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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   34916 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan:

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, denying tens of millions of Americans the chance to get up to $20,000 of their debt erased.

The ruling, which matched expert predictions given the justices’ conservative majority, is a massive blow to borrowers who were promised loan forgiveness by the Biden administration last summer.

The 6-3 majority ruled that at least one of the six states that challenged the loan relief program had the proper legal footing, known as standing, to do so.

The high court said the president didn’t have the authority to cancel such a large amount of consumer debt without authorization from Congress and agreed the program would cause harm to the plaintiffs.

The amusing thing here to me is that we got two major SCOTUS rulings in two days that are, on the face of it, not directly related to each other in any obvious way (besides the fact that they both deal with the university system). One could conceivably support one ruling and oppose the other. The types of legal arguments used in both cases are certainly different. And yet we all know that the degree of correlation among the two issues is very high. If you support one of the rulings, you're very likely to support the other, and vice versa.

The question for the floor is: why the high degree of correlation? Is there an underlying principle at work here that explains both positions (opposition to AA plus opposition to debt relief) that doesn't just reduce to bare economic or racial interest? The group identity angle is obvious. AA tends to benefit blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites and Asians. Student debt relief benefits the poorer half of the social ladder at the expense of the richer half of the social ladder. Whites and Asians tend to be richer than blacks and Hispanics. So, given a choice of "do you want a better chance of your kids getting into college, and do you also not want your tax dollars going to people who couldn't pay off their student loans", people would understandably answer "yes" to both - assuming you’re in the appropriate group and that is indeed the bargain that’s being offered to you. But perhaps that's uncharitable. Which is why I'm asking for alternative models.

One side of the court is applying legal reasoning to the facts to reach their decision. The other side is picking a winner and tailoring their legal reasoning to reach it. You decide which side is which.

Do you ever get tired of posting one-liners that are all heat and no light? No charity, no forethought, nothing but war to the knife.

I mean, are they wrong?

There point seems pretty obvious and we've recently seen a lot of talk about activist judges, etc.

Perhaps you don't like uncomfortable things being pointed out?

Whether they are wrong or not, it's clearly low quality as it doesn't contain any argument or evidence. It also violates the rules for boo outgroup and speaking plainly.

no u

Nah. Believe what you will, this place has gone to the dogs enough as-is.

I'm sorry to report: it's not this place, it's the world.

We had a conversation about steelmanning here recently, and our resident Russian pointed out profoundly "I can steelman Russian nationalism, but I cannot redeem it". Aside from the fact that the kind of people who lament the lack of charity here never seem to lament the lack of charity towards ideas that are unpopular in the mainstream, I have to ask: is the point to show charity to the point we have to invent things that don't exist in the world we actually inhabit?

You don't have to invent things whole cloth, but starting with a position that isn't maximally inflammatory and unkind is a good start as well as sorely lacking.

How much of the same pattern do we have to see repeated over and over, before we can say that it is, in fact, a pattern?

From the OP:

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:

Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

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.

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.

Figure something a pattern all you want, there are people who disagree with you. Calling them names is against the letter and spirit of this thread.

More comments

I mean, are they wrong?

I think so, yeah. When I read the Biden v Nebraska decision, I actually don't think either side is completely full of shit, just picking the winner and then figuring out how to get there. The side that I agree with actually seems like they have thinner legal reasoning, to me. The affirmative action case seems entirely straightforward and I think the dissent is absolute garbage, but the difference between the two cases might just be that I think Kagan is a lucid, clear, humorous writer while Sotomayor and (especially) KBJ are absolute hacks.

Sotomayor and KBJ make the best argument for the court to strike down affirmative action.

If there is blatant culture warring in this thread that isn't being modded, that's a mod problem.

Everyone's problem, I'd say.

I agree that everyone is negatively impacted by it. The only viable solution is a change in mod behavior. So long as people are allowed to take passing potshots at their outgroup they will continue to do so.

It's a biased take sure, but most political takes are... There's a point and it not overly insulting.

Is this really the level for a 'boo outgroup' ban?

It may be charitable to attempt to find a "reasonable" explanation for tribal behavior, but it won't get you closer to the truth. The point I was making, sardonically, is that it looks like tribal behavior because it IS tribal behavior.

I didn't interpret your comment as sarcastic, considering that @Jiro, @guajalote, and @jeroboam all made the exact same point. It would be weird if you were all being sarcastic. Clearly this is a framing that some people actually believe in.

Yes, obviously some people believe their side is following the legal reasoning to reach a conclusion and the other side is picking a winner. I think in this case that's wrong, but not as wrong as believing that both sides are following the legal reasoning to reach a conclusion. I think in these cases both sides picked the outcome first. I happen to think the legal reasoning is better on the conservative side in these cases, but I don't believe the justices weren't results motivated. Probably the weakest bit of reasoning in the recent "tribal" decisions is not in an education decision but in the gay wedding site case, not in the main holding (which is ironclad, IMO) but the granting of standing.

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