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 -
By that reasoning people should have been able to sue the government on fifth amendment grounds before the regulation was passed on the grounds that even making the regulation likely reduced the value of their property. Otherwise this becomes a sleight of hand where it doesn't count before because the regulation doesn't exist yet and it doesn't count after because it happened before, leading to lack of remedy.
Government decisions affecting the value of your asset is literally a Tuesday. When the prohibition was enacted, I do not think that the breweries were compensated for lost earnings. When Trump's Iranian adventure changes the price of oil futures (which is once a day or so), the USG is under no obligation compensate the people who bet on a different outcome.
The government can make decisions which will affect the prices of real estate property has been true for as long as there have been governments. All of these risks are priced in. If the people of some city would vote for getting rid of cops, or cars, or public transportation, or laws against arson, that would very likely affect property prices. So would, to a lesser degree, a myriad other municipal decisions.
At the end of the day, citizens get to vote, properties don't. This is well known to any property owner. If you do not like that, invest in some other country.
By this reasoning, the government affecting the value of your asset can't ever be considered a taking even under the most extreme circumstances, because since it's always possible for the government to do that, it would always be priced in in advance.
For that matter, the same could be said of a conventional physical taking. If the government is known to take things, the chance that the government takes it would be priced in in its sale price, and the government doesn't have to compensate you for the physical taking either since you already (on the average) received the compensation through buying it at a lower price that takes into account the chance of government greed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah there is an original mover problem to SCOTUS’ logic.
It's not an original mover problem to SCOTUS logic, it's a baseline definition problem in the 5A. Defining a "taking" requires comparing against some counterfactual to compare against.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link