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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   22327 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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This is an image of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner's profile pic on the messaging app Kik. Notice anything?

I know the real story is supposed to be the fact that he was sending sexually explicit texts to women while married, but I can't stop laughing at the picture. It's obviously no coincidence that his hand perfectly covers the giant totenkopf on his chest. This is art.

It is certainly enjoyable to see a Democratic candidate get run through the wringer the way a Republican would, but I must confess that I find his scandals to be endearingly relatable in a way. Prediction market odds for Platner in the general are collapsing, but I think this is less of a reaction to this specific leak and more of a realization that he is the kind of candidate who will have a scandal every other month all the way up to election day, and then a scandal every other year for his entire term if he wins.

EDIT: Additional unverified reports that I cannot vouch for but would be hilarious if true.

My predator fatigue is through the roof. It's obviously a moral theatre. That word has been stretched so far beyond recognition that any hint of sexual sleaziness or bad judgment now gets tortured into full blown predator status. Kik has ~300 million registered users, with roughly 40% reportedly teenagers. Are we supposed to believe then that the remaining 180 million adults are all predators? Labeling the app a "predator paradise" while simply noting that someone used it is a very skeevy rhetorical trick. The insinuation is that he may have personally solicited minors or traded child pornography. If they had anything concrete, they would have led with it. They didn’t. It's particularly ironic watching right-wingers enthusiastically adopt leftist MeToo language and tactics as a political weapon repurposed for their own gotchas. Over the years, I’ve grown increasingly uncharitable towards people rushing to bat for alleged victims online. I don't think most of them are genuinely motivated by protecting victims, any more than those pred catcher YouTubers earnestly wish to protect children. Predators (or anyone successfully labeled as such) are just perfect socially acceptable punching bags, a shared enemy you can attack with total impunity to boost your own status, knowing virtually no one will dare defend them.

Don't people use the term "predator" more generically for men who go after adult women who are younger than them too though, not just those who go after minors?

People use the term "predator" indistinguishably from "men" (and "straight" and "white", to a lesser degree). Again, no evolved memetic defense system against this; it was reality that kept this from getting out of control. Kind of like how in US politics you get extreme rhetoric but the Constitution prevents it from getting too out of hand.

Now that reality no longer gives men that advantage, you get both barrels, it's that simple. Of course there are a few societies that can avoid this, so you find things that seem strange to Western ears where women defend certain extremes of male sexuality (re: female politicians defending loli), but they also aren't Western, and they still can't reproduce above replacement.

Over the years, I’ve grown increasingly uncharitable towards people rushing to bat for alleged victims online.

Strongly agree. In the past several years, I've twice been close to a situation where wannabe White Knights went nuclear on innocent situations, to the detriment of the people accused specifically as well as the community in general. One was a belligerent and protracted comprehension fail, while the other at least had the excuse of having his own trauma distorting his thinking, but in both cases, the alleged threat to Teh Children™ was, IMO precisely nil, and I felt bad for the mods that had to clean up that mess, which is, of course, easy to say since I was one of them.

Agreed. The fact that he repeatedly cheated on his wife is scummy enough, without needing to imply he also did something illegal.

Another wrinkle in the Platner story: his working-class man of the people presentation is a complete shtick:

Platner, for example, said he relied on assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs to purchase his home in Sullivan in 2017, but mortgage records show he borrowed $200,000 from his father, a prominent local attorney, to buy the house, the Free Beacon reported. Platner has also said he's "never been close to money and power," though he attended an elite Connecticut boarding school that costs upwards of $75,000 a year and is the grandson of a world-famous architect known for designing $20,000 chairs. And while Platner presents himself in campaign materials as a hardscrabble "oyster farmer," his business partner also attended an ultra-elite New England boarding school, graduated from Dartmouth, boasts of drinking "foraged spring water with Redmond sea salt," and is an owner of the secluded Maine island where Platner's oyster farm is based. The primary purchaser of Platner's oysters, meanwhile, is a "casual fine dining restaurant" owned by Platner's mother, financial disclosures show.

His military background, while legitimate, was with the private military contractor Blackwater, rather than the US armed forces. He sometimes criticises his opponent Susan Collins by claiming he fought wars she sent him to fight in, but as she pointed out, this is a bit of a reach considering he was never drafted.

Wealthy nepo baby who went to an expensive private school signs up to fight for a PMC. After tendering his resignation, his father buys him a house, and he starts a business whose primary client is his mother. Despite later presenting himself as a socialist, he gets a tattoo heavily associated with a far-right political ideology (the significance of which he's obviously aware of, given his efforts to hide it from cameras), and only reluctantly agrees to cover it up on sufferance. He gets married, but either cheats on his wife or tries to, while attempting to conceive via IVF.

If this guy was a Republican candidate, the Dems would be calling him a wealthy scion of intergenerational privilege who harbours crypto-fascist leanings and doesn't respect women. The other week I linked to an article by Jeff Maurer, who predicted that Platner might change his tune and become much more openly conservative, perhaps even running as a GOP candidate. Nothing I've learned about him since makes that eventuality seem less likely.

Don't forget he also draws VA disability payments at a 100% rating, which gets him $4800/month. I know some legitimately disabled veterans who don't get the 100%.

he is the kind of candidate who will have a scandal every other month all the way up to election day, and then a scandal every other year for his entire term

Sounds familiar. If that wasn't a problem for Republicans, why should it be for Democrats?

I feel like there's a certain tone that attacks on candidates take, you saw it with Trump and with Mamdani, that goes something like "You aren't allowed to like this guy." We'll see if the pattern holds with Platner.

I think Trump's scandals are different from other politicians' scandals. This is why it never works when people say, "Trump was never phased by his scandals so scandals don't matter anymore." Scandals in fact routinely destroy politicians or derail sure-thing elections all the time: Roger Moore, Mark Robinson, George Santos, Anthony Weiner, Katie Hill, Katie Porter, John Conyers, Eric Adams, Bob Menendez, etc.

Half of Trump's scandals are him saying something he's not supposed to say. Voters mostly liked it. "I like heroes who didn't get caught" is supposed to be this scandal because how could you possibly criticize a war hero? But people wanted to see McCain dragged through the mud. "Blood out of her whatever," but people were tired of these feminist HR speech codes wielded by journalists like Megyn Kelly. "Until we know what the hell is going on" -- but lots of people wanted a Muslim Ban. And etc. etc. etc.

The next half of Trump's scandals are political attack weapons and treated as such. Most of them have aged poorly. We spent years embroiled in the controversy of whether Trump colluded with Russia, which would have been a real scandal if it were true. There aren't many people willing to treat it as true anymore. Same for something like E. Jean Carroll, where she could never remember even the year in which it was supposed to happen and New York changed the law so the case could go forward. I guess that's a big scandal for a lot of people, but how the story gets interpreted is clearly very divided. Likewise Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, "Very Fine People," etc. etc. etc. We can create however many controversies we want and as long as one side is willing to fight them they are by definition controversial and therefore even scandals. But nobody would say after i.e. Brett Kavanaugh that rape scandals aren't problems anymore. Well no it's just that lots of people didn't believe in that scandal. Rape accusations are still a great way to destroy a political career.

