Thursday Open Thread

Please feel free to write comments on this post on whatever topic you like! (As usual, please avoid personal insults of each other, vulgarities aimed at each other or at third parties, or other things that are likely to poison the discussion.)

Comments

[Queen Amalthea]

GOP: The Only Party Taking the Threat of Jewish Space Lasers Seriously!

[AnCapBarbie]

The only reason state governments aren't mandating COVID "vaccines" is that doing so would force them to stand before the Supreme Court and argue that SARS-Cov-2 is as dangerous as smallpox, and the agenda the manufactured fear serves is far more important than the pretext under which it is being pursued. Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)

https://ancapbarbie.wordpress.com/2021/01/28/there-is-no-proof-that-sars-cov2-exists/

[AnCapBarbie]

Umm oops thought I was leaving a top-level comment, not a reply.

[Queen Amalthea]

The location doesn't alter the nuttiness so no worries.

[VinniUSMC]

I see your impressive counter-evidence is listed.

Don't worry, nobody expects the party of "Science" to understand science. C'mon, let's see you post something intelligent for once.

[Sarcastr0]

No need for science to not that the person humping their blog thinks there's a legal requirement to show COVID is as dangerous as smallpox.

There isn't.

Also, not going to click on the link, but I'm pretty sure science does think COVID exists.

[VinniUSMC]

"I’m pretty sure science does think COVID exists."

So am I. But not because QA declares it to be nuttiness to think otherwise.

[Sarcastr0]

She wasn't trying to convince you, she was calling the OP nutty.

You seem to agree.
So then what's wrong with her post?

[VinniUSMC]

"So then what’s wrong with her post?"

Same as usual. Lack of intelligent life.

So, evidence is only required if you disagree with it? Brave new world.

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think QA needed to prove in order to be properly Scientific in her response to that nutty post? That COVID exists?

Of course, the OP made a separate legal point that was very wrong and also didn't need a lot of engagement either.

[Queen Amalthea]

Forget it Sarc, it's tribaltown.

[VinniUSMC]

"Forget it Sarc, it’s tribaltown."

As if Sarcastr0 isn't already aware of that? His tribalism has been pointed out many times, and he even admits it.

[VinniUSMC]

"What do you think QA needed to prove in order to be properly Scientific in her response to that nutty post?"

I think that QA needs to prove an ability to process information critically before calling someone purporting to show evidence of something "nuttiness".

Heck, did either of you even bother to check the link?

"not going to click on the link"

Right. No signs of intelligent life.

[Queen Amalthea]

Vinni: "He rejected the idea that Covid doesn't exist, which I too think is wrong, as nutty without clicking on the link, therefore my pissiness is not tribalism!"
Lol

[James Pollock]

"As if Sarcastr0 isn’t already aware of that? His tribalism has been pointed out many times, and he even admits it."

whereas the vinman is entirely free of any tribalism.

[James Pollock]

"I think that QA needs to prove an ability to process information critically before calling someone purporting to show evidence of something “nuttiness”."

As if you were qualified to judge "ability to process information critically".

[jerryg1018]

If COVID is so dangerous why is the prescribed treatment Quarantine?

[James Pollock]

"If COVID is so dangerous why is the prescribed treatment Quarantine?"

Because it isn't?

[VinniUSMC]

I don't think the question of whether mandatory vaccination would be constitutional hinges on comparing COVID to smallpox. But, the question of constitutionality still exists.

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, and if the Supreme Court grants cert it might even matter.

[VinniUSMC]

You think it wouldn't go to the Supreme Court, post haste, were it to be tried?

[James Pollock]

I'm not at all sure the Supreme Court would want to weigh in on the subject.

"Get vaccinated or stay quarantined" is probably Constitutional. Hard to say with unenumerated rights.

[Queen Amalthea]

Unlike yourself I'm intelligent to know that the issue doesn't hinge on a scientific judgement of whether Covid is equal to small pox but instead a legal and political one. As even libertarian legal scholars like Volokh acknowledge the law would back a mandatory vaccination (though I doubt politically that it will happen, so don't worry too much about the mean old government oppressing you by making you get a shot to keep yourself and those around you from getting sick).

[Brett Bellmore]

They're not going to make it mandatory. They're "just" going to ban you from a vast range of activities if you don't get it. Like air travel.

I just got out of quarantine this morning after a virtual visit with my doctor. (Actually, a nurse practitioner, but that's as good for most purposes.) I was informed that I'd be recommended to get the vaccine anyway, but I'd have to wait 3 months, I guess so that already being immune to Covid wouldn't mess with the efficacy of the vaccine.

[James Pollock]

" I guess so that already being immune to Covid "

Along with any number of other imagined properties you might have.

[I Callahan]

It's not imagined. If you get Covid, you're not going to get it again, to the odds of winning the lotto. Millions of cases and what, about 20 who got re-infected?

[Brett Bellmore]

You really don't understand immune systems, do you?

[VinniUSMC]

"Unlike yourself I’m intelligent to know"

Yes, your intelligence is on display. As always.

[Queen Amalthea]

Wow, hit a nerve huh? Conservatives today are some thin skinned folks.

[VinniUSMC]

Being educated enough to form complete, intelligible sentences is a conservative thing?

Yes, terrible usage of the English language does hit a nerve.

[Queen Amalthea]

"terrible usage of the English language does hit a nerve."

So you've had a rough last four years...

[VinniUSMC]

Not really, I'm not one of your fellow "Trumpistas". I've never had a Twitter account.

It's telling that you compare yourself to Trump though.

[Queen Amalthea]

I'm a Trumpista? Lol.

[James Pollock]

"Being educated enough to form complete, intelligible sentences is a conservative thing?"

It is not. Even vaguely.

[NToJ]

This person demands the strictest of proof that Sars-Cov2 has been isolated, relying (uncritically) on an anti-flouride blog for the proposition that despite dozens of claims of isolation of Sars-Cov2, none has been handed to the anti-flouridist in response to FOIA requests, and so that means something fishy is going on. Besides inconsistently requiring incredible evidence for an unremarkable claim, from a person making incredible claims on no evidence, the author also wants you to accept uncritically that Malthus, Mao, and Bill Gates are all in cahoots with the eugenicist puppet masters behind Thunberg. Why do I have to put up counter-evidence that my "corporate overlords" are not trying install RFID chips in my brain? Shouldn't he provide evidence of it, first?

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRmYlCJ70z8&pbjreload=101

[Dr. Ed 2]

And the Dems are the only party worrying about Guam capsizing.

And unlike the Jewish Space Laser hoax (several of those fires *were* set) Hank Johnson actually said Guam might capsize.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjG958lZ1KI

[Queen Amalthea]

Hmm, might there be a difference between two scientifically nutty theories, say one has anti-Semitism and the other doesn't?

[Sarcastr0]

I always took the first as a joke. The context doesn't really allow taking the Death Star of David as a joke, though.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can watch it again, Sarcastro. He didn't appear to be joking.

[Sarcastr0]

I just did - Ed linked it twice.
I've been fooled before by people with a deadpan wit. Even on this website!

Maybe he's actually that dumb.

So at best, he's not good at telling jokes. At worst, he's dumb as hell.

Still a lot better than being an anti-Semitic conspiracymonger.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd go with dumb as hell.

And plenty of anti-Semitic conspiracy mongers in the Democratic party, as you well know.

[Krychek_2]

The difference is we typically don't actually elect ours to public office. When Louis Farrakhan actually gets elected to something, get back to me.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-MI) comes to immediate mind.

Or does denying Israel's right to exist not count?

[De Oppresso Liber]

To Dr. Ed, having a foreign policy opinion is the same as spreading a conspiracy theory that jews have space lasers and use them to start wildfires in California so that a few connected democrats can...make money...somehow....

[Dr. Ed 2]

Does thinking *anything* about a few dozen rich Democrats (who happen to be Democrats) constitute antisemitism?

How about despising Bernie Madhoff?

[James Pollock]

"Does thinking *anything* about a few dozen rich Democrats (who happen to be Democrats) constitute antisemitism?"

All by itself? Probably not.

[Brett Bellmore]

Tlaib and Omar go a bit beyond "having a foreign policy opinion". Back in 2019 they traveled with a Congressional delegation to Israel.

Well, not with, as such. They traveled with MITFAH, instead. Got turned back, of course, Israel isn't open to terrorist group tours.

[Krychek_2]

Not without more. Does she actively traffic in anti-Semitic conspiracies, or merely dispute the right of Israel to exist?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Trafficking in conspiracies versus wanting to drive an entire nation into the sea. Hmmm -- which is worse?

Hint: Which did Hitler try to do???

[Krychek_2]

Well, Hitler didn't try to drive Israel into the sea because Israel didn't exist at the time.

I agree that Israel has the right to exist, but there are non-frivolous arguments to the contrary, and I don't think merely holding them necessarily makes one an anti-Semite. In fact, there are some Orthodox Jews who dispute Israel's right to exist, based on their interpretations of certain Old Testament prophecies about when Israel is to be regathered. Are they anti-Semitic, or would you concede that's an honest difference of opinion as to the proper timeline?

[James Pollock]

"Hitler didn’t try to drive Israel into the sea because Israel didn’t exist at the time."

There's a fairly strong argument that Hitler caused Israel (the modern nation) to come into existence. It's almost like views on Israel (as a nation) aren't really related to anti-semitism at all. There's plenty of folks who have no strong opinions regarding Israel at all, some of whom would object to being called anti-semites, because all the want is for the banking system (or Hollywood, or ???, depending on the individual.) to not be run by Jews.

[bernard11]

So what? So Hank Johnson said something dumb once, and from this Dr. Ed and, inevitably, you, conclude that "the Dems" are all worried about this.

Fucking ridiculous.

[santamonica811]

Any time you put "Dr Ed" and "fucking ridiculous" in the same sentence, you're merely being redundant.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I always took the first as a joke.

Then you're as dumb as Johnson is.

[Bored Lawyer]

So the new standard is any time one Congressperson says something completely screwball, and the party does not expel him/her, then their screwball views are to be imputed to the party as a whole.

I await the next screwball pronouncement from a Democract to see if this new standard will be adhered to.

As Justice Scalia well put it:

St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquis of Queensberry rules.

[loki13]

"So the new standard is any time one Congressperson says something completely screwball, and the party does not expel him/her, then their screwball views are to be imputed to the party as a whole."

That's not really the standard, is it? I mean, sure, if it was just one nutty thing. You know, if it was just, "Hey, Jewish Space Lasers are starting wildfires to kill ya!" that would be one thing, right?

But when you have this whole long history of:
1. Anti-semitism.
2. Anti-Islamic comments.
3. Harassing school shooting survivors (school shooting are a hoax). Every mass shooting is either a hoax with crisis actors or a "false flag" operation to dismantle gun rights- or both! Usually as part of the Pelosi/Clinton conspiracy.
4. Calling for the execution of people from the other party.
5. 9/11 Trutherism.
6. The usual GOP Clinton bizarreness (killing people like JFK Jr., etc., Hillary sexually assaulting young girls with Huma, etc.).
7. Not only following QAnon, but affirmatively saying that "we" need to take out a global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedeohpiles. Also believing in Pizzagate.
8. Stating that RPG had been replaced by a clone or body dobule (?!?). Also Hillary, because why not?
9. When not involved in Clinton conspiracies, goes into Dr. Ed-level Obama conspiracies, like claiming that he hires MS-13 operatives (?!?) to kill people.
10. And more!

And remember- she is unrepentant about ANY OF THIS. Not just that- PROUD. And the GOP couldn't even be bothered to censor her or remove her from a single committee.

So yes, if a party allows someone like this to continue on, without so much as a course correction, then it will be imputed to the party as a whole, because the party isn't lifting a finger to stop it.

[Kazinski]

How about a congresswoman accusing a Senator of an attempted hit:
"but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out. Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed."

Especially since she was not even at the Capital Building during the invasion. She was at the Cannon Office building, across the lawn and the street, that was not breeched and had no demonstrators.

[Bored Lawyer]

It wasn't breached, either.

[Sarcastr0]

When they start hunting Congresspeople by name, being pretty scared for your life isn't some fraudulent act.

Blaming Cruz for his part riling up the insurrection, and continuing to play the lying about the election game, despite the demonstrated danger, is legit.
Her drama, well, it plays well with the kids I'll bet.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Let us know when Ted Cruz owns up to his part in the insurrection

No doubt. Just look at the comments from those who bought into it.

[De Oppresso Liber]

Let us know when Ted Cruz owns up to his part in the insurrection, and then we can talk about some sort of equivalency.

Until then, you complaining about congresspeople being overly upset about facing a violent mob will seem disingenuous or overly partisan.

[James Pollock]

"Let us know when Ted Cruz owns up to his part in the insurrection, and then we can talk about some sort of equivalency."

Ted didn't even convince the would-be insurrectionists that he was on their side. When they took the Senate floor they went through his paperwork, found out that he planned to object to counting Arizona's electoral college votes, and immediately declared him a traitor to the cause before they remembered that not counting Arizona's votes, or Georgia's, or several other states was what they were there to demand. That's what happens when you recruit for loyalty without also demanding intelligence.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Let us know when Ted Cruz owns up to his part in the insurrection

Let us know when you own up to being the Hillside Strangler.

[Prashar]

Willem Defoe is a total philanthropist who has made more than a hundred films in his beautiful works in recent years and has won four Oscars for promoting the best woman. It was brought to the world on July 22, 1955 in the Apple Platoon, Wisconsin, USA. He has won worldwide acclaim for sharing so many powerful and amazing films of his day. His imaginative award in examining the human condition is what motivates him to expand anywhere in the world, epic and small, Hollywood writing like free movies. He considered establishing a university at the University of Wisconsin, though he dropped out of school and became a researcher in Wisconsin history at the X Theater, where he worked together for a particularly long time. In 1977, Dafoe moved to New York and joined an introductory meeting, where he met scenes with director Elizabeth Lecompte, who founded a deconstructionist setting associated with the Wooster Group, which he later conducted. He premiered at Heaven's Gate in 1980 and appeared in a number of other films in the mid-1980s. He discovered that he was important to him in "For Life and Death" in L. A. In 1985, he played a fake game and tried to avoid police arrest. In 1979 Willem Defoe received the work "Gate of Heaven" by Michael Simino for what he did. He has since assisted the director in discussing the virtual reference book of the current film, Jame Wan, Robert Eggers, Spike Lee, Paul Schrader, Anthony Minghella, Dee Rees, Julian Schnabel, and more. He was seen in four Oscar nominations for best performing art in the accompanying work, A Special Action Plan supporting a role for the shadow of a vampire, in which he wrote the Golden Globe Guild and screen actor role, best supporting role Project Florida, where he failed to win the golden role of the Guild of Actors and Screen Actors, and recently the best lead actor for the film of eternity.
For more visit:https://theglobalstardom.com/willem-dafoe/

[NToJ]

I don't think she was talking about "an attempted hit". I think she was talking about the insurrection at the capitol, caused by the false claims by some republicans that the election was stolen from President Trump. Senator Cruz's role was that days earlier he had publicly said he would object to the certification of President Biden, even though Senator Cruz knew the claims of a stolen election were false.

[bernard11]

Not just one screwball statement, B.L.

Greene has a considerable record of nasty, violent, bigoted rhetoric, along with her support of QAnon, (which McCarthy now mysteriously claims to know nothing about).

Calling for the execution of Pelosi and the Clintons, and FBI agents, is a far cry from some idiocy about Guam. Repeatedly spreading insane conspiratorial lies about school shootings is not the same as uttering a "screwball comment."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Because "pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon" is neither nasty nor violent rhetoric...

[Glaucomatose]

I'm unaware of any Member of Congress saying anything like that. Can you point me to it?

[bernard11]

Of course he can't.

[James Pollock]

But he imagined it clear as day.

[Bored Lawyer]

So one screwball comment is not enough. A history of screwball comments, combined with bigotry is. Do I have that right?

Because I just want to pin down the standard the next time this comes along on the other side, and people here say something along the lines of "but that's different, because our gal was wearing a yellow shirt on Tuesday, and that makes all the difference."

For the record, my opinion is that Greene should be expelled from the party, and the GOP are a bunch of wimps for not standing up to her. (Except Lyn Cheney, her I give credit to.)

[bernard11]

A history of:

Calling for violence against political opponents;

Expressing bigotry;

Endorsing insane insurrectionist conspiracy theories;

Endorsing insane conspiracy theories that can lead to actual harm (Pizzagate).

Spreading lies about election fraud that undermine our political system.

Being a toxic nutcase - 9/11 denial, school shooting falsehoods, etc.

Is that enough?

[Bored Lawyer]

That's not the question. Or not my question. I said, Greene should be expelled from the GOP.

The question is, what is the standard? Because, as you well know, there are bigoted nutcases in the other party, who have made absurd and anti-semitic statements in the past, and so far, have gotten a free pass. Greene is probably worse, but as I have said here many times, "the other guy is worse" is not a defense.

