banned
DelendaEst
13d ago
What he was doing before was very high value, so I certainly agree with you that even the rosiest view of his twitter acquisition is a lot lower value.
But from my POV it was a very good thing. At the time he bought it everything in the media, and social media especially, was so left wing it felt incredibly stifling and hostile. And as the desire for censoring anyone to the right steadily increased while people on the left chanted "its a private company if you don't like it make your own" it only got worse. The Hunter Laptop saga where twitter banned sharing a true story under the theory that it was bad for Democrats was more a fascism warning sign than anything Trump has done, and as I recall the proximate trigger for Elon looking into actually buying twitter was them banning The Babylon Bee for conservative satire.
In this environment having one of the more lefty new/social media sources suddenly become welcoming to me and no longer a threat was like a breath of fresh air. I do wish twitter had not gotten AS right wing as it has, I'd prefer balance, but that is more about lefties leaving because they can only handle sites that cater to them than anything else.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
14d ago
On the other side: Trump has now an enemy with 200 million followers and who owns the dominant conservative online corner.
I feel like this leads to Trump getting banned from Twitter again, right? It's hard for me to imagine Musk not taking the chance to spite-kick him off the platform.
quiet_NaN
14d ago
I will second your observation that permanent health damage to the mother as a side effect of pregnancy is not much talked about in my circles. I mean, I occasionally read the Guardian (strictly for the Monday math puzzles), and while they certainly have a bee in their bonnet about women's health specifically, I don't remember encountering any articles on the body horror aspect of pregnancy.
If a medication had these side effects, it would either be banned or come with a big scary warning label, but for some reason, nobody has proposed legislating requiring the penises of fertile men to be tattooed "THIS ORGAN IS KNOWN TO THE SURGEON GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE HEALTH PROBLEMS IN WOMEN INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ....".
Rov_Scam
15d ago
I don't blame you for this mistake (for lack of a better term), because I didn't notice it until the second time I read your post, but I think our tendency to allow the present to inform out perceptions of the past can lead us toward explanations that don't make sense. At no point in 2015 was any of the smart money convinced that Trump was a viable political candidate. The perception of him before the 2016 primaries was that he was an unserious candidate who tapped into the resentments of a certain kind of person who typically didn't vote. Given the amount of vitriol he received from pretty much everyone in the Republican establishment and his questionable standing among Evangelical Christians, it was assumed that he was good at getting headlines and winning in too-early-to matter polls but as soon as the people who actually mattered started paying attention his standing would drop like a rock.
It seems pretty clear to me that Lana's personal problems have nothing to do with Trump, or the culture war in general. By the time Trump announced his candidacy, her marriage was pretty much over, she was making intimate details of her relationship with her husband semi-public, and she was burning bridges in her social circle—I'm hesitant to conclude that gay marriage disagreements had anything to do with that; if she was oversharing with people such as yourself who barely knew her, you can only imagine what she was telling people from church.
I had a friend in college who grew up relatively poor in a wealthy suburb. He always had this outside fixation on status and success. He majored in business, and read books by Donald Trump and other motivational people that he took literally as business advice. He wanted to go to law school and be a sports agent, and he interned with a sports agency and got to meet Barry Sanders. But his obsession was entirely superficial. For example, he'd read in his popular business books about the importance of budgeting time, so he'd block off time in the evenings to do homework and study. But this consisted of him watching television with a book open, which he'd close at 9pm or whatever and say that he'd already done his studying for the night and was keeping on schedule. When I told him I didn't much like scotch, he told me I should develop a taste for it because that's what the big dogs drank. When his aging Volvo got totaled after a drunk driver rear-ended him at a traffic light, he started test driving cars like the Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer Edition (new, of course) rather than buy whatever the insurance payout would get him.
At some point he got the idea that taking prescription opiates recreationally was a high-status thing to do. When he first mentioned that he liked painkillers, I thought maybe he was just finding a silver lining in dental work or something. When he started talking about it more, I tried to disabuse him of the notion that it was cool by noting its nickname of "hillbilly heroin" and pointing to a bust in West Virginia that had been on the news. He assured me, though, that top businessmen and all the hip young Wall Street traders and attorneys used it to unwind. I never actually saw him take anything, but he came into my dorm room one day junior year asking if I had any painkillers. I pulled a bottle of gin out of my desk and told him that was the only painkiller I needed, and he laughed but said, no, seriously. When I informed him that I didn't (which wasn't entirely true because I had most of a Percocet prescription left over, though I wasn't about to commit a felony for a few bucks), he asked my roommate, who was a bit of a stoner but not a junkie and also someone he barely knew. My roommate seemed taken aback that he would make such a request, and I was inclined to agree.
