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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

Send your kid to an all black school in Baltimore or a suburb of Paris then and then report back to me if your opinion has changed.

So what? Send a black kid from a nice family to an all white school in a trailer park in West Virginia, middle of nowhere Quebec, a shitty part of Ohio. They're going to have a bad time.

You're right: Poverty is bad. A relative lack of morality or culture or whatever you want to call it is bad. Crime is bad. Drugs are bad. African Americans don't have a monopoly on any of these things, but we have double standards for crack-dealing superpredators/innocent white victims of opioid overdoses. Unemployed whites in the midwest are innocent victims of globalization who had their jobs ripped away from them, while blacks living in deprecated inner-city slums are shiftless, lazy and sucking at the welfare teat.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

To take your arguments one by one:

So like Barack Obama in 2008? Or 2012? (when Democrats worried absentee voting would drive old-people votes which harmed them).

I don't remember this. I do remember some kerfuffle where the Obama campaign sued Ohio because they passed a law giving the military three extra early voting days, and the conservative media tried to spin it as him trying to restrict military votes when the lawsuit sought to give the rest of the population the same early voting window as the military. Obama's been pretty consistent about "more voting, not less".

Or Trump whining about it for months before the election as the scheme was being ramped up by executive fiat in explicit contravention to election laws across dozens of states?

I clearly limited my argument to before 2020. And the states that ramped up mail-in voting by executive fiat weren't ones that were at issue in the 2020 election. Only 5 states changed absentee voting requirements through executive action—less than half a dozen, not dozens—and among them, three are clearly red states controlled by Republicans (Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia), one (Kentucky) is a red state with a Democratic governor, and one (New Hampshire) is left-leaning with a Republican governor. There was no clear liberal pattern here.

There are dozens of high profile examples over the last 2 decades...

I don't know about dozens, but I'll admit there are a few. But I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove. Everything involves tradeoffs. Suppose, for the sake of argument, it were conclusively proven that voter fraud could be eliminated entirely if we limited voting to polling places in major cities. The ultimate effect of this, of course, would be that the rural vote would be rendered entirely irrelevant and elections would have a decidedly partisan lean, probably to the point that our politics would realign entirely. If these now disenfranchised voters complained, I'd respond that people who find it too inconvenient to drive a couple hours to vote obviously aren't motivated enough to deserve any say in government, and people who can't afford the trip obviously don't have enough "skin in the game" to deserve a say in government. If the primary goal is the elimination of fraud, why wouldn't this be an ideal solution? We both know the answer to this question. The question isn't whether fraud exists, it's whether it has enough of a practical effect to make additional restrictions worthwhile.

Each time mail-in or absentee voting legislation has been passed, this was discussed repeatedly with additional security requirements and conditions because of those concerns.

No, it wasn't. I live in Pennsylvania. When mail-in voting passed in 2019 the biggest issue about the bill was that it also eliminated the straight ticket option, which led to some Democrats voting against it in protest. It otherwise passed unanimously, and was quickly signed by the governor. Every single Republican voted for it, including arch-election truthers like Doug Mastriano. I'm sure you can find some concerns if you look hard enough, but as someone who lived in the state, I don't recall it coming up once, and this is a politically diverse state with the largest legislature in the country. Similarly, in Michigan, the biggest criticism of Prop 3 wasn't that it expanded mail-in voting but that it was making something that should have been a legislative item into a constitutional one.

No one is arguing mail-in voting is inherently "unconstitutional."

I was writing this on my phone at work so I apologize. The OP said that it "violates every principle of Democracy", which I misinterpreted. Feel free to substitute the correct language.

We're not talking about millions of votes needing to swap, but ~40,000 in any of 5 different states

Well, no. Flipping one state wouldn't have been enough to turn the election in favor of Trump. At best he would have needed to flip two, provided they were Michigan and Pennsylvania. Realistically he needs to flip three. And if he goes the flip 2 route then he needs about 80,000 votes in PA and over 100,000 in MI, at least double the 40,000 you mentioned. What's the largest mail vote fraud scheme you can find? How about the average? Remember what I said about tradeoffs?

if a single one did something as simple as requiring canvassing hundreds of thousands of votes which had no signed chain of custody receipts (and no election officials have yet been charged despite this being a crime in multiple states like AZ).

Ah, yes, the old "the previous five audits we requested didn't find anything, but if we do a sixth one we're pretty sure the whole edifice will come crashing down because a televangelist saw something in a viral video that PROVES that Biden and the Democrats committed MASSIVE FRAUD by forging hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots under the cover of night but being too dumb to think of forging chain of custody receipts along with them". I'm sure the Kraken will finally be unleashed.

If two people raced bikes all over France and then the loser tested positive for PEDs, do you think they should both get a do-over race or otherwise we're not talking about "principles"?

Are the PEDs supposed to be a stand-in for fraud, or for mail-in ballots generally? If they're a stand-in for mail-ins generally, then they aren't a banned substance and there's no problem; you can't claim a race was unfair just because you don't like the rules. If they're a stand-in for fraud, then you do get to win the race, but I don't see what this has to do with the election—in one case you found actual evidence of cheating, and in the other you didn't, you just argued that the rules made it easier to cheat. What you're suggesting is more analogous to a race where PEDs are banned and your opponent never tested positive, but you want to rerun the race because you're pretty sure he cheated but can't actually prove it.

The Federal Government is currently abusing laws made 150 years ago in response to the Civil War as well as stretching interpretation of other laws way past their breaking point...