Then there's the third half of Trump's scandals -- well, we could debate J6 and 2020 and Covid and Impeachment and Jeffrey Epstein and Iran and those things all day. Objectively these are all very complicated with lots to interpret and dispute.

These are different in kind from, e.g., Mark Robinson calling himself a Nazi or Bob Menendez having gold bars from all the bribes he's been accepting. I suppose, actually, that to a lot of liberals these are on the same level as Trump granting pardons or owning hotels that diplomats stay at and so the "complication" as I call it is that Trump supporters are actually in a cult. But I want to defend this distinction. Scandals don't just fall out of the sky as objective controversies even if it is objective that there are controversies. Scandals are first and foremost accusations. And all accusations pass through several layers of voters or other players asking, "is this bullshit?"

The first layer is, "Is it real?" The second layer is, "How bad is it really?" Objectively, a lot of Trump's scandals are filtered out as "not real" or "not important". Perhaps, after that, there's a third layer of, "So what?" Which is where we get to the meat and potatoes of whether a scandal matters.

Brett Kavanaugh was accused of raping a drunk girl at a party 40 years ago in college. This accusation caused a lot of drama and a lot of people believed it. But, realistically, quite a lot of people thought it was bullshit. The girl could not remember key details about how it happened, Kavanaugh had solid alibis and records, and she could not establish herself as having credible moral authority that could substitute for proof. A lot of people decided it was bullshit. This doesn't mean that voters and the public don't actually care about rape anymore. "Is it real?"

George Santos lied about his professional background. He didn't tell complicated lies, they were very simple lies that were simply false. Everybody knew they were false. A comparable Trump scandal is his past as a businessman. Was he really just a conman or did his bankruptcies undermine his claim to have been a successful businessman? Those are very complicated questions to discuss (well, in one sense -- I personally think they're bullshit, and I know a lot of other people do too.) "Is it real?"

Katie Porter abused her staff and threw steaming mashed potatoes at her husband. She's probably an abusive person, and she comes off very annoying and shrill in interviews. Maybe, to your taste, the things Donald Trump says are just as bad or worse. But objectively people are more willing to tolerate Trump's flaws than Katie Porter's flaws, so the revival of her scandals has effectively ended her bid for California Governor. "How bad is it really?"

Eric Adams accepted bribes from the Turkish Government. Basically everybody admits it happened. It was also relatively small potatoes stuff. And in the scheme of New York City politics, there aren't actually that many egregious favors that can be granted to the Turks. They got some expedited building permits and exceptions and special deals. The real scandal and point of contention, in fact, was Adams relationship to other politicians. There's speculation that his attacks of the Biden administration over immigration are what lead them to investigate him in the first place. There's no doubt that his willingness to then work with Trump over ICE rose his prestige with MAGA and sank it with the left. So he lost re-election. But the scandal itself, which objectively happened, was just a pretext for other political battles it represented. "So what?"

So, Graham Platner.

He's got a Nazi tattoo. Everyone knows it would be bad if he were a Nazi. But maybe it's not real. Is it a common Nazi symbol? Could he have known it was a Nazi tattoo beyond a reasonable doubt? "Is this real?"

He's cheating on his wife. Maybe he's a sexual predator or a creep. "How bad is it really?" "Does it matter?"

The actual "scandal" here that could destroy Graham Platner's political career is his image. Liberals believe that Graham Platner is a candidate who can win Maine, so they're willing to overlook faults and flaws. If he's perceived as someone who will lose because his scandals are crippling, then there won't really be much point in defending them. If it came out for instance that he killed a kid, enough supporters would break rank that the discourse wouldn't really produce a second interpretation. But if he's "just" slimy or gross, well, maybe that's gigachad. Maybe he cheats on his wife because he's a winner. That's basically how discourse works.

My read is that Platner's scandals have taken some support away and I lean toward the interpretation that Susan Collins will outperform the polls again and Platner will lose. But none of the scandals have really been a direct hit and so far don't look poised to destroy his campaign.

The crux of the matter is incentive and who stands to gain from any given scandal, be it by fanning the flames or dousing them. The actual substance of Trump's many scandals (Epstein, Iran, tariffs, etc.) is ancillary. The real engine is tribal, he makes the libs cry, and his base derives visceral satisfaction from watching the spectacle. And by clearing him of objective moral failures, they can keep a functional weapon so he can keep triggering the libs, who won't be triggered any less if those scandals did not exist (quite the contrary, perhaps).

Also, remember Johnny Depp? What kicked off as a messy celebrity divorce became a proxy war against MeToo. Depp is a lib himself, yet celebrity support for him was noticeably tepid because backing him meant siding, even indirectly, against the feminist narrative. Meanwhile, Amber Heard still has a vocal defense squad in online feminist spaces precisely because the case became symbolic ammo for the other side. The actual veracity of the verdict is not very important, it’s just a flag to be defended at all costs.

Now coming to Epstein and Graham Platner. There is zero upside in defending Epstein or even questioning the popular narrative. And Platner isn’t some irreplaceable leftist icon. Nobody scores tribal points by batting for either of them. When there’s no political or status reward for skepticism, the default is to let the mob run rampant.

Same for something like E. Jean Carroll, where she could never remember even the year in which it was supposed to happen and New York changed the law so the case could go forward.

Yeah, that one still gets trotted out as "Trump is a convicted rapist!" even if technically the conviction was not for rape. The judge put both hands and his upper body onto the scale, never mind his thumb, about that one. And Carroll's vague story that had no corroboration would have been laughed off for anyone else (remember when 'believe all women' seamlessly segued into 'but not Tara Reade' because Biden?).

The thing that sealed it for me was that Caroll never really provided any concrete information until Kavanagh provided it first. The date — down to the year, the location of the house, the people at the party, etc. she knew nothing until she was fed the information. And there was never to my recollection any contemporary evidence that the two had met. No mention of this party to other people, no journals, no police reports, no anything until he’s up for the Supreme Court. She never said anything at any other point of his career.

Mix-up there, the accuser in the Kavanaugh hearing was Christine Blasey-Ford (forget the later bandwagon-jumpers). Her story was plausible, but not supported, and plainly it had been worked on over the years and garnished especially when the Democrats got interested in learning more about possible means of blocking a conservative Supreme Court Justice. "Dumb drunk high school kids and younger kid who sneaked out to party she was too young to attend, stupid shit happens" was not impossible and could be credible. But the gilding the lily that took place on the story and the history around it, and the screaming harpies movement, just made it ridiculous.

E. Jean Carroll claimed she had been sexually assaulted/raped by Donald Trump in Bloomingdales, and this only came about when her career was fading and any publicity was good enough to sell her story. That it was also extremely convenient for his political rivals was just the cherry on top.

Didn’t the shady business deals mostly start posts-2024?

All the Dems antics posts 2016 really told a lot of GOP to just not care and get it while the getting is good. They completely took away any shame or ability to punish the GOP because even Jesus Christ without sin would be punished. So just play for your team.

Plus there is widespread belief in the right (I think factual) that corruption on the left is massive. If the country is being looted by everyone else then MAGA should get their share too.

I think most observers would put the deathknell of Republican respectability politics closer to 2012, and the Democratic Party's campaign against Mitt Romney.

I guess people are upset that it is more blatant than the obvious stock running that has been going on forever, but it seems straightforwardly of the same kind to me.

It hits differently when it’s your oil futures that get rugpulled by Axios.

Those Republican candidates, other than Trump personally, were typically in safe seats. I think we know by now that Trump is a weird exception in a lot of ways, but he’s also done unusually poorly in New England; very plausibly, this kind of behavior still matters in Maine in ways it doesn’t elsewhere in the country, and Me-1 is too partisanbrained to realize it.

Trump is a weird exception in a lot of ways, but he’s also done unusually poorly in New England

In which election?

Looking at state (and House district for Maine) results compared with the national average for the last 5 elections, Trump falls way short in Massachusetts (which arguably is the majority of New England's population. He also was below average in Connecticut except in 2016 and ME1 but outperformed in ME2 and Rhode Island..

I'm not sure it's a regional trend more than a Bostonian trend, but it's very strong in Boston.

I recall reading that the 2016 election was rather close in New Hampshire and Vermont(?).

New Hampshire has been close for all the Republicans, but I think that was Trump's best year.

So he's poly? That should be the perfect Democrat candidate! 🤣

Yeah, he's had a ton of dumb scandals (I honestly think the tattoo thing was not "Please give me, a devout Nazi, that famous Nazi tattoo" but more "I'm drunk, I'm dumb, gimme that bad-ass skull and crossbones, hell yeah!") but the interesting thing is how much the party insiders seem to hate him. Why? He's had impeccably prog credentials in everything he's posted online. Is it because he comes across too successfully as blue-collar populist, such that he seems demi-Republican? Simply that he seems to be out-polling the established lady governor, who is the 'right sort' of Democrat? That he might beat Susan Collins? That he might split the vote and let Collins squeak out another win? That they'd prefer Collins because she's reliably squishy (see the Silver Bulletin article on Platner where she voted against Coney Barrett)?

Sexting is a very Democratic scandal (coughcoughAnthonyWeinercoughcough) and the missus standing by her man is also very Democratic (see Hillary and Bill during the Lewinsky scandal). I think Platner is a bit of an idiot but he seems no worse than Fetterman, for example.

EDIT: I wonder if part of the dislike is that he has the wrong sort of tattoos; too much 'white trash' and not enough 'progressive rainbow hair septum piercing sleeve art' style. The party of supporters who regularly opine on social media about how opposition to tattoos is rooted in white supremacy colonialism (no, really) don't like a guy with bangin' tats?

I wonder if part of the dislike is that he has the wrong sort of tattoos; too much 'white trash' and not enough 'progressive rainbow hair septum piercing sleeve art' style.

You're not telling me that there's anyone out there sincerely accusing a soldier of this, are you?

I'm wondering! The kinds of people who vociferously defend tattoos as "not trashy, you're just prejudiced and old-fashioned and dumb" are the kinds now wringing their hands over Nazi tattoos, and I am wondering if it's "we don't like Platner so suddenly we're going to put the worst possible interpretation on a tattoo".

Before tattoos have become completely commercialized and gentrified (so to speak), i.e. not a staple of white trash status anymore, there was a time when tattoos were only worn by prostitutes, soldiers, sailors and criminals (the latter group obviously also having included some former soldiers and sailors). Platner's tattoos are pretty much just a throwback to those days.

Notice anything?

mf couldn't even put the toilet seat down jfc

Shocker, the dudebro veteran who was liked for basically no reason except the vibes and lack of competition without any meaningful history or vetting turns out to be a piece of shit.

Platner only really works in the sense of normal everyday man vs polished establishment dinosaur, which ironically is empowered a bit by being as shitty as the everyday dudebro stereotype. The Dems aren't at the maga level yet where the bigotry of low expectations is basically default now and low brow behavior like name calling and insults doesn't even get noticed anymore but it's getting increasingly more true. Proof that cancel culture has lost a hold on the country though, things like cheating scandals that would have been major just a few decades ago are minor blips now that only matter in so much as they might signal other worse behavior.

The standards on polite society have fallen and I'm not sure they can ever be brought back.

Im old enough to remember when a vote for George W Bush was supposed to represent a return to normalcy and civility after the endlessly trashy and corrupt behavior of the Clinton administration.

In my opinion @TracingWoodgrains has a lot chutzpah complaining about a lack of civility/norms given the active roll that he and his friends at Blocked and Reported played in dismantling those norms. TWG spent a decade knocking down trees to get at the devil and now that the wind is blowing he finds himself with nowhere to hide. BarnabyCajones, LibsOfTikTok, DataRepublican, and all the other right-coded online commentators he tried to shame, dox, or sic a Twitter-mob on over the years send their regards.

In my opinion @TracingWoodgrains has a lot chutzpah complaining about a lack of civility/norms given the active roll that he and his friends at Blocked and Reported played in dismantling those norms. TWG spent a decade knocking down trees to get at the devil and now that the wind is blowing he finds himself with nowhere to hide. BarnabyCajones, LibsOfTikTok, DataRepublican, and all the other right-coded online commentators he tried to shame, dox, or sic a Twitter-mob on over the years send their regards.

What are you talking about dude? That's like the exact opposite of the block and reported/trace/rdrama ethos. Trace hoaxed LibsOfTikTok to show that she was a credulous hack, not to dox or chase her off the internet. You're perfectly happy to see this happen when it's going after lefty institutions and frankly those are farm or often the targets, but you have this absurd and burning hatred the one time it's mildly done against your own hack pundit.

show that she was a credulous hack

Exactly, he proved she's a real journalist, not just some tiktoker.

you have this absurd and burning hatred the one time it's mildly done against your own hack pundit.

Wrong direction, I would suspect. Burning hatred is less about LoTT and more that Trace was "one of our guys" that took a... certain kind of turn, made a bad decision, and got treated quite poorly for it. Bad blood on both sides.

I don't think he's doxxed anyone. Shamed, certainly.

Wrong direction

Indeed. When a scoundrel acts like a scoundrel that's just the way of things. When someone who says they're all about honesty and integrity and then treats honesty and integrity as a chump's game, that is a betrayal of principal.

...and a betrayal is always going to be worse than honest enmity

An ethos is not what you say you are, an ethos is how you behave in the breach.

You can't be "anti-cancel culture" while also "unmasking" your enemies and urging your followers to to go after them.

You can't be "anti-cancel culture" while also "unmasking" your enemies and urging your followers to to go after them.

He didn't do that, it didn't happen. Taylor Lorenz is the one who doxed LibOfTikTok. If you were just some guy on the internet then this misunderstanding is reasonable but you've been holding this absurd grudge since it happened and surely you should know this.

it didn't happen.

This is the sequence of events as I recall them...

Is the implication here that hoaxing someone in close temporal proximity in time to when they are doxxed makes you also a doxxer?

No, the implication here is that "Trace" the assistant producer described as having helped expose LibsfTikTok, and TracingWoodgrains the motte poster are the same person.

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People who are upset by this appear to want the old sociopolitical system, wherein there was a strict division of labor between the people who cranked out images of shit being dumped on the hated outgroup by laughing cartoons of tribal champions, and the actual tribal champions who directly benefited from those images while standing solemnly before a podium in a very expensive suit extruding the blandest possible word-product into an array of very official microphones. If one is going to argue for this previous system, one should argue for it as it actually was, not as it might be imagined to be, particularly in the imagination of the side employing a large majority of the old shit-pouring cartoon experts.

Also, Hideous Hermaphroditical Character, same as it ever was.

I remember Trace running his prank on Libs, what'd he do with DataRepublican or Barnaby?

Barnanby and TWG were kind of the Hector and Achilles of the Atheism wars for while, and a lot of the trans, poly, and EA stuff later. Im not sure if i would characterize it as animosity, but I do recal a few times where i felt that TWG was allowing this to leak into moderation, ie letting his allies off the hook while cracking down on Barnaby and his. The LibsOfTikTok incident you know. the DataRepublican thing was was a "wont someone rid me me of this turbulent priest" type post that got memory holed after it came out that the prime suspect in the shooting of Charlie Kirk was a gay ex-Mormon who was active on furAfinnity.

Edited to Add: The way I see it "People who are upset by this" as you put it, want plausible deniability, but through both word and deed they have ensured that thier denials will appear implausible regardless of wether they are true.

Eh, I'm enjoying the outrage because it was only conservative religious bigots like me who thought tattoos were trashy and anything outside of marriage was fornication and who are not going to be celebrating Pride Month who could possibly criticise people's personal choices about their bodies and their sexuality, and now all the scandal is good, old-fashioned "adultery wrong!" messaging.

How the turn tables, indeed.

Polite society ceased to believe it needed to offer a benefit to observing its standards. Most have noticed.

"Standards on polite society" impose noblesse oblige over the sum of societal actors who control what politeness is. Cancel culture was their effort to keep things in line.

What benefit did accepting cancellation or playing by those standards offer anyone else? Financial ruin, felony charges, and death.

So we can't have standards in this age. Much like the ozone layer, the societal machinery that enabled them has been damaged and will take some time to regenerate.

'noblesse oblige' only worked in societies which adhered to the concept of 'noblesse'. Modern society, on the other hand, does not believe that the ruling class assumed its status through hereditary privilege, consequently it does not believe either that the ruling class is obligated to anything by its status.

Modern society, on the other hand, does not believe that the ruling class assumed its status through hereditary privilege

The ruling class in modern society assumed its status exclusively through age (and to a point, gender, but it's the vaguest possible one as it's a whole 50% of the population).

This is orthogonal to actual merit (which is generally what hereditary privilege implies), which is why the standards this class imposed as they came to power were destructive.

merit (which is generally what hereditary privilege implies)

What merit does it take to be born to the right parents? One of the major and common failure states of hereditary privilege is that the failson of someone with merit inherits all the power and fucks everything and everyone up (generally combined with fuck-all recourse).

The ruling class in modern society has no Noblese Oblige because they are extremely mercenary. Noblese Oblige requires a recognition of the common man as part of your tribe/society/culture. A rootless cosmopolitan mercenary who feels no ties to any one society or tribe is of course not going to feel any oblige to the downtrodden.

The ruling class in modern society has no Noblese Oblige because they are extremely mercenary.

I’d argue the real reason they lack it is their belief that they climbed up to their current status due to their own abilities and not class privilege, as opposed to the aristocracy of bygone monarchical systems whose status was ‘unearned’. Stemming from this belief is their notion that any average citizen can become one of the ruling class through ambition, hard work, merit etc. They don’t believe they have obligations to common folk because they don’t believe they are fundamentally different from them.

As much as the symbolic American story holds in our hearts and minds. the current US upper class did not climb there due to their own abilities. Very few of the Ivy League admits are there because they are some small town genius who worked their way up through merit and hard work. Most are just the sons and daughters of already powerful people. They definitely like to pretend the former is the case, but that's because being "self-made" still holds a certain cultural gravitas, and thus requires them to reframe their stories through that light. Just like how they need to reframe their origins through being the underdog, another very American conceit. I'd further postulate that a core esoteric symbol of American/Western culture is that of the Merchant. We are a society of merchants, not warriors, priests or nobles. Frontiersman/Explorers(aka Yeomen) and Merchants. And Merchant values are fundamentally mercenary.

This is a post-import the third world belief. I definitely believed that I had obligations for my gifts and elites had obligation to society up until like 2018. Younger people just don’t understand how things use to be.

Morally I completely changed somewhere between 2018-2022.

I don't think so. If I had to pick a point in time at which the American elite had ceased to have a culture of noblesse oblige, I would go for the Vietnam War and the vast majority of GI and Silent generation elites helping their Boomer sons dodge the draft.

Are you convinced that the US used to have such a culture in the past indeed? In a nation that rejects the idea of nobility?

North of the Mason-Dixon line, see for example this Tanner Greer post about the culture of the Gilded Age WASP elite, or John Brooks' 1970 tour de force Once in Golconda about the culture of 1920's Wall Street and how it changed as a result of the Great Depression.

I always thought that the planter class in the South saw themselves as untitled nobility - they spent a lot of time banging on about how they preserved the traditional martial and chivalric virtues that the North had lost due to excessive commercialism. Although in another thread someone told me that elite draft dodging was widespread in the Confederacy, which would imply that the planter elite never actually felt the sense of noblesse oblige they claimed to.

Someone still thinks it is worth publishing the Social Register, which is what a nobiliary directory looks like in a country with no titled nobility.

John Brooks' 1970 tour de force Once in Golconda about the culture of 1920's Wall Street and how it changed as a result of the Great Depression.

Wow, how have I not heard of this one? Definitely on my list now.

The problem the South had was one of manpower. 4.5 million(not counting slaves) versus 22 million can cause odd problems, so it was less a draft dodge and more not having enough men to go around.

If anything, the South had too much nobelisse oblige. A number of military historians agree that the South had the better pick of generals, and a good chunk of them died fighting.

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The kayfabe of standards is that it signalss politicians play on a level field, when the standards just end up being movable goalposts picked up and used as clubs to hit each other over the head. Similarly the MAGA and now Chapotraphouse-esque dirtbag left where calling people names and having an unkempt Real Man Image is meant to signal ability to act unbounded by protocol as if protoco was what constrained delivery instead of rank incompetence.

Neither having standards nor abandoning them is delivering on the promise of Being Real and Getting Shit Done. Being Real is a signal of original intent which is why Kamala and Newsom and Cuoma being lizardpeople with bad skinsuits stinks of disingenuity because people can't trust that these reptiles wouldn't find some sophistry to explain why actually letting in a million migrants is Good For Your Culture. But at least Being Real let the root cause for failure to Get Shit Done be assigned to the "correct" causal origin. I do wonder if everyone just keeps underestimate rank stupidity as a constraining variable. Perhaps only the actually brain damaged seek out politics which is why lawyers seem so overrepresented.

The standards on polite society have fallen and I'm not sure they can ever be brought back.

“A nation is born Stoic and dies Epicurean.”