[VinniUSMC]

"what is the standard?"

Whatever best suits The Party at any given time.

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, that seems to be the point.

It is very easy to condemn Greene as a bigoted nutcase, and most of the GOP for wimping out on condemning her.

It is much harder to commit to doing the same when the equivalent happens on your own side.

[De Oppresso Liber]

Tell us which democrat politician you have as an equivalent example to Greene, and then we can figure this out.

Until then, you are asking for a hypothetical, and giving yourself points when the other side doesn't have an exact hypothetical scenario already drawn up.

[loki13]

What are you even doing? I mean, really?

You just acknowledged that you think she should be expelled. Yet ... here you are, wasting a lot of time, trolling for a standard?

Okay. Here's my standard:

Don't claim that Jewish Space Lasers are starting wildfires and killing people. But ... if you do ... don't double down on the crazy and blame the media for point out that you're crazy.

Is that good enough? You okay with that standard?

Really. "I totally agree that she's a nutcase and should be expelled, so, you're right, but ... WHAT ABOUT THE STANDARD?????"

[Bored Lawyer]

You know exactly what I am doing, and you are deflecting.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Is that good enough? You okay with that standard?"

Seems a little loose.

[Bored Lawyer]

The correct term is "ad hoc."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Heaven forbid someone question California's $64 Billion Boondoggle...

[bernard11]

there are bigoted nutcases in the other party, who have made absurd and anti-semitic statements in the past, and so far, have gotten a free pass.

Free pass?

And that doesn't come close to Greene. Anyway, what's your standard? You're willing to kick Greene out. What about Steve King? Do you think Omar should be kicked out o fthe Democratic party? Do you think she's as bad as Greene? (Clue - she's not)

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, Yes, Yes, and No, but it does not matter, because, as I have now said ad nauseum, "the other guy is worse" is not a defense.

[bernard11]

I'm not trying to defend anything. I won't defend Omar's comments, for example, but I don't think she should be kicked out of the party, simply because she is not the sort of serial offender Greene is, and did not advocate for anyone's execution. (I'd note that she did apologize, also, whereas Greene is doubling down.)

Anyway, I didn't think we were looking for candidates for sainthood - Congress is not a good place to look - just trying to decide who should or should not be kicked out of the party or otherwise severely disciplined.

[James Pollock]

" “the other guy is worse” is not a defense."

But, "the other guy is worse, let's start with the worst" is a reasonable plan of action.

[Bored Lawyer]

Not when you have been tolerating the other guy for years.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"But, “the other guy is worse, let’s start with the worst” is a reasonable plan of action."

Why not remove all the nutcases? Then it doesn't matter who's worse.

[Kenneth Almquist]

I can't find a link to the exact quote, but the standard set out by Pelosi is that threats of violence against members of Congress justify stripping Greene of her committee assignments, even if the Republican leadership fails to do this and action by the House as a whole is required.

[Bored Lawyer]

Fair enough. You can be a bigoted nutcase, just don't threaten Congresspersons. Threatening others apparently is ok. Got it.

[De Oppresso Liber]

Searching, desperately, for something to be offended by.

It is a very simple standard: don't threaten your co-workers with death.

You: Oh, so threatening little innocent babies is ok then?! See, democrats hate babies.

[James Pollock]

"Greene should be expelled from the GOP."

That's not up to me, she's their problem-child.

"The question is, what is the standard?"

Which was the reason why you were presented with a list of attributes, which you proceeded to dismiss. When you ask a question, and don't like the answer(s) given, you deserve the mockery that results.

[Kazinski]

The standard when a congressman says something nutty, anti-semitic, or is just plain senile, all of which there are examples of currently in congress, is the voters should vote them out.

Short of an actual criminality congress or parties should not be expelling members elected by the voters. And in terms of criminality congress has already set the standard to wait until they have been convicted in a court of law of a felony.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A few loose cannons in Congress are not an inherently bad thing.

[Bored Lawyer]

"Expel" means to expel from the party, not from Congress. The voters of a district have the right to vote in whatever nutcase they want. They don't have the right to force the rest of the national party to accept him/her.

[Kazinski]

They can't expel her from the party, America doesn't have official party memberships like the CCP does. They could expel her from the Republican caucus, but I think Mccarthy is probably handling it right by basically putting her on probation and trying to educate her a little.

[Bored Lawyer]

You are right, but that distinction is technical. They can say we do not want you in our caucus, and do not consider you a Republican. You are free to call yourself whatever you want.

[bernard11]

“Expel” means to expel from the party, not from Congress. The voters of a district have the right to vote in whatever nutcase they want.

Not quite. The Constitution explicitly says members can be expelled by a 2/3 vote.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

[Kazinski]

Even the democrats are not trying to expel her from congress, they know it would fail, because the voters are the ones that sent her their.

The democrats are trying to strip her committee assignments, big deal, give her some more time on the internets.

[James Pollock]

"The standard when a congressman says something nutty, anti-semitic, or is just plain senile, all of which there are examples of currently in congress, is the voters should vote them out."

But sometimes voters (or at least, enough of them) actually WANT a nutty, anti-semitic, or just plain senile Representative. Or the one you skipped over, the just plain corrupt. He's a corrupt pig, but he's OUR corrupt pig.

[Kazinski]

Right, James Trafficant, and William Jefferson both come to mind.

[NToJ]

When Rep. Ilhan Omar criticized Israel (no space lasers involved), democrats in the House immediately drafted and approved a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. It passed 407-23. The 23 opposed were all Republicans.

Here's what she said to force the resolution:

"I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country," she said. "I want to ask why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policies?"

My goodness!

[Kazinski]

Ilan Omar and Lauren Boebart seem to be having a Twitter spat:

“Lauren Boebert
@laurenboebert
Hypocrisy 101:
@IlhanMN
cites my legitimate mileage reimbursements while she paid her husband* over $1 million in campaign consulting fees.

*Not her brother, the new husband.”

[Sarcastr0]

Why did you post this?

[Don Nico]

QA,
Why such crappola comments?

[Queen Amalthea]

From Greene? I suspect it's because she's a dumb bigot.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Facebook recently banned the leaders and site of the Virginia Citizens Defense League without an explanation. The VCDL says the group has never advocated for violence or been involved with protesting the results of the 2020 election

https://freebeacon.com/guns/facebook-bans-second-amendment-group-without-explanation/

Consider the following questions.

1. Is this good, for monopolistic social media organizations to be able to shut down viewpoints from large sections of the population?

2. If social media organizations do this selectively to one party during elections, can it be considered an "in kind" donation to the other party, violating campaign finance rules?

[Queen Amalthea]

Monopolistic lol! Only people wanting to communicate with their grandmothers use facebook now essentially. Boy, when conservatives want to whine they go deep and desperate.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yes, monopolistic. According the FTC

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization

[Queen Amalthea]

Again, laughable. I've never had a Facebook account in my life and my teen age daughter and her friends ridicule it daily. It's a joke, you're just looking to whine because the mean company won't serve you a cake that you want.

[AmosArch]

Because you are just some schmuck commenting on a legal blog. If you were running a political or marketing campaign or business that your life depended on you'd honestly have no issue if all the major tech companies deplatformed you?

[Queen Amalthea]

It's not like they're being kicked off the internet, we're talking about one increasingly irrelevant site on it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

If you were unable to fly on an airline, because of your social views, would you say the same thing? Is someone rebutted, "well, you can drive instead, so it's not a big deal" which would you respond?

[Brian Thomas]

That happens all the time, what kind of analogy is that? In addition to the government's no fly list, people who violate company policies are banned from flights or airlines all the time. Also, Facebook has its own free speech rights to control the content on their own website, and forcing them to allow content they don't want expressed on their pages violates Facebook's free speech rights, which makes the airline analogy even more off-base.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"That happens all the time"

It actually doesn't happen all the time. In fact, it's illegal for an airline to deny someone the ability to fly because of their social views...for example, if they support abortion. If you support abortion, Delta cannot say "We won't let you fly with us, because you support abortion". That's illegal, under common carrier law.

Now, social views are very different from ACTIONS people have taken that violate policies. And airlines do enforce those, but they do so in an even handed manner. Facebook and "Free Speech" is a different question. You say "Facebook has the right to control its website". But doesn't Delta have the "right" to control what sort of people it has fly with it? Or doesn't it? It's worth considering why common carrier laws exist, especially for companies that have "natural" monopolies.

[Queen Amalthea]

An airline can deny service for extremist views and language.

[Life of Brian]

An airline can deny service for extremist views and language.

What cunningly careful language. I take it you're referring to "views" and "language" actively expressed while boarding or traveling on the flight in a way the airline finds disruptive to its operations, not views and language expressed outside the airline's domain.

Otherwise, citation desperately needed.

[Sarcastr0]

illegal for an airline to deny someone the ability to fly because of their social views…for example, if they support abortion

...is that true? I'm not sure it is.

[Life of Brian]

…is that true? I’m not sure it is.

And I'm not sure that you're not just lobbing in a weak distraction. So why don't you go find some actual evidence that common carriers may selectively discriminate against customers or classes of customers for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with the carriage process, and post it here for comment. I'll not hold my breath.

[Queen Amalthea]

Walter F. Murphy, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, reported that the following exchange took place at Newark on 1 March 2007, where he was denied a boarding pass "because I [Murphy] was on the Terrorist Watch list." The airline employee asked, "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." Replied Murphy, "I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution." To which the airline employee responded, "That'll do it."

[Brian Thomas]

Definitely missed the "because of social views" caveat, but still a bad analogy because speech has nothing to do with air travel. Airlines' own free speech rights aren't implicated by letting someone peacefully fly on their airplanes, and passengers aren't expressing their views by flying. You're applying speech standards to non-speech activity.

[Life of Brian]

So the one double-hearsay anecdote you've managed to scrape up doesn't even support your proposition that "[a]n airline can deny service for extremist views and language."

Instead, if anything, it supports the completely different proposition that "an airline MUST deny service to people appearing on a list compiled by a federal agency of people banned from flying in or into the US, regardless of the specific reason the federal agency might have put them on that list."

You can stop trying to salvage your original too-cute rejoinder any time you're ready.

[Sarcastr0]

Common carriers must transport all passengers regardless of race, gender, religion, and so on — they must be nondiscriminatory.
Common carriers must make their prices public.

Common carriers have a “duty of care” requirement. Passengers are entrusted to these carriers and must be delivered unharmed from embarkation to their destination.

Nothing about speech.

[Life of Brian]

Common carriers must transport all passengers regardless of race, gender, religion, and so on — they must be nondiscriminatory

Yup. That's a mighty strange choice of support for a supposed proposition that it's jolly fine for common carriers to discriminate against individuals they'd just rather not serve.

[Sarcastr0]

Protected class is not the same thing, LoB.

Plus, as QA has noted, they don't need a lot of individualized justification, so long as it's individualized.

[Life of Brian]

Protected class is not the same thing

Oh, interesting -- I had missed that "and so on" was a protected class. You're now apparently down to distracting from your distractions. The commitment to equally serve all comers--not just those you decide you want to--is the foundation of what makes you a common carrier in the first place.

Plus, as QA has noted, they don’t need a lot of individualized justification, so long as it’s individualized.

That federal agencies may require individualized exceptions to the above rule is beyond irrelevant to this discussion -- even QA was too embarrassed to carry on with the silly no-fly-list example. The fact that you're taking it up is telling.

[Sarcastr0]

You have not convinced me. Reading a penumbral protection for speech into 'and so on' doesn't prove anything.

[Queen Amalthea]

And this isn't like flying, it's like my friend's billboard company refusing to put an ad for the local tittie bar on their boards.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'll repeat

If you were unable to fly on an airline, because of your social views, would you say the same thing? Is someone rebutted, “well, you can drive instead, so it’s not a big deal” which would you respond?

[Queen Amalthea]

Why would you repeat an inapt analogy?

[VinniUSMC]

If your friend owned a majority of the billboards, advertised them as open space for the public to advertise free of charge, and then tore down anything they disagreed with, or "modified" it (a la graffiti) to make the message "ok". Then, your analogy might be useful. Slightly.

[AmosArch]

Its not just facebook but an entire multiple industries marching in lockstep to privilege one group. I thought we were against that sort of thing.

[Don Nico]

QA, who cares what accounts you have.
More than 1 billion people have FB accounts. The world is not all about you.

[Queen Amalthea]

I'm using myself as an example that no one needs a Facebook account.

[apedad]

Even if Facebook is found to be a monopoly, that has NOTHING to do with their policy about who/when they can shut down an account.

[Armchair Lawyer]

It does have to do with the public good however.

In a vibrant and multifaceted market, if one company selectively decides to eliminate a certain class of customers, those customers can go elsewhere.

However, in a monopoly situation, those customers are shut out of the market. This can lead to profound social effects and discriminatory effects which are undesirable.

[Stephen Lathrop]

apedad has this right, for 1A reasons.

Folks looking at the monopoly question—which is a different question—should not be distracted by issues related to users, user choice, editing, or censorship. Those relate to monopoly only indirectly, as second order effects.

Understanding the monopoly issues means understanding the business model, and all the issues related to ad sales, surveillance marketing, data sales, networking effects, and preemptive buy-outs of would-be competitors.

[Life of Brian]

Monopolistic lol! Only people wanting to communicate with their grandmothers use facebook now essentially.

Yeah, with ~1 billion users, ~60,000 employees, ~20 million square feet of data centers, and a market cap approaching $1 trillion, it's clear they're circling the drain and of no real concern to anyone.

[Krayt]

"In kind" donations, nice. Been against using that as a kind of interstate commerce clause to hit one's opponents over the head with for a long time, so long as someone can conjure up a Rube Goldberg argument on how it benefits a candidate, and is worth money, which pretty much anything is that involves movement, human or otherwise.

Politicians. It's their world. Let them live under their laws.

[Queen Amalthea]

Shorter Krayt: I have no principles but I think politicians don't either so there!

[Krayt]

It is used as a cudgel against political opponents, not out of concern for tit for tat. I have no problem with large donation transparency.

I do not view using it to hurt opponents as a thing of value.

[AmosArch]

1. Is this good, for monopolistic social media organizations to be able to shut down viewpoints from large sections of the population?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The answer obviously is the same as its always been when one party gains a monopoly on a major power. The side that has the power thinks it can rightfully use it to advantage itself and the opposing side disagrees.

The only difference is the specific excuses. ie in this case: lol we can suppress speech all we want as long as we offload it to a monopolistic private enterprise because we're sudden hardcore laissez faire capitalists in this instance and this one only and not the literally thousands of other ongoing and new antimonopoly rules we continue to demand be followed.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Amos, you are missing a pretty big 1A issue. You can't commandeer publishers' speech. They get to say in their media whatever they want to say, and exclude whatever they want to exclude. Government does not get to say otherwise. Let go of that one and press freedom will be in free-fall in no time. It's already in very bad shape, which makes it especially vulnerable to ill-considered fix-it schemes.

[AmosArch]

There are already tons and tons of rules and regulations that constrain companies and dictate every factor of who and how they provide service for far less compelling reason than reining in a global oligarchy on an increasingly critical set of basic services.

From forcing you to allow employee hijabs at a clothing store to forced cake baking, to utilities and practically anything you can think of and more. And especially targeting monopolies and oligarchies. Probably thousands upon thousands, the vast majority uncontroversial and bipartisan and not even thought of except for some obscure bureaucratic committee. And an even higher percentage supported mostly by progressives A virtual mountain of regulations and growing year by year without batting an eyelash.

So color me skeptical when this and only this issue of letting Big Tech run hogwild on freedom of expression is the one exception where the you/the Left are suddenly hardcore freemarket capitalists on unsullied principle. We must continue to regulate and restrict private companies in a billion other ways but this one red line (which just happens to benefit your side to an unprecedented degree) is the hill we must die upon to preserve the unfettered free market we now love some reason. Sure.

[Stephen Lathrop]

AmosArch, it's a press freedom issue, not a free market issue. But it comes wrapped in a monopoly issue, which comes boxed in a legislative blunder issue.

Look, I'm all in favor of blowing up the media giants' ability to control access to publishing nationwide. I have been posting, and posting, and posting on that very issue. And getting called names for it.

I will keep at it. The way to fix publishing is to make it national policy to create diversity and profusion among publishers. Let an especially competitive free market control what gets published, and anyone frustrated in one place will either be able to go elsewhere, or jump into the competition on his own. That is the only way to do it without government press censorship.

The first step is to repeal (not adjust, tinker with, or "improve") Section 230. That was the congressional blunder which enabled monopolistic publishing business models that delivered today's baleful mess in publishing. If you can't back getting rid of Section 230, you are not serious about fixing the problem.

[VinniUSMC]

Your solution is to only allow special people to decide what to publish. Yay for top men.

Press are not social media. No need to worry.