Well, what do you think a more appropriate charge would have been. If organizing a plot to take over the Capitol building in order to prevent the lawful transfer of power of a democratically elected president so that it will remain in the hands of the guy who lost isn't seditious conspiracy, what is exactly? What line do you think he needs to cross? And how is the jury biased? Unless you're arguing that he didn't actually do what the government said he did, there's no room for bias here. Jury nullification isn't something you can expect from any jury, and isn't something you should expect in this case unless you seriously think attempts to overthrow the government should be legal.

Do you follow election disputes/protests over "local judges and clerks," closely?

lol, I'm a lawyer. I deal with these people all the time, and yes, it makes a difference. I not only follow them closely, I follow them closely in counties and even states where I don't live and can't vote. If you want I can fill you in on the drama in West Virginia's First Circuit judicial retention election, or tell you about the recurring pissing match between the current and former Recorders of Deeds in Westmoreland County, PA.

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

I don't know that Vance is the best example. While he called out hillbillies (and I use that term loosely because the Rust Belt white trash he's describing in Ohio are decidedly different from Appalachian white trash) in his book, his actual politics started veering into the "lack of agency" lane as soon as Trump's success made it a veritable requirement for him to do it. I can't tell you how many times I heard from conservatives that nobody owes you anything, stop whining, buck up and take that menial job because you aren't above working at McDonalds just because you have a college degree, nobody wants to work anymore, etc. (not to me personally, but the sentiment). One night I was at the bar and a bunch of them were bitching about immigration. They weren't white trash, but obviously successful guys from a wealthy suburb. My view on immigration are complicated, to say the least, but when they started about Mexicans taking jobs from Americans it pissed me off so I turned it around on them: "Why do we owe them jobs? Why should I pay more for stuff because some whiny American doesn't want to work for what I'm willing to pay. Those Mexicans are damn glad to get my money, and besides, they do the work and don't complain. Besides, they're the only ones who seem to want to work anymore." Or something along those lines. It didn't work, of course, because as soon as anyone brings up market forces to a conservative in an argument about immigration, they just do a u-turn and talk about welfare instead, not realizing the inherently contradictory nature of those arguments. And, as a putative conservative, I couldn't really argue back.

The same thing applies more directly to employers. There's one older guy I know we call "Pappy". He's big in the whitewater community arouind here and is an excellent boater, and teaches free lessons at the park and cheap roll lessons at a scum pond on his property (only charging to cover the insurance). He's very generous with his time, especially considering these lessons are always 8-hour marathons. Not so much with his money. He owns a garage and auto body shop and refuses to pay his employees. He also constantly bitches about the quality of the help he gets. I once couldn't help but comment that maybe if he paid more than ten bucks an hour he'd find decent people. I knew this would get him fired up, because he was great at going on these kinds of rants; "Hell, when I started out I made 2 bucks an hour and was glad to get it. When I opened this place you couldn't ask no god damned bank for any money because they wouldn't give it to you. I had to save my money to buy all this and earned all of it. These people don't want to work, they just want to sit on their asses and collect a check. And you lawyers are half the problem. When my wife and I bought our first house the mortgage was one page. One. When I took out a loan last year it was a god damned book. And it's all because you lawyers found lazy fucks who didn't want to pay and tried to weasel out of it, and now the banks have to make sure that you can't."

I wasn't thrown by the change of tack because he never missed an opportunity to dunk on my profession. I would note that my brother was an inspector for a major industrial company that does global business and they had him paint some equipment. The quality steadily deteriorated over the years to the point they had to cancel a very lucrative contract because nothing he did would pass. I've known a few people who took their cars to him for work and now aren't on speaking terms after the work was so bad they had to withhold payment. His intransigence is literally costing him money, but he won't budge on principle.

I bring up these examples because they're evidence of this mentality not among the white trash that Vance talks about, but among normal, successful people. As for Vance himself, he plays into the same ethos wholeheartedly, and doesn't seem to understand the contradiction with the argument that gave him fame. If he continued in the Reagan mold of bold free market principles, or took the opposite tack of siding with the lefties in "What's the Matter with Kansas?" sense, I could take him at face-value. But instead he's latched onto the same victimization worldview of those he previously complained about. He was once a moderate and anti-Trumper; now his "National Republicanism" is just an amalgamation of the worst protectionist ideas Trump had to offer. Maybe it's a cynical response to give him more political credibility, I don't know. But it's certainly a contradiction with what he used to be.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

Ohio Republicans' Inexplicable & Baffling Abortion Blunder

I support expansive abortion access purely as a matter of practical considerations because of how legal prohibitions encourage horrific black market alternatives. I part ways with the pro-choice crowd when they respond to a difficult morality question with flippant dismissal. So at least from that standpoint, I sympathize with the earnest pro-life crowd because they're helplessly witnessing what is (by their definitions) a massive genocide made worse by the fact that it's legally-sanctioned.

So if you're in that unenviable position, what are your options? The major practical problem is that abortion restrictions have been and continue to be extremely politically unpopular. The Dobbs decision generated a lot of what basically amounted to legislative reshuffling at the state level. Some states had trigger laws banning abortions, that awakened from their long slumber only for courts, legislatures, or voter referendums to strike them back down to sleep.

Ohio's law banning abortions when a fetus heartbeat could be detected (typically occurs within 6-7 weeks of pregnancy) was struck down by a court last year, and so currently abortions there are legal up until "viability" (typically understood to be 22 weeks). On top of that, a referendum was set to be voted on this upcoming November election which would solidly enshrine abortion access within the Ohio state constitution (worth noting that this is the only referendum on the ballot). Given where public opinion is at on this issue, the amendment is virtually guaranteed to be approved by voters. What can you do to stop this train?

