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 -
"the worst first amendment case I've ever seen" just had a good ending! You can read his summary (CEO of FIRE who lead the case) or mine.
A while back, a retired police officer Larry Bushart posted a political meme on Facebook mocking conservatives over the concept of not caring about kids who get shot in schools while cancelling people for not caring about Charlie Kirk's death.
In response, Perry County officials where he lived had him arrested and held in jail for 37 days, setting his bond at 2 million dollars. He lost his job from this disruption and missed his granddaughter's birth and his wedding anniversary.
This arrest was obvious bullshit, another case where corrupt abusive officials utilize the legal system itself as punishment. No one would have seriously expected this case to go through, but the process itself is often meant as the attack.
It ends with good news though, as part of the settlement Bushart is getting almost a million dollars. Bad news, like most abuse by officials it gets paid for by the taxpayers and nothing is likely to happen to the corrupt scumbags who were in charge.
But this is a great lesson at least. In the US, you can just be a random guy, upset the most powerful government organizations and draw their ire, and win against them. America is a country where David can take down Goliath, whether it be your local officials or federal ones. Bushart refused to accept the abuse, he stood up to the bullies, and he won.
This seems to be one of the cases where 'moar dakka' might be applicable. Just scale the punitive damages to the point where Perry county's law enforcement will face unemployment simply because Perry county will be too bankrupt to afford any law enforcement. Less than a million is just a slap on the wrist.
The thing which is confusing me is that in civilized countries, there is generally a narrow limit on how long police can hold you in some cell before a judge has to a-ok it. So the blame for the first two days would lie with the sheriff, and the blame for the other 35 days would lie with a judge who was willing to sign off on him staying in prison. We have judges overlooking the decisions of police because we know very well that cops can not be trusted on whom should be in prison (at least when they are not making a sworn statement which could land themselves in prison). Nor do I buy that whoever rubber-stamped that was so overworked that they could not spend five minutes reading to the case file -- how many people does Perry county hold on a 2M$ bail because they are supposedly an imminent threat to public safety, and how many of these are former cops?
I get that there are good reasons to prohibit suing judges for their legal decisions, but my preferable outcome would be for the judge to decide to change their name and move to Alaska in the hope of no longer being The Official Whose Decision Bankrupted Perry County.
I have also very little sympathy for the taxpayer here. At the end of the day, the buck stops with them -- they elected the sheriff, possibly the judge, or other officials who employed the perpetrators. As a German, let me tell you that "we made a bad decision in the voting booth and now a few years later our county is bankrupt" is far from the worst of what bad electoral decisions can cost an electorate.
OK. What about the taxpayers who didn't vote for any of these people? What about their children? What about Larry Bushart himself? Are these people also no longer entitled to equal protection under the law? And yes, the 14th amendment has been held to apply to failure to police abuses against certain groups -- this is in fact the plainest reading of the text, even if others are much more popular -- see Thurman v. City of Torrington.
And even if it weren't unconstitutional to deny a county law enforcement, it would still be a bad idea. Not only is collective punishment odious, it's less effective than the obvious, correct move: directly punishing the officials that abused their authority.
There's a principle in tort law: that liability should fall on the least-cost avoider, the party that could most cheaply have prevented the harm. How were voters to have prevented this? They could question candidates under polygraph, pose them dozens of hypotheticals, do an incredibly invasive investigation of their entire lives... and still not be 100% certain they won't act inappropriately. And then, when they do, they just bashfully shrug and move somewhere that isn't bankrupt; that is a slap on the wrist.
Meanwhile, the individuals in question could easily be 100% certain of their good behavior by just deciding not to misbehave.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link