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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16403 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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Democracy works.

Washington residents voted for this.

Democracy only works in an area where consent of the governed is equally geographically distributed.

In Washington, it is not.

They also voted for 35 dollar car tabs.

And the Supreme Court that overturned them. And they never punish those Supreme Court justices. The last justice to lose a reelection bid was Richard B Sanders in 2010, and he was replaced by Charlie Wiggins. Sanders was conservative, Wiggins a liberal. Wiggins was on the majority opinion in the court's 9-0 decision that held that the death penalty was unconstitutional becuase of disparate racial impact.

The voters don't punish overturning initiatives, so the Court is free to reason to achieve its desired outcomes.

the court's 9–0 decision that held that the death penalty was unconstitutional becuase of disparate racial impact

Link

The decision does not appear to be based on disparate impact. Rather, the justices relied on a report finding, with p-values of 4.8–11.1 percent, that race was a factor in the application of the death penalty. (In a footnote, they declined to use the common p-value of 5 percent as a "mechanical bright-line rule".)

Have you voted in Washington state? The elections are basically like

Judge A: Leftist with a AAAA rating from the Bar Association. Certificate of honor from good girl club.

Judge B: Leftist with a AAAA rating from the Bar Association. Certificate of honor from good girl club.

They are not running on the issues like legislative candidates because of the fiction that they are merely interpreting the rules and not making them. It's a farce. Sure, change isn't impossible, but it would take a decades long march through the institutions to get there.

While the elections are nominally non-partisan, I just open the candidate's website and usually can quickly discern their party alignment. If the front page doesn't make it clear from language about equity or law and order, it's easy enough to find out who's endorsed them.

I don't recall ever lacking a conservative option, but until about 2018 I would have voted for the liberals.

There are non-leftists on the ballot for judges for a few seats every election and every time they get absolutely destroyed. Seems like a strong signal from the voters what they want.

They voted for $35 car tabs to get sent to judges, and they voted for those judges to nuke it.

I wonder what the voters really wanted. It's so mysterious.

Yeah, I'm aware that voters are retarded and will vote for a balanced budget, tax cuts, and to give every old and black person a free Cadillac. All at the same time.

Nevertheless, I don't think the voters of Washington should be allowed to vote for kings to rule over them unless they know explicitly that's what they are voting for. These justices run on platforms like "I have a highly qualified rating from the bar association" not "I'm basically Mao in a robe".

It's a farce when the kings will allow the vote to count sometimes, but not other times, depending on whether the kings like it. Feels like Calvinball, largely because it is.

You're familiar with the term "manipulation of procedural outcomes", I presume?

It’s not news that I believe the Cathedral is evil. And since it’s 2008, you’d expect evil to have not only a name, but a blog. And sure enough it does. Evil’s name is Timothy Burke, he is a professor of history (specializing in southern Africa) at Swarthmore, and his blog is Easily Distracted.

The great thing about Professor Burke is that he appears to have a conscience. Almost every post in his blog can be understood as a kind of rhetorical struggle to repress some inner pang of doubt. He is the Good German par excellence. When people of this mindset found themselves in the Third Reich, they were “moderate Nazis.” In Czechoslovakia or Poland they “worked within the system.” Professor Burke is nowhere near being a dissident, but there is a dissident inside him. He doesn’t like it, not at all. He stabs it with his steely knives. He can check out any time. But he can never leave. His position is a high one, and not easy to get.

The entire blog is characterized—indeed it could serve as a type specimen for—the quality that Nabokov called poshlost. Simply an embarrassment of riches. I am saddened by the fact that, as a new parent, I cannot devour the whole thing. But as a case study, I have selected this. The whole post is a treat, but I am especially tickled by the line:

I am drawn to procedural liberalism because I live in worlds that are highly procedural and my skills and training are adapted to manipulating procedural outcomes.

“Manipulating procedural outcomes.” My entire post—maybe even my entire blog—reduced to three words. If you want to know how you are governed, this is it: you are governed by manipulating procedural outcomes. It’s perfect. It belongs on someone’s tomb.

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