If only. There's precious little "dum vivimus vivamus" today.

the bigotry of low expectations is basically default now and low brow behavior like name calling and insults doesn't even get noticed anymore but it's getting increasingly more true.

Jay Jones has directed Virginia State Police to violate a standing court order. Do you have an update? Can you give an example of a high-profile Democratic speaker that cares?

Jay Jones has directed Virginia State Police to violate a standing court order. Do you have an update?

The large majority of accusations like "they're violating a court order!" when it comes to public officials are bullshit and misunderstandings of the court order or what the response is.

There's various ways this happens.

One way is that the court order never actually said something to begin with. For example it's a mainstream belief that Andrew Jackson had defied the courts, but it couldn't possibly be true because there was nothing for him to defy

This began to create a small scale controversy now for Jackson--because Jackson recognized there were problems afoot if individual States simply ignored Federal law. However, the court's ruling contained no direct order for the executive branch to act, so in this case, Jackson was off the hook.

..

Getting back to your question, "did Andrew Jackson ignore a Supreme Court ruling", you see that he really didn't--there was no ruling that laid an enforcement action on the executive branch. It was actually the State of Georgia that defied a Supreme Court decision, in the person of two Georgia Governors--George Gilmer, and his successor William Lumpkin.

And even that issue was resolved before the court had reconvened, having went into recess before hearing about Georgia's desire to refuse the order.

Another way is that they simply try to achieve the same or similar goal using a different method that is not ruled against. Two major examples in recent history being the Biden admin "defying" the courts on student loan forgiveness or Trump "defying" the courts on tariffs. They might have wanted to make themselves seem tough, but the reality is that they obeyed the ruling and just chose another statute or law to argue their actions for. It might be a little scummy, but it's not disobeying the courts. Oftentimes they'll change their policy and behavior a little to match as well, the Biden admin student loan forgiveness that did get through legally was a lot less broad and Trump's tariffs have been weaponized a lot less for petty grievances.

A third way is that the case is in appeal and there's a stay (or not a stay or whatever depending on the context) and things haven't actually been hashed out to the point that defying the courts is an actual thing yet. For example, see how long the Trump admin was able to stall bringing back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from CECOT. The Trump admin never technically defied the courts, they just stalled things out.

Most likely you just don't understand the situation well and there is nothing to update on like basically every accusation that happens in this manner. If/when the courts actually start to bring up charges for disobeying an order and it's not just random Internet pundits making claims, then I'll bother with any updates.

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One way is that the court order never actually said something to begin with.

The order is here, the motion and relevant exhibit here.

Another way is that they simply try to achieve the same or similar goal using a different method that is not ruled against.

HB1525 specifically spelled out : "That the Department of State Police shall administer, enforce, and otherwise implement § 18.2-308.2:5 of the Code of Virginia from the effective date of this bill." The final judgement from the court specifically said : "The Virginia Department of State Police, and all law enforcement divisions, agencies, and officers within the Commonwealth, to include their successors or replacements in office, are hereby permanently enjoined and prohibited from administering, enforcing, or otherwise imposing upon any person the requirements of, the Act (Va. Code 18.2-308.2:5)." The state is administering the act, and informing businesses using VACheck that they must comply with the law.

A third way is that the case is in appeal and there's a stay...

There is no appeal; the case reached final judgement, despite Jay Jones' best efforts to illegally intervene before his term began.

Most likely you just don't understand the situation well and there is nothing to update on like basically every accusation that happens in this manner.

How convenient that you never have to even examine claims that might possibly challenge your priors.

If/when the courts actually start to bring up charges for disobeying an order ...

What an absolutely fascinating and specific phrase to use, when you specify charges. Is the principle here that the judge would have to use criminal contempt -- the thing he wouldn't be able to enforce against state police administration if Jones is backing them -- rather than civil contempt, before you think it's defiance of a court order? Or that a finding by the court that the state was violating the injunction doesn't count?

((I first want to apologize for not getting to your other question yet. It's kind of a complicated answer and I thought I had answered it already but I've been too busy lately to give a proper response. But I haven't forgotten about it.))

I'm not going to comment on the merits of the underlying arguments, but I'm addressing @magicalkittycat's assertion that this isn't just an AG blatantly ignoring a court order. I've looked at the docket and there's more going on here than the VCDG is claiming in their press releases. When the state filed their motion to vacate on May 4, they took the position that the order was already mooted by intervening legislation and that they were only filing the motion out of an abundance of caution. I can't read the individual filings, but the court granted an order on May 5, which I'm presuming was an administrative order reopening the case. In Virginia you have 10 days to respond to a motion. VCGA did not respond to this motion. They did not request an extension. There is nothing but radio silence on the docket. On May 27, after more than 20 days have passed, the AG directs the state police to begin enforcing the law. A day later VCGA is ready to roll with a motion to show cause. That same day, the state filed an objection to the plaintiff's motion and a hearing was scheduled for today at 1:30 pm. Yesterday, VCGA filed a response to the state's May 4 motion to vacate.

From where I sit, it looks like the VCGA deliberately failed to respond to the motion because their own motion which is heavy on bombast and light on substance asking for sanctions looks better in a press release than a boring reply brief that addresses the scintillating topic of mootness. Especially if they don't have any good arguments and know the case is dead in the water. They certainly didn't issue a press release when they filed the response yesterday. My guess is that after they moved to show cause the state objected that they weren't in a position to do so because they hadn't responded to the motion to vacate. Normally if a party opponent doesn't respond to a motion I'd get them on the horn and ask if they'd made a mistake or need more time, and if I went straight to a judge the judge might cut them some slack. I don't know what attempts the state made here, but if their position was that a vacation wasn't necessary then it could undermine their argument if they go too far out of their way to seek a court order, like scheduling a hearing, for example.

So things are pretty clear when it's crickets for three weeks and as soon as enforcement begins the plaintiff is ready to go with a show cause motion the next day. I don't know if the hearing scheduled for today was on the show cause motion or just on the objection. Since the plaintiffs filed their response to the May 4 motion after the hearing was scheduled, the hearing may have just been on the objection, and the parties may have worked out among themselves that they could cancel it if the plaintiffs filed a response.

I want to refrain from looking at the merits of this case, but based on VCGA's behavior, they probably aren't great for them. At least, this isn't the way one acts in front of a court when they have a winnable case. If they had responded to the original motion and the court held a hearing and determined that the order was still in effect, I'd support your position that the AG is acting in bad faith and deliberately disobeying it. It's quite a different thing if the AG takes a position that a motion isn't necessary but gives you the opportunity to have your day in court anyway, and your response is to ignore him and then try to get sanctions later. This is the kind of behavior that pisses off judges.

Injunction still active after today's hearing. The judge and threatened contempt for any further violations, but no contempt finding. VCheck has supposedly removed the requirement.

I will try to respond to this more in depth later, but :

In Virginia you have 10 days to respond to a motion.

Where are you getting this rule? The only place I can find 10 days specific isthe Virginia Supreme Court; this case is operating at the Lynchburg Circuit court level, and Virginia circuit courts look to range from having long periods or depending on hearing days or both for normal rulings (eg 14 days before the next hearing Friday for Fairfax) , and then high-complication ruling schedules are entirely up to the judge since they can set a response schedule of their own.