Ohio Republicans responded in a very bizarre and inexplicable manner (part of a pattern it seems). Apparently aware that the November referendum was going to be a shoe-in, they organized a whole special election in August as a preemptive maneuver to increase various thresholds for constitutional amendments, including raising the passing percentage from 50% to a 60% supermajority. That measure failed in the special election held yesterday, with 57% of voters against it.

Where to start? First, asking voters to vote against themselves was always going to be a challenge, and Elizabeth Nolan Brown notes the rhetoric supporters of Issue 1 had to resort to:

One talking point has been that it protects the Ohio Constitution from out-of-state interests. (For instance: "At its core, it's about keeping out-of-state special interest groups from buying their way into our constitution," Protect Women Ohio Press Secretary Amy Natoce told Fox News.) Another has been that it signals trust in elected officials to safeguard citizen interests, rather than letting a random majority of voters decide what's best. (The current simple-majority rule for amending the state constitution "sends the message that if you don't like what the legislature is doing, you can just put it on the ballot, and soon the constitution will be thousands of pages long and be completely meaningless," Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, told Politico in a prime example of this tack.)

Some of the TV ads the supporters ran were so incoherent. I don't know how representative this particular example is but the 30-second spot avoids saying anything at all about abortion and instead argues that voting yes on Issue 1 would somehow...protect kids from trans drag queens in schools? The fuck? I guess they knew that "vote yes on Issue 1 to keep abortion restricted" wasn't going to be a winning message so this tangent was the only option.

Even if somehow Issue 1 had anything to do with gender identity indoctrination in schools or whatever (if anyone can explain this please do!) it bears repeating that the only referendum on the ballot in November was about enshrining abortion access. Voters are dumb but they're not that dumb.

Just this last January Ohio Republicans passed HB 458 which eliminated almost all August special elections, but then they insisted on passing another law walking that back specifically to make sure Issue 1 got its very own election. The gambit apparently was to help its chances by leveraging low voter turnout in special elections. This too is baffling, because the timing gimmick very likely energized the "Democrats' highly educated neurotic base" as my boy Yglesias so eloquently put it. Also, the type of voter that is willing to show up to a special election is not going to be the type that is inclined to wrest control away!

None of these decisions made any sense. By investing into a preemptive referendum to raise the threshold, they loudly advertised they knew their issue was going to lose in November. By carving out an exception for an August election, they demonstrated they knew they couldn't win unless they act like a Turkish ice cream man with voters. By conspicuously avoiding talking about abortion, they're acknowledging their policy position's unpopularity.

I'm again acknowledging that the pro-life crowd faces an unenviable challenge in advocating for their position, and clearly their attempts at persuasion over the last several decades have not been panning out. But who actually thought the blatant gimmickry described above was actually going to work? All it did was showcase how weak they must be if the only tool in their arsenal was comically inept subterfuge.

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

While that may be some kind of motive for some activists in that specific area, in any broad sense I don't think it's really important considering the aforementioned point that there is a positive (though not necessarily huge) correlation between obesity and voting Republican. I mean, here are the ten most obese metropolitan areas in the US.

McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas: 38.8 percent

Binghamton, N.Y.: 37.6

Huntington-Ashland, W. Va., Ky., Ohio: 36.0

Rockford, Ill.: 35.5

Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas: 33.8

Charleston, W. Va.: 33.8

Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla.: 33.5

Topeka, Kans.: 33.3

Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, Wash.: 33.2

Reading, Penn.: 32.7

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

I appreciate you took the time to dive into this. To help us both, we can reference as a template the standard utilized in the Gibson's Bakery defamation lawsuit that Oberlin University lost. Starting on page 11 of the appeal, you can see an example of how to determine whether a statement is factual, and an important factor is whether or not it's "verifiable". So something like "this painting is beautiful" is not verifiable, while "this painting was made by Bob" is.

I would agree with you that Baritomo's "irregularities" is too ambiguous to be a statement of fact.

Regarding Powell's statement:

"That is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist"

If you believe this is too speculative to be considered a statement of fact, how would you edit the sentence to make it less speculative? I highlighted the pertinent clauses and I literally cannot contemplate how to make it any more of a statement of fact. Either fraud happened or did not. If the fraud happened, either it happened in the computer systems or not. Either Dominion flipped votes or not. Either they added votes or did not. Virtually everything she said is a statement of fact, and I don't know by what standard you're using to say otherwise.

Regarding Dobbs' example, I don't know how else to interpret the phrase "which were designed to be inaccurate" except to describe intent. Either the system was designed or it wasn't, and if it was designed either it was designed to be inaccurate or it wasn't. This is especially lucid considering it's in the context of Powell's theory that she's "identified mathematically the exact algorithm they used and planned to use from the beginning to modify the votes in this case to make sure Biden won"

Your last paragraph is what we in the business call conclusory. You're just making a claim without explaining its basis. I don't know your expertise with defamation law, but if you can confidently assert that the MSJ is not "related to the law in any way" I would assume you can show your work easily. Quoting a 90s comedy unfortunately doesn't count.

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

I'm honestly wondering how you could dream that a desantis administration would stop "wokism from above"? The reason the left is pounding this on you is because you have no institutional power at the federal level. He can't even stop it in Florida. His bills are toothless, made-for-tv jokes. His PR stunts, flying illegals and his spat with Disney, did nothing and desantis caved quickly.

