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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29056 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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... that the other side will eventually defect, like Democrats are doing now.

I called that any form of trust-based equilibrium was toast way back when Reps stole a Supreme Court seat. I cannot overemphasize what an effect that event had in re-framing what politics was about and what the Republicans were like for politically engaged Dems who weren't already maximally cynical.

At the time I hoped that Democrats would defect in ways that merely rebalanced the court to correct for that theft, and let things return to a stable equilibrium otherwise. But, no, touching the court was considered beyond the pale by the highest levels of the Democratic party, so instead it's the lower levels of the party defecting in various corners in a decentralized way.

New hope is 'defeating' Trump would be enough to pacify those elements and get back to equilibrium. Not holding my breath though.

  • -21

Escalation is not a great move for the country, even if it makes you personally feel good.

I'm sure Republicans can point to Bork and say it "really" started there. There a million other slights and violations of norms in the past.

Using smaller violations of norms in the past is never a good reason to justify larger ones now since, using the same logic, the other party can retaliate in an even bigger way.

The person you are arguing is on the record that they consider false rape accusations a legitimate political tactic. I don't think "escalation is bad" is going to persuade them.

The person you are arguing is on the record that they consider false rape accusations a legitimate political tactic.

Is that true @guesswho?

I think this is referring to this sequence

ymeskhout Trump got hit by two gag orders from two different judges [...] So with that out of the way, how does it apply to Trump? Judge Chutkan's order restricts him from making statements that "target" the prosecutor, court staff, and "reasonably foreseeable witnesses or the substance of their testimony". [...] Discrediting witnesses is harder to draw a clean line on, because again there's a gradient between discrediting and intimidating. I think Trump should have the absolute and unrestricted right to discuss any of his charges and discredit any evidence and witnesses against him.

guesswho I'm not sure why it's important to discredit a witness in the public eye, instead of at trial where you're allowed to say all those things directly to the judge and jury. Especially in light of the negative externalities to the system itself, ie if we allow defendants to make witnesses and judges and prosecutors and jurors lives a living nightmare right up until the line of 'definitely undeniably direct tampering', then that sets a precedent where no sane person wants to fill any of those roles, and the process of justice is impeded. [...]

sliders1234 [...] Girl who you had a drunken hook up texted you the next day saying how much fun she had with you last night. You ignore her text. 2 weeks later she claims rape. It’s in the newspaper. Suddenly your name is tarnished. Everyone in town now views your condo building as feeding money into your pocket. Sales slump. Now do you see why this hypothetical real estate developer would have a reason to hit back in the media? He’s being significantly punished (maybe leading to bankruptcy) without ever being found guilty in the court of law. Of course Trump has motivations to hit hard against the judge and prosecuting attorney. The more partisan they appear the more it makes him look better and get the marginal voter.

guesswho [...] I guess what I would say is that 1. that sees like a really narrow case [...] 2. I would hope a judge in that case wouldn't issue a blanket gag order [...] 3. yeah, there may have to be some trade-offs between corner-cases like this and making the system work in the median case. [...] I'm open to the idea that we should reform the system to make it less damaging to defendants who have not been convicted yet, but if we are deciding to care about that then these super-rich and powerful guys worrying about their reputations are way down on my list under a lot of other defendants who need the help more urgently.

That technically counts as "considering it fair that a defendant can be bound not to disparage a witness against them in a sexual assault case, even if the defendant is a politician and the rape accusation is false". But if that's the exchange @FCfromSSC is talking about it seems like a massive stretch to describe it that way.

Nope. It was on reddit, under his old handle, and about Kavanaugh. I don't have a link, though, so if he's willing to deny it, feel free to disregard as you please.

So literally some takes from 5 years ago and a different account, which, if I'm correct about which name you're implying guesswho used to post as, are more saying "in practice sexual assault accusations aren't being used in every political fight, so let's maybe hold off on trying drastic solutions to that problem until it's demonstrated that your proposed cure isn't worse than the disease".

Let he who has never posted a take that some people find objectionable cast the first stone.

@guesswho has publicly admitted to being Darwin. It's possible that he's lying and merely an extremely convincing imposter, but I don't think I'm Implying Implications by accepting confirmation on a theory I and others were already 90%+ confident on based on his unique posting style.

As for the rest, if memory serves, I argued that to the extent that the rape accusations against Kavanaugh could be falsified, they had been, and that backing them to the hilt was an appalling escalation. His reply was something along the lines of "politics is a contact sport, get over it." I apologize for not having a link, and freely admit that my comment was a bad one without such a link, and arguably bad even with one. I'm not in a good mood today, and am finding it difficult to care.

Ah. Good to know. Thank you for this.

It explains a lot, really.

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