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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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My parenthetical note was intended to make it clear that I'm not trying to do that foot-in-the-door tactic, but simply trying to get someone else's opinion on the matter. But whatever, you answered which is what I wanted. Is your line at vehicles driven by the actual text of 2A ("bear" arms), or by some argument I don't currently comprehend?

As for your question retort: not orders, and I split hairs on instructions/advocacy/smears. Specifically:

  • If someone grows cannabis illegally, we can deal with that after the fact; if someone builds a nuke illegally, it's a bit harder to deal with that after the fact, so I'm more concerned about the details of how to build an implosion nuke than I am about the details of how to grow cannabis (or even the details of how to make dynamite off-label, though I'm not about to spread the latter myself).
  • I generally draw the line at indirect/vague vs. direct/specific incitement.
  • Ignorant misinformation shouldn't be punishable, but I've no issue with banning disinformation with the associated mens rea of deliberate deception. Much less of a chilling effect from the latter.

Is your line at vehicles driven by the actual text of 2A ("bear" arms), or by some argument I don't currently comprehend?

The actual text. It's an academically interesting question about whether mounting a gun in the back of a Toyota Hilux counts under "bearing arms", but the Hilux itself isn't covered under "arms".

Ignorant misinformation shouldn't be punishable, but I've no issue with banning disinformation with the associated mens rea of deliberate deception. Much less of a chilling effect from the latter.

As we saw with COVID, that's an exception that can swallow most of the rule.

As we saw with COVID, that's an exception that can swallow most of the rule.

The various censorship on that was aimed at "misinformation"; AFAIK they rarely alleged deliberate lies. There's definitely a huge issue with trying to police misinformation, but if you can prove that someone's deliberately lying I see little issue.