The problem became more serious later that year, when he started stealing from his roommate. They had been together since Freshman year without incident, and there was enough trust between them that the roommate would leave his wallet out on his desk when in class. This guy would then fill his gas tank and be back before his roommate returned (this was in the days when most credit card purchases required a signature; gas stations didn't if you paid at the pump). After the roommate found out he informed the administration and this guy was banned from the dorms. He still attended the school, though he had huge gaps in his day with nowhere to go, and he was embarrassed for other people to find out what had happened, so he'd hang around the dorm entrance and wait for somebody to go in, and since everyone recognized him as a resident he'd usually be let in, and he'd find a not-too close acquaintance to hang out with until his next class. I let him in once after he supposedly forgot his keys and he decided to hang out in my room for a couple hours, which I thought was odd since that never happened in the preceding two and a half years, but whatever. By this point, my roommate had withdrawn and I had a single room, and a day or so later this guy asked my if I'd mind letting him stay in the extra bed for a couple nights. By this point, I knew what was going on and asked him what was wrong with his own bed down the hall, and he gave me some bullshit answer about not some unspecified problems with his own roommate, and in the spirit of malicious compliance I told him that if it was that bad I'd be happy to have him for the rest of the year so long as he put an official request in, which in my experience would be approved by the end of the day. But if there was something he wasn't telling me then absolutely not or I could get in serious trouble. After I informed the rest of our friends of this exchange it was agreed that the administration had to be informed, and everyone in the dorm had to know that they weren't to let him in under any circumstances. After we reported him, he was expelled.
For a long time, I've had a personal policy of not getting involved in other people's drama, and it's served me well. What I mean by that is that if two people I know are having a dispute and one confides in me I tell them that I can sympathize but since I'm not involved I don't know everything about what's going on and, he (or she) hasn't done anything to me personally, so I'm not going to take sides in a matter that's really none of my business. That being said, if I am involved, and the offense is serious enough, I'm not going to pull any punches, even if it ends up destroying your life. I was friends with this guy, but we weren't exactly close; we hung out a lot, but I primarily was friends with him through other people. As all his other friends dropped off, I tried to remain aloof and neutral. When he asked me to do something that could land me in serious trouble so he could keep up the facade of still living in the dorms, that was the last straw. He seriously thought I didn't know he was a thief and would have no problem letting him live with me; for all I know, he had plans to steal from me had I been sucker enough to let him stay.
I don't know if the drug use was a way for an insecure guy to try to look cool, or if the claims that it was cool were justifications for his using it to cope with insecurity, but I really don't know that it matters. What I did learn from this, as well as from every situation similar to this that I've witnessed, is that people who are intent on destroying their lives aren't going to listen to reason, and are going to continue alienating everyone around them until there's nobody left and they're forced to face God alone. I understand the virtues of loyalty, but it's a two way street, and patience runs out if the other person doesn't show loyalty in return and tries to take advantage of you. To my friend's credit, as far as these things go, he never tried to guilt trip anyone or talk crap about anyone or intentionally create drama. The numerous times we told him that his behavior was unacceptable, that narcotics addiction wasn't cool, and that he'd never achieve his goals by going down this road, he wouldn't get angry but just roll his eyes and tell us we didn't know what we were talking about, or just say "okay" and then keep doing what he was doing.
The good news is that this story at least appears to have a somewhat happy ending. I lost touch with this guy as soon as he was expelled, and haven't talked to him since. A year or two later I heard he had gone to rehab and was back in some kind of school, though this may have been community college. All of this info comes from a friend who was closer to him than I was and who I used to talk to on the phone regularly. When the subject came up, he said he didn't know much but the situation while we were in school was worse than I realized at the time, though he either didn't provide details or I don't remember them. About a decade ago I found out he was selling industrial supplies for some company in the exurbs. More recently, I found out he married a girl who did the kind of low-level bookkeeping someone with an associate's degree in accounting does and they were living in a fairly nice area with a kid or two. The friend didn't know if he worked for the same company or what he was doing now.
It's certainly a decent life, but it's a far cry from what he wanted to be. Sales guys can make more money than I do, but money does not equal status. The best he can hope for on that front, where he is now, is hanging out with local contractors and small-town bank managers at steakhouses housed in strip malls, and a couple times a year taking his wife out to one of the restaurants with dazzling views of the city that attract the kind of people who say "ooh, classy" when they walk inside but that no one with any kind of real status would be caught dead in, not least of which because they serve overpriced "funeral food". Then again, maybe had he been more mature he'd have realized that this was a life worth pursuing, since those of us who ended up working in Downtown offices with floor to ceiling windows and personal secretaries realized that all that gets you is invitations to impossibly boring parties hosted by judges and politicians that everyone attends out of obligation and no one actually enjoys. Then again, maybe the whole status thing was a phase he would have grown out of, or maybe he would have just been to untalented or lazy to ever have a shot at the big leagues to begin with.