And that's even if he could win a general election which he could not because a GOP candidate must win the midwest and desantis wouldn't even win Ohio.

And that's even assuming desantis isn't a neocon neolib pragmatist which he is.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

Predicting you'll be arrested is not generally admission of guilt to a crime. You can be wrong, after all! Also note how Epps caveats his comments with "peacefully" immediately after the "We need to go into the Capitol" part. 18 USC 2102(a) requires the riot in question involve violence or threats of violence. Calling for entering the Capitol peacefully would seem to be the opposite of that. I've never been a federal prosecutor but I wouldn't love bringing charges under 18 USC 2101 just on the basis of what's in the video. As @huadpe notes in a parallel comment the speech would also have to pass the test from Brandenburg v. Ohio (and apparently nobody has been charged with incitement). I am not sure speech the previous night for violence the following day is sufficiently "imminent" under Brandenburg.

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

There is zero chance he wins the primary against Trump in the midwest. Not "maybe" he can't, but zero % chance he wins a primary. I have seen nothing at all to think desantis knows how to talk to midwesterners at all and his record in Congress and comments since then are big turnoffs to midwesterners. The guy is not charismatic and he's not funny. He's the sort of dude who would pay $100,000 for someone else to write jokes for him to badly try to pull-off.

edit: Here's a good example of how Ron Desantis intends to connect with midwesterners. From "his" book:

I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay," DeSantis wrote. "but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio — from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep. This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

just to render him ineligible

if you're concerned with the law, nothing he's been charged with or investigated for is even in the realm of something which would render Trump constitutionally ineligible

that being said, the law hasn't mattered thus far so no reason to think it would going forward

Even if De Santis loses in the generals

desantis will certainly lose in the general

desantis must win the midwest to win the general, but I will tell you midwesterners do not like desantis and he will not appeal to them because he's an uncharismatic dork with a long history of being a neolib neocon who votes for forever wars and disasters like TPP

he wouldn't even win Ohio let alone Wisconsin

seeing him as the opponent will force democrats to prefer a moderate candidate

Joe Biden was the moderate candidate. So was Hillary Clinton. Democrats, as opposed to the GOP, are far more capable of forcing through moderate candidates, and they have, irrelevant of whatever "Democrats" think generally.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

What reports? Even so, ignoring the court and getting a default judgment puts him in a pretty precarious position. If he had lost the case on the merits he could make any discovery regularities part of his appeal. Now that's going to be much more difficult because the only avenue of appeal he has is whether judgment in default is inappropriate. While courts have vacated default judgments, the arguments usually revolve around whether the action in question is appropriate for the relief granted or when the default happened because the plaintiff didn't take appropiate due diligence to ensure notice. For example, in Ohio there are a good number of properties where the oil and gas rights have been severed from the surface. Some landowners whose property was subject to such severances attempted to get these rights back by filing quiet title actions against the owners of the orphaned OG interests and getting default judgments in their favor. The appeals court ruled that (if I remember correctly) the quiet title actions were inappropriate because the plaintiffs had no colorable claim to the oil and gas and that furthermore, they didn't make a diligent attempt to locate the current owners and provided notice by advertisement. The whole thing was obviously a "gotcha" to get rights they weren't entitled to, and the appeals court saw it for what it was. The Jones case is a fairly straightforward case of defamation and there's no real argument that Jones only didn't comply because his attorneys were unaware of what they were supposed to do.

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

The real question is why people think the NFL has a left-wing bias. Yeah, they have the End Hate messages and whatever, but that seems more like a sop to their predominantly black employee base in the wake of the Kaepernick scandal and 2020 protests than a serious political statement. If you look at the political leanings of the actual owners, you have:

  • Arizona Cardinals: Bidwell — Republican, but supports Sinema, so probably moderate

  • Atlanta Falcons: Arthur Blank — Democrat

  • Baltimore Ravens: Stephen Biscotti — Inconclusive, but a pretty big Catholic, for whatever that's worth

  • Buffalo Bills: Pegula — Moderate, made his money from fracking (I personally worked on the sale that raised the capital for him to buy the team)

  • Carolina Panthers: David Tepper — Republican, but pro gay rights

  • Chicago Bears: McCaskey (Halas) — Inconclusive, but George openly feuded with Trump during the national anthem controversy

  • Cincinnati Bengals: Brown — Republican

  • Cleveland Browns: Jimmy Haslam — Republican

  • Dallas Cowboys: Jerry Jones — Republican, Trump supporter

  • Denver Broncos: Joe Ellis — Republican

  • Detroit Lions: Ford — Democrat

  • Green Bay Packers: n/a — Inconclusive. Held by stock, but the team president leans left

  • Houston Texans: McNair — Republican

  • Indianapolis Colts: Irsay — Republican

  • Jacksonville Jaguars: Shahid Khan — probably more interested in British politics, but sided with the players during the anthem controversy

  • Kansas City Chiefs: Hunt — Republican

  • Las Vegas Raiders: Davis — Inconclusive, Mark doesn't talk about politics, but the old man seemed pretty liberal

  • Los Angeles Chargers: Dean Spanos — Republican

  • Los Angeles Rams: Kroenke — Definite Republican lean, Trump included, but also supports some Democrats

  • Miami Dolphins: Stephen M. Ross — Republican, Trump supporter

  • Minnesota Vikings: Zygi Wilf — Democrat

  • New England Patriots: Robert Kraft — Probably a Democrat, but an open Trump supporter

  • New Orleans Saints: Benson — Republican

  • New York Giants: Mara/Tisch — Democrat

  • New York Jets: Woody Johnson — Republican, Trump Diplomatic Appointee

  • Philadelphia Eagles: Lurie — Democrat

  • Pittsburgh Steelers: Rooney — Democrat, Dan was an Obama Diplomatic Appointee

  • San Francisco 49ers: DeBartolo — Inconclusive. Denise is a Democrat, but Trump pardoned Eddie. It should be noted that Eddie was forced to give his sister control of the team after he was convicted of public corruption.

