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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29775 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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Elon Musk's Shadow Rule

tl;dr After initially donating Starlink terminals and providing free internet at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Musk realized that it's actually pretty expensive to keep it on in a warzone, and asked the Pentagon to help pay for it, or he would turn it off. Eventually they hammered out a contract. Also, he proposed a peace plan involving Russia keeping some territory, which was roundly booed.

By all accounts Starlink has been a massive boon to the Ukrainians, since their ability to communicate basically hinges on starlink. But because he wasn't willing to keep providing it for free, he's a pro putin shill and a traitor to the US, and the service should be nationalized. It's not like the US and other governments haven't dragged their feet on providing the best firepower (ATACMS, for example).

Perhaps the counteroffensive grinding to a halt means a new scapegoat is needed.

IMO didn’t he violate the Logan Act by tweeting about diplomacy? Along with a million other people floating diplomatic plans. Going after Flynn on Logan Act violations always seemed like the most obvious lawfare simply because it’s never really been used and it’s broad enough I think you could construe Musks and many many others as in violation.

And it’s an issue I see with a lot of the novel legal theories. You can stretch a lot of laws so it matters that you have precedence using something a certain way.

Do you genuinely think that encouraging diplomatic solutions via tweet genuinely constitutes negotiating on behalf of the US government? What did he offer in these supposed negotiations?

I think that a motivated lawyer can make the case that it does, and that a partisan judge will convict.

What's objectively reasonable don't come into it.

Empirically, it does. Unless you can point me to such a sham Logan Act conviction?

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