Circling back to Lana, I'm guessing that she had a personal crisis that she couldn't handle, and for whatever reason she found herself looking more for validation than practical advice, and when the people in her life started telling her things she didn't want to hear, she lashed out and cut them off. It's not like her family and friends were all Republicans who supported Trump and she couldn't take them anymore; it seems like she alienated people on all sides of the political spectrum. And when you cut yourself off from everyone in your life, what's left? It's not just you and God alone now, because there will always be internet message boards where the friendless will always be able to receive unconditional validation for their poor choices or get endlessly berated, depending on which board it is and who's logged on at the time. Something tells me that neither is what this woman needs. I hope she gets help and can lead a happy, productive life again, but I don't think politics has much to do with it.
gattsuru
16d ago
Cutberto Viramontes and Christopher Khaya, together with the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation, appeal the dismissal of their constitutional challenge to Cook County’s assault weapons ban. Relying on District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), they argue that the ordinance is facially invalid under the Second Amendment.
We addressed a similar challenge to the ordinance in a case that was before us on appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction. Bevis v. City of Naperville, We rejected the challenge based on the record the plaintiffs had compiled at that early stage of the litigation. Id. at 1197. The challengers here have failed to develop a record sufficient to justify a different result. We therefore affirm.
It's a three-page read, but to summarize: Viramontes has not demonstrated sufficiently that an AR15 is different than an M16. What could prove such a thing? What is required to prove such a thing? The court does not feel it necessary to even hint. Why did it take three grown adults several months to write three pages? Also a mystery.
Yes, Bruen explicitly said that the burden was on the government, that "The burden then falls on respondents to show that New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation." Yes, it's so obvious it should be in judicial notice. Yes, the plaintiffs explicitly argued "The banned semiautomatic rifles, like all other semiautomatic firearms, fire only one round for each pull of the trigger. They are not machine guns." among a variety of other significant distinctions.
Doesn't matter.
That was one of the possible ones, except nope. Hope Kavanaugh finds it really illuminating.
But they're couched as arguments over what is the minimum set of laws to allow diverse viewpoints and lifestyles. Even if in practice they can be the same, they are not presented as a naked "Ok, now that I have the backing of a majority you better adopt the lifestyle I want you to have or else..." I guess in a spirited debate it's possible to accuse the other side of doing it. But to resort to unironically, unashamedly doing it is crossing some serious lines.
But to resort to unironically, unashamedly doing it is crossing some serious lines.
You are perhaps more correct than you realize.
"The Country" has not defeated attempts to curtail religious liberties. Specific power blocs have defeated those attempts. To the extent that the Court has been involved, it has recognized political victories, not generated them. Absent those power blocs, neither the Constitution nor the Court will protect religious liberties for any significant length of time.
At every step from absolute liberty to absolute oppression, it is always possible to describe the negative space around current restrictions as "huge deference". Allowing Churches tax-exemption is Huge Deference. When that is removed, allowing them to hold meetings without the approval of an official censor will be Huge Deference. when that is removed, allowing them to meet at all will be huge deference. Not searching former congregants homes for banned materials. Allowing them to have children. Allowing them to live. All possible laws leave negative space, and any amount of negative space can always be framed as Huge Deference. It's not as though deference has a standard unit of measure, much less a volume equation.
[...]
There is no objective measure for "huge deference", "reasonable restrictions", "necessary protections", or any other such phrase. Such phrases are not pointing to a unbiased rule or a principled argument. They are a naked appeal to social consensus, and social consensus observably has had an unacceptably wide range of possible positions within our lifetimes, much less over the course of human history.
"The Constitution protects this" means nothing more than "this is safe so long as the right people approve of it". I observe that "what people approve of" is a fantastically malleable category; if we can go from the 2000s consensus on free expression to the consensus of Current Year, no principle is safe.
Jazzhands
16d ago
What, does the recent repeal of Roe v. Wade not count?
No. The Red-equivalent of RvW would be for abortion to be banned in all states for the next 50 years. Putting an end to Blue imposition of their values on everyone is not the same.
One could argue that the framers meant the small arms of the 1780s -- which were the only guns they knew about, and if a city-destroying laser gun had popped up in 1800 they might have felt different about everyone owning it.
The easy test case here is cannons: they were well-known in the 1780s, they're clearly not useful for personal defense since they're tremendously unwieldy and are only really militarily effective in a standing battle, and they've got the potential for mass casualties loaded with grapeshot or other shrapnel, or property destruction loaded with explosive shells.
So, were cannons privately owned at the time of the Constitution's writing? Did the Founding Fathers take legal steps to ban personal ownership of cannons? Doing some scanning, my tentative conclusion is that they were fine with cannons, I certainly can't find any landmark case saying "well rifles are fine, but cannons are too far". People mention private cannon manufacturers, privateers, and private artillery companies, although I will note that a lot of this seems to come out in response to Biden saying "you couldn't own a cannon during the Revolutionary War" during a speech, so it has become a culture war thing. And the Massachusetts militia gathering cannon at Concord was the kickoff of the Revolutionary War.
