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The so-called "Anti weaponization fund" has been defeated due to public and internal backlash.
It was so unpopular that even Republican senators were furious and yelling at Blanche over it. According to Ted Cruz
But why did it die?
Republicans are willing to bow their heads to Trump on most things, but the same way defund the police was unpopular (because people like the police), senators really like the capitol police and don't approve of rewarding the cop beaters with money. Trump got away with the pardons, but actively awarding attacking the cops who protect them is a step too far from many.
It was also just really unpopular among voters. Just like the senators, voters don't approve of giving money to cop beaters. Not even many republican ones are supportive of that just because they did it in Trump's name. Of course it's also quite likely that many interpreted the question as a fund for victims of Trump's weaponization, such as James Comey whose lead prosecutor just stepped down or Jerome Powell but not all probably did.
As my own senator put it
Senators also felt that the deal was too blatantly corrupt and hard for them to defend with a straight face.
Either way, they've dropped it now and the fund is dead in the water. Interesting showcase of how many republican congressman haven't completely neutered themselves for the executive yet, they just mostly argue behind closed doors.
The general impression (however incorrect in this case) was that it would go in substantial part to Trump personally. Even GOP voters know that it’s precisely Trump who paints himself as an immensely rich and successful billionaire, so this is giving some very rich guy a lot more taxpayer money, which is hard for politicians to justify.
More generally, every government rewards its supporters, and there are far more under the table ways to do it than this kind of fund. Trump has already done so much of it through the crypto companies, expediting approvals for various Trump tech aligned businesses, endorsing or engaging in partnerships with startups that have his sons on the board etc. If he wants to reward his supporters, this is the way to do it.
The main strategic issue for the right isn’t making it more profitable to be on the right, it’s on making it more personally challenging to be on the left. He needs to much more aggressively steal from and prosecute and expropriate violent leftist activists, make their life hell the way the left did to the right in power. This has far better long term utility. Put people on no fly lists, have banks close their accounts, stop renewing passports and drivers’ licenses.
The Trump admin has been trying to do this, they're not even subtle. James Comey is the most blatant and unarguable example.
Ironically this exact argument is exactly what FIRE, the free speech organization that became famous when it fighting against progressive universities, warns of.
This is to them, a door that hasn't been opened yet that Trump is opening now and if you want to see what weaponization against conservatives could really look like, then just wait.
Hopefully we don't get 2028 Dem who is that vengeful and abusive, I would like for us to start shutting doors instead of continually opening new ones. But I will at least be glad to point out these "it's ok to do what you want against your enemies" arguments to people who seem to suddenly change their mind in three years.
Thankfully the Trump admin will fail here. And so will the 2028 vengeful Dem. But what a shame that everyone just wants to keep opening doors anyway, eventually we'll cross a threshold where society breaks down.
FIRE is among the many, many, many organizations who lost their way and don't support what they say on the tin. Look at their tagline for that very article:
Do they think I'm an idiot? Do they think I haven't been paying attention? Did they forget the world they themselves have lived through?
I don't need to wait, because I've seen it for well over a decade at this point. I know exactly what it looks like when Democrats want to censor political opponents, and it looks like massive coordinated deplatforming from every institution or large conglomerate in the world.
What the fuck is FIRE thinking publishing this kind of dreck? They ought to know better, but then again, see my first sentence.
Wait since when? It sounds like you are just pissy that they have principles. Meaning they defend free speech even when its a conservative in the executive.
Their archive has a ton of recent cases that do not cleave to a left vs right dichotomy but instead a free speech principled stance. https://www.fire.org/cases
Greg Lukiaoff the CEO has talked about this before and calls it "hypocrisy projection"
https://x.com/glukianoff/status/1784609444124316135
You see this constantly in replies to FIRE lawyers, people who have no idea what they are will go "You didn't say anything about X or Y" when no, FIRE definitely did do that. It's constant from all political directions.
People just fling out accusations of hypocrisy at them to cover up for their own hypocrisy.
Being a principled person is a fun life cause you'll have people telling you're biased and unfair in every direction you can imagine and there's just no convincing them. They don't want to be convinced, you can lead the horse to a river, dunk their head in and make them drink it and they'll spit it out!
You're actually correct on this one; that's some good theory of mind.
On this page, you have a bunch of people repeatedly asking you for evidence your positions; you consistently obfuscate, deflect, and pretend to misunderstand what they're saying.
I understand that it's flattering to cast yourself as a principled person, and anyone disagreeing with you is just terminally stupid.
Thing is, it's not actually true.
Actually pretty easy way to to check it, let's call it the Mr Rogers test.
If Mark tells you that John is a thief, you might be more cautious of John's behavior. If Mark then follows up with "Mr Rogers is a thief", then you know Mark's head isn't screwed on right, he just claims people are thieves if he doesn't like them for whatever reason and his claims about John hold little weight. Mr Rogers after all was famously a very nice guy and no credible accusations have ever been made that he stole from others, so Mark just claiming lowers Mark's own reputation.
So let's look at things that are very principled to use as our baseline to see if people's accusations have any weight here.
FIRE is extremely principled, probably one of the most principled organizations out there. So someone who makes claims against FIRE loses any weight they have in other accusations. The comment currently making claims against FIRE is at +14, so at the very least 14 people here throw out frivolous accusations just because they don't like when principled beliefs are against them.
Well maybe these are not the same people interacting with me, but there's not that many people on the site so there's a pretty good chance that several of them are. I don't give them any weight because they've already lost it by failing the Mr Rogers test.
And it's not just FIRE either. I learned recently that Trace Woodgrains was effectively bullied out of this site roughly a year ago, someone had linked his profile in response to me talking a view of his. Woodgrains is someone I've seen to be respectable and honest and he's constantly been willing to speak up against both left wing and right wing views he disagrees with. He's quite respected in the rationalist aligned community. Taking such major issues with him that he is effectively hounded off is a failure of the Mr Rogers test.
That's to be expected, it's the default of the internet really. Even people I disagree with substantially (but respect as principled in their beliefs) have it happen constantly. Micheal Tracey is experiencing that treatment right now. I think he's wrong about Epstein and his many other denials of public officials accused of abuse, but he is very consistent in holding this stance. Elliot Hamilton (among many other X users) falsely accusing Tracey of being a partisan hypocrite have lost any weight I might have given their accusations. If I ever had Elliot Hamilton say I'm being partisan, I know I can dismiss that because he just says it if he doesn't like what you say.
Edit: Actually here Trace Woodgrains speaks out another big of the issue that's still ongoing https://www.themotte.org/post/1018/smallscale-question-sunday-for-may-26/217142?context=8#context
Is it the case that there just isn't left or centrist rationalists capable of discussion here? Highly unlikely, Woodgrains himself is a good example of that. He's also a good example of what really happens, the community here is generally hostile in pursuit of the implicit purpose. Many users simply don't want to hear the arguments they disagree with, so the people who have arguments they dislike get burnt out from the hostility.
So Mr Rogers test, I'm not gonna put much weight into hounding from a site and people that also hounded out Woodgrains.
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