  • Seattle Seahawks: Allen — Inconclusive. Paul was a Republican, but he's dead and team ownership is held in trust. Jody controls the team and she's pretty bipartisan.

  • Tampa Bay Bucs: Glazer — Moderate, Eddie's a confirmed Trump supporter.

  • Tennessee Titans: Adams — Republican

  • Washington Commanders: Josh Harris — Republican

  • Commissioner: Roger Goodell — Republican

By my final tally, there are 16 confirmed Republicans, or over half the league, plus the Commish, plus Kraft, who may not be a Republican but likes Trump. Of the remainder, I'll count 10 confirmed Democrats or left-leaners. That leaves five who are inconclusive. At best, you might be able to argue that half the league wants to fix the country's biggest sporting event to get a political endorsement that may or may not have any impact on the election. The team that would be the beneficiary of this would be at odds with the politics of the whole thing, since the Hunt family have been big Texas Republicans for a long time. On the other side, Denise DeBartolo York has donated to Democrats in Ohio. She's also from Youngstown, and the Democratic Party there is a lot more conservative than in the country at large; it's mostly Trump country these days. It also has corrupt politics, so I wouldn't put taking a dive past her if they sweetened the pot enough. Steve was already busted for political corruption (and he lost a lot of money financing the Jacksons Victory Tour in 1984 because he didn't know what he was doing). I'd say it's unlikely that there's enough motivation among ownership and the commissioner to do something like this, and there's certainly enough conservative owners that even if the league did try it you'd have quite a few screaming about it publicly.

I think the problem is that people have a tendency to think of "The NFL" as this faceless behemoth that has whatever characteristics they want it to have depending on how they're feeling that day. They don't stop to consider that this is an organization run by real people with real personalities and real opinions, and that the only thing they really agree on is that they all want to make as much money as possible. I don't see how the NFL, viewed in that light, would have any reason to fix a championship for political reasons.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

All emphasis mine.

The very first paragraph from South Carolina.

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

Further reading, though I'm tempted to just copy the whole thing

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

It's not slavery, it's about reneging on the deal you previously made. None of the slave states would have joined the union in the first place without the concessions they received, concessions intended to prevent the North from controlling the South. Those concessions were systematically undermined and ignored for decades until finally it was obvious that the North never intended to perform on the duties it committed to, and never intended to respect the limits of the federal government.

South Carolina did not agree to be ruled by New York, South Carolina agreed to form a Union with New York under the condition that New York is obligated to return slaves to South Carolina. If New York doesn't want to do that, it's up to them to dissolve the Union, but instead they simply ignored the constitution and the agreement they had made with the free and independent states of the South in order to impose their rule.

I'm tired of people lying about it. The South was right to secede, and they have every justification to do so. They stuck a deal which was ignored and undermined for 80 years, until finally they had had enough and left.

And then Lincoln conquered them and forged the American Empire, and now we don't hear about the Free and Independent State of South Carolina, or These United States.

The Civil War was about federal conquest of the continent.

From Texas:

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

...

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation.

...

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons-- We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

The Motte Picks Where I Spend the Rest of My Life

Well, I'm totally biased but Pittsburgh has most of the pros of the trendy cities and few of the cons. It's become a semi-trendy place to want to live if you believe Reddit, but the population isn't exactly exploding (the city population is holding steady and Allegheny County is actually losing population). It's also about double the size of Salt Lake and triple the size of Boise, and while it's similar in size to Austin, it's an older, more established city. What this means is that it has more big-city institutions than you'll find in any of those places and more of a big city feel rather than overgrown suburb (e.g. I don't think the Austin Symphony is playing for the pope any time soon).

As much as locals complain about the recent housing price increases, it's still nothing compared to the trendy cities. 500k gets you a four bedroom house in a highly desirable suburb with excellent schools. If you're paying more than that you're in a McMansion (or a mansion). And that's not just in a desirable neighborhood with good schools; that's in the most desirable area with the best schools. If you're satisfied with the former you're going to pay a lot less.

As an avid outdoorsman, the outdoor recreation is great. No, it's not as spectacular as certain areas out West, but an hour drive gets you pretty far out there and only the popular easy hikes are swamped. For example, Ohiopyle State Park is a popular area andit can be hard to find parking in town on a summer weekend. But as soon as you get away from town it's practically deserted even at the busiest times. A few years ago I was there Sunday of Memorial Day weekend up on the mountain and I saw a total of five other people, three of whom I knew. And the city is pretty hilly, with lots of wooded areas, so there's perfectly decent hiking without driving anywhere depending on where you live, though places in the city itself are going to be more crowded. The lack of spectacular views is only really a concern, though, if you're focused on "payoff hikes" that involve views. There are plenty of waterfalls, and the forests themselves are top-notch.

