site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   26357 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

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:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • 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.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. 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.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

No one's ever going to convince me that anyone believes this is actually legal. The Wisconsin Amendment reads:

Appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor, and the part approved shall become law, and the part objected to shall be returned in the same manner as provided for other bills.

Striking out single letters is the kind of thing that only an extremely dishonest legal genius could love. Any normal person would read this as allowing a governor to reject parts of appropriations bill, not provide an opportunity to completely flip the meaning of sentences.

Agreed. 43 states have some extent of line item veto and you don't often hear about really flagrant abuse of it, so I assume it works well enough in practice.

More importantly it kills the ability to trade. You want X; I want Y. I prefer X to not Y and you prefer Y to not X.

So we agree to X and Y. But now the governor can strike X and keep Y. Outside of comity, why would you support X to override the veto?

Given that I can’t count on you to override the veto, I’m never going to give you Y in the first place.

The worst part is that it doesn't necessarily flip the meaning, but everyone is going along with it as if it does. Each of the spending increases could easily be interpreted as a one-time thing. "For 2023-2425 increase spending by $150" is interpreted by everyone as meaning, "increase spending by $150 each year 2023-2425", but the more straightforward interpretation is to increase spending once over that timeframe.

It would be nice to be a nation of laws, rather than of raw power.

And yet every mainstream media story on it was congratulatory in tone towards the governor, and no lawsuit appears to have resulted. It's almost as if the words don't matter, only who and whom.

Maybe because everyone, including the GOP, liked the modification?

The article says the GOP have used the tactic before too, so presumably they don’t want to challenge it too much, it’s likely they’ll win back the governor’s office at some point.

It's ridiculous, but it's also like 40 years old and has been litigated in the state supreme court already.

They haven't used it nearly so blatantly AFAIK. I expect the actual reason it hasn't been challenged is because the modification is not all that extreme. The article itself mentions that the budget increase doesn't even keep pace with inflation. Why expend political effort to fight something they probably would have done anyways?

The governor broke the law in a terrible way, claiming vast powers for himself, but used them only to achieve a fairly small, very popular, and somewhat bipartisan goal. It was pretty smart tbh and something I hope Republicans know to copy if/when they get office.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats