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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26218 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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The idea of "all lawful purposes" is extremely suspect given what the federal government has been doing in regards to surveillance for the last few decades. But one doesn't even need to look to past administrations, we can see it just in this one with stuff like the tariffs.

The Trump admin unconstitutionally stole from American businesses for almost a year straight using a broad and unintended interpretation of emergency powers, explicitly lied to the courts claiming it would be easy to refund so there was no need for a stay while now trying to argue that a refund is too difficult, and now once it's been ruled illegal pivoted to other statutes that require even broader lower quality interpretations to continue with the theft.

"All lawful purposes" is bullshit when the courts are locked up and the government just interprets whatever they want however they want. If lawful is just "hasn't been explicitly ruled in this exact way to be illegal" then lawful has little real world meaning. And even when their spying apparatus finally gets ruled against, they just go to the other decades old bills that if you squint really really hard and ignore the time difference, you can pretend it meant to allow for your behavior.

And if such flagrant disregard for rules and rights is what happens in public, there is no need to believe the government suddenly grows to respect them in classified matters.

The idea of "all lawful purposes" is extremely suspect given what the federal government has been doing in regards to surveillance for the last few decades.

While this is true, it would also be quite unfortunate if private companies had to make binding policy judgments on government programs.

Damned either way eh.

While this is true, it would also be quite unfortunate if private companies had to make binding policy judgments on government programs.

They don't, nobody is complaining if the government simply wishes to contract with another company. It's the explicit abuse of power that is the issue.

The socialist idea that government should have complete control over free enterprise does not become reasonable just because a government is democratically elected. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/bad-definitions-of-democracy-and

Do you think Trump should have asked Lockheed if he can bomb Iran? Or are you saying he had the freedom to contract with a different company to make a competing F35?

Did the government sign a contract saying they wouldn't bomb Iran when they bought the planes?

If Lockheed asked for that term, would it have been appropriate?

Any even if one elected government agreed to it, would it be sensible for it to bind the next one?

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