[VinniUSMC]

"Amos, you are missing a pretty big 1A issue. You can’t commandeer publishers’ speech."

So, Facebook is a publisher, or not? Which is it?

[AmosArch]

. I've grabbed my flag and am waiting on Pelosi or Bernie Sanders, or any of the sudden laissez faire capitalist progs on this thread and others who want unfettered corporate freedom to join me in my quest to lift forced cake baking, and onerous government interference of private companies decisions about who they hire and serve and many other things. But I don't think they remembered our date.

California even passed more restrictive laws including one dictating the composition of companies boards of executives! Imagine that...I guess they didn't get the memo on the lefts new corpo friendly line.

[Sarcastr0]

Just because you don't think civil rights are a thing to be weighed alongside corporate association, doesn't mean no one else can think so.

[AmosArch]

You think an activist couple getting a SSM cake at 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000^Graham's Number cake shops that deny them is more important than millions of peoples ability to express themselves and conduct business to be able to have a normal life without severe disability through what is increasingly the primary mode of communication in today's world. I disagree. Different priorities I guess.

[Stephen Lathrop]

AmosArch, you are proposing government censorship for most of the nation's publishing—which is all too easy to do, because so much of it is in so few hands.

[AmosArch]

No I am proposing regulation of private censorship by monopolies on critical services of which we already noncontroversially regulate the heck out of and which almost everybody including you don't bat an eyelash at. Now if you are going to go 'lolz my definition of censorship is bigger than that' than you'd be crusading against all forms of this expanded definition of censorship and not just playing the pretend free market zealot on this and only this instance.

[James Pollock]

"No I am proposing regulation of private censorship"

That would be a form of censorship. You just came out in favor of censorship.

[James Pollock]

"I’ve grabbed my flag and am waiting on Pelosi or Bernie Sanders, or any of the sudden laissez faire capitalist progs on this thread and others who want unfettered corporate freedom to join me in my quest to lift forced cake baking"

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has taken the opposing position, that forced cake baking is a thing. The only cake-bakers involved are people who have engaged (voluntarily) in the commercial act of baking cakes in exchange for money. If you operate a commercial bakery, and someone comes in and wants to buy a cake, has anybody been forced to bake a cake? The right at issue appears to be the baker's hypothetical right to decide what the buyer of the cake may use it for.

[Don Nico]

It is not a publisher. But it should be designated a common carrier just like Fedex, UPS, and the USPS

[Queen Amalthea]

Laughable.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Don Nico, it is probably not possible to compile any specific list of characteristics which perfectly define publishing as an activity. There will always be exceptions. But it is possible to list 3 activities so commonly practiced among publishers that you can fairly say that if a business practices those activities as its principal business model, it must indeed be a publisher. Here they are:

1. A publisher assembles an audience.

2. A publisher attracts that audience by making available to it expressive materials the audience desires. The publisher may create those materials itself, or it may recruit them from contributors.

3. A publisher monetizes its audience by selling access to it to advertisers who pay to reach audience members with the advertisers' own messages.

A business which does those things—no matter what any law says, and no matter what name it is called by—is a publisher in fact.

By the way, please note how that definition excludes, for instance, common carriers.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Vinni, see my comment from 6:55 p.m.

[VinniUSMC]

Ok, Facebook is a publisher and should not receive benefits from 230 that protect it from liability for the things other people post on the site that it is the publisher of? I agree.

[James Pollock]

Facebook exerts editorial oversight on some content, and allows people to post their own without advance editorial oversight (as in, they let people post whatever they want and go back and delete some stuff if and when other people complain about it. The analogue is the bulletin board down in the laundry room of an apartment complex. People put up whatever notice(s) they want, and the manager of the complex pops in once a week or so and pulls down the ads that are illegal or outdated or scandalous. If they required tenants and other would-be posters to submit postings to the manager and the manager decided which ones to post, then holding the manager or the owner of the complex liable for what got posted would make sense... they have control of what gets posted. Since the manager doesn't want the job of pre-screening all the ads that get posted, they don't demand the power to pre-screen all the ads. And since they aren't pre-screening, they don't have control over what ads get posted and its proper to limit legal action to suing the person who wrote and posted the ad, not the person who provided a bulletin board.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Stephen,

You're missing one very important part about Publisher's speech. You're correct, it's protected by 1A. However, publishers are also LIABLE for their speech, especially slander and libel.

Now, is your contention that Facebook should be able to be sued for any libel or slander that was posted on its site, since Facebook is a publisher? If so, I'll fully support Facebook's 1A rights....for as long as it exists, until its sued into bankruptcy.

[Sarcastr0]

That's not your original argument.

No new goalposts.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Responding to someone's argument about 1A is not moving goalposts. It's a different line.

[Sarcastr0]

Lathrop's point was against your original argument, though.

If you switch to a fallback thesis, that's not really answering the argument.

Unless you concede Lathrop managed to poke a hole in your original argument.

[VinniUSMC]

Lathrop didn't poke a hole. He tossed a red herring.

If social media is a publisher, they have 1A protection. And liability for their speech, and the speech of others which it selectively allows.

If social media is a platform, it doesn't have liability for the speech of others (if it moderates in good faith).

Neither of which has anything to do with deciding if there is some monopolistic activity, and if there is, what should be done.

[Sarcastr0]

As has been discussed many times here, this publisher-platform distinction is made up. Doesn't appear anywhere, isn't a thing.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sigh... Read this again.

https://reason.com/volokh/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-publisher-distributor-platform-distinction/

[Sarcastr0]

With due respect to our host, I don't think he's right. Appealing his distinction to 'history' is not really proving very much.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-it-doesnt-matter

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, when you said "Doesn't appear anywhere"...You were lying?

[Sarcastr0]

EV says it appears in 'historically...'

So, no, I wasn't.

[VinniUSMC]

"As has been discussed many times here, this publisher-platform distinction is made up."

"I don’t think he’s right."

Well, now that we got that sorted out. Sarcastr0 said EV is wrong. Case closed.

[VinniUSMC]

Whatever terms you want to use, there is a distinction between generating content and hosting content.

[Sarcastr0]

Feel free to read the many, many section 230 posts if you want to see the debate.

But yeah, that distinction appears nowhere except in peoples' heads. Some of those people are law profs.

Still not a thing.

Also, not an argument against Lathrop's point about monopolies on speech not being a thing due to the 1A.

[VinniUSMC]

"that distinction appears nowhere except in peoples’ heads."

Right, unless you can read.

(c)  Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1)  Treatment of publisher or speaker

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Yup, no distinction at all.

[VinniUSMC]

"Also, not an argument against Lathrop’s point about monopolies on speech not being a thing due to the 1A."

Sure, because SL's argument is not relevant to 230, or AL's argument.

You both keep trying to leave out liability, but that is what is in question here.

[David Nieporent]

As has been discussed many times here, this publisher-platform distinction is made up. Doesn’t appear anywhere, isn’t a thing.

A more precise way to say it would be that it's made up in the context of § 230. The Twitter Law School grads think that § 230 creates those categories and forces websites to choose which they want to be. That's completely wrong, of course.

[James Pollock]

"You both keep trying to leave out liability, but that is what is in question here."

Duh. Liability for content which creates liability lies with the creator of that content, or any other party which has a role in publishing it. On the Internet, the infrastructure providers are not publishers of user-created content. It would be equivalent to allowing liability against Toyota because bank robbers got away from the scene of the crime in a Camry. You have the wrong defendant. The parties who wronged you were the people who walked into your bank with weapons and demanded money, not the people who manufactured an automobile that is popular and affordable.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yep. But Sarcy will deliberately misunderstand all of that most likely.

[Sarcastr0]

Your argument is about monopolistic supporession of speech. Lathrop said that's not a thing because 1A.

You switch to talking about libel.

Which is a new and separate thesis, not a counterargument.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sigh....

We'll explain this again in small words for you.

1. Monopolistic suppression of speech is a problem
2. However IF you argue that Facebook has the right to suppress the speech due to the fact it is a Publisher and has 1A protection....
3. THEN you also have to account for the issue that publishers have liability for LIBEL and SLANDER for items that they publish. Because with the freedom of speech benefits come the liability for what you say.
4. But you probably want this odd world where Facebook can have all the legal benefits of being a publisher, without any of the legal liabilities of being a publisher. Which is not right.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah. So Lathrops argument did destroy your original thesis, so you need to fall back on a new one - that 1A protections mean you are open to libel suits.

Which as been answered as well many times. You can take advantage of expressive association without eviscerating your existing statutory protections against defamation suits.

Also, check out all the leftists also getting purged from twitter and facebook. Don't pretend it's partisan just because your side yells the loudest.

[VinniUSMC]

Sarcastr0, that the left's scramble for the power to suppress speech also happens to eat their own, is not an indictment of the argument that the left shouldn't have the power to suppress speech indiscriminately based on political whims.

One side wants to stop speech suppression, the other wants to suppress speech harder. Interesting which side you happen to have planted yourself on.

[EscherEnigma]

But you probably want this odd world where Facebook can have all the legal benefits of being a publisher, without any of the legal liabilities of being a publisher.

Mostly I want a world where conservatives stop confusing a private company's corkboard with a public forum.

Which is to say, at my local grocer, there's a large corkboard. Just about anyone can go up and pin something to it. Occasionally the owner will come by and take down postings they think are too old, or just don't like. No one contests their "right" to do so, or claim that because they take down some notices that they're liable for libel.

That's what Facebook, Twitter and so-on are really like. They're broadly open, but the owner has a veto power.

Further, if people really are concerned that "social media" can censor voices, the proper solution is not to try and regulate specific companies, as those companies are not as anti-competitive or monopolistic as you think. If you tied Twitter's hands to the point where they couldn't moderate any non-criminal action, they would lose advertisers, lose users, and lose their jobs. If you tied their hands to the point where they had to pre-clear everything, you'd be limiting them to only allowing select few to post. And in both cases, most of the users would jump ship to the next platform.

No, if folks like you were serious about this, you would be pushing for a protocol-based solution that would dramatically change the social media economy of the internet, while also accomplishing your stated goals.

But if you're not willing to do that? Then I prefer the status quo. I've had to follow a bunch of artists from one platform to another multiple times, and while I'm sure I'll have to do it again someday, I'd rather not have someday be forced early.

[James Pollock]

"We’ll explain this again in small words for you."

Repeating something that is wrong doesn't make it correct. Why do so many Conservatives struggle with this concept?

[James Pollock]

"1. Monopolistic suppression of speech is a problem"

Except it isn't. Your whole argument is based on a flawed premise.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Armchair, you must somehow have missed my many, many unpopular comments on this blog about publishing and liability. It is indeed my contention that Facebook, like all publishers, should share civil liability for defamation with its contributors. I understand that Section 230 says otherwise. Which is why I have been arguing at length and repeatedly that Section 230 should be repealed. To summarize the argument:

Only one method has ever been found to simultaneously foster press freedom, while suppressing libel. That is the method of encouraging private publishing and private editing in a publishing market characterized by diversity and profusion among private publishers. To make that happen requires holding private publishers liable along with their contributors for civil damages consequent to published libel. We know that can work, because it was what did work for more than a century, before Section 230 transformed it for the worse.

Your conjecture might prove correct that enacting my proposed return to those thrilling days of yesteryear would shrink or eliminate Facebook, and others of its ilk. That would disturb me not at all, because their existence stands against my preferred public policy of diversity and profusion among private publishers. As I said, that is the only proven safe harbor for press freedom. For redressing the many grievances now pressed against those internet giants, I have not yet seen even one alternative that does not amount to government censorship of the press. Only the proposed schemes of censorship differ.

Private publishing, with shared liability, in the hands of an immense profusion of smaller publishers, is the only censorship-free solution known or imagined thus far. If any better solution comes up it would interest me greatly. I doubt it will happen.

This is a subject that really requires discussion at much greater length. If you have any challenging questions, please feel free to offer them, and I will try to answer.

[VinniUSMC]

"Your conjecture might prove correct that enacting my proposed return to those thrilling days of yesteryear would shrink or eliminate Facebook, and others of its ilk. That would disturb me not at all, because their existence stands against my preferred public policy of diversity and profusion among private publishers.
...
Private publishing, with shared liability, in the hands of an immense profusion of smaller publishers, is the only censorship-free solution known or imagined thus far."

Yes, your yearning for the days of only the top men allowing things to be published is unpopular.

[David Nieporent]

I understand that Section 230 says otherwise.

No, you don't understand. What § 230 says is that Facebook isn't a publisher of the user-created stuff it distributes.

[James Pollock]

"Armchair, you must somehow have missed my many, many unpopular comments on this blog about publishing and liability."

Are you intentionally using the word "unpopular" in this sentence to mean "wrong"? Or was it just accidental.

[Stephen Lathrop]

JP, yeah, in a way I did intend it to mean wrong. But not me wrong, My vociferous critics wrong. I forgive them. It's a complicated topic. I have experience. They don't. I don't expect them to know better.

Just in general, it's totally normal for lawyers to think that if they understand the law, they understand all that matters about a legal controversy. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it's a delusion. The latter cases tend to be ones where you need to understand some specialized activity the law purports to govern. I'm guessing medical malpractice is an example. Likewise, the whole press freedom thing requires knowledge of the activity of publishing. Without that, you can know everything the law says, and still have no clue what the law will actually do. Plenty of that going on here.

[James Pollock]

"JP, yeah, in a way I did intend it to mean wrong. But not me wrong"

So it's just ordinary irony that YOU are wrong again.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Armchair, see my comment at 7:30 pm.

People familiar with my commentary (Nieporent, for instance,
who ridicules my views on this topic) won't tell you I leave out the parts about liability for defamation. Pretty sure I have said more about that than anyone else commenting on this blog. Liability for defamation is a principal focus of my objection to Section 230. I talk about it a lot.

[James Pollock]

" I talk about it a lot."

Indeed you do, but repeating yourself doesn't make your incorrect understanding magically right.

[ReaderY]

I don’t see a First Anendment issue here. Facebook does publish some things in its own right, but it mostly acts as a carrier for conversations between and among users, like a postal service or telephone company.

All Congress has to do is to declare Facebook a public utility when it simply conveys posts and messages by users, and it could easily curtail its right to censor opinions it doesn’t like, with no First Amendment problem.

Moreover, one could argue that even under current law, to the extent Facebook goes outside its limited license to monitor for responding to threats of violence, obscenity and indecency, etc. and starts suppressing opinions it doesn’t like, it is acting outside the scope of its safe harbor and becomes liable for what it publishes, just like any other publisher.

[jb]

"Moreover, one could argue that even under current law, to the extent Facebook goes outside its limited license to monitor for responding to threats of violence, obscenity and indecency, etc. and starts suppressing opinions it doesn’t like, it is acting outside the scope of its safe harbor and becomes liable for what it publishes, just like any other publisher."

You could argue that, but you'd be wrong. (As proof: about ten thousand cases on the topic, all decided in the same way.)

[James Pollock]

"All Congress has to do is to declare Facebook a public utility when it simply conveys posts and messages by users, and it could easily curtail its right to censor opinions it doesn’t like, with no First Amendment problem. "

All Congress has to do is declare that Facebook IS Congress, so that where the 1st Amendment says "Congress shall make no law..." it clearly applies to Facebook.
If you don't like the way Facebook operates its service, stop using it. That fixes the problem.
It's kind of sad how current "conservatives" are in favor of making some other person (or corporation) let them use the others' property.

[David Nieporent]

All Congress has to do is to declare Facebook a public utility when it simply conveys posts and messages by users, and it could easily curtail its right to censor opinions it doesn’t like, with no First Amendment problem.

Facebook has a 1A right to decide what speech to distribute. And you think that there's "no 1A problem" with Congress waving its hand and saying, "We declare that Facebook no longer has that right"?

[Queen Amalthea]

It's certainly fun to see conservatives discover their inner Chomsky worry about corporate power but what will be more fun will be what they take from their toolbox to deal with it, usually they fight corporate power by throwing tax cuts and union busting at it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Do you enjoy suppression of free speech?

[VinniUSMC]

QA enjoys the right suppression of other's free speech.

[Queen Amalthea]

It's not suppression of speech anymore than my local mall not letting me stand there with a placard saying 'GOP the Party taking Jewish space lasers seriously' is suppression of speech. Stop whining, man up.

[VinniUSMC]

"Man up"

Be careful, you might get cancelled for such sexist language.

Also, how dare you assume my gender. I think today I identify as a space laser that may-or-may-not be Jewish (which there is nothing wrong with being or not being).

[Queen Amalthea]

"Be careful, you might get cancelled for such sexist language."

I haven't seen as pathetic attempt at judo as this in a long while. And I don't need to assume your gender to know you're quite the whiny bitch.

[VinniUSMC]

"whiny bitch."

More sexism. What's the number to report for cancelling?

You're getting really riled up there. Have a Snickers.