Rifled cannons are currently banned, but that seems to be part of the NFA in 1934, well past Founding Father influence, and smoothbore cannons appear to still be legal.
kky
17d ago
What’s happening here is the wrong decision, just like Roe v. Wade was the wrong decision (for reference, that the Supreme Court had any business deciding the matter - I actually rather like the rule as pragmatic legislation). The law, as written, and procedures, as defined, deserve a great degree of deference. This is precisely because such deference prevents disagreements from devolving into their primal forms.
You’re coming at the whole Rule of Law thing from a bit of a strange angle, as if its proponents must view any legal decision as inherently proper and to form. It’s a little like the ol’ Pope Francis gotcha against Christians, or that post some time back about how Catholicism was obviously bunk because the wrong number of cardinals voted. A system, properly understood, is teleological in nature. That is, it has an essence which drives its character and directs its behavior, and the system is functioning as intended to the degree that it asymptomatically approaches that essence. Plato’s Forms are the obvious analogue here. Just because a chair is broken doesn’t make it not a chair; it is simply a chair that is not serving its purpose - the degree to which it is broken is the degree to which it falls short of the ideal of a comfortable single seat with a back to lean on.
So, very obviously, a legal system as implemented in reality will fall short of the ideal of the Rule of Law, for as you well know we are fallen, mortal things aspiring to immortal essence. But the reason of that ideal is to have a way of solving our differences that is more than just conflicting preferences or arbitrary whims. The Rule of Law, embodied, is a set of fundamental systems for determining what relation man has to his neighbors and the corporate body of the state, with progressively less absolute rules layered on top and a process for rectifying and managing tensions in those rules. In the abstract, it is the principle that there is real justice out there, a fair and proper way of doing things, of preventing the injustice we know all too well, which is the power of a man or a mob to crush the free out of avarice or spite. That’s the whole reason here.
So obviously there are going to be failures in such a system. There were from the beginning, there will be in the future. But calling this a suitable case for abandoning the project altogether - well, what do you think the alternative is? The only thing that has prevented gun bans in the US thus far is the Second Amendment. All our peers have long since banned guns, or put massive restrictions compared to ours. And there has been no end to efforts to eliminate them! The argument that keeps holding absolute gun control back is that the 2ndA is quite clear in its requirements. People choose to ignore it, but unless the amendment is removed, it will be a constant boon to any argument in favor of gun freedoms. But if the fig leaf goes away, the question boils down to power alone, and right now Progressives have all the institutional power and they all hate guns.
Rule of Law is not bald proceduralism to protect the powerful. Power hates rules, because rules limit the exercise of power, and prefers commands which can be totally arbitrary. Rule of Law is here for you, even if you don’t recognize it, even if you don’t support it. Rules are the way the weak organize against the strong. And speaking personally, I’ll be damned before I recognize a system that does not respect my God-given rights as being morally equal to one which does.
Snope v. Bonta has dropped like a gravestone:
The State of Maryland prohibits ownership of AR–15s, the most popular civilian rifle in America. Md. Crim. Law Code Ann. §4–303(a)(2) (2025). This petition presents the question whether this ban is consistent with the Second Amendment. The Fourth Circuit held that it is, reasoning that AR–15s are not “arms” protected by the Second Amendment. Bianchi v. Brown, 111 F. 4th 438, 448 (2024) (en banc). I would grant certiorari to review this surprising conclusion.
That'd be a great opinion. It's not one.
Only Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch have dissented from the denial of certiorari, which means that there is no Snope case now. This was final judgement (specifically, dismissal of the lawsuit), there are no other appeals, and there is no other chances. Maryland has banned a wide array of very common firearms, with vague definitions, the lower courts have held that these guns aren't even guns nevermind protected by the Second Amendment, and SCOTUS has punted. While Maryland's law here includes a grandfather registration clause, the circuit has already held that such clauses are unnecessary, none of the takings clause people cared, and SCOTUS punted. Binding law in the 4th Circuit holds that a firearm is not an arm.
It's also a case that has been rife with bad behavior from the lower courts; Thomas's dissent emphasizes the logical flaws, but I'll point out that under the name Bianchi this is the case that was held for over a year by a single judge on the appeals court who didn't file a dissent. There will be no percolation; 2A-favorable analysis of these laws will not be allowed to reach SCOTUS, and it will be smothered before en banc whenever possible.
Kavanaugh wrote an interesting ... concurrence? Dissental? Pile of bullshit? Statement. The record calls it a statement. This is particularly interesting because it only takes four to give certiorari; he literally could not write a dissent.