When the state filed their motion to vacate on May 4, they took the position that the order was already mooted by intervening legislation and that they were only filing the motion out of an abundance of caution

This seems wildly incompatible with Walker v. Birmingham. Doubly so when a) the new law hasn’t gone into effect yet, and b) it literally said to enforce the enjoined statute, but even presuming it did genuinely moot the case, that still doesn’t automatically invalidate an injunction.

I definitely agree that stalling things out and slow walking your actions can be scummy behavior, but whether or not that fits contempt of court can be highly contextual and dependent on the ground level specifics.

This falls into the third type of example I gave in the original comment! The Trump admin slow walked the return of Abrego Garcia for months. Maybe we can argue that it's contempt from the spirit of the law and were behaving in a scummy manner, but they never once committed any actually legal contempt. You are allowed to draw out a case even if you think you will probably lose, because you might win and you can exercise a full fight.

If they had responded to the original motion and the court held a hearing and determined that the order was still in effect, I'd support your position that the AG is acting in bad faith and deliberately disobeying it. It's quite a different thing if the AG takes a position that a motion isn't necessary but gives you the opportunity to have your day in court anyway, and your response is to ignore him and then try to get sanctions later. This is the kind of behavior that pisses off judges.

Same thing, they're allowed to slow walk or whatever if they want (within some amount of behavior obviously), but we can also agree it's scummy to try to lie and claim the AG is in contempr when you just ignored them.

To be clear, my argument that it isn't contempt isn't that the plaintiffs did something scummy, but that intervening legislation mooted the order. Suppose A sues B because B built a structure that doesn't conform to setback requirements in the zoning ordinance, and the court issues and order that B demolish the structure within 90 days. If within that 90 days the municipality changes the zoning ordinance so that the structure now conforms to the setback requirements, the issue is mooted. You can ask that the court vacate the order, but as a strategic matter it's probably better to ignore it since there's no reason to incur additional legal fees if you don't have to. Wait for A to sue you for contempt and lose; no judge is going to impose sanctions in a case like that.

The one thing I will say about the plaintiff's failure to respond is that, theoretically at least, their non-response turned the state's motion into an unopposed motion, and while there's no mechanism akin to a default, they could have just submitted it to the court for a judge's signature, and he could have granted it regardless of the merits of the case. Realistically the judge will probably schedule a hearing, and only automatically grant the motion if the plaintiff fails to respond after being noticed, but it is something that can happen. Most of the unopposed motions I file, including motions for summary judgment that get us out of a case entirely, simply go to the judge without a hearing. But those are motions where the opponent has already told us they don't plan on opposing it, because most lawyers actually respond to our motions, and even if they don't, we deal with the same lawyers all the time and prefer to maintain cordial relations with them. But I'd have no problem being aggressive if it's some out of state firm that's being dickish and I don't care how much I piss them off.

If he's actually violating a court order and doesn't fall into one of the various reasons for why such accusations are often bullshit then we can wait and see the contempt of court charges that eventually get brought.

Spoiler, it probably won't happen. Not because of unfair courts, but because state officials actually defying the court is extremely rare and almost every accusation whether against the right or the left is bullshit for some reason or another. There are tons of weird technicalities and abilities to delay and burdens of proof and etc etc etc whatever shit that go into it and generally it's "you don't actually understand the law" or "you don't actually understand what's going on in the case" or "you don't actually understand what is happening on the ground level to begin with and there has been no contempt" and other such explanations.

How convenient that you never have to even examine claims that might possibly challenge your priors.

Yeah it's pretty nice, and convenient, for me that I live in a society where public officials don't typically disobey the court and basically every single accusation that they have is a misunderstanding of something by idiots.

What an absolutely fascinating and specific phrase to use, when you specify charges. Is the principle here that the judge would have to use criminal contempt -- the thing he wouldn't be able to enforce against state police administration if Jones is backing them -- rather than civil contempt, before you think it's defiance of a court order? Or that a finding by the court that the state was violating the injunction doesn't count?

Has he been found in contempt of court either civil or criminal in any way yet? If that has happened, I would presume you would actually say so.

Not "he has been accused of it by political opponents". Or "the judge has weighed in on the possibility" or anything like that. Has he been found in contempt of court?

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Does his being found in contempt of court factually change whether he violated a court's ruling?

If not, what purpose does the question serve other than as a deflection to addressing the claims of fact presented and disputed by gattsuru? You are certainly appealing to vague possibilities ('very rare', 'weird technicalities' 'basically every single accusation... is a misunderstanding of something by idiots'), but you're not actually disputing the claims presented by gattsuru. You're not even claiming that your language of frequency even applies to this case- even if corruption of this sort is very rare, that has no bearing on a case that can be drawing attention for being rare. It would be akin to disputing accusations of medical malpractice because most doctors don't commit medical malpractice. The appeal to statistical rarity is irrelevant if the challenge is based on a dependent rather than independent factor.

Gattsuru is making a direct position on a matter of laws and facts here. You seem to disagree. On what grounds that apply to this case? What is gattsuru's misunderstanding in this matter? What is the weird technicality that applies to this case law?

Does his being found in contempt of court factually change whether he violated a court's ruling?

No but being found in contempt of court is a pretty solid piece of evidence he did it, whereas not being found in contempt of court is a pretty solid piece (although not as solid in this direction) that it hasn't happened. The court system is generally reliable.

Now the court system is also slow and it could be that we are just in the period between contempt happening and contempt being found by the courts, which in that case I can update when it happens instead of speculating on a situation where most accusations are bullshit.

but you're not actually disputing the claims presented by gattsuru. You're not even claiming that your language of frequency even applies to this case- even if corruption of this sort is very rare, that has no bearing on a case that can be drawing attention for being rare.

Two things are rare.

  1. Officials defying the court is rare

  2. Layman accusations that an official denied the court being true is also rare.

The rarity of the 2nd does apply here, because he's making an accusation that a public official defied the court. But normally such accusations are not true! I covered numerous examples of how this happens in my comment beforehand.

The appeal to statistical rarity is irrelevant if the challenge is based on a dependent rather than independent factor.

The challenges themselves being true is statistically rare!

It's like an accused drunk arguing the breathalyzer was faulty. That does happen sometimes (it's probably way more common than officials in contempt of court) and it's probably more likely in cases where the accused drunk contests the charges. But it is still also true that the large large majority of the time the accused drunk contests the charges, the breathalyzer was properly working.

So 1. "The breathalyzer actually being faulty in general is rare" and 2. "The breathalyzer actually being faulty when contested is rare" are both true statements! And a person saying "no but my case is special and it was faulty" can be generally dismissed until/unless they can show otherwise.

In court showing otherwise is pretty simple. Has he been found in contempt?

I'm sure there is some humans in this world that use Kik for something other than distributing, soliciting, and illegal pornography. Maybe Platner is in that 1% of Kik users, but that is a tough bet to make.

I had vaguely heard of it but wasn't aware of what it was. So it's a hookup app, like so many others? Call me when Tinder, Grindr, OnlyFans and the myriad other "gimme sex/me sell sex" apps get banned and made illegal, then I'll believe all the outrage.

No not a hookup app, its a filesharing app. In a wholesome world you'd go to Kik and say, "hey I was at the yankees game yesterday does anyone have pictures? I'd like to see if you got a picture of Derek Jeter running into me." In real life a guy takes a dick pic posts it and says, "who wants the meat" and 15 other guys use code words to swap gigabytes of child porn.

Ah, the wonders of the modern world, where would we be without them!

I'm sure there is some humans in this world that use Kik for something other than distributing, soliciting, and illegal pornography.

You're leaving out the users that use it to solicit sex with minors (said minors who are law enforcement 99% of the time).

My apologies. I should not have left out that prestigious element.

Always Bet on Susan Collins.

With that out of the way, democrats nominating normal guys seems to be a weakness right now- they've got Graham Platner being Graham Platner, the Islamic anti-israel single issue guy in Michigan, and James Talarico trying to convince people he's heterosexual and not a vegetarian.

James Talarico trying to convince people he's heterosexual and not a vegetarian.

What I find funnier about Talarico is them trying to sell him as "Look, he's a Christian! We got Christians in our party, too! Why, he's even a seminarian, how more devoutly orthodox could you get?" and leaving aside the fact that I didn't know Presbyterians called them seminarians, when you look at his positions he's reliably liberal down the line.

...Mr. Talarico’s politics, as he has defined them in his Senate campaign, start with the biblical command to love God and love your neighbor. Those principles, as he sees it, have implications for public policy on abortion, immigration, the separation of church and state, and “economic justice” that elevates the interests of the poor and the oppressed over those of the wealthy and powerful. His campaign slogan, “It’s time to start flipping tables,” is a reference to a passage in the Bible where Jesus displays righteous anger.”

So this isn't going to work for the people who do have a certain position on issues like abortion, and it isn't going to work for people who break out in hives at the very mention of the word "Christian". They'll think he's a Bible-bashing bigot, and the more the local party tries to reassure them that no, he's not that kind of Christian, the more they will lose any cross-party appeal to the believing types.

Plus, it looks like there might be a minor, Obama-style, "oops my pastor could be problematic" issue there:

By his own account, Mr. Rigby has been a major influence and inspiration. And now, Mr. Talarico’s opponents are also turning a critical eye to the pastor. They are finding a spiritual leader whose views on political issues like immigration and abortion, but also questions like the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus, are out of step with the teachings of many other churches.

Mr. Rigby’s theology and his rhetoric reflect what would be heard at many Mainline and progressive Christian churches across the country. But in Texas, where conservative evangelicalism looms large, they are rarely visible on platforms like the ones Mr. Talarico now occupies.

Mr. Rigby does not use male pronouns for God, for example, because it is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is, he said in an interview after the service. He does not use the word “Lord,” because it conjures a wealthy, European, male God, he said. For that matter, he added, he does not much care for the word “God.” He uses it on occasion, he said, but he tries to use synonyms, because “it’s going to mean something different to everybody.

...Mr. Rigby baptized a baby, and welcomed a family of four as new members, handing them a new copy of the Inclusive Bible, an unusual feminist translation St. Andrew’s has used since the 1990s. In Genesis, instead of writing that God created a man, Adam, the translation refers first to an “earth creature.” It often uses the term “kindom” of God in place of “kingdom,” which it deems classist.

I love this. Unironically, I love this. "In the beginning, Undefined Vague Spiritual Entity According To Your Own Understanding created an earth creature. Let us all enter into the kindom of Undefined Entity. Amen (and awomen and anonbinary)".

Wait, I thought Baptists didn't baptise babies! Either the NYT is getting religion wrong (shocker, I know) or they are misunderstanding a different 'no this is not baptism like the bad old Catholics, this is child dedication which is totally different' practice, or Rigby is baptising babies because hey, rules are for fools.

Oh man, this could be his very own Kamala moment! 'Trans abortions for everybody!' 🤣

But Mr. Wilder, who has written critically of Mr. Talarico, said the attraction may fade after they hear Mr. Talarico’s past progressive comments, such as asserting that “our trans community needs abortion care, too,” as he did in a 2022 sermon at St. Andrew’s.

“That dog’s not going to hunt in Texas,” Mr. Wilder said.

when you look at his positions he's reliably liberal down the line.

He quoted the Prophet Muhammed in an Easter sermon.

Maybe I'm too used to Southern Baptists and other conservative Protestant sects but I can't imagine any quoting Muhammed, calling him The Prophet, especially at Easter.

For all that certain twitter posters are sure he affirmed the Nicene Creed, I am quite sure he's a moralistic therapeutic deism "multiple paths" sort. His beliefs have no teeth.

Talarico is not a baptist. Presbyterians are lectionary Protestants who baptize babies, use the term ‘saint’, do not do rock concert services, etc.

Now, differences in beliefs and practice are not necessarily off-putting to evangelicals- there are many elected officials who are Methodist, Catholic, Anglican, etc with broad appeal to the baptist masses. Baptist theology holds that baptism is a commandment and not a sacrament(this is why they do not baptize babies), and that gives them plenty of room to count those baptized as infants as real Christians. In practice their non-negotiables are still things Talarico doesn’t have- genuine belief in the historicity of the biblical account(famously genesis but theologically they would put more importance on the virgin birth and resurrection as literal, factual occurrences) and a certain level of conservatism on moral issues. This isn’t Ireland where Protestant theology has real, defined meanings- they don’t have a creed.

That was my mistake, I have no idea how I got the notion that the church in question was Baptist. I think I got confused because Talarico's grandfather was a Baptist minister, so the church-hopping threw me off.

I was surprised by the NYT seeming to do real journalism (and not just "vote for the Democrat or else the sky will fall in"), and I do think Talarico is less on the fringe than Pastor Bob there, or rather "Dr. Jim" as Talarico is quoted calling him. But Talarico went wading out past his depth on some matters. When you try spinning the Annunciation as meaning "abortion is kewl", yeah, I'm sinking my head into my hands here.

About 20 minutes into his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Texas Rep. James Talarico started making his case that the Bible sanctions abortion.

In the Book of Luke, the Austin Democrat noted, Mary has a vision from God that she’s going to give birth to a baby who will bring down the powerful from their thrones. But, critically, before she becomes pregnant, Talarico said, an angel “asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, ‘if it is God’s will, let it be done.’”

“To me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create,” Talarico, an aspiring Presbyterian minister and U.S. senator, told Rogan, arguing “the idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in Scripture.”

He went on to accuse the religious right of prioritizing abortion bans and “control” of pregnant mothers, rather than reducing miscarriages and protecting children through expanded health care access.

“I think that’s what we see across this Christian nationalist movement,” Talarico said. “This is religion at its worst: trying to control people and what they do.”

While pivoting to abortion is clearly reaching, I agree with him that it's interesting and noteworthy that the Annunciation is not a rape, or even a seduction, as one sees in the vast majority of e.g. Greek tales.

Christians historically would have said this is a direct parallel to Eve choosing to eat the forbidden fruit. The Genesis narrative describes her being lied to by the serpent, but notably it also describes her making her own appraisal of the situation and making a decision: "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it."