[Queen Amalthea]

Don't get your panties in such a bunch Vinni.

Were you a nurse in the Marines?

[VinniUSMC]

My panties are perfectly fine. And, obviously not, because that is not a thing that exists. Not that I would expect you to know anything about that.

Your insults are hilariously juvenile though. Are you 12? At least that would explain your apparent intellectual capacity. The public schooling is failing you.

[Don Nico]

AL,
Get wise QA thinks that the world is all about her.

[Queen Amalthea]

EAIAC

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually, isn't there case law to the contrary?

[David Nieporent]

No.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sounds like yes, you do enjoy suppression of free speech.

[James Pollock]

If you were free to use other people's property to distribute your speech, then there would be a suppression of free speech in FaceBook's decisions about who gets to use their property to distribute speech.

But you aren't, so they ain't.

[AmosArch]

Most conservatives are not anarchists. They agree that some regulation is needed. If its hypocritical that conservatives want a little bit of regulation in an extreme case then it certainly is hypocritical of progs to want no regulation in this case but continued regulation in the thousands of ways they like.

If you guys are suddeenly so freemarket why don't we lift all the other regulations on private companies lefties insist on imposing? So we're not exactly fully freemarket or fully regulatory but just one or the other based entirely on what you guys want? Doesn't seem fair.

[Queen Amalthea]

First, you shouldn't assume that because I find the current iteration of the GOP to be the really stupid party that I'm some flaming liberal. If I were in Congress I'd vote against a minimum wage increase, most the 'Green New Deal,' and a bunch of regulations.

Secondly, this is just not an area that needs regulation, no one is being harmed here any more than Noam Chomsky is 'harmed' by Fox news never having him on.

[James Pollock]

"First, you shouldn’t assume that because I find the current iteration of the GOP to be the really stupid party that I’m some flaming liberal."

If you're not with 'em, you're against 'em. And the only people who are against them are the flaming liberals. You ARE a flaming liberal QED.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I like what Florida is attempting to do.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Dr. Ed, for efficiency, couldn't you just store those 8 words on a key, and use it as your response to everything?

[James Pollock]

"I like what Florida is attempting to do."

Disappear under the sea?

[EscherEnigma]

If we are content letting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so-on be privately run companies, then we must dismiss the notion that they are capable of "shut[ting] down viewpoints from large sections of the population".

The corollary is that is we maintain that yes, these companies are capable of such, then we cannot let them remain privately run companies.

But any attempt to get into the minutiae of content moderation as a matter of law is obviously going to fail: the law is not a scalpel, it is a hammer. So I'm skeptical that any attempt to "regulate" these social media companies can be both (a) effective and (b) not kill the company.

The obvious answer is to work with these social media companies to formulate a kind of "Social Media Messaging Protocol", which would itself be free of censorship or moderation, and reduce the current "social media companies" to operating interfaces to that protocol. This would allow social media companies to (a) continue to exist and still provide a service people want, while (b) being incapable of "shut[ting] down" anyone, as not being able to read the social media updates from @Twat32 on FaceSpace (which has a content moderation policy) doesn't mean that you can't read the same updates on Parab (which doesn't).

All of which is to say... if we agree that the problems you see are real, then there are highly technical, nuanced solutions that will fundamentally change the social media ecosystem. But there are not any easy-to-understand solutions that would do what you want.

[James Pollock]

"1. Is this good, for monopolistic social media organizations to be able to shut down viewpoints from large sections of the population?"

If it happens, we'll find out.

"2. If social media organizations do this selectively to one party during elections, can it be considered an “in kind” donation to the other party, violating campaign finance rules?"

See above.

[David Nieporent]

2. If social media organizations do this selectively to one party during elections, can it be considered an “in kind” donation to the other party, violating campaign finance rules?

No. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

[Queen Amalthea]

Stop The Steal! The Minnesota Timberwolves were ahead by 16 POINTS last night but the San Antonio Spurs were declared the 'winners' by 3. Someone saw an official with a Spurs pen and drunken stripper hired to clean the score board said she's sure it was off. Anyone up for storming the offices of the NBA to SAVE THE SPORT from the GREATEST TRAVESTY EVER?

[David Bremer]

And if you watch the Timberwolves (God have mercy on your soul), you'd know that this is very much a systemic problem, as it happens night in and night out. And has been for years.

The franchise was built on a the ashes of a burned orphanage, situated upon an Indian burial site, built using tools stolen from pirate shipwrecks.

[Queen Amalthea]

The Super Bowl is Sunday. There will be two patriotic songs and you can bet some reverential service for the military, first responders, and such. It's a good time to remember that when a handful of players dared to *quietly kneel* during it the *President of the United States* boorishly called for them to be *fired* repeatedly and many of the same fans of his who now whine about 'cancel culture' applauded and boycotted the entire league (even though the vast majority of players did not and do quite worthy things, also remember the President and his toadies had no similar reaction to, say, players beating their children or dogs). Remember the whining about 'cancel culture' is in no way a serious principle for these people.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There still is a Superbowl?

I stopped caring when the NFL became the BLM -- and truly couldn't care less if there is a Superbowl or Bowling for Dollars on TV as I will be watching neither.

It's not that I disagree with their politics but that they had to be political. Screw that...

[Queen Amalthea]

Yeah, nothing political about their national anthem numbers with military flyovers and essentially commercials for the military.

Like all who whine about 'cancel culture' you're just worried when something you don't like is at play.

[VinniUSMC]

Televised sports can, and should, stop the ridiculous, over-the-top displays of "patriotism" (which are relatively recent inclusions, and are just money grabs anyways).

Leave that stuff for the Olympics or something, where "the world" is involved.

[Queen Amalthea]

I'm fine with them, it's just that everyone should be honest that that is itself 'political.'

[VinniUSMC]

Is the NFL allowed to decide what political speech is not welcome in their private organization, or by people using their "platform"? Or is that only for Facebook?

[Queen Amalthea]

Vinni suddenly, unconsciously, finds the point.

[VinniUSMC]

Well, you caught me, I didn't read your original comment, only your response to Ed.

At least you're finally on the board now.

[Brett Bellmore]

I never cared about the NFL, except to the extent that games going into overtime ended up canceling some show I DID want to watch. Grown adults being paid big bucks to play a children's game.

Well, I guess it's not necessarily the stupidest form of public entertainment, the competition is stiff. But if it weren't for the stadium subsidies, I could gladly just ignore the whole subject.

[David Nieporent]

It’s not that I disagree with their politics but that they had to be political. Screw that…

No, it's that you disagree with their politics. You were fine when they were playing the anthem. It was the fact that they said nice things about black people that upset you.

[James Pollock]

" It’s a good time to remember that when a handful of players dared to *quietly kneel* during it the *President of the United States* boorishly called for them to be *fired*"

And that President got himself fired. Seems like the problem fixed itself already.

[Stephen Lathrop]

How many say the 2A intends a right to be armed for insurrection?

[apedad]

The answer to your question is No, 2A does not intend for people to use arms for illegal activities (robbing a bank, murder, insurrection).

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The answer to your question is No, 2A does not intend for people to use arms for illegal activities (robbing a bank, murder, insurrection)."

Sure, but is insurrection always illegal? Would the 2A have intended for people to use arms to remove Trump and install Biden on the 20th, in the event that the proper authorities failed to to so?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Insurrection is always illegal according to 18 U.S. Code § 2383.

Revolution or liberation on the other hand.... Well, that may be legal.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Insurrection is always illegal according to 18 U.S. Code § 2383."

Do you think that a Trump administration attempting to stay in power after his term was over counts as "...the authority of the United States" under that section?

[Armchair Lawyer]

I think it would depend on who won, whether it would be called a liberation or insurrection.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Fair enough, but I didn't understand Lathrop's question as contingent on distinctions between liberation and insurrection.

[Sarcastr0]

is insurrection always illegal? Would the 2A have intended for people to use arms to remove Trump and install Biden on the 20th, in the event that the proper authorities failed to to so?

No, you nut.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol, why not?

[Sarcastr0]

Because a republic that relies on public violence to keep it on the rails doesn't really have any rails at all.

[TwelveInchPianist]

In my hypo the republic was already quite clearly off the rails.

[Sarcastr0]

Then we're in a zone where the Constitution doesn't apply.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The hypo involved Biden as the legitimate President, but with Trump refusing to yield the levers of power.

I believe that one use for the arms that the 2A protects would be to depose the illegitimate holdover government and install the legitimate President.

You dismissed that as ridiculous, but didn't say why.

[Sarcastr0]

Your informed legitimacy isn't real.

Your scenario does not contain legitimacy. Right, wrong, I'm the guy with the mob.

Once you're propped up not by rules but by mob violence, it's over. Look at Latin America and the Middle East for example after example of that.

You're deep into 'destroy democracy in order to save it' territory.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Your informed legitimacy isn’t real."

I'm not sure what websites you read, but Biden legitimately won the election. He was declared the winner by Congress. That means he legitimately becomes President at noon on Jan 20. If he needs a little help to get there, it's still legitimate.

[VinniUSMC]

Sarcastr0, you're not one of those who believe that if Trump attempted to overstay, that he should have been removed (along with any who aided him) by armed force?

Really?

[Sarcastr0]

Vinni, Legitimate force is not the mob.

TiP, 'If he needs a little help to get there, it’s still legitimate' is not how this ever works. Once the mob puts you in power, it doesn't just go away.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Once the mob puts you in power, it doesn’t just go away."

Government's about constraining the mob. If the mob is putting the legitimate guy in power, it's not a mob.

[Sarcastr0]

If the mob is putting the legitimate guy in power, it’s not a mob.

You fail sociology forever.

If your legitimacy requires a violent mob to effectuate it, it isn't legitimacy. Because then the mob gets to decide when you're legitimate.

This is basic stuff.

[Absaroka]

"If your legitimacy requires a violent mob to effectuate it, it isn’t legitimacy."

Hypo: Saddam, or Pol Pot, tortures one guy too many. The Iraqi/Cambodian people get collectively pissed off enough to storm his palace and string him up. Your argument seems to be that that is necessarily illegitimate, because they are a violent mob. Unfortunately, picketing the Presidential Palace with signs that say 'Down With Saddam' is unlikely to work.

It's not illegitimate to punch out a mugger. You didn't choose to bring violence to the mugger; he chose to bring violence to you. In the hypo above, the Iraqi people didn't choose to bring violence to Saddam out of the blue; they are responding to the violence he initiated in the only practical way.

What next? Stauffenberg was wrong?

"This is basic stuff."

Indeed it is.

[VinniUSMC]

"Vinni, Legitimate force is not the mob.

TiP, ‘If he needs a little help to get there, it’s still legitimate’ is not how this ever works. Once the mob puts you in power, it doesn’t just go away."

Maybe you need to read slower. TiP's hypo involved TRUMP being the illegitimate one that needed to be removed. His hypo did not suggest installing TRUMP was appropriate.

[EscherEnigma]

The hypo involves a successful coup, supported by the "appropriate authorities", including the armed forces, national guard, secret service, capitol police, and so-on. And "2nd amendment solution" at that point would pit armed citizens against the professional men-with-guns, who had aligned themselves with the coup.

So yeah, at the point where you're asking if the "2nd Amendment" allows something, the Constitution is already mooted and the United States of America, as governed by the Constitution of 1789, would be dead.

So no, the 2nd Amendment would not allow anything, because it would no longer apply to anything.

[Sarcastr0]

Absaroka, you seem to be mixing up civic legitimacy with moral legitimacy.

Vinni, I am aware - Biden would not be a legitimate President if he required the mob to install him, even if it was in response to Trump's illegitimate power grab.

That's be the end of the Republic, both as a matter of political philosophy but more importantly functionally. Mob acclimation of leaders has shortly been the end of every republic since Rome; no way we'd be different.

[Absaroka]

"you seem to be mixing up civic legitimacy with moral legitimacy."

?????

"Vinni, I am aware – Biden would not be a legitimate President if he required the mob to install him, even if it was in response to Trump’s illegitimate power grab."

I dunno. The citizenry used violence to depose King George, and then install that other George. I'm not seeing your illegitimacy there. The governed getting to choose their leaders is as legit as things get. I much, much, much prefer the leaders exit peacefully when they lose an election, but if they refuse to do so, removing them by force is the only option left.

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, once a republic is lost you can form a new one, but that's not a nothing task.

The governed getting to choose their leaders is as legit as things get
Not with guns. Once the guns install someone, you have chosen a leader, but not a President. You need to do some unarmed civil work to get yourself back to having a republic.

[Absaroka]

Not seeing it.

President Smith wins an election. Colonel Jackboot doesn't like that, arrests Smith, and installs himself as El Supremo for life. The citizens don't like that, go to the palace, put Jackboot in cuffs, free Smith and carry him back to the presidential office on their shoulders to resume his duties, and turn Jackboot over to the prosecutors.

Your view is that have to repeat the election they just had for Smith to be legit. You may believe that, but it's a silly position; Smith's legitimacy arose when he was elected, and Jackboot's action doesn't remove that legitimacy.

For another example, George Washington's presidency didn't become illegitimate by virtue of the Whiskey Rebellion. That would remain true even if the Whiskey Rebellion folks had rushed Washington's office and deposed him for a few minutes.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"So yeah, at the point where you’re asking if the “2nd Amendment” allows something, the Constitution is already mooted and the United States of America, as governed by the Constitution of 1789, would be dead."

Disagree with both parts of this statement. But mostly, no one is asking if the "2nd Amendment allows something," but whether part of the intent of the second amendment is to enable an insurrection that is consistent with, or an least not inconsistent with, the constitution.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Sure, once a republic is lost you can form a new one, but that’s not a nothing task."

You can, consistent with my hypo, just plop Biden in the oval office and and go on as before.

Now if you want to say that that would not be the same republic but a different one, then you can say that if you want.

[James Pollock]

"You dismissed that as ridiculous, but didn’t say why."

Because it is.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"This is basic stuff."

This is circular reasoning.

[VinniUSMC]

"“This is basic stuff.”

This is circular reasoning."

This is Sarcastr0.

[Sarcastr0]

Legitimacy cannot flow from mob violence. Even if you are legitimate under previous rules, being elevated by the mob means those rules are now suggestions, at the whim of the mob.

And mobs don't love to take suggestions.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Legitimacy cannot flow from mob violence."

Legitimacy doesn't flow from mob violence. Biden is the legitimate President. Neither the hypothetical illegitimate actions of the former administration, nor the hypothetical "mob violence" can deprive him of that.

"You fail sociology forever."

Oh no, anything but that!

[Sarcastr0]

Biden in your scenario is only President thanks to the mob.
That's not a President.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Biden in your scenario is only President thanks to the mob.
That’s not a President."

Biden in my scenario is President because won the election. That's a President.

You're saying the in my scenario he won the election, but isn't President? Hell, at least Trump had the courtesy to claim that Biden didn't win the election.

[VinniUSMC]

"Vinni, I am aware – Biden would not be a legitimate President if he required the mob to install him, even if it was in response to Trump’s illegitimate power grab."

Say what? If Secret Service sided with Trump and let him stay he'd still be the legitimate President? Do you read what you write?

[EscherEnigma]

Say what? If Secret Service sided with Trump and let him stay he’d still be the legitimate President?

If he was still in in power, it wouldn't just be the Secret Service. It would mean that the the Secret Service, the National Guard, the Armed Forces, congress, and so-on all went along with it or were murdered.

And no, he would not be a legitimate president under the Constitution of 1789. He would be a dictator who had successfully executed a coup.

This isn't hard to understand.

[Sarcastr0]

*no one* would be the legitimate President in this scenario. The Republic would be over.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And no, he would not be a legitimate president under the Constitution of 1789. He would be a dictator who had successfully executed a coup.

This isn’t hard to understand."

He's the legitimate President under the Constitution of 1789 at noon on January 20th. Then a bunch of people do a bunch of stuff and suddenly he's a dictator who had successfully executed a coup? It's hard to understand because it's wrong.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Warning: argument in the alternative.

1. What you suggest wouldn't have happened. Biden would have been sworn in, and Trump would have been gone. Urged along by a smallish contingent of sworn enforcers if necessary.

2. If it did happen, any resulting counter-measures, including armed uprisings on Biden's behalf, would not have happened under the Constitution, that having become a dead letter the moment proper authorities failed.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If it did happen, any resulting counter-measures, including armed uprisings on Biden’s behalf, would not have happened under the Constitution, that having become a dead letter the moment proper authorities failed."

1. The constitution doesn't become a dead letter when proper authorities "fail" whatever that means.

2. "If it did happen, any resulting counter-measures, including armed uprisings on Biden’s behalf, would not have happened under the Constitution."

I don't know what you mean by "under the constitution." The constitution doesn't say anything about using force against someone illegitimately trying to claim power.