Given that millions of Americans own AR–15s and that a significant majority of the States allow possession of those rifles, petitioners have a strong argument that AR–15s are in “common use” by law-abiding citizens and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment under Heller. See Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F. 3d 1244, 1286–1288 (CADC 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). If so, then the Fourth Circuit would have erred by holding that Maryland’s ban on AR–15s complies with the Second Amendment.
Under this Court’s Second Amendment precedents, moreover, it can be analytically difficult to distinguish the AR–15s at issue here from the handguns at issue in Heller.
Again, would be a great opinion! It's not one, either. Instead:
Although the Court today denies certiorari, a denial of certiorari does not mean that the Court agrees with a lower-court decision or that the issue is not worthy of review. The AR–15 issue was recently decided by the First Circuit and is currently being considered by several other Courts of Appeals. [ed: list of cases moved] Opinions from other Courts of Appeals should assist this Court’s ultimate decisionmaking on the AR–15 issue. Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.
Why? Because fuck you, that's why. Roberts and Barrett, as typical for the majority in denials of cert, have no comment.
Kavanaugh gives a list of lower circuit cases that "should assist this Court's decision-making".
- Capen v. Campbell: The last decision was an appeals court holding "Appellants have failed to demonstrate that they are likely to succeed on the merits of either of their assault weapons- or LCM-related challenges." No preliminary injunction, basically zero percent chance of success at trial.
- National Assn. for Gun Rights v. Lamont: On preliminary injunction, "Plaintiffs have failed to show their likelihood of success on the merits, and so the Court need not reach the remaining preliminary injunction factors." Oral arguments were in October 2024; we don't have the final opinion (because fuck you, that's why).
- Association of N. J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Platkin: Hey, finally one with a progun trial decision, if only to the most limited extent (specifically only the Colt AR-15, and not an LCM ban that violated the takings clause) - and it's stayed on appeal. There's a separate issue that two terms won't be enough, given that this doesn't have oral args scheduled until the end of this month and the chance of en banc, but by the time we're asking whether New Jersey can ban Very Specifically Colt's Version Of The AR-15, we've already lost the plot.
- Viramontes v. County of Cook: "For the foregoing reasons, the court grants Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and denies Plaintiffs’ "; aka the "AR15s are like M16s, right?" case. Oral arguments on appeal were November of 2024. Most likely to get a progun ruling (if only because Easterbrook apparently forgot to set his alarm that day), barring some weird procedural detour, but it's also in a bizarre procedural position because the Cook County ban in question was augmented, after the suit was filed, by a broader state-level ban... that SCOTUS also already punted on.
- Miller v. Bonta: hahahahaha, it's the Ninth Circuit, it has a snowball's chance in hell. Maybe we'll get another VanDyke youtube video? Haha, funny meme, yes? Except it's also been stayed since 2024, after original oral arguments, pending resolution of a case that dropped in March of this year, we don't have an opinion from it, and it's the fucking Ninth Circuit so there's literally no possibility of it escaping the en banc process with a progun result.
To be blunt: this SCOTUS will not be address the AR-15 issue in "the next Term or two". There will be no grand cases from the lower courts with a serious investigation of the Second Amendment ramifications that split the baby some perfect way. There will always be some excuse why a specific case wasn't the ideal vehicle, or why some new one that's just reached oral args is the better vehicle later, or why some specific law wasn't the best demonstration. Optimistically, Kavanaugh got a promise from John "Article III is <Not> Worth A Dollar" Roberts and will find out how much that promise is worth; pessimistically, Kavanaugh's a politician wearing robes and this is what he says to get readers (especially the sort that might make unscheduled visits to his house) to believe what he wants them to believe. Eventually, Thomas and Alito will retire, and either we're going to get much worse judges from a technical side who can actually make a fucking decision that matters when it shocks the conscience of the Amtrak world, even if that means they'll also bark on command when Trump asks, or a Dem president will get those seats, and either way, the conservative legal movement and anything deeper than a pretext of originalism will go the way of the dinosaur.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs here get nothing. They will be out years of their lives trying to bring this case, and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and attorney's costs. They will either have moved from Maryland, or gotten rid of any 'assault weapon' that they once owned, or never been allowed to buy one. A decision in a term or two will not protect Ocean State Tactical, another (pre-final-judgment) case SCOTUS denied cert on today, from being just as completely fucked over. Even should SCOTUS find their balls or be delivered new ones and eventually issue a pro-gun ruling, most circuits have standing orders that only recognize the most complete and on-point decision from SCOTUS as overruling circuit precedent, and the one exception is the 9th Circuit (and with a "when we like it" rule). SCOTUS has happily demonstrated, for the better part of a decade, that they will not smack wrists over that. Anti-gun lower courts will take this as an affirmance in the meantime.
