions of the Medicaid statute. It's hard to say that people have an enforceable federal "right" to receive Medicaid funding from a state, when everyone acknowledges that the state has no obligation to participate in the Medicaid system at all.
Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton - Pornography 6-3 conservative opinion, Thomas. First Amendment does not prohibit Texas from requiring age-verification for pornographic websites. Kagan writes the dissent.
Mahmoud v. Taylor - LGBTQ+ Books and Lessons in Schools 6-3 conservative opinion, Alito. Religious students and parents have a constitutional right, under the free exercise clause, to opt-out of pro-LGBTQ+ curricula in public schools. Thomas writes a concurrence. Sotomayor wrote the dissent.
In my opinion, the biggest case today was:
Trump v. CASA, Inc. - Immigration BUT ACTUALLY Federal Court Procedure (sounds boring but is, IMO, super important) 6-3 conservative opinion, Barrett. 3 concurrences! 2 dissents! This is the "birthright citizenship" case: does the Court agree with the Trump administration that some people born on U.S. soil are nevertheless not American citizens? IDK! Because the Court doesn't answer that question. Instead, it addresses whether the lower federal court had the authority to issue a nationwide injunction against the Trump administration's immigration enforcement proceedings. The Court held it did not have that authority. Federal courts can only determine cases and issue binding decisions as to the parties before them, not the country as a whole. The lower court's national injunction is stayed as to any people not among the parties to the suit.
Some are saying the Court "punted" on the birthright citizenship thing, but I think the Court actually addressed a far more important culture-war issue. "Nationwide" or "universal" injunctions have been part of the playbook for activists' (especially progressive activists) lawfare for a long time. The idea is to find some sympathetic plaintiff who would be affected by a statute or executive action you don't like, shop around the whole country until you find a judge who agrees with you, and then get that judge--before the case has even been tried--to indefinitely prevent the government from applying the challenged law/regulation/action to anyone, anywhere in the country. This opinion represents a potentially huge obstacle to progressive activist's attempts to stymie Trump's immigration agenda.
Less interesting cases, IMO:
Gutierrez v. Saenz - Criminal Procedure. A lurid murder case gives rise to a pretty boring dispute about death-row inmates' standing to request post-conviction testing of DNA evidence. I can't really figure out the nuances of the Texas law at issue or the procedural history, but it looks like the Sotomayor-led majority thinks Gutierrez has standing; he has a Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in the ability to request post-conviction DNA testing, even though the prosecutor apparently has both the right and the express intention to refuse that request in this case. Barrett concurs but chides the majority for "muddying the waters of standing doctrine." Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, dissents. Thomas, typically, offers a solo dissent on the quixotic ground that the Fourteenth Amendment has been misinterpreted by the Supreme Court since the early twentieth century; in his view, the "liberty" interests protected by the 14A do not include state-created entitlements like Texas' post-conviction DNA testing procedure. My read: SCOTUS lets a death-row inmate file a doomed, pointless post-conviction motion that doesn't have any hope of success but will probably delay his execution for a few more years (Gutierrez was convicted in 1998).
Riley v. Bondi - Immigration/Deportation. Deportation is a hot-button topic right now, but this opinion about filing deadlines and the distinction between claims-processing rules and jurisdictional requirements is too dry for me to get worked up about. Perhaps notable for the fact that Gorsuch broke from the conservative majority to join, in part, Sotomayor's dissent. Pretty boring overall!
There were others, but they don't have as much culture war salience as the above, IMO. I meant to do a longer write-up, a little paragraph for each case, but I'm too tired ... sorry
I'm honestly a bit frightened by this one. I don't find most of Trump's stuff all that worrisome but this seems potentially pretty society altering.
My parents were illegal immigrants. They had me here in the late 70s so I had citizenship by birth. My parents have since received amnesty and even applied for citizenship and received it as well. But I think if the EO holds I don't see why they could not apply this retroactively. If it makes sense to do it for the future it makes sense to do it for the past too.
My parents would have more standing to stay in the US than I would.
Would be kind of funny to have to pack up and start a new life in the old country though in middle age.
It genuinely should be done. Amnesty was a mistake, generously; more cynically, it was treachery. Birthright citizenship is insane, and rewarding illegals for bleeding on our magic soil is deeply infuriating.
Amnesty was an act of Congress signed by the President. The country was also a bit different then. We wanted the labor and felt compassion for people fleeing communist hell holes.
I'm not really arguing against ending birthright citizenship going forward given how much different the circumstances are now.
Yes, amnesty was entirely legal. It was also a disaster. It is but one of many reasons I no longer care if actions are lawful or not, merely whether they direct the country in the right direction.
I think we should all pray that the US suffer many more disastrous times as bad at that awful period from 1988-2001.
If the rule you followed led you to here, of what use was the rule?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link