[Stephen Lathrop]

TwelveInch, sovereignty exists under a different standard than moral legitimacy. Sovereign legitimacy is the power to make a government at pleasure, and to keep it in force. A would-be ruler which does not have that power, or had it, but failed to defend it, suffers the loss of its sovereignty.

Even sufferance of a rival to a sovereign's power calls legitimate sovereignty into question. Ability to rule at pleasure calls for the power to rule without constraint. Rivals for sovereignty almost always create mutual practical constraints. For that reason, legitimate sovereigns are always jealous of their power, and demand that their governments prioritize its defense against all rivals.

Your hypothetical posited a failure by the sovereign People to defend successfully their power to make and control the government of the United States. When that happened, the consequences could only be no sovereignty—if the usurper failed to achieve sovereign legitimacy by making a new government of his own, at his own pleasure—or, a new sovereign, either the usurper or some other, depending on which wielded power sufficient to install the next government and get rid of the other.

Either way, what happened during that interval would not be happening under the U.S. Constitution. That was a decree of the sovereign People, who under your hypothetical had suffered the loss of the crucial-to-sovereignty ability to keep their government in force, and had thus lost sovereignty.

What hypothetical champions of the previous order might choose to do afterwards would be a matter for happenstance, politics, and contests of force to dispose of. That kind of chaos can go on for a long time. In any territory, the existence of sovereignty is never a given.

Anticipating objections from you, I should perhaps mention that the understanding of sovereignty I outlined I learned from the founders—it is my paraphrase of their understanding of the political philosophy of their own time. I happen to think they got the practicalities of it about right, and that nothing much has changed since.

I am certain that staying mindful that the view of government power those founders' notions embody is a powerful tool for originalist interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and numerous other founding-era sources. Forgetfulness of that founding-era conception of sovereignty underlies historical confusions and misinterpretations. Those come up constantly among modern analysts who were never taught to think in the founders' terms about: where government power comes from; where rights come from; what power vindicates rights; what power shapes government; what power greater than government's limits a limited government's powers; and why all those fruits of the sovereign's pleasure are jealously guarded by a continuously active sovereign. If you don't know that stuff even exists, it's hard to get an originalist interpretation of U.S. government right.

[TwelveInchPianist]

So it sounds like the way my hypo plays out is that there is a hypothetical illegitimate attempt by the former administration to seize power.

The response is some sort of action put the legitimate President in power, justifying itself by the fact that Biden is the Constitutionally elected President. The action is successful, legitimate authority is restored, and people go on about their business. Except for a few folks standing in the park on soapboxes claiming that the Republic is no more.

[Absaroka]

If the night janitor sits down at the Oval Office desk and announces he's in charge now, and the secret service does its job by promptly removing him, the republic has not been dissolved.

If Col. Jackboot tries the same and the lawfully defined unorganized militia does its job and removes him, the republic still has not been dissolved.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It was written three years after Shay's Rebellion....

[donojack]

If you're armed you're armed for an insurrection, among other things. Whether there is a right to use arms for an insurrection is determined by the winner.

[Queen Amalthea]

Might makes right, fascism 101.

[VinniUSMC]

Those damn fascist founders of the USA.

[Queen Amalthea]

The Founders didn't think their Revolution was justified by their ability to win it, they explained the ideas behind it in a little document called the Declaration of Independence.

[VinniUSMC]

And, if they lost, what would history have called them?

I guess asking you to think a little bit is a bridge too far.

[Queen Amalthea]

As with most authoritarians it really pains Vinni to think there might be some ideals other than power.

[VinniUSMC]

Say what? The only thing that pains me is your inability to write anything resembling coherent or intelligent discourse.

What would it have been called had the founders lost the war? Answer the simple question.

[Queen Amalthea]

The question is irrelevant to the point that their idea of rights didn't come from might. Again, I realize how how hard it is for an authoritarian to get this.

[VinniUSMC]

"I realize how how hard it is for an authoritarian to get this."

Irony. And projection.

Good stuff.

[Queen Amalthea]

Authoritarian whines, film at 11.

[EscherEnigma]

To the contrary, you can invent as many rights as you want. But if at the end of the day you lack the might to enforce them? Then you do not have them.

Which brings us to governments. One of the major points of human governments is to structure the use of "might" in a way that we believe and hope is moral and ethical, to support the rights we think are true.

So sure, it'd be nice if we were in a world where merely believing something to be true were sufficient to make it true. But we aren't. If you want people to think you have a right to something, you have to persuade them, and specifically you will need to persuade the people that will be tasked with enforcing that right.

You can decry this reality as "authoritarian" if you want, but that's how it works.

[VinniUSMC]

QA belongs to the club that gets to define words in whatever way make their argument right.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"To the contrary, you can invent as many rights as you want. But if at the end of the day you lack the might to enforce them? Then you do not have them."

No. We find the construct of human rights useful independent of our ability to secure them, because it helps us decide which rights to strive to secure.

[EscherEnigma]

We find the construct of human rights useful independent of our ability to secure them, because it helps us decide which rights to strive to secure.

Which says nothing to deflect from the simple fact that an unsecured right is one you do not have.

"Might makes right" is not an ethical or moral statement. I do not claim it is. But it is also true. And without the "might" to back it up, you will have no "rights", no matter how good you are at spinning rhetoric.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Which says nothing to deflect from the simple fact that an unsecured right is one you do not have."

That's not how the construct works in this context. We don't say that people killed in the holocaust didn't have the right to life, we say that their right to life was violated. But we don't say that my right to drive drunk is violated, we say that I don't have the right to drive drunk.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Vinni, you just changed the question. The first time you asked what history would have called them. So you get two answers:

1. History would have called them failed pioneers of popular sovereignty, the notion which subsequently took over influence in many of the world's most successful nations.

2. Of course, the answer to your second question is that the British would have called them traitors.

Do you have a point that addresses my question, whether the 2A intends a right to arms for insurrection?

[VinniUSMC]

I asked the exact same question, but with words in a different order. Go back and read it again.

"Do you have a point that addresses my question, whether the 2A intends a right to arms for insurrection?"

Seeing as I was responding to QA, and not you, no I don't have a point that addresses your question. But, I will answer it now.

2A protects the right of the people to bear arms, even up to the extreme case that history repeated itself, and revolution was necessary.

Whether we are at that point now is an entirely different question. Also, one in which the answer is different depending on who wins.

[EscherEnigma]

Might makes right, every-human-government-ever 101.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Whether there is a right to use arms for an insurrection is determined by the winner."

Whether there is a right to use arms for an insurrection is determined by the facts on the ground. Are the people in power still under meaningful democratic control? Are they committing atrocities?

[Sarcastr0]

You're arguing justification, not right.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You don't understand the link between right and justification?

[Krychek_2]

There's a link, sure, but they are different concepts, and you can have one without the other. Kind of like materiality and relevance.

[VinniUSMC]

Yeah. There is a right to revolution, if there is justification.

If something can't be justified, how can it be a right?

[Krychek_2]

You can have a right to do something that nevertheless is unjustified in the specific circumstances. For example, my right to free speech allows me to spread conspiracy theories, but that doesn't mean I'm justified in doing so. Merely that the government can't prosecute me if I do.

[Sarcastr0]

You're putting the cart before the horse. A right can allow a justification, a justification cannot create a right.

A justification definitionally contains it's own freedom to act; no separate right required.

Rights that require justifications are redundant. They don't strike me as very robust rights at all.

[TwelveInchPianist]

What we're talking about is "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

So right there you have a right being contingent on a justification.

[Sarcastr0]

Tell me more about this right to abolish the government.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Tell me more about this right to abolish the government."

You know where to read about it.

[VinniUSMC]

"Tell me more about this right to abolish the government."

Dafuq? I seem to have made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Could you please point me back to the US?

[Sarcastr0]

That's not a right in the US. Or, really, anywhere. We actuallu fought a war related to the issue.

It's rhetoric. Good rhetoric, but rhetoric it is.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"That’s not a right in the US. Or, really, anywhere."

It's generally recognized as a moral right everywhere, and it's a legal right in the US. People can secure it through elections, or in the extreme, through a constitutional convention. And if circumstances arise where democratic processes cease to function, it can properly be secured through violence.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"There’s a link, sure, but they are different concepts, and you can have one without the other."

Sure. You can even have one contingent on the other.

[Krayt]

A declaration of independence is a declaration of illegal resistance. That is why one should lay out in detail the reasons, as well as how it is not a step to be taken lightly.

And that was resisting the Tyrant King George.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sure. It's a declaration that one has a right to engage in illegal resistance, and it provides justification for that right.

[Stephen Lathrop]

TwelveInch, you are answering a question you prefer to the question I asked. Here is my question again:

Does the 2A intend a right to use arms for insurrection? Care to answer it forthrightly?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Does the 2A intend a right to use arms for insurrection? Care to answer it forthrightly?"

It's not a very forthright question, I'm not sure you mean by "intend[s] a right" but I'll do my best.

The 2A protects a right to keep and bear arms. The primary purpose of this right is self defense, which can include insurrection in circumstances where insurrection is morally or legally justified. How's that?

[TwelveInchPianist]

OK, looking back at your original question it was clearer than how to phrased it the your last comment.

"How many say the 2A intends a right to be armed for insurrection?"

In circumstances where insurrection is morally or legally justified, then yes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, duh.

Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1890--91

"§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

§ 1891. A similar provision in favour of protestants (for to them it is confined) is to be found in the bill of rights of 1688, it being declared, "that the subjects, which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law." But under various pretences the effect of this provision has been greatly narrowed; and it is at present in England more nominal than real, as a defensive privilege."

Obviously, it would be silly to incorporate into the Constitution an actual right to insurrection, in as much as no government that ought to be faced with insurrection would respect the right anyway. But we have numerous contemporary sources indicating that one of the purposes of the 2nd amendment was to enable insurrection if the times actually called for it.

[grb]

Sigh. I jumped at your link thinking there was (somehow) a connection to the biblical Joseph story. That would give me an excuse to plug Thomas Mann's tetralogy, Joseph and his Brothers.

So I will anyway. At 1492 pages (hardcover, Wood's translation), I admit it's a challenge - but a worthy and rewarding one. The earliest parts concerning Jacob & young Joseph are the best. In their world the interaction of God & men echoes up from the unknowable past thru reoccurrence, meaning they're often able to comment and criticize the story of their lives as they live it. The later parts sink the reader deep into the alien world of ancient Egypt.

It's a comedy, but the humor is subtle, gentle, sympathetic & humane. As an added bonus, Mann wrote these four novels of Old Testament Jewish lore while his Germany was consumed by fascism and anti-Semitic hate. (Note : If you try the book, be prepared to fight the opening chapters, particularly the prologue. It's writing is turgid even by Mann standards)

[Brett Bellmore]

Nope, just a famed jurist and constitutional scholar who was a contemporary of the founders.

It's actually quite easy to confirm that enabling insurrection was, in fact, one of the purposes of the 2nd amendment.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Not a contemporary of the founders. Story was 10-years old in 1789.

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, granted that he was too young to BE one of the founders.

Doesn't change the fact that he was personally acquainted with them, which is what I meant by "a contemporary". I mean, he was put on the Supreme Court by Madison, for crying out loud. He had some idea of their thinking, he wasn't pulling his commentaries out of his ass.

I could cite other sources, even closer to the ratification. The fact is, the 2nd amendment WAS intended to protect the capacity of the the people to engage in insurrection, should such ever become necessary.

[Bob from Ohio]

"How many say the 2A intends a right to be armed for insurrection?"

Yes. Against tyrants.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Is B. Hussein Obama is the Antichrist warned about in the Bible?

He was the first ex-President to remain in DC, he was in the background fueling TDS for four years, and from what I hear, he is the power behind Bite Her Arse.

Is he the AntiChrist?

[Queen Amalthea]

Love Trumpistas, absolutely love 'em.

[grb]

This level of desperate noise from Ed, one month into Biden's presidency ?!? Our boy is gonna be a mess by Year Four.....

[Dr. Ed 2]

Tell me that this doesn't sound like a nuclear war -- right on down to hiding in rocks for protection.

Just sayin....

...there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

[grb]

Well, at least Ed is upping his game from continual predictions of a Second Civil War. Whatya gonna do when that shtick becomes stale thru repetition? Move on to the Apocalypse itself!

[EscherEnigma]

I will not tell you what that sounds like.

Instead, I will tell you that Christians have been thinking that the prophecies in Revelations will come true during their own lifetimes for roughly 2000 years. This is part of why the original Christians thought celibacy was better then marriage and children, because they thought their children would die in the apocalypse.

So I beg pardon, but Christians have been predicting the end of the world for 2000 years. They may be right someday, but at this point it'll be due to perseverance, not because their prophecies are uniquely accurate.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Regardless, nuclear weapons were unheard of when King James had this translation done in the 1600s, let alone when the original texts were written.

And does this or does it not sound like a nuclear war? And the Med probably would boil -- it's shallow enough not to dissipate the heat.

[Brett Bellmore]

Says somebody with no conception at all of the relevant numbers.

3,750,000 cubic KILOMETERS of water.

A megaton warhead is good for a bit over 4*10^15 joules of energy.

That's about 1 joule per cubic meter of water.

Oh, but there are about 1,430 megatons of nuclear bombs, world-wide.

So, the entire world's nuclear arsenal could raise the temperature of the Mediterranean sea about... a quarter degree.

[EscherEnigma]

Regardless, you're just another doomsayer in a long line of wrong doomsayers. Odds are good that you'll be wrong too.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nonsense. I'm confidently informed, by a close friend, that Gorbachev is the Antichrist. He even wrote a book about it!

Makes for some entertaining conversations at summer BBQs, I can tell you.

[grb]

I think it needs better cover art to rack-up the sales...

[TwelveInchPianist]

I thought that the European Common Market was the antichrist.

[Mr. Hook]

Let's pretend you actually are/were an academic and not a paranoid rando who's lost his street corner. How do/did you handle students who make assertions, aloud or on paper, without evidence or the sinews of logic? Say, a student writes something batshit in a term paper like, I dunno, Obama is the Antichrist pulling the strings or Jews have space lasers that start forest fires. How do/did you deal with that as an instructor?

[Dr. Ed 2]

1: I was asking a question, academics do that.

2A: The concept of airborne incendiaries igniting West Coast forest fires is not new -- the Japanese actually did it. Seriously -- in the latter days of WW-II, the Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs were such a concern that the US Army had a "Firefly Project" to fight the resultant forest fires. See: https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2015/02/12/firefly-project-and-the-555th-parachute-infantry-battalion-smoke-jumpers/

2B: There *are* lasers powerful enough to light fires -- laser vendors warn about accidental fires being lit in the process of using their lasers. Now as to weight and power source, that would be an issue, but in theory...

2C: There *have* been forest fires maliciously set.

[Mr. Hook]

"I was asking a question, academics do that."

Actual academics ask critical questions and are demanding of evidence and its interpretation. There are certainly bozos in academia who are untethered to reality, but the more likely scenario is that you're a more common lunatic.

But, please, go on with why it's very possible that Jews have secretly militarized space and are starting forest fires in the US with them. If you could also confirm whether or not Obama is actually behind this Jewish space laser conspiracy, that'd also be welcome.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You apparently don't know many academics. And accusing *me* of antisemitism is beyond asinine although you do raise an interesting question: *is* Obama actually behind this Jewish space laser conspiracy?

In other words, did he (or his minions) fabricate it?

Someone did, someone started circulating those misattributed images, and doing so maliciously so as to discredit ones opponents is one very real possibility. (Remember "I can see Russia from my front porch"?)

And look at this realistically -- *if* Israel had a space laser weapon, with Bibi N as PM, do you honestly think that Iran would even *have* a nuke program?!?

[Mr. Hook]

"You apparently don’t know many academics."
Well, beyond teaching at a university, yeah, you're right.

But, hey, I'm just asking questions. Is Dr. Ed an anti-Semite just because he traffics in their tropes? Does he think Obama is the Antichrist who is engaged in conspiracies against humanity? Or is he really that gullible and undemanding of any unbaked idea as long as it confirms his paranoia and victimhood? They're interesting questions, indeed.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Smear 101

[Mr. Hook]

Just asking interesting questions based on what I hear!

[Queen Amalthea]

Hey, man, it's all in complete sentences so Vinni is fine with it. Intelligence police, all the way!

[VinniUSMC]

Dr. Ed is Sarcastr0's turf, I wouldn't dare impose.

Also, I don't believe in an anti-Christ, or a Christ, or an Allah, or whatever. But, thanks for thinking of me.

[EscherEnigma]

When talking about the "anti-Christ" you have to remember that the anti-Christ of the Bible wasn't any one person, it was just anyone who denied that Jesus was God. John threw the phrase around a lot to describe folks he didn't like.

If you're sticking to the Bible, that's it. So according to John, no, Obama is not an anti-Christ because he was a Christian.