It's not even as though guns are the only matter here: SCOTUS has similarly punted on the question of But It's Mean on Free Speech. Hell, guns aren't even the only thing in the guns cases. The court has similarly punted on the question of whether But It's Guns on Due Process, or But It's Guns on Free Speech [see also], or But It's Guns on Court Settlements, or even But It's Guns on the very caselaw that SCOTUS thought so beyond the pale that they'd managed to scrounge up a 9-0 before.
And, of course, there's the blaring siren in the room. As Thomas points out, SCOTUS has punted on this very specific legal question for over a decade post-Heller, while claiming a right delayed is a right denied. SCOTUS has a case covering the type of gun Heller was trying to bring in Heller I, it's listed for conference for Thursday, it's been over a decade, and they're gonna deny it, 99.9999%. And where I'd once point out that it's been longer since Heller than it was from Lawrence v. Texas to Obergefell, and Dick Heller still can't register (lol) the actual gun from his original case, I'm instead going to something a little more specific and recent. SCOTUS defied all its normal rules about procedural posture to protect the rights of an illegal immigrant in six hours on a holiday weekend. That's what SCOTUS cares about, and for every single court case they punt on in my lifetime -- whether challenges to a law like this, or people sitting in prison like Dexter Taylor -- this the standard they've set, and then forgot as soon as a normal citizen who hasn't beaten their wife got involved. Every single second longer than six hours, for cases that have 'percolated' for years.
Some peoples rights need be resolved right away, and others can wait and wait and wait.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
18d ago
What happened to SteveKirkland a.k.a. @SteveKirk a.k.a. SteveAgain a.k.a. @Gooofuckyourself?
Last I saw of him was getting banned for a month for snarling at the mods, but it's been over a month, his username's changed to that last one, and he has a "banned user" without an expiration date on his profile.
Did he go nuts in PMs or something?
Owlify
18d ago
Advertising helps the people learn about what kinds of products and services are available. Outright lying is banned, so it may be a net good.
faceh
19d ago
FWIW I'd support that.
But it would be almost impossible to enforce if a user can simply lie and SAY they did the math or thinking themselves.
So you end up with a situation where the only posts banned are the ones where the user is honest.
I would humbly suggest that there be a given day or thread set aside for posts that rely heavily on AI work.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
20d ago
I am a moderator, and you should care because I enforce the rules here, which include rules against personal antagonism, uncharitability, and carrying on with grudges.
Normally I might give you the benefit of the doubt and point out to you that when you see someone replying to you with that red banner, it's a mod post and it's meant to be heeded if you don't want to lose your posting privileges.
But this is the second time I have modded you for being unnecessarily belligerent, and your response has been to double down with more antagonism. Possibly you did not remember our previous interaction, but I do not think you are so new you are unfamiliar with the rules and moderation here.
I lightly warned you to tone it down, and you seem unable to respond to any kind of criticism or correction with anything but belligerence.
You're banned for another week. Future bans will escalate quickly if you cannot change tack.
sun_the_second
21d ago
It does not appear that your knowledge on Russian emigration is enough to justify your absolute confidence in such a claim as "absolutely no one". Or to put it more bluntly, you really should know better than to say something like that which is pretty much 100% guaranteed to be wrong.
As for "those things are already banned", they were not banned a few years ago, and yet more things weren't a few more years ago, and yet more aren't banned yet but there's talk of it. There was ideologically-tinted emigration for all those years.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
21d ago
Many emigrate from places such as Russia because they were merely afraid that at some point the nuts will get screwed tight enough that they won't be allowed to doomscroll what they want and goon to what they want to on their mobile devices. Or ban being gay, or ban talking about being gay, or do a number of other things the young view as backwards and retarded.
No one, and I mean absolutely no one, emigrates out of Russia for that reason. They do it for the money. Also it's not a "at some point" thing over there, these things are already banned.
ResoluteRaven
21d ago
There is certainly espionage happening that needs to be dealt with, but the wording of the announcement would seem to indicate that implementation of this policy will, like most things to come out of this administration, be indiscriminate, haphazard, amateurish, and probably lead to a worse outcome than if nothing had been done at all. If anyone thinks we can win a cold war against China without immigrant brainpower, they are out of their minds. However smart you think white kids from the midwest are, they aren't going to become ubermenschen who are worth 4 Chinese apiece just because we banned affirmative action and are kicking out all the international students.
imreallywondering
22d ago
I find it difficult to believe that I've been churning alts on the Motte when I've quite literally never made a post on here before this. I'd appreciate some enlightenment on my alter egos which I've been miraculously unaware of until this very moment in time. I mean, I admit, the topic isn't terribly original, but this is probably the first time I've been accused of being an alter of someone else I have absolutely no prior knowledge of by a moderator.
especially as the problem with blackpillers is that they take themselves very, very seriously and become increasingly irate when they realize other people do not.