The original sin is a free choice, and likewise the decision that leads to salvation has to be a free choice.

Well, as a Catholic, imagine my expression 🤨when a Presbyterian starts talking about the Blessed Virgin. Hey, didn't you guys have an entire hissy-fit over Mariolatry during the Reformation? That we honoured her too highly? (Never mind the hardcore Calvinists and their "nobody cares about the human incubator once the baby popped out" line, because Mary didn't have a choice; free will is over-rated and she was only there to have the baby).

And now you're going to talk about Free Will and Consent and Mary's "yes" being important? Wanna talk about the Co-Redemptrix, Jimmy boy, instead of "Mary would totes have had an abortion nowadays" (again, a line I've seen some liberals taking).

As an ex-Catholic, the concern has always been 1) false doctrines about Mary that are considered obligatory dogmas and 2) adoration of Mary that rises to the level of worship, which is due to God alone. Nobody has ever said the problem was 'honouring Mary too highly'. I don't understand why Catholics are so universally arrogant and wrong whenever I encounter them online.

It's not about honouring Mary too highly, which is why I now need to junk the Gospels on God as Father since that makes girls less like God than their brothers. Wonderfully consistent theology you got there.

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Well, as a Catholic, imagine my expression 🤨when a Presbyterian starts talking about the Blessed Virgin. Hey, didn't you guys have an entire hissy-fit over Mariolatry during the Reformation?

Has anyone ever responded with 'No, that was centuries before my time, and by a totally different people?'

I like me a good sectarian shittalk as much as anyone, but I've hard enough blaming people for the sins of their own fathers, let alone the sins of someone else's fathers.

Come on, if they junked all that stuff because it was bad no-no wrong, they can't sneak it through the back door now that everyone likes playing dress-up in cherry-picked traditions.

Granted, with the kind of theology on show in that article, the church is just using 'Presbyterian' as a label and they might as well go the whole hog and be Unitarian Universalists because there's very little of the original confessional foundation left, but then there's no reason to call themselves anything in particular.

Basically, if we're "Sure, the Presbies can have bishops and the Baptists can have special ceremonies for babies and you can pretend to be Orthodox of six different flavours because you like the icons and we're scrapping all the deep dogmatic divisions because just say 'Jesus wants us to be nice to each other' and that's enough" that's because "now it doesn't matter, it's all make-believe, fighting over the sky fairy is dumb, the only real truth is Science! and Progress!".

I suggest that if Mr. Rigby's denomination had not tossed out Mary with the bathwater back in the day, then he would not feel the need to rewrite Scripture on the grounds that "Mr. Rigby does not use male pronouns for God, for example, because it is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is, he said in an interview after the service."

Imagine that: dumping the idea of veneration of female figures because that takes away from the worship due only to God leads, down the line, to replacing God with Fake Female Deity since you have no means of approaching "how do we integrate women in the church?"

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"I'm not a vegetarian. It's just that my girlfriend is a vegetarian."

Oldest trick in the book. Texans will see right through him.

"moralizing girlfriend with boyfriend who doesn't live up to her full standards" seems like a pretty common relationship type.

Twist would be "She's a vegetarian, I'm a vegan" 😁

In fairness, I had a boss once who ate vegetarian at home together with his wife, and then ate plenty of meat when we would go out to lunch.

This actually ends up being a really healthy eating practice. One filling, protein-rich meal in the middle of the day, followed by a lighter vegetarian meal in the evening, maybe supplemented by a small breakfast, sounds like a pretty ideal diet for anyone who's not actively trying to build muscle. Let's be honest; most men would probably benefit from adding a little more veggies to our diets. I know I would secretly love having a (tolerant) vegetarian wife, if only as a form of weight control.

He probably did it at home out of appeasement if I had to guess. I’ve met people who do similar sorts of things.

More to the point, she is a 'committed vegan activist'. I have no doubt that there are plenty of vegetarian women dating men who eat meat- the demographics of vegetarianism suggests this probably isn't even that uncommon. But it doesn't pass the smell test that a 'vegan activist' would.

Without knowing anything else about it other than what you wrote, it passes the smell test for me. You can be a committed vegan activist without making your entire life about vegan activism.

Have you met a vegan?

Yes, though I have never known one closely.

I've been a vegetarian myself and have known a few others, and neither I nor them were ever absolutist about it to others.

The idea that a committed vegan activist wouldn't have a meat-eating boyfriend is kind of preposterous. Sexual and romantic attraction are very powerful forces.

You can be a committed vegan activist without making your entire life about vegan activism.

Oooh, baby. I once had to scrap an entire vegetarian Christmas meal* at the last possible moment because the vegetarian announced they were vegan when they walked in the door. Vegetarian no good anymore, might contain things like milk or eggs! Even honey not acceptable!

Yeah, tell me about those reasonable vegan activists who don't make a big fuss and kick up a stink, why don't you?

*The rest of us were bloodmouth carnists, so we just ate normally. But the vegetarian products I had purchased so they wouldn't be just eating bare vegetables ** at the meal? Sorry, no good no more!

**Talk about Orthodox Jewish kitchens having two separate sets of utensils and even ovens so meat and dairy won't possibly meet at all or come into contact. I've had to use two sets of cooking pots and dishes to make sure the separate vegetables don't get contaminated by being cooked with the bloodmouth carnist vegetables which might have things like butter in them or be cooked in the meat water or roasted in the meat drippings or even just exist in the same space as animal corpses.

My anecdotal evidence versus your anecdotal evidence.

Last minute dietary surprises are hugely impolite but it's hardly unreasonable for vegetarians not to want to eat vegetables roasted in meat droppings (or boiled in "meat water", whatever that is).

No, I don't object to that, once I know in good time. But the bother of two separate sets of cooking vessels etc. is inconvenient, unless our vegans persuade us all to become vegans like them.

The meat water? Did you never hear of boiling vegetables (e.g. cabbage) in the same water you cooked the bacon in? Cuts down on cooking vessels (important if you don't have many or don't have much room) and imparts flavour to the vegetables.

An American would call ‘meat water’ broth(not that boiled meat is generally in high esteem on this side of the pond), ‘meat water’ sounds like something vaguely gross.

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But the bother of two separate sets of cooking vessels etc. is inconvenient, unless our vegans persuade us all to become vegans like them.

Do they object to the same vessel being used for meat and then for veg or do they object to meat products used in preparation of the veg?

The meat water? Did you never hear of boiling vegetables (e.g. cabbage) in the same water you cooked the bacon in?

I've never heard of cooking bacon in water in my life. Growing up my Slavic parents would cook hot dogs in water but that's basically the only meat I've ever seen cooked by boiling as far as I can remember (I'm not counting stock here).

Why don't you fry or roast the bacon? Surely you are losing flavor by boiling it? @FttG do you people really boil your meat?

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Tranquilize that unicorn and put a mark on her ear.

Barbeque-loving voters need to know where he stands on the Black's vs Terry Black's Lockhart feud in order to make an informed decision

The best BBQ is Miss Tootsie's. Let's pander to (actually)rural voters, black voters, and BBQ-sauce-hating voters all at the same time.

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