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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   3085 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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It's rare that I agree with you but you're 100% right about this. It's a travesty that groups who are subject to wrongs perpetrated by the very governments that are supposed to protect them are often left with no recourse and no compensation. While I can certainly sympathize with a small group of conservatives who were unfairly targeted by the IRS under the Obama administration, that is unfortunately nothing compared with the millions of Black Americans who are still suffering as the result of official government policy. First, after being brought here against their will to perform manual labor, slavery was enshrined within the US Constitution for the first 80 or so years of our nation's existence. Following abolition, things didn't get much better, as they were routinely discriminated against, often as a matter of official government policy, and routinely denied the very rights the Reconstruction Amendments sought to recognize. Even in areas where discrimination was not enshrined into law, they were still almost universally denied the opportunity to work in good jobs, live where they wanted to, and otherwise be treated like any other member of society. The results of these centuries of discrimination have been nothing short of catastrophic for Black Americans; even as we enacted legislation to address these wrongs in the 1960s, Blacks still lag behind others in almost every metric.

Given these circumstances, one would think that providing some sort of reparation for the harms the government has inflicted upon blacks would be a no-brainer in these more enlightened times, but that has unfortunately not been the case. Fully half of the country seeks to blame Blacks themselves for their own plight, arguing that if they only were willing to work a little harder things would magically improve for them. Some even wave their hands and explain the situation through the simple intellectual and moral inferiority of Blacks, echoing the slave masters of 200 years ago. Even on the left, the more wishy-washy white people voice concerns about what reparations would look like, who would qualify for them, and a host of other practical concerns that would threaten to sink any program from the beginning. Righting these wrongs has become all but politically impossible.

Luckily, though, Donald J. Trump has unlocked the cheat code to get around an ineffective, even hostile Congress. All that is needed in the next Democratic administration is for a civil rights group to file a class action suit against the US government. No legitimate claim? No problem! This will never get close to an actual courtroom, as president AOC will be more than happy to offer a generous settlement package before the first motion is filed. No debate, no working out the messy details, just pick a strategy and go for it. Because when you look at all that's happened, $1.619 trillion is getting off easy.

Eric Holder already did this. The government sued companies over disparate impact then made them settle by paying into a DOJ slush fund they used to impose DEI rules across the private sector. For that reason your sarcasm falls flat: this post-Trump hypothetical you want to imagine is literally already the status quo. That horse left the barn ten years ago.

Except that's the complete opposite of what happened here. The government did not sue Trump.

I think I can imagine a hypothetical where the government used a thin pretext to use the power of the law against Trump

Insane compromise- every black American gets a one time payment of $1,000,000. Fiscal constraint is fake anyways. In exchange, we get a civil rights act for conservatives, decades of official favoritism, entire government departments dedicated to protecting conservatives from blue state governments, a school curriculum about the plight of conservatives, etc.

After sixty years we can swap around who's in what seat again.

To be clear, I'm not actually in favor of reparations. But why compromise when the power of the bullshit lawsuit is at your disposal?

Because Our Democracy is suffering from the lack of representation of schizophrenia. It all went downhill when Lyndon LaRouche retired from politics, I tell you.

Eh, not a great comparison.

Trump is a case of a specific wrong against specific people perpetrated by specific agencies. Its then a general payout from the government to the conservative movement in general.

Black slavery was also all of those levels of specificity. But with enough time removed it is instead all moved to generalities. Its black people in general that were wronged, its white people in general that carried it out, and its supposed to be paid for by all americans in general.

The areas where I say "general" are the problem.

For IRS targeting: I would have liked to see specific people in the IRS or the Obama administration sent to jail for the IRS tax targeting. I'd like to see unconstitutional orders treated the same way the military treats illegal orders. "I was ordered to break the constitution so its not my fault" should be an admission of guilt not a defense against prosecution. Bribing off the republicans seems like something that politicians on both sides are happy to take as a "compromise" rather than handing out punitive sentences and discouraging similar things in the future.

For slavery I'll give you a very specific example. I'll remove as many generalities as I can.

My ancestors owned slaves. We are close to a 100% certain that we know some of the descendants of those slaves (slaves tended to take on the last names of their former masters when they were freed). Lets say we can identify approximately 100 descendants of both the slave owner, and 100 descendants of the slaves. Its been about 5 generations. Assume no intermarriage so everyone is generally tracing only 1/32ndth of their ancestry to this generation.

None of the wealth acquired from the slave owning is still around. There is one house that was the former plantation house, but it was lost in bankruptcy and then re-bought. Nearly all other wealth of the slave owning family was also lost in that bankruptcy (took place in the 1880s).

How much do I a descendant of the slave owner owe to a descendant of the slave?

I believe you are making an accelerationists argument. The issue is the right believes this is only the second move in the process. Tat was already played the last decade in their view. So playing tit is now necessary. If your going to threaten acceleration for a perceived past wrong then you still need to punish in the second round.

These things are all fairly bad but before you go to a new equilibrium you needed to follow thru with your vengeance.

I am very much not an accelerationist. I have a family, a home, and a stable life. If there is such a thing as a "freezist" that is what I am.

Norms violations in politics are handled are handled in one of two ways. One way is that you punish the violators. The other way is that you imitate the violators. The first one protects the norm, the second one fully destroys it.

If you want norms to remain you have to punish people who violate them. This is an anti-accelerationist stance.

Actually meant to reply above you. But I do think some of the let Trump do these things come from accelerationists type views.

If your going to threaten acceleration for a perceived past wrong then you still need to punish in the second round.

Even that's not a defense here! It's not Obama and Biden paying for the fund, it's regular American taxpayers who lose when you funnel government funding to yourself. Unless the right considers their enemies to be regular everyday taxpaying American citizens (which tbf might increasingly be becoming the case now), the idea that this is the vengeance to be had makes no sense.

I think at this point most Americans just think government money is fake. And the commons have been shat on so might as well get some for your side. Along with long-term benefits for your side of building patronage networks.

I understand what you're saying but that's all besides the point. Whether it's a one to one comparison or not, a bullshit lawsuit is a bullshit lawsuit,.and unless the courts undo this, you're opening up the possibility that anyone can use a bullshit lawsuit to fund whatever pet projects you can't get congressional appropriation for.

I followed your topic down the rabbit hole. You brought up the slavery comparison, not me. If its besides the point, then you agree with what I first said about it being a bad comparison.

opening up the possibility that anyone can use a bullshit lawsuit to fund whatever pet projects you can't get congressional appropriation for.

As others have pointed out, this is not opening that possibility. The ability to influence policy and set preferences via lawsuits has existed for at least two decades. Easy one to find:

The outcome of Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007 was that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate their emissions. This landmark decision affirmed the responsibility of the EPA to address climate pollution and protect public health.

Via an act of supreme court the EPA was granted sweeping jurisdiction over all greenhouse gas emissions. Which is any gas burning engine.

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