I don't feel that I'm taking myself overly serious or anything. Other people make covert insinuations about my motive for posting one thing or another, I make my own set of insinuations about them right back.
Which is where you are now, heading in a predictable direction, which is getting belligerent and insulting towards everyone who argues with you and sounding like the penultimate act of The Feminist.
Interesting short story, not sure how it applies to me other than "believes that attractiveness disparities exist = bad" which is a pretty hilarious connection to make for a moderator on the forum that exists because they got kicked off every other place on the internet for having heterodox beliefs on cultural issues (which in practice just mean lacking the freedom to scream about IQ and muh based Christianity all day) but that's pretty typical from conservatives, so I'm not really all that surprised.
told they're lying about their own life experiences
If calling out an obvious liar who is lying specifically to try and make their point seem more credible gets me banned, so be it.
But mostly, accept that other people's perspectives may not match yours, and if you want to doompost, you still need to engage with civility and the same charity you would like to be extended to you.
You should take your own advice, mon ami.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
23d ago
It might be intellectually incoherent but it worked.
Obviously the modern context presents different challenges. Child mortality is not sky high anymore.
However, our society has huge coercive resources. Economically, citizens are coerced by powerful bureaucracies to fund all kinds of programs, wars, welfare. Socially, policing works via coercion. They don't just educate people on what to do, people are coerced by police wielding guns.
There's no reason to drop coercion entirely with regards to sexual relations when it's present in all other aspects of life. In fact there are extremely strong coercive systems set up for underage sex and other scenarios. One might very reasonably say that it's bizarre and inconsistent to have such harshness allocated for relatively minor problems while civilization-ending, nation-ending decline is met with a limp-wristed 'we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas, bring in more immigrants'. Imperial Japan tried coercion, they restricted female employment, banned abortion and taxed bachelors. There was modest fertility growth in an industrializing, urbanizing society albeit complicated by the war. In 1945 the US changed their constitution to give equal rights to women and Japanese fertility plummeted, never to recover.
https://x.com/SyroJaziran/status/1848973547344928887
This kind of coercion may not be the only solution but it is a solution. There could also be incentives-based solutions. Take the entire pension budget and transfer it to fund parents who raise children to certain standards. 10-15% of GDP should get things happening. But you'd have real political problems doing this, any sufficiently powerful incentive resembles coercion, it would require the same voter-proof political consensus that mass immigration enjoys in many Western countries. There'd need to be a huge, forceful redistribution of political power for this to happen, likewise with largescale cloning or any other effective solution.
Skulldrinker
24d ago
Why is /r/twoXchromosomes not a banned hate subreddit? The comments there are demented, and also uncomfortably familiar from my IRL encounters with Leftists.
FistfullOfCrows
24d ago
Personally I suspect that this sort of corruption was always happening,
Biden's drug addled failson was on the god damned board of directors of a gas company in UKRAINE. Bloody Nancy Pelosi and all the rest of the house should be banned from even thinking about owning stock. The media can talk about Trump's supposed corruption until they are blue in the face, and it wouldn't matter for me one bit.
solowingpixy
the resident car guy
25d ago
Republican Party Animal (an actual banned book, have to pirate it on libgen) is fairly entertaining. I found the bit about how the CA GOP types he was hanging out with (before being outed as David Cole) were legitimately surprised by Romney/Ryan losing and having a post-election meltdown to be interesting given that I considered that election to besuch a foregone conclusion that I barely paid attention to it.
I specifically said I don't remember, because I was pretty sure you'd post a link to something a banned troll said once.
Yep. I'd have linked two or more of I didn't have a class of students starting in ten minutes. The difference between didn't happen and don't remember it happening is kinda the point.
(And color me unsurprised your mad hate for Trace has you still harping on a nearly dead subreddit years later.)
Yes, I'm rather titchy about the people who dressed themselves as paragons of Respect, Truth, and Peace, then instead grew up to throw around words like "moronic", are quite proud of 'pranking' into the epistemic waters or promoting Matt Yglesias, and not only can't find any reason to comment on attempted political assassinations or a guy getting beaten to death for political protest, but didn't wrangle up anyone who'd have a burning need to do so.
Do you have some better example? Going to explain why it shouldn't matter? Or are we just supposed to pretend history started yesterday?
Two years ago I told ChrisPratt that it's a problem that "Yet there's no TracingWoodgrains the news network; I don't think there's even a TracingWoodgrains the famous news caster." If it turns out that there's not actually a TracingWoodgrains the Redditor, on this topic, what am I supposed to be pointing at instead?
I don't know if this is a dig at me or at the Schism or Blues in general.
Blues in general. If it were just you doing it, I'd throw another reference to a recent post of yours. If it were just some people doing it, this wouldn't be a problem. Even if it were just the people here doing it, it wouldn't be a problem.
