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Notes -
I'd like to recognize an example of epistemic virtue amidst all the noise, from Tom Homan of all people
I liked Homan from the beginning when clips started circulating of him during the campaign, though I viewed him as a bit of a thuggish, unapologetic warrior for "my side". But this gives me new respect for him as a level-headed, honest broker, despite his rhetorical bombast.
This is a clever way for a politician to dodge a question, not 'epistemic virtue', imo. Politicians of all sides say things that sound reasonable sometimes, that itself doesn't make you virtuous. Like almost all politicians, he regularly lies about basic facts if they advantage his team, eg saying he could put mayors of cities in jail for sanctuary city policies. I wouldn't say he has less epistemic virtue than other politicians either - they all do this because if you don't you lose elections - but this is a stretch.
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In a similar vein, Orin Kerr pointed to an old study that presented folks with two videos of protesters that were actually the same video, and I guess altered to the extent possible at that time to just change the political valence of what they were protesting for.
Many of the most accurate accusations I've seen in these lengthy discussions are accusations of hypocrisy. And yeah, there probably are a lot of hypocrites when it comes to these scissor situations. It's genuinely difficult to come up with a coherent set of neutral rules for these types of extreme situations, and frankly, there's probably variations in state laws for some of the details. It's also extremely difficult to not let your political leanings bleed into a neutral assessment of neutral rules even just a teeny little bit. I'm generally fine with letting the courts handle it and don't care all that much for the water cooler talk (though I can see how it can be of some value). I do see that some folks will even explicitly bracket out 'there's a legal standard, which someone else will figure out, but let's talk on the moral level', which, uh, I guess is a fun thing to try so long as everyone is distracted from trying to claim that Morality Don't Real.
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