Getting beyond hiking and views, though, the mountains are first-class. I've mountain biked in several of the big name destinations across the country (Pisgah, the Rockies, the Western Slope, etc.), and the mountain biking in the Laurels is as good as it gets. I'll admit the skiing isn't exactly Colorado, but at least we have skiing. The real secret, though, is the whitewater. SWPA and Northern WV probably have the best whitewater anywhere in the world, and certainly the best whitewater a reasonable day trip from a major city. A lot of the Western states have more mileage, but most of it's only runnable during spring snowmelt. Here, we get enough rain that even the small stuff is runnable a few days after a heavy rain, and we have everything from Class II family floats to sketchy-as-hell steep creeks.

The population is largely comprised of people who CHOSE to be there. It's hard to quantify this, but the "vibes" between a town like this and a town that is filled with only the people who never left (think West Virginia as an extreme) are impossible to ignore if you've spent time in both.

Pittsburgh is unique in that it's a rust belt city that people actually want to move to. The declining population of the region is largely a function of the exodus in the 90s, during which an entire generation moved away. Their parents stayed, and now that generation is dying off at a faster rate than new arrivals can make up for. That being said, the declining population isn't the same as places like Cleveland or Detroit that look like bombed out shells of their former selves. There are a few ghetto areas like that, but most of the city population's decline is more due to declining household size than outright abandonment. At some point I'd like to do a survey of the region on here to evaluate its potential on a granular level, but I've got the music thing to do for now. But I'm actually dead serious when I think you should move here, because it's actually realistic and makes more financial sense than trying to pursue some pipe dream of living internationally or moving to some overly trendy city that's going to run into problems as a result of the population crush.

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

Desantis has roots on the PA-Ohio border. Maybe he can’t win the primary but he will know how to talk to people in that area. His grandparents were all part of the Italian immigrant wave (of which I’m a part of) to the region. His parents grew up there. Culturally he should be able to connect to all the ethnic whites that still exists there, and moving away from the region was extremely common when the steel mills closed.

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

The responses by various commenters here reveal severe contradictions at the heart of “the case for Trump”. I think that this profoundly confused tweet by Martyr Made is illustrative.

People underestimate (or are not in a position to understand) how powerful it is for people to see Trump being attacked by the same people who have been maligning them in media and politics for years. Critics can say that that Trump is not a true enemy of the Establishment since he did x, y, or z, but it’s obvious to Trump supporters that the same powerful people who hate them also hate Trump, and that they hate Trump for taking their side.

I remember one middle-aged woman somewhere in Ohio being asked why she supported Trump. Was it his immigration policy, trade policy, what was it? She said: “Because he sticks up for us.”

It’s like the cool kids - the varsity QB, the homecoming queen, etc - sitting in the front of the class, forever bullying and mocking the “losers” in the back of class, who don’t play sports or cheerlead because their families are poor and they have to work after school. One day, one of the offensive linemen from the football team picks up and moves to the back of the class and starts giving it back to the cool kids. All the cool kids attack him, but he doesn’t care, he’s from their world and knows they’re nothing special, and anyway, they can’t threaten him because he’s too big, so he just keeps giving it back to him on the losers’ behalf. That guy would be a folk hero to the kids in the back, no matter how much of an obnoxious, vulgar buffoon he might be.

The kids in the front of the class - i.e. a pretty blonde woman who glides through life with door after door inexplicably opening before her - will never get it. They will always assume evil or irrational motives behind the linemen’s move, and they’ll imagine that the kids in back only support him out of jealousy and resentment toward the cool kids.

In this framing, Trump is the champion of the weird, socially-unpopular kids - the ones shut out of bourgeois normal society. The jocks and the pretty girls snub and bully them, but by banding together in a coalition with disaffected members of the social elite who have become awoken to their plight, they can launch a liberatory strike against the privileged upper crust who have historically marginalized them.

This is textbook leftism! This is literally the ur-narrative of the cultural and political left. It’s also the opposite of reality. Blonde jocks and rich cheerleaders are one of the core voting constituencies for Donald Trump! The weird alienated kids who got bullied in school, meanwhile, are a core Democrat constituency! One bloc of Trump voters are now apparently attempting to re-brand themselves, or re-contextualize themselves, as oppressed victims - the marginalized Other.

However, this is blatantly at odds with the original core appeal of Trump, which is that he was a champion of normal, well-adjusted, classic and confident America, here to take the country back from the freaks and faggots and pencil-necks who have essentially usurped control through subterfuge and used that power to resentfully force their unpopular obsessions on the mass of normal popular people.

And of course, it is manifestly risible for Trump voters to claim to hate bullying. Whatever else you want to say about the Trump phenomenon in 2016, it clearly involved a substantial amount of bullying, derision, and even rough-housing/violence at some of the rallies. (I’m not absolving the Clinton campaign, which of course also involved a different type of bullying and derision.) Trump supporters have also ruthlessly mocked and derided “DeSantoids”, using classic nerd-bashing behavior; see Scott Greer’s (admittedly amusing) unflattering impression of DeSantis’ nasal voice and spergy affect.

Trump voters have no leg to stand on if they wish to wear the mask of the oppressed and marginalized. That sort of maudlin victimhood-signaling has never been what conservativism or right-wing values are about. If anything, Trump voters should be proud to be the jocks and cheerleaders rightly excluding the maladjusted weirdos; playing this “no, you’re not the underdog, I’m the underdog” game is just totally conceding the left’s frame.