What, specifically, would you like me to have done about the attempted Trump assassination?
In the narrow sense, not try to hide a falsifiable and meaningful claim (did anyone here do X) behind a unfalsifiable and meaningless one (do you personally remember anyone here doing X). In the shallow one, it'd have been embarrassing for me if I'd had opened that link to the Butler shooting thread, and there was a big Amadan post talking about how this contextualized and heightened their concerns about political radicalization on the left, and I'd have liked to be embarrassed. I guess ChrisPratt tried? In the I'm-going-to-be-repetitive-and-obnoxious sense because dodging this matters here like every other time before, I'd have liked you to not moved the goalposts from FCFromSSC's "sure things happened in the past" to your own "no one thought it was no big deal or worse, something to be encouraged."
If I tell you that indeed, I have gotten into fights (and been blocked/defriended) for arguing with lefties about how fucked up it is to cheer on political violence directed against people we don't like, I assume you will not believe me because I'm not giving you links so you can enlarge your dossier on me. *
I'm sorry that you had that sort of encounter, and I give my sympathies and empathy if you lost friends over it.
I do, yes, think it would be stronger if you had something you could actually show, or a reference here contemporaneous to it happening instead of suddenly revealing under challenge, or if you didn't duck from 'it doesn't happen in real life' to 'a small number' where 'most' of your friends didn't agree, but again if it were just you I'd just be throwing a reference to a recent old argument.
More critically, I think it would have been stronger to start with that, than to start with "TikTok screamers" like this was only a problem in one website that doesn't really count.
You and FC are claiming Blues basically don't care about political violence until it touches them, and then they'll cry real loud about it. I think every tribe cares a lot more about their own side being hurt and the degree to which they object to violence done to the other side depends on how opposed they are on principle to political violence and suppressing other people's rights.
No, I think that one tribe makes very very loud noises about how they are opposed on principle to political violence and suppressing other people's rights, all the time. They just don't act on that principle.
On the extreme side, the SLPC isn't shutting up about subtle threats motivating violence; they're just spending time focused on "male supremacy". (bonus points: did you know their podcast Apathy Isn't An Option? Betcha it doesn't have anything on this topic in a week!). Nina Jankowicz didn't crawl under a rock to surface in seven years time; she's quite happily promoting her brand and will never, ever, ever mention Tom Fletcher.
But if those are the nutjobs, where are the sane, reasonable ones? ChrisPratt tried after the Butler County attempt, but he's an army of one: most of the time people had literally nothing to say. What person terrified by the ultimatium thrown at Harvard yesterday ever spoke against Harvard-affiliated orgs doxxing Red Tribers? I'm not demanding that we find one individual that has such an opinion on all broad topics, or even that we find anyone willing to answer every single offense ever, but I'm feeling a lot closer to Diogenes than Lot, right now.
The popularity of Trace on X gives me some hope, the popularity of Kulak gives me less. I suppose for you those values are reversed.
... I am going to be very, very polite here, because my first reaction to this bit involved profanity. I am not a KulakRevolt fan. I have never been a KulakRevolt fan. I have specifically highlighted him -- well before he went completely off the deep end and got braincored by Twitter! -- as an example of the sort of problem that actually contains what you and yours falsely accuse FCfromSSC or I of.
No. I think both the guy promoting rando violence, and the guy who says he hates rando violence enough to split apart communities for (banned!) comments, but only really can write about it when it's against his side are both bad, and I think it's actually a pretty serious indictment of society in general that they are getting anywhere near the coverage that they are, while anyone that really cares at best gets shoved into some third-rate Red Tribe rag.
gattsuru
26d ago
I'm going to start off by saying that I am glad you wrote that, and I am glad that it got a QC. I'm glad that Impassionata got banned then, and last week, and whenever theschism mods get tired of it and finally banned Imp permanently I'll be glad -- and I don't often favor bans.
But I'm going to point out that it specifically in response to claims of 'right-wing' 'fascist' violence supposedly incited by Red Tribers, in 2023 long after BLM had ebbed; it does not name Red Tribers that were hit (excepting arguably a rhetorical flourish about police stations), but neighbors and friends.
((It's also an example that predates two of the three assassination attempts I'm commenting on, and doesn't mention the third.))
Contra expectations, I don't keep an encyclopedic assembly of every poster on every ratadj forum, and the good reddit search is down. Maybe I've missed something you've said elsewhere; maybe you weren't active at the right times; maybe you just didn't have a great opportunity. But understand why this is more an example of FCfromSSC's point than a counter.
Destiny has been banned from twitch for a long time. No one knows why. Best guess is he called some people trying to cancel him that happened be trans "sub-human".
He streams on youtube and Kick.
More options
Context Copy link