Now, if you're looking at extra-Biblical Christian mythology, that's where you get the kind of "anti-Christ" that you're talking about here. Now, being from extra-Biblical Christian mythology, there is no one way for someone to be an anti-Christ, but common themes...

(1) They would be accepted as the Messiah by the Jews of Jerusalem.
(2) They would rule for seven years before being defeated by a host of angels.
(3) He is sometimes the Pope (conflicting with (1), obviously)
(4) Born of a whore who purports to be a virgin

By any of those traditional measures of "anti-Christ", no, Obama is not the or an anti-Christ. He is just a politician you don't like.

[wreckinball]

Are the Emergency Orders used by most of the governors constitutional?

A local PA court ruling called the local DOH ruling obviously constitutional.

But just searched the constitution. I could find no clause where the executive branch (DOH is part of the executive) can declare an unending emergency indefinitely which violates civil rights.

Maybe Professor Volokh or one of his esteemed colleagues can explain what is "clearly constitutional" about these orders?

[Queen Amalthea]

Might want to google police power.

[Brett Bellmore]

Emergency powers are in the invisible codicil to the Constitution, written in a special ink you can only see if you're wearing a black robe. At least for the federal government.

Governors are given some degree of emergency powers at the state level, by state constitutions and legislation. Though it's only the codicil I referenced above that allows these to override civil rights.

[Queen Amalthea]

Again, google police power.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And "due process of law"...

[wreckinball]

PA state constitution discusses emergency powers primarily in regards to emergency funds specifically for things like floods.

Nowhere does it state that our basic civil rights can be usurped by a governor EO declaration . And the PA state constitution does not trump the US constitution.

So its all invisible ink . That can only be seen by the legal Eagles.

This is by design of course. That there is no suspend the constitution clause in the constitution. BECAUSE it would result in a declared indefinite emergency basically suspending rights. Like now.

Are there any Federalist Papers that address the issue

Volokh staff help us see the light!

[Queen Amalthea]

Good grief dude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_constitutional_law)

[Brett Bellmore]

" That there is no suspend the constitution clause in the constitution."

Well, there IS the power of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. That's the closest to a "suspend the constitution" clause I can find, though.

The problem is that the judiciary have found some kind of "unless the government has a good reason" exception to basically everything in the Constitution.

[Brett Bellmore]

You keep going, "Police power!", but the whole point of having a bill of rights is to identify places the police power isn't allowed to go.

[Queen Amalthea]

Again, good grief.

The police power is the *default* for state power. Then constitutions might limit it, if there is an explicit provision to that effect. What's the 'can't make quarantine rules' provision?

[Brett Bellmore]

The Bill of Rights might be thought an explicit provision, and thanks to the 14th amendment, applies to the states.

The question was, after all, if emergency powers could override civil liberties. Not if you go by the parts of the Constitution visible to ordinary mortals.

[Dr. Ed 2]

BUT, Brett, there is a reason why Lincoln's suspension of that writ in Maryland was problematic -- that little bit about "in rebellion"...

[Kenneth Almquist]

The local PA court presumably issued a written opinion which answers your question. Have you tried reading it?

[wreckinball]

Yea I read it. His opinion cited no authority from the constitution. He just states that the DOH has the right to do this because of Covid.

But of course I knew that already because I read the constitution.

[AmosArch]

I've warmed up to the idea of cryptocurrencies considerably. Used to be extremely skeptical of them. Couldn't wrap my head around Satoshi farting and making money out of thin air. Then I realized thats basically modern currency. Told myself gold has intrinsic value while crypto doesn't and then realized that was mostly a fig leaf people tell themselves. For the most part gold has value because its accepted as a medium like most currencies not because you're itching to stamp out a circuit board from it. All major mediums of exchange are pretty much faith.

Still unsure about bitcoin specifically and I still think there are major problems crypto has to overcome but I've shifted to the position that these are mostly technical rather than inherent. Recent events, especially within the past few years definitely show that there is a need for something separate from our current financial system.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think criptocurrency is going to crash.

Currency has value because of the presumption that the issuer will back it. A century ago, most major US banks issued their own notes which were accepted the way that Federal Reserve Notes are today.

[donojack]

Gold has a long history and is almost embedded in our DNA. You are right in the abstract about it not having intrinsic value but do you really think that there is any forseeable circumstance where gold value will plummet? The long-term floor for gold price is the labor to mine it which hasn't changed much over time. It is usually much higher than that because of speculation.

Bitcoin has labor attached to creating it too but do we know if that is fixed? If someone figures out how to produce it quickly and cheaply what will happen to the price?

Stick to gold for an inflation hedge and gold coins for bugout purposes.

[donojack]

Also only physical gold obviously.

[Brett Bellmore]

Bitcoin, IIRC, was designed so that harvesting more coins would take an exponentially increasing computational investment, to keep the harvest rate constant in the face of Moore's law.

Which law failed a few years back, so the cost of new bitcoin keeps going up.

[AnCapBarbie]

Apologies for the duplicate. Meant to write this as a top-level comment, not a reply to another (unrelated) comment:

The only reason state governments aren’t mandating COVID “vaccines” is that doing so would force them to stand before the Supreme Court and argue that SARS-Cov-2 is as dangerous as smallpox, and the agenda the manufactured fear serves is far more important than the pretext under which it is being pursued. Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)

https://ancapbarbie.wordpress.com/2021/01/28/there-is-no-proof-that-sars-cov2-exists/

[Dr. Ed 2]

Marjory Taylor Greene -- Trump Impeachment Part Three.

[Queen Amalthea]

I absolutely agree we should conflate Greene and her theories/comments and the question of her treatment with Trump and his theories/comments and the question of his. Absolutely.

[grb]

Greene and Trump both benefit from a core trait found in today's Right : The priority of surface entertainment over policy and governance. The MAGA crowd didn't care that Trump was a "non-politician" only thru brat-child theatrics and his contempt for the duties & ethics of the office. They didn't care his "policies" were usually a gaudy fireworks show, void of substance. Many of the cult freely admit they worship Trump as a middle finger to everyone and anything. All DJT ever truly promised them was entertainment, but that's exactly what they wanted.

Likewise, Greene. Do you think Georgia Republican primary voters picked her over Dr. John Cowan because of policy differences? Not a bit. They chose the more entertaining show. Her crazy nonsense was a feature, not a bug.

It started back with the explosion of Right-wing talk radio decades ago. The fantasy world of craziness & lies paralleled reality back then, but the two spheres gradually merged. Fox News meant a Right-type could pop a can of beer and watch the sum of everything depicted as cartoon puppet show. Politicians slowly adapted to audience requirements. W Bush was the cowboy Decider. Sarah Palin was something, God alone knows what. With Trump, the last barriers between reality-TV and politics vanished. The presidency itself was a television sitcom.

[Queen Amalthea]

Well said.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sarah Palin had her finger on the pulse of the silent majority, as did Trump.

Yes, both were a middle finger to the establishment, but populists *are* that, and always have been. We want the bums thrown out...

[grb]

Exhibit A, folks........

[EscherEnigma]

Neither Palin or Trump has ever won a nationwide popular vote. At most, they had their "finger on the pulse of the silent [minority]".

[Brett Bellmore]

Palin was a bit handicapped by being the running mate of an idiot who didn't actually want to win, and so suspended his campaign well in advance of the election, and then turned his efforts to destroying his running mate's political future.

Real class act, that.

[EscherEnigma]

I love your dedication. No matter how badly your favored politicians lose, it's always someone else's fault.

[David Nieporent]

Worse, to Brett, whenever one of his guys loses, it's sabotage by dark and sinister forces. The GOP that was 150% in Trump's pocket somehow actually didn't support him. McCain "actually didn't want to win."

[VinniUSMC]

"The GOP that was 150% in Trump’s pocket"

Which GOP was that?

[James Pollock]

There's only the one.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"No matter how badly your favored politicians lose, it’s always someone else’s fault."

Both sides. There was an awful lot of that when Hillary lost as well.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I don't think McCain had much chance there. But even the underdog is capable of unforced errors, they just can afford them less.

But it was quite conspicuous, and remarked upon at the time, that he actually turned on his running mate after he gave up on even trying to win. Guess he didn't want having run with him to have given her a leg up.

[grb]

Wow. Apparently we have another right-wing male who felt "little starbursts" course thru his body at one of Palin's campy winks. In case you've forgotten, Brett, the woman was a cringe-worthy embarrassment at unscripted moment during the 2008 campaign. Palin-grade "success" only came afterwards, when she earned cheap wages on trash reality TV shows that matched-up with her tabloid life. Her one governing success story ("something ... bridge ... something") proved an outright lie after five minutes of scrutiny.

And apparently she hasn't changed a bit these past twelve years. Just a few weeks ago she was eager to get out in front of LYING STUPID with claims the Capitol riots were by antifa. She had (it seems) “been sent pictures” that led her to believe “a lot of it is the antifa folks.”

Real class act, huh? The fact Palin is a bubble-headed lackbrain clown with all the gravitas of a helium balloon is much more a handicap than McCain's rueful buyer's remorse. Wouldn't you agree?

[David Nieporent]

Sarah Palin had her finger on the pulse of the silent majority, as did Trump.

Math is not one of Dr. Ed's strong points.

[James Pollock]

"Sarah Palin had her finger on the pulse of the silent majority, as did Trump."

If the pulse is silent, the patient's outlook is not good. And you seem to have the terms "majority" and "minority" backwards.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I had thought that the test for fitness was being elected by the constituents of the district. But if we're going to start removing people from committee assignments because they're nuts, boy do I have a list.

[Sarcastr0]

She's calling for the death of your co-workers nuts, which looks pretty special to me.

[Armchair Lawyer]

And yet, Maxine Walters is still around

[Sarcastr0]

She's calling for the death of her co-workers?

Show your work.

[Armchair Lawyer]

She called for mobs of people to physically assault Cabinet Officials and was publically called to be censored for it.

[Sarcastr0]

Show me the vote that talks about anything getting physical.

And, of course, *called* to be censored is not much.

[Brett Bellmore]

She called for actions that clearly rise to the level of assault, and your refuge is that she didn't explicitly call for battery?

And yet you think Trump obviously incited the riot...

[Armchair Lawyer]

Of course, then it just moves further into the public celebrities that are used.
Here's Peter Fonda
"rip Barron Trump from his mother's arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles"

Still happily employed by Hollywood, despite calling the the President's underage child to be ripped away and put in a cage with pedophiles.

Can you imagine what would happen if a Hollywood Celebrity said the same about Obama's kids?

[Sarcastr0]

Neato new goalposts. Not buying them though.

[Krychek_2]

Peter Fonda isn't an elected official, so again, you consistently demonstrate an inability to find analogies on point.

With respect to Maxine Waters, I'm not familiar with her comment, but based on your comment, it sounds like someone already looked at it and decided it wasn't worth pursuing. However, you continue to miss the point that because someone else got away with something isn't a legal defense. Otherwise, Hitler couldn't be held accountable because Stalin.

[Brett Bellmore]

In the alternate universe where Hitler was all talk and no Holocaust, why would it be such a bad thing not holding him accountable?

The usual rule of these things is that if somebody on my side says it, it's just overheated rhetoric. If somebody on the other side says it, it's a terroristic threat.

My rule is that it's all just talk until it isn't. Hold them accountable for what they do, it's the voters' job to hold politicians accountable for what they say.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, in your hypothetical alternate universe in which there was no holocaust, what would there be to hold Hitler accountable for?

But in a universe in which both the Holocaust and the Ukraine actually happened, one should be able to discuss one without having someone chime in, "But what about the other?" Because "what about the other" is nothing more than an attempt to derail.

And, if your position is that Trump did nothing wrong, fine, make that argument. But there's no reason to bring in Maxine Waters as she sheds no light on the question under discussion, which is whether *Trump* did anything wrong.

[Brett Bellmore]

The point is that we ARE talking about people who were all talk, and no Holocaust. But there are still demands they be "held accountable".

For what? Speech.

[Krychek_2]

I suppose that if Maxine Water's comments had actually resulted in a riot, or someone getting killed, or even a few windows bring broken, you might have a point. But the central issue you're missing is that there was a riot following Trump's comments (the disputed issue of fact is whether there was a causal relationship between the two). There was no riot following anything Maxine Waters said. So even under a generous allowance of what aboutism, the two are not even remotely on point.

[Brett Bellmore]

She did get people mobbed in public, and threatened.

[David Nieporent]

Still happily employed by Hollywood,

I mean, no.

[James Pollock]

"Brett, in your hypothetical alternate universe in which there was no holocaust, what would there be to hold Hitler accountable for?"

Invading other European countries with malice aforethought.

[Sarcastr0]

clearly

[Armchair Lawyer]

See, in Sarcastro Land, if you call for protestors to

"Peacefully and Patriotically' March "....you're really calling for them to violently invade and assault the Capitol.

But if you call for people to to "get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them."

Well, that's entirely peaceful.

[Sarcastr0]

Just something I've noticed around here.

If you appeal to 'clearly' you've lost.

Your attempts to create a double standard between Trump and Maxine Waters is not doing you any favors either.

[Queen Amalthea]

Assault vs. executing people, same diff, amirite?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually, yes -- once the threshold is crossed, it becomes what the mob thinks it can get away with. Ever hear of the Klan?

[Queen Amalthea]

An inability to make basic distinctions seems a hallmark of Trumpistas.

[Armchair Lawyer]

You mean the quote.

"Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere."

Note that language. "Form a crowd". "Push back on". That's physical language being called for.

[Sarcastr0]

How is that physical language?

[Armchair Lawyer]

In which I need to read the dictionary to Sarcastro.

Push: exert force on (someone or something), typically with one's hand, in order to move them away from oneself or the origin of the force

[Krychek_2]

That's not how I read it. "Push back on" simply means to resist, but not necessarily by force. Maybe she did mean it literally, but I'm not convinced based just on that quotation.

[David Nieporent]

How is that physical language?

I think it's arguably such. Could be metaphorical, could be literal. And I condemn her for it either way. You should not be harassing administration officials in their private lives. It's (as I said) an illiberal attitude. But it is not even remotely the same as "shoot Pelosi in the head," which is most certainly not metaphorical.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"...you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them..."

Many New York Democrats, to their credit, were quite critical of the remarks.

[Sarcastr0]

You think push back means push, like, the person?

No, you don't. You're not AL, who might be that dumb.

Don't insult me with that bad faith.

[TwelveInchPianist]

What do you think she meant? What other kind of pushing requires you to get out of your car and created a crowd?

And there were lots of Democrats who characterized the comments as "inciting violence."

[Sarcastr0]

You know what push back means. So quit blowing smoke.

Partisans on the left being tools doesn't give you the justification to lie.
Kinda like you did about sexual assault statistics in the previous thread.

You've really turned into quite the liar, eh? Being angry at liberal tactics doesn't give you the justification to deceive people.

There are dumb people all over these comment threads, but you know better and still choose to lie.

Just awful.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"You know what push back means. "

Do you know what "March patriotically and peacefully" means? Please explain it in your own words.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You’ve really turned into quite the liar, eh? "

Push doesn't mean push, Gaslightro?

[Queen Amalthea]

You're being silly TP, it's quite odd for one who is advocating someone physically push someone to tell them to push *back.* C'mon.

And, it's silly to begin with because even arguendo it's advocating assault that's < advocating murder by a large factor. This is a really silly hill to die on. She's a nut, most Republicans are not, move on.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You’re being silly TP, it’s quite odd for one who is advocating someone physically push someone to tell them to push *back.* C’mon."

It's also quite odd for someone advocating figurative pushback to to demand that the pushers to create a crowd and physically confront the pushees.

And as I pointed out in my link, Democrats had no problem interpreting the comments as inciting violence when they were directed at the Cuomo admin. You C'mon.

[Queen Amalthea]

If I tell you to 'push back' against someone you really think I'm talking about physically pushing them? I guess after they pushed you first? That second word does some work, y'know? You're smarter than this.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If I tell you to ‘push back’ against someone you really think I’m talking about physically pushing them?"

The quote is, "And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere."

That means that you get a crowd, remove them from the restaurant, department store, etc., and tell them they're not welcome there. And the Democrats thought the same thing.

[Sarcastr0]

"That means that you get a crowd, remove them from the restaurant, department store, etc., and TELL them they’re not welcome there"

You had to read remove into that quote. And even then, you ended up admitting it was speech.

Quit making a fool of yourself.

[Jimmy the Dane]

"Gees those are some really nice store fronts downtown, it would be a shame if something happened to them..." democrat says to a crowd of BLM rioters.

Yeah so we are only supposed to "read into" statements made by Trump (who never actually said do what people did) and liberals just mean exactly what they say every time, no exception. And all the videos of people taking those marching orders and harassing people in public places to the point where the victim had to leave are just, what, people being overly zealous?

This is why you are a joke Sarcastro. Stick with the gaslighting. It suits you better.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's one thing to say somebody isn't welcome in a particular place. A really offensive one thing, if it's a public place.