If anything, Trump voters most closely resemble the oppositional culture cultivated by blacks. When they are a minority or are relatively disempowered, they cry victim and throw out accusations of cheating and unfair privilege. When they are a local majority or gain any sort of power, though, they ruthlessly bully whites and Asians; they also bully those within their own ranks who “act white” by refusing to wallow in victimhood and who aspire to earn a spot in the majority culture via self-betterment and the adoption of bourgeois values. Blacks as a cultural-political constituency would rather destroy the mainstream American establishment - supposedly for excluding and “othering” them - than try to prove worthy of being embraced by that establishment. And when they don’t get what they feel they’re owed, they riot.

I say this all as someone who voted for Trump in 2020 and who will vote for him again this November, assuming he’s the GOP nominee. I just hate liars and cope. The people in power in Washington DC and in the media and academia are certainly not Chads and Stacys. They were not jocks and cheerleaders. They see themselves as champions of the marginalized and disempowered, the same way that [the Trump who exists only the minds of his ardent supporters] does. Oppositional populism is a great way to drum up votes and guilt your way into power, but it’s also the sign of a catastrophically unwell society. Give me a candidate who is proud to represent normal, productive, intelligent people, and maybe then I’ll start getting excited. That’s what Ron DeSantis was supposed to be, and Trump supporters called him a fraud and a sellout for not going to bat hard enough for J6 rioters or agreeing that the 2020 election was stolen.

Our country is fucked.

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

I think Christian nationalism as a terrorial project could never happen in this century, and would also not be beneficial. You would be uniting the non-zealot Christians (nearly all) with increasingly influential Hindu and Muslim lobbies, not to mention the Jewish lobby, and influential atheist donors… while the state-worshipping intelligence community would see an obvious national security threat in such a project. And the dominant strains of Christianity in America, Catholicism and mega church evangelicalism, are ineffectual at promoting moral change or preventing consumerism/etc from seeping in. Do you really want them to have their own nation? Imagine the Christian rock radio stations they would subsidize… no thank you.

A much better solution is to create a Christian Hasidim which is, in a sense, a nation within a nation. A lot of the social technology they have developed can be grafted into a Christian setting: dress codes, mandatory prayers, mandatory (Christianized) rituals, a strong national identity as Christian Israel (this is already in the New Testament yet simply ignored in today’s theology). You can even gradually introduce Latin as a new internal language. Go back to original Christian house churches and you can reduce your community’s tax burden. Create your own kashrut which must be blessed by a priest. Etc.

This idea — creating your own insular community wholecloth — is both deeply Christian and deeply American. The American history is common knowledge. For Christian history, you have the Gospel which is easily read as a practical guide to starting a church and retaining a following. Remember that orthodoxy simply did not exist in ancient Christianity, but instead a multitude of often insular competing churches. You have the archetypal story of Noah who sees a threat and reproduces an insular culture anew (hence the animals two-by-two, and the bitumen coating the ark). You have the highly influential pre-Christian Essene community which established their own communities and possibly influenced Christianity. Lastly you have the monastic traditions, with a lot of them forming their communities in the middle of nowhere with their own regulations.

If you look at the history of insular religious movements, the Amish or the Salafists or whatever, it’s easy to forget that they started with just one dude. Then the one dude found some other dudes who agreed with him after a few years. Even with Methodism, IIRC it took a decade to bring the follower count up to a dozen. Then the dudes beget more dudes, because the world does not lack dissatisfied dudes. Now there’s, like, 80,000 Amish in Ohio alone. It’s compound interest, like a seed which multiplies 30 or 60 or 100 times what was sown. This is a more practical idea than a territorial project.

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

I sort of have the view that Harvard/Stanford/Whatever is good at churning out elite but not exciting folks like programmers and doctors and bankers and lawyers, but for truly world-changing things to the extent that there's any correlation there it's all selection rather than treatment. If Harvard is good at doing the former and not the latter, I think it kind of makes sense to "uplift" a bunch of people into those positions that don't require true genius to do well, and not really worry whether the next Einstein goes to Harvard or Ohio State for undergrad. Anyway, as you said, it would be hard to identify this in the data anyway, but I just don't think it's the open and shut case that a lot of people here make it out to be.

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

I would argue this is mostly coincidental on the personal level — the exogamy rate of Jews and especially in academia is a great disproof of any conspiracy. Now, on the financial level? On the financial level it is indeed possible that leading ethnic-nationalistic Jews (religious zionists) would fund both pro-Jewish eugenics and be against eugenics applied to other people at large. Consider the case of Efrat

Senator Chuck Schumer, a noted pro-choice champion who has used the issue of abortion to secure his New York Senate, attended a 30th anniversary gala for Efrat. Schumer has been lauded by Planned Parenthood who called him a “hero,” with “a 100% pro-choice, pro-family planning voting record,” but in 2007 Schumer put his pro-choice position aside and joined his anti-abortion foes at the celebration. (Schumer’s office was contacted, but did not provide a comment for this story.)

American Friends of Efrat, the U.S.-based fundraising arm of Efrat (no relation to the settlement of the same name), is an Israeli anti-abortion group with hundreds of volunteers that counsel Jewish women against abortion and provide support for the first year of the child’s life.

According to IRS 990 tax reports, the American Friends of Efrat pulls from mainstream foundations including matching donations from Deutsche Bank, The Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Prudential Foundation. But the heftiest sums come from the Jewish community. Despite the fact that 89% of American Jews support abortion rights, the Federation Foundation of Greater Philadelphia sent the group $100,000 in 2004 and 2006, while the Jewish Community Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles gave C.R.I.B. just over $5,000 in 2007 and $10,000 in 2008. In addition, the Madav IX Foundation, a charitable organization funded by Jewish family foundations but administered by the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, gave the C.R.I.B. program $10,000 in 2008. The Madav IX Foundation shares the same Ohio address of the Bennet and Donna Yanowitz Family Foundation that gave the C.R.I.B. program $2,000 in 2004 and $1,000 in 2007.

