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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   37886 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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and for their Head of School's decision to comment.

Actually, I don't think you can blame the Head of School. There's nothing stopping those other teams from playing, and it isn't some command or dictum from the Head that's responsible for them not having opponents. I find that this sort of redirection of blame is really pernicious - proper attribution is almost always helpful.

The Head of School chose to explain the reason, and thus removed any plausible deniability. That in turn prompted the VPA to remove the school.

The VPA's Letter of Ineligibility states, the VPA Executive Council "determined that Mid-Vermont Christian’s forfeit and corresponding rationale as shared in the Valley News, violates VPA Policies which are aligned with Vermont state law. Specifically, the school’s actions do not meet the expectations of the VPA’s 1st and 2nd policy, Commitment to Racial, Gender-Fair, and Disability Awareness and Policy of Gender Identity, respectively. Thus, Mid-Vermont Christian school is ineligible to participate in VPA activities going forward."

The forfeit was on the coach, the rationale was on the Head of School. I happen to agree with both of them, but if I were, say, a track athlete looking forward to the spring season, I'd be upset.

In addition to basketball, MVCS has competed in the VPA in volleyball, golf, cross country and track and field, and also has fielded soccer teams that competed independently.

That in turn prompted the VPA to remove the school.

Yes, and that is where the blame should be attributed. These students are unable to play due to a decision by the VPA executive council, not the explanation provided by the head. There's no inexorable universal law that dictated the head's comment caused the ban - somebody else had to make the final decision.

It's a very conservative, law-n-order view of the world -- that you are responsible for the predictable (and sometimes not so predictable) consequences of your words and actions regardless of whether they are just or whether they are the result of the decisions of others rather than being natural consequences. This means conservatives cannot expect support from their own side.

Regardless of whether they are just? So conservatives don't believe in justice in your view? Strawman much?

That's correct -- knowledge of the consequences, or expected knowledge of the consequences, substitutes for their justness. "You knew that would happen!" or "You should have known that would happen!" are phrases typically employed.

I see this way more from left-wingers nowadays: "You violated the terms of service so what did you expect would happen? They're a company with advertisers to please. It doesn't even matter whether censorship is justified or not; break the rules and get banned sweetie."

Yes, but leftists use it in part because it works to disarm conservatives.

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