But to tell them they're not welcome anywhere? That's getting into death threat territory. You've got to be somewhere, if you're going to be alive.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You had to read remove into that quote. And even then, you ended up admitting it was speech."

We're talking about what Waters meant.

Sure, there are contexts where "push back" doesn't mean physically. "Hey, If Steve tells you to use cheaper components, you push back and tell him that that will make the product less reliable."

But how do you "push back on" someone who's getting gas or eating in a restaurant? The statement meant exactly what the Democrats thought it meant about the Cuomo administration: If you see them getting gas or eating in a restaurant, you push them out of that environment and you tell them they're not welcome there.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Sarcastro is cool with violence and such as long it is "his guys" who are doing the punching, pushing, kicking, and shoving. BLM...that is "mostly peaceful protests" all day long and that looting, rioting, and property damage, well that is just you know stuff that happens. A bunch of activists who were unjustly censored by the media and Big Tech engage in a peaceful sit in and well that is a "coup" or "insurrection" or other similar "bad" thing. He is nothing more than a duplicitous fool.

[James Pollock]

"Sarcastro is cool with[...]"

So you are now the go-to source for information about what Sarcastr0 is cool with?

[James Pollock]

"I had thought that the test for fitness was being elected by the constituents of the district"

No, that's the test for electability.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Pentagon Orders ‘Stand-Down’ to Address Extremism in the Ranks

The idea that there ought to be an ideological litmus test to be in the military sounds pretty extreme. Maybe Lloyd Austin needs to go.

[Queen Amalthea]

The military has always policed political ideas. Marxists, jihadists, pacifists, etc., are not much welcome at West Point. They're not worried about people who want tax cuts or less spending, they're worried about people who want to kidnap public officials and think Jews are shooting space lasers at our forests.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The military has always policed political ideas. Marxists, jihadists, pacifists, etc., are not much welcome at West Point."

You forgot atheists and Muslims. You really think they'll be able to police wrong-think any more better than they have in the past?

[Sarcastr0]

Your argument is that the military can't draw lines between radicalism and normal ideological diversity.

Except as QA has pointed out, the military has been doing exactly that since basically it's inception.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Your argument is that the military can’t draw lines between radicalism and normal ideological diversity."

My argument is that no one in power can to this.

"Except as QA has pointed out, the military has been doing exactly that since basically it’s inception."

No they haven't.

[Queen Amalthea]

They've been doing it forever. Do you think you can speak your mind however you want at West Point or Annapolis? They have (and have had) a speech code that would make Liberty University blush.

And btw organizations are *constantly* drawing the line you think is impossible to draw. There are certainly things you can say, political things, that will get you shown the door at every church, company, etc.. This is called 'life.'

[TwelveInchPianist]

"They’ve been doing it forever. Do you think you can speak your mind however you want at West Point or Annapolis? They have (and have had) a speech code that would make Liberty University blush."

Yes, they've been policing normal ideological diversity forever.

[Queen Amalthea]

They have to.

[James Pollock]

It's a bit of a dirty secret that the Constitution doesn't apply to people in the armed services the way it does to everybody else. Take the fourth amendment, for example. Doesn't apply to service members the way you were taught it applies to you. The teach this to the recruits at basic military training. When you're on a military base, you can be searched if the MPs or APs want to search you, and if you don't consent to be searched, you should stay off the base. Of course, if you stay off the base, you'll be dragged base for being AWOL.

[Queen Amalthea]

Like most organizations the military has to police some expression for the sake of cohesiveness to achieve their mission.

[Krychek_2]

I was in the Navy many years ago, when it actively hunted down and expelled anyone found to be gay. At one of the bases at which I was stationed, a group of gay Christian servicemembers quietly (so they thought) started a Bible study for gay Christians. Naval intelligence infiltrated the group and they were all kicked out.

I was really uncomfortable with the idea of the government infiltrating a religious group that posed no real threat. It's not like its members were plotting to blow up admiral's row; they were a group of Christians having a Bible study. In any other context, the idea of government infiltrating a Bible study would have been greeted with raw fury and outrage. Yet, because the members were gay, their religious freedom flew out the window.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Concerns WERE raised about the excesses of the NIS back then.

[Bob from Ohio]

"They’re not worried about people who want tax cuts or less spending"

Yet.

[Sarcastr0]

The idea that there ought to be an ideological litmus test to be in the military sounds pretty extreme

You'd be cool with communists in our armed forces?

[TwelveInchPianist]

You don't think there are communists in our armed forces?

[Sarcastr0]

Not my question.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yes, I'm cool with communists in our armed forces. I'd prefer fewer of them in our schools, but I'm not on the size that believes in deprogramming people I disagree with.

[Queen Amalthea]

Which side is working to mandate 'patriotic' education?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Which side is working to mandate antiracist education?

[Queen Amalthea]

Well, didn't you say there was ONE side who wasn't doing any deprogramming?

You lose dude. Sorry.

[Brett Bellmore]

Anti-racism is just racism with the opposite charge, rather than an alternative to racism.

[Sarcastr0]

So the previous purges of Commies from the armed forces, not something you're into?

Because if not, you're to my left on that one.

[VinniUSMC]

It's not PC to call them Commies anymore. It's "Democratic Socialist" now, comrade.

[Sarcastr0]

Not the same thing. Norway is not the USSR.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I seem to remember "someone doing something" at Fort Hood in 2009, and "someone doing something" at Pensacola Naval Air Station in 2019, along with "someone doing something" with grenades in the 101's Command Tent in Iraq back in 2003.

But no, let's ignore the real risk and instead chase shadows...

[Queen Amalthea]

Resident alien is a pretty good show. Northern Exposure but with an alien. Also, WandaVision is killing it. If you can take subtitles 30 Coins is some fun horror/action fare.

[Krychek_2]

Years ago there was a US Supreme Court case involving a newspaper in Pittsburgh that had a policy that they would accept paid wedding announcements but would only publish the bride's photograph; not the groom. Yes, times have changed. Anyway, they were sued for sex discrimination by a couple that wanted a picture of both bride and groom to appear with their paid wedding announcement. The newspaper claimed a First Amendment right not to publish anything they didn't want to publish.

The Supreme Court held that there was no First Amendment issue because the case was about selling advertising and not about expressing a particular viewpoint. If it had been a news story, that would have been different, but the fact that it was paid advertising made it a business like any other business, so the couple won.

There were similar cases in the 1960s and 70s over help wanted ads; back in the bad old days, the help wanted ads were categorized by "jobs for women", "jobs for men", "jobs for whites" and "jobs for Negroes". And ads frequently specified that the employer wanted a specific race or gender to fill the position. The courts fairly consistently held the same thing as in the wedding photo case: This is about paid advertising, so it's a business like any other business, so there is no First Amendment issue, so the newspapers lost.

Assuming those cases are still good law, might there be an analogous argument that Twitter, Facebook, et al. are places of public accommodation, and therefore subject to anti-discrimination laws in what they allow to be platformed? Twitter and Facebook don't exist to promote specific viewpoints; they exist to provide a forum for the general public. Must they then truly offer it to the general public, at least to the extent that anti-discrimination laws might apply?

I have not come to a firm conclusion as to what I think the answer to that question *should* be; this is one I see both sides of.

[Armchair Lawyer]

There's one other interesting item to consider from your article about advertisements. If there was libel or slander in the given advertisements, who could be held liable? Would the newspaper be liable? Or the advertising agency?

In my opinion, Facebook and Twitter are acting primarily as distributors of information...not publishers. They take the posts from the various people, and immediately post them without reading them, without real editing, etc. In this context, they are distributors...they are not true publishers.

They are largely acting as distributors of information without editing...like Comcast, like AT&T. If they were required to provide actual editorial oversight of all posts before posting, their business models would quickly collapse, just like if AT&T had to screen all phone calls for illegal activity before it would send them through

The ability to selectively "edit" post-hoc and somehow gain 1A protections, while simultaneously not having liability for slander and libel can be abused, and is increasingly going down that line. Coupled with its monopolistic status, it makes a dangerous abuse of power.

A company that is allowed to "say" anything, without being able to be prosecuted for libel, while simultaneously editing out anything it doesn't want to "say" and having a monopoly over communications.

[dwb68]

When they start taking down groups like Virginia Citizens Defense League (which advocates for 2nd amendment rights), they stop being "distributors" and start being editors. Did they also take down Shannon Watts or any anti-gun group? Some high ranking members of these anti gun groups have made atrocious statements calling for NRA members to die and calling them terrorists.

I am not defending anyone on either side who makes stupid statements. Personally I think that they speak for themselves and the ignorance of the person making the statement. They turn people away more than persuade. The worst punishment is leaving them up for everyone to see, rather than doing them a favor by deleting them.

But, when Facebook etc cherry picks who they take down, they become editors.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Armchair:

1: _NYT v Sullivan_ was over a paid ad placed by some now-obscure civil rights group.

2: AT&T actually *could* screen phone calls as they are transmitted as digital data. That's what's scary -- they *could.*

[Krayt]

Removing slander protections is threatened to get them to censor harrassment and dangerous ideas, by the by, our political opponents are tweeting harrassing and dangerous ideas, start with them!

But really they are separate issues. Threatening to hurt private businesses unless you silence things the government wants silenced is wrong.

And "dangerous ideas" is the standard argument used by dictatorships to filter or ban western news outlets.

Damn, that orange man was so bad we need censorship here.

[Artifex]

To a large extent Twitter and Facebook are a symptom and not a cause. In a functional market, bias by either one could be handled by additional services coming online to compete for the clients Facebook and Twitter have abandoned. If the market is allowed to function the problem will be addressed by an inflow of dollars to competing services if and only if the demand exists.

Attempting to legislate a solution to the problem is foolish. Forcing Twitter or Facebook to carry content they disagree with is counterproductive and makes it harder for competing business to enter the market. This form of affirmative action will fail exactly as have the previous versions of related policy. It won't help the people that the passers of the law intended and it will instead be used by the elites to entrench their position.

Effort here is better spent understanding why the Progressive cartel can block entry into the market and defanging the laws that allow this to occur.

[EscherEnigma]

Paid advertisements on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and so-on are already covered by non-discrimination laws, to the point where there have been successful cases that Facebook has allowed advertisers to target their ads impermissibly narrowly†.

But you're not trying to make an analogy between paid advertisemetns in print publications being covered by non-discrimination law to paid advertisements in social media being covered by non-discrimination law, you're trying to make an analogy to the unpaid user content.

So I'm skeptical that your premise, that the cases are analogous enough, is correct.

Further, your claim:

[Twitter and Facebook] exist to provide a forum for the general public.

is wrong. They exist to provide eyeballs to advertisements. The "forum for the general public", to the degree that it exists‡, is the "how" the company accomplishes it's raison d'être, but not what it exists for.
________

†Previously, you could say "I only want this ad shown to white men". Facebook lost that case.
‡And a public forum that requires membership in a private club makes this a harder argument then you concede here.

[James Pollock]

"Twitter and Facebook don’t exist to promote specific viewpoints; they exist to provide a forum for the general public. "

Actually, they're in the business of selling advertising.

[dwb68]

dot.com bubble 2.0: I am loving it. 1.9T stimulus ought to add a lot of nice fuel to the fire. Even better, it will allow me to retire early, in a tax bracket where I don't need to pay much in taxes (with the Biden administration's coming high taxes, it wont make sense to work).

The next generation can pay all the taxes that are due, lmao.

People think USA is in a class warfare. Sort of: more like a generational warfare. rich old(er) people who have worked and earned money, vs poor young people who think the govt will bail them out of life.

[Krychek_2]

Why is it only considered class warfare when the poor decide to fight back?

[dwb68]

lol, this is the "poor fighting back"? They are eliminating any chance of getting rich by working hard. I have already worked pretty hard and made my money, and I can choose when to retire and avoid taxes, lol.

[dwb68]

oh, I forgot, the youngsters are going to pay for all my health care too. lmao. I guess someone forgot to tell the younger generation old people consume most health care in the last years of life trying to stave of the inevitable.

[Aunt Teefah]

That would seem to cast doubt on your theory that the conflict is generational and not class-based, no?

[dwb68]

Why? Most young people are way too hormone crazed to know whats good for them. They are sitting at home watching porn on discord not realizing the bill has not come due.

[Aunt Teefah]

Not to mention always stepping on your lawn.

Your problem is that young people *do* know what's good for them . . . and it ain't capitalism.

[dwb68]

yeah, they love to write "it aint capitalism" on their ipad, from the luxury of the internet, sipping their Starbucks latte. lol

[Dr. Ed 2]

And Gen X getting screwed by both ends...

[dwb68]

I saw that movie!

[Dr. Ed 2]

dwb68 -- don't forget that inflation is a tax....

[jb]

"The next generation can pay all the taxes that are due, lmao."

Ah, the Boomer approach to governance in a nutshell.

[dwb68]

thats how votes for high taxes always work. The revenue never materializes because behavior changes.

[PaulS]

Will Senator Leahy be voting in Trump's Senate impeachment "trial"? Or will he only Preside? Is there any (potential) conflict if he does both? What would happen if there is a motion for him to recuse himself. Presumably he would rule against it - then it would be put to a vote - which he would then (again) vote against.....

[ThePublius]

No, but they will dream up some reason to allow Harris to vote.

[Krychek_2]

Harris only gets to vote if there's a tie, and it takes 2/3 to convict, so I'm having trouble seeing any circumstance in which Harris would have a vote, or at least a vote that would actually change the outcome.

[Queen Amalthea]

Harris is a black/asian immigrant woman in a position of power, so the usual suspects have to moan about her in general, relevant or not.

[Cal Cetín]

"a black/asian immigrant woman"

But is she gay? You can't get a Bingo unless she's also gay.

And she isn't even an immigrant, she's a natural-born citizen.

Or are you some kind of Birther?

[wreckinball]

She is the descendant of a white Irish slave holder also? Does that cancel a whole bunch of woke points?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Or she is a corrupt Democrat but keep on using the "talking about her is racist" dog whistle to avoid real discussion.

[Bob from Ohio]

"immigrant "?

If she was an immigrant, she couldn't be VP.

[Krychek_2]

Well, Obama was born in Kenya . . .

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If she was an immigrant, she couldn’t be VP."

Yeah, I didn't think Kamala birtherism really took off. I'll bet Queen Amalthea and Trump are the only two out there.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Also, Bari Weiss.

[Brett Bellmore]

All they have to do is redefine "tie" to mean "one vote short of conviction"; Easy peasy!

[PaulS]

It's not really a "conviction" question. He has the same role Justice Roberts had last time. Senator Rand Paul submits To Senator Leahy a question for the house presenters to answer - It can be as absurd as - Have there been any private/non public communications between Senator Leahy or Senator Leahy's staff and any of the presentors or presentors staff concerning Donald Trump? Are the presentors prepared to make all these communications/descriptions of these communications available to the Senate? Leahy - as the one presiding - rules that he will NOT ask the question as he sees it as irrelevant (not that he needs to give a reason) so now it goes to a senate vote. Does he get to vote as a part of the senate voting to overrule what he has already ruled on?

[PaulS]

Note 2/3 of 99 is 66 so (if I understand the way it works correctly) there is no difference in the number of Republicans it takes to convict Trump whether Senator Leahy votes or not (he would be the 67 vote) - it still takes 17 republicans. Where it makes a difference is during the hearing.

[David Nieporent]

She couldn't vote on the ultimate question of conviction, but I suppose in theory she could be asked to break ties on procedural questions (such as whether to allow a particular witness), which would follow ordinary majority rule rather than the supermajority for conviction.

[PaulS]

If Republicans were to vote as a block on procedural questions it only gets to a tie if Senator Leahy gets to vote again on an issue he has already ruled on - Will he be voting again?

[David Nieporent]

I don't see why he wouldn't, but your statement is also only necessarily true if everyone votes. Leahy doesn't vote, but also Josh Hawley is out sick with headuphisassitis, and so it's a 49-49 tie.

[Cal Cetín]

Yesterday was the anniversary of The Day the Music Died -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died

[Jimmy the Dane]

I saw McClean perform that song in a small group setting unplugged a while back. It was great. Really haunting lyrics when you think about them. At the end he was asked by a woman what did the song mean. His answer (which he has given before) was "It means I'll never have to work another day in my life again..."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

NOVA Lawyer and rilldrive earned prizes in the Fantasy Election Of The United States contest.

I ask each to respond to this message so that I may deliver the prizes (Amazon gift cards, unless another gift card is arranged).

[BrotherMovesOn]

Please recall my 1/28/21 filing regarding my 'race to the registry' position to claim the inevitability forfeited gift card prize.
My predictions tied for first place, and I can affirm this was and is the case, via affidavit, co-signed by Melissa Carrone. Many thanks.

[M L]

The vast majority of things the federal government does were never consented to in the original constitution or any subsequent amendment.