”Israel is currently fighting a demographic war for her survival. As we go to print Israel’s borders are in jeopardy. The Arab birthright is about double the Jewish birthrate. General Uzi Dayan speaking as the Director for the Council of National security announced: ‘Demographic projections forecast an Arab majority in Israel by the year 2020 less than 15 years from now”

It’s really important we understand what anti-semitism ought to mean. Anti-semitism in the form of hating the Old Testament religion or hating a race or hating a language is always and forever bad. But what do you call someone who says, “I feel uncomfortable with a fiercely in-group ethno nationalist network that has high level donors who only fund their own bloodline”? Whatever you call this latter thing, it is utterly justified IMO. The problem is that there’s an element of Judaism that is literally just that; they believe that their race and DNA is infinitely more important than any belief or practice, and they believe their existence on earth is to secure the Jewish People and a future for Jewish children. Should such a group be free from criticism? Only if we want the world to devolve into tribal infighting in 200 years.

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

I agree that Oberlin's statements are even more damning in context, but as you saw in the court decision each claim was evaluated in isolation. The "long history" claim was found to be defamatory on its own (¶33), without including the specific allegation of assault (which was dealt with separately in ¶34, with the claim about the owner dealt with separately again in ¶35). Your argument that the comparison is unwarranted because Oberlin's statement contained specific allegations of assault/choking is demonstrably not true. Setting that disagreement aside, do you, personally, believe that Oberlin claiming the bakery had a "long account of racial profiling and discrimination" on its own should count as an actionable statement of fact for purposes of defamation? Yes or no?

It is, indeed, much different from the MSJ in the present case.

Certainly, and the circumstances are very different too. For one, that was the defendant's MSJ. Plaintiff MSJs for defamation are virtually unheard of, because defamation is so fact-dependent and MSJ require there to be virtually no disagreement on the facts.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

It would be ridiculous not to expect Democrats voting in Republican primaries. It also usually wouldn’t be “shenanigans.”

There are 18 open primary states. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, N. Dakota, Ohio, S. Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas were fully open and voted red in 2020. Anyone living in one of these states would be well within their rights to vote in the Republican primary. I expect them to vastly outnumber any partisans going undercover in closed states.

I did it this year, and I’ll do it again in 2024. Texas is still hugely Republican-biased, and I’d quite like to get some input on the election. Plus I get to vote against Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott twice.

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

I think it's notable that every Presidential election since at least 2000 has had large amounts of the opposition believing the election was stolen/illegitimate:

2000 - Florida
2004 - Ohio
2008/12 - Birtherism
2016 - Russia
2020 - "Stop the Steal"

However, the key difference in 2020 is just how far the losing candidate went to contest it.

Part of my concern with trying to "steelman" weak-form versions of the stolen election hypothesis is that Donald Trump was unambiguously pushing for the strong-form version. It was his clearly communicated view that the evidence in favour of a stolen election was so strong that the right and just thing to do would for Pence/Congress to just give him the Presidency.

This wasn't the case for any of the other losers (and neither McCain nor Romney (though not Trump!) endorsed birtherism).

Friday Fun Thread for August 18, 2023

Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come?

That's a fair enough point for the current generation. I have no idea how you would mean to apply that to the generations that grew up in rural America (especially Appalachia) before .... 2000? "Go get an education and come back" was also not reasonable because local economies often lacked the professional infrastructure to support (let alone attract) degree holders.

As for geographic consistency, their kin died for that ground within two or three centuries of folk memory.

Quiet part out loud, bro. You emphasized "died" instead of "fought for." Fatalism.

And what's the salience of the piece of land on which the dying occurred? Before the Civil War, a lot of sons of Appalachia died in all kinds of strange spots west of the Ohio, South of the Rio Grande, and elsewhere. Grandpa lost friends in France and Germany ... not a whole lot of country songs about the Ardennes. World War 2 veterans are remembered for the dedication to American values and a conflict against evil, imperialism, subjugation. That promotes a more generative outlook on the possibilities post-combat than the immutable fact of location and time of death.

I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.

I don't know if this is an attempt at humor or not.

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

"CU" = Citizens United? That is not at all what Citizen's United said.

And it's probably going to happen to your position if it doesn't have a bit more justification than, "If a candidate buys a diet coke, he has to report it; if he doesn't, that's a felony, because the price could have been too low and formed a quid pro quo."

I really don't understand what you are trying to say. The definition of "contribution" to providing goods or service at less than the usual and normal charge is quite well-established, across many, many states. Moreover, just last December, Kris Kobach agreed to a settlement with the FEC for a violation of "52 U.S.C. § 30118 by accepting an inkind corporate contribution from WBTW in the form of a list rental below the usual and normal charge." Why would he do that, if there were a reasonable argument that the definition is invalid? The fact that you can make up a hypothetical about diet cokes does not render the law invalid.

Finally, I don't understand what any of this has to do with the Trump indictment. Again, AFAIK, no one is claiming that his campaign bought goods or services at less than the usual and normal charge therefor.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

The United States are still pretty empty, and a skilled farmer can still get land at both trivial price and effort to practice his craft. It is also hard work that you do in places of solitude after a half-decade or so of learning your craft as an absolute nobody, which is why the people fantasising about frontiers aren't growing beets off in Ohio right now: things stop being romantic when you have to put in sweat and effort for them.