"[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Emphasis added)

[M L]

The two major political parties are nearly equivalent in this regard, and this state of affairs will never be changed by any national election or any act of any part of the federal government.

[Krayt]

This is why I fear a constitutional convention, in spite of the desires of some on the right. It will be filled with exactly the people who should be banned from it: national politicians seeking to increase their power.

This is The Several States, and The People by way of that, telling the federal government the powers it shall have, and no others. Sure, politicians are among The People, but in that respect, they do not stand at the head of the line, and for the reason mentioned above, should be at the very end, after children, newborns, and people hanging from wires in coma storage facilities.

[M L]

I don't care about a convention. What the States need to do is interposition and nullification, exactly as the founders intended.

[James Pollock]

You apparently wish you lived in a different country with a different history than ours.

[VinniUSMC]

Who will Biden appoint as the new Reality Czar?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Democrat now want to make "lies" illegal. Has anyone told them that their entire political existence would be in question then? Can you think of one major liberal position that is not built upon a lie?

[James Pollock]

"Democrat now want to make 'lies' illegal."

But you absolutely cannot let them do that, can you?

[Queen Amalthea]

"Democrat now want to make “lies” illegal. "

Uh-oh you're going to hear from Vinni, Marine nurse soon, as he's so passionate about proper English. He's totally not a tribal tool!

[M L]

Good thing we elected Beijing Biden.

Women in China's "re-education" camps for Uighurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured, according to detailed new accounts obtained by the BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071

Tursunay Ziawudun, who fled Xinjiang after her release and is now in the US, said women were removed from the cells "every night" and raped by one or more masked Chinese men. She said she was tortured and later gang-raped on three occasions, each time by two or three men...

The BBC also interviewed a Kazakh woman from Xinjiang who was detained for 18 months in the camp system, who said she was forced to strip Uighur women naked and handcuff them, before leaving them alone with Chinese men. Afterwards, she cleaned the rooms, she said.

The Chinese men "would pay money to have their pick of the prettiest young inmates", she said...

"The woman took me to the room next to where the other girl had been taken in. They had an electric stick, I didn't know what it was, and it was pushed inside my genital tract, torturing me with an electric shock."

"The girl became completely different after that, she wouldn't speak to anyone, she sat quietly staring as if in a trance," Ziawudun said. "There were many people in those cells who lost their minds."..

In separate testimony to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, Sedik said she heard about an electrified stick being inserted into women to torture them - echoing the experience Ziawudun described.

There were "four kinds of electric shock", Sedik said - "the chair, the glove, the helmet, and anal rape with a stick".

"The screams echoed throughout the building," she said. "I could hear them during lunch and sometimes when I was in class."

Another teacher forced to work in the camps, Sayragul Sauytbay, told the BBC that "rape was common" and the guards "picked the girls and young women they wanted and took them away".

She described witnessing a harrowing public gang rape of a woman of just 20 or 21, who was brought before about 100 other detainees to make a forced confession.

"After that, in front of everyone, the police took turns to rape her," Sauytbay said.

[Sarcastr0]

Good thing this wasn't going on during Trump.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Or that liberals don't think this is a good idea when you ask them what we should do about Trump supporters...

[James Pollock]

What the Trumpistas apparently need is one of those "invisible fences" that works for dogs, with the electronics sewn into their "America isn't Great" hats.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that you can justly blame Trump for not taking official notice of the Uyghur genocide at the beginning of his administration, instead of the end.

Which doesn't excuse Democrats being mad about his taking official notice of it at all.

[James Pollock]

"I think that you can justly blame Trump for not taking official notice of the Uyghur genocide at the beginning of his administration, instead of the end."

Right, Trump was on the case, ready to protect the Uighurs. It was just unfortunate that, as a bumbling buffoon, "taking official notice" was about the pinnacle of things he was able to do about it.

[Glaucomatose]

Those are the camps that Trump told Xi he thought "were exactly the right thing to do," right?

And the nine months that Ziawudun was held, and the 18 months the other Kazakh woman were held, occurred prior to the last two weeks, right?

Sorry, what am I missing here?

[Sarcastr0]

It's a knotty foreign policy-human rights problem to be sure.

Dumping it on Biden's lap weeks into his Presidency is the height of bad faith, though.

[Glaucomatose]

Dumping it on Biden's lap when he becomes president is the nature of the presidency. Apparently blaming him for something that happened under Trump is the nature of stupidity.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry, by dumping in his lap I meant blaming him for it holding him culpable for it not being solved already.

We're on the same page.

[Bob from Ohio]

Under the genocide convention, since the US government has declared it a genocide, he's obligated to take action.

He has time to require men to be allowed to play girls sports.

Well?

[James Pollock]

"He has time to require men to be allowed to play girls sports."

So why isn't this keeping you busy?

[mydisplayname]

Voice of America first reported the "waning pandemic" in India back in December (21-Dec-2020). This week, the CDC actually admitted the pandemic has been waning in the US since December... and the Washington Post today reports the story.

I shall restate a comment I've made before: in the US, Rt dropped below 1 in early December (10-Dec-2020) and the pandemic resulting from the current strain will abate long before a critical mass of Americans has been vaccinated for it. It is nice that there is now worldwide agreement regarding that fact.

[Krayt]

I guess the new world order stopped their disease sprayers.

[James Pollock]

Trump DID stop holding superspreader rallies...

[M L]

Open borders policy is BACK ON under Joe Biden.

WashPost: Mexico Ends Trump-Era Border Cooperation

Mexico has stopped accepting the return of most migrants caught at the U.S. border, prompting U.S. officials to release them into the United States, according to the Washington Post.

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/02/04/washpost-mexico-ends-trump-era-border-cooperation/

[Jimmy the Dane]

Great news. I am sure Mexico is going to send us all their university professors, teachers, nurses, and doctors. This will be great for everyone!

[James Pollock]

We've been cherry-picking the best engineers the world has to offer, along with doctors, teachers, nurses, and yes, even university professors, since the end of WWII. We also took in some rocket engineers with some unfortunate political history during that period. And we had a policy of keeping every Cuban who could get here.

[M L]

Thoughtful quote of the day.

“The right of self defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits...and wherever standing armies are kept up, and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” St. George Tucker, Commentaries on Blackstone's Law

[De Oppresso Liber]

Those quotes about liberty and the second amendment always sound nice, but you have to ignore every other country with a democratic/republican constitution and more gun control than the US to think there is any truth or meaning there.

I support the second amendment, like the rest of the constitution, and think that a constitutional amendment should be required to enact gun control. But, let's not pretend that gun control = tyranny, unless you want to argue that Canadians, Swiss, Germans, and Portuguese are all living under tyranny. These types of arguments are very easy to defeat, and weaken the pro-gun side of the debate.

[Brett Bellmore]

Gun control doesn't so much equal tyranny, as it enables it. Doesn't guarantee you'll get tyranny, just opens the door to it.

It's kind of like, doors without locks don't equal burglary, but if somebody demands you get rid of the lock on your door, you probably will suspect them of intending to burgle you home. Because, otherwise, why be so adamant?

There's also the problem that, in order to disarm an already armed populace that doesn't want to be disarmed, and doesn't think you're legally entitled to disarm it, you pretty much DO have to become tyrannical.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Gun nuts are among my favorite culture war casualties. You will comply, clingers.

[apedad]

So if there's a (constitutional) law that people had to register/give up their weapons, then you're saying they would become criminals and not follow the law.

Good to know....

[Brett Bellmore]

Unavoidably, though, barring the 2nd amendment being repealed, there can't be such a constitutional law, and the criminals in your hypothetical are actually the people enacting and enforcing the law. And gun owners understand that.

Look, as a general rule, enforcing laws without extreme tyranny requires that the relevant population regard the law as legitimate, and largely comply, voluntarily.

If you have a law against muggings, the people being mugged will assist the police in finding any muggers, that's a huge help. The same is true of any normal crime with actual victims. Even in the case of murder, any incidental third parties will be cooperative with the police, seeing murder as wrongful, and properly prosecuted.

But when you get to a law the subject population doesn't view as legitimate, and which doesn't generate victims desiring to report violations to the police, you're in a pickle. Otherwise 'law abiding' people will actively conspire to conceal, not expose, violations, their very law abiding nature urges them to defeat the illegitimate law, not assist it.

This means that normal police practices suitable to a free society just don't work.

But the government doesn't give up in such cases. Oh, no. It resorts to police practices that AREN'T suitable to a free society. Paid snitches. Provocateurs. Illegal surveillance and parallel construction to conceal it.

And because the success rate is still dreadfully low, they start ramping up the penalties, trying to achieve deterrence with vicious penalties applied rarely, instead of reasonable penalties applied frequently. Often the penalties they can officially levy against those actually caught and convicted are inadequate, so they resort to unofficial penalties against those merely suspected. Trashing houses during searches. "Throw down" weapons to provide fake evidence for convictions where real evidence couldn't be found. Seizure of property without criminal charges.

The connection between laws widely seen as illegitimate, and tyranny, is quite direct, and unavoidable. Ruby Ridge and Waco were not accidents, 'tragedies'. They were deliberate,, atrocities, committed in the cause of imposing gun control on an unwilling population. And we've seen that in other countries that had native traditions of being armed, where the government decided to disarm their people.

...

Now, if we didn't have a 2nd amendment, or a long standing tradition of civilian gun ownership, this dynamic doesn't have to get started, because gun ownership is perceived by most people as properly subject to criminal law, not a right being illegitimately attacked. It can still be to enable tyranny, but does not inevitably entail it.

But we do have a 2nd amendment, so gun control and tyranny are joined at the hip.

[James Pollock]

You'd be right if the 2nd amendment said that you had an unlimited right to possess the number and types of firearms of your choice, but it does not.

[M L]

Define tyranny.

[James Pollock]

Why, that's when the federal agents bust into your house, drag you into the kitchen and won't leave until you've baked a gay wedding cake.

[M L]

We are now being told that Officer Brian Sicknick was not killed with a fire extinguisher during last month’s Capitol Hill riot. Which means…

Once again, we are being taught the lesson that everything the establishment media report eventually ends up being exposed as a big fat lie.

Remember that horrible and harrowing story about U.S. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick being beaten to death with a fire extinguisher during the Capitol Hill riot last month…? Well, guess what…?

…it didn’t happen.

In fact, according to far-left CNNLOL, the medical examiner found no evidence of any blunt force trauma of any kind during Sicknick’s autopsy.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/04/nolte-investigators-say-blunt-force-trauma-did-not-kill-officer-sicknick-capitol-riot/

[wreckinball]

Its like hands up don't shoot. It didn't happen but the idiots will keep repeating it.

The only person who died because of the riot was Ashli Babbitt. Who no one mentions.

A couple of other folks died of medical issues , like Sicknick, but they did not even enter the capitol and died at the protest not because of the protest

[Glaucomatose]

Oh thank God. After watching footage of a police officer being dragged down a staircase, kicked and beaten with a pole flying the American flag lying on the ground while rioters chanted "USA! USA!", and after seeing that 81 Capitol Police officers and 65 DC Police officers had been injured, and that officers had been attacked with bear mace and pitchforks, and that one officer had died in the immediate aftermath of the attack and two more killed themselves in the following days, I'd been worried that this was some sort of violent assault, but now I'm relieved to hear that this wasn't the case.

[Bob from Ohio]

No need to embellish the story then.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm thinking untreated high blood pressure...

[David Nieporent]

I’m thinking

Don't lie, Dr. Ed.

[James Pollock]

It's not his fault, the truth is not in his favor, so he can't go with that.

[Kenneth Almquist]

The claim that "everything the establishment media report eventually ends up being exposed as a big fat lie," is not only false, it's one that the even Breitbart writer John Nolte doesn't believe. An anonymous source tells CNN that the autopsy of Brian Sicknick didn't reveal any evidence of blunt force trama. Nolte believes CNN's information is correct, and rightly so because CNN has a pretty good track record. But when he reveals that he trusts CNN, he's admitting that his primary thesis is a lie.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was an exaggeration, yes: CNN is perfectly willing to run with the truth if it will serve the narrative, even if they'll also lie if it takes that.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Nolte hasn't made a case that establishment media has lied at all, so there's no basis for claiming that his statement was a mere exaggeration rather than a lie.

[James Pollock]

"It was an exaggeration, yes: CNN is perfectly willing to run with the truth if it will serve the narrative, even if they’ll also lie if it takes that."

Brett, the fact that YOU are like that does not imply that anyone else is ALSO like that.

[arch1]

Eugene’s Monday post "To Say That the Court Finds the Motion Puzzling Is to Do a Disservice to Puzzles Everywhere" reminded me of the following puzzle about a puzzling motion:

Challenge: Hold a tennis racquet with its handle horizontal and its head away from you. Toss it so that it flips head-over-handle once and catch it by the handle again, without causing the racket to also rotate about its long (handle) axis.

Observation: Unless you’re freakishly good at racquet-tossing, you’ll find this easy when the face starts out in a vertical plane (i.e. it’s easy to keep the face in a vertical plane throughout), and extremely difficult when the face is initially horizontal.

The Puzzle: Explain in plain English why the initial orientation of the racquet face affects its subsequent behavior in this way.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's fairly easy to explain mathematically, but verbally?

It's the Dzhanibekov Effect.

Long story short, if you spin something about its axis of greatest (Or least!) angular inertia, it's pretty stable, because to change to a different axis you'd have to trade angular momentum against kinetic energy, which requires interacting with another object. They both have to be conserved at the same time, after all.

But if you spin it around an axis of intermediate angular inertia, it can tumble, because it can put some of the momentum into the high angular inertia axis, and some into the low, and they keep "sloshing" back and forth.

Guess which is the intermediate axis?

You can also stably juggle the racket while spinning it around its handle, but that's pretty boring, no?

[arch1]

Thanks Brett. While this looks technically correct, I think it’s possible to explain in a way that brings more folks along for the ride. Feel free to chime in on the technical accuracy of any further responses (including mine), and we shall see.

[EscherEnigma]

Stick your hand out the window of a moving car and play. You'll quickly get an intuitive sense of how air resistance and exposed surface area interact.

[arch1]

Thanks Brett. While this looks technically correct, I think it’s possible to explain in a way that brings more folks along for the ride. Feel free to chime in on the technical accuracy of any further responses (including mine), and we shall see.

[arch1]

Below is my best shot at a plain-English explanation of the racquet puzzle. Thanks to all participants.

When the racquet is flipped head-over-handle, it’s rotating around a line that is horizontal and passes perpendicularly through the handle roughly where the handle meets the 6”-wide-by-8”-long head (it’s a small racquet:-). Call this line the main rotation axis (MRA).

Now consider a typical tiny section S of the head’s frame, located at 3 o’clock when viewing the head face-on. When the head is initially horizontal (Case 1), S is only 8”/2 = 4” away from MRA; but when the head is initially vertical (Case 2), S is 5” away from MRA (since going 8”/2 = 4” in one direction, then 6”/2 = 3” in a perpendicular direction, to get from MRA to S means that the straight-line distance between them is the hypotenuse of a 3-4-5 triangle). These two orientations are respectively the closest and the farthest that S can get from line MRA.

That’s important because, like everything rotating around an axis, each part of the racquet acts like it’s being pushed *away* from MRA by something called centrifugal force (the same thing that pushes you into your seat back in a rotating amusement park ride.) And just after you release the racquet, try as you might, S is always a bit off from its intended position relative to MRA. So the centrifugal force, which pushes S farther away from MRA *always*, pushes it back towards its maximally-far position in Case 2, but *farther away* from its maximally-*close* position (amplifying any slight rotation around the racquet’s long, handle axis) in Case 1. This is the difference in behavior which you see between the two Cases.

(These racquet scenarios are confusing what with their axes and geometry and all, but at bottom they’re like the difference between placing a ball bearing in a frictionless crystal bowl vs. on top of a frictionless crystal ball and expecting it to be there a few seconds later: In each situation, one scenario is easy and the other difficult because some force (centrifugal force with the racquet, gravity with the ball bearing) either opposes, or amplifies, small initial errors.)

PS. Brett, I had a chance to look in more detail at your linked site. Very cool, thanks for the pointer.

[arch1]

Thanks EE. I agree with your comment, but not with its relevance to this puzzle (as you can verify if you’re careful, a big heavy hammer behaves similarly to the racquet, where it’s hardly credible that air would be a factor).

[Jimmy the Dane]

Demoncrats foster inclusion and bipartisanship by stripping a freshman rep of her committees for no apparent real reason other then she once did something that the media inflated and conflated. Can't wait until the wonky beliefs of certain squad members becomes the talk of the day. Their odd beliefs in the Jews don't get much coverage until now.

[James Pollock]

"Demoncrats foster inclusion and bipartisanship by stripping a freshman rep of her committees for no apparent real reason other then she once did something that the media inflated and conflated."

The key point being that she once did the something(s) complained of.