volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
I'm interesting in the potential of distributed social networks, including this one.
I think it has a FAR way to go, but maybe contributing to it would help it get there.
Well, it's Occam's Razor.
The simpler explanation is just that the court is following through on its simple legal mandate of pointing it out when agencies in power are in violation of the law.
And again, if the laws are bad laws, then this is how WE call for the laws to be revised. I think that's so important.
If 21 U.S.C. § 355 needs to be changed to allow the FDA's actions, let's get to it!
The reason I can tell that's untrue is because ProPublica is the one presenting a single perspective in their reporting.
It's weird to say that the one representing a single perspective is the one that's not cherrypicking.
No: those are the cherries.
It's funny because the judge was calling out the FDA's admitted failure to follow the safety rules for drug approval.
Biden oversees the FDA now.
So he's trying to point fingers for his own failure. He should have had the FDA fix the regulatory issues instead of complaining on being called out.
No, that's the opposite of what happened here.
BECAUSE the judge isn't an expert, therefore he can't somehow override the procedure for approving a drug.
The FDA didn't follow safety rules for approving the drug, by their own admission, and so by law the judge has to call them out on that, no matter if he personally thinks the drug is safe or not.
Maybe the rules are bad. Maybe Congress needs to reform the law. But that's not up to the judge.
Well keep in mind that judges are not experts in health stuff and can't judge things like side effects and frequency.
They are experts in law and procedure, HOPEFULLY procedures that will keep people safe, but again, that's not up to judges to sort out because it's not their area of expertise.
The judge was looking at things like illegal actions of the FDA and errors in how the drug was approved because those are the guardrails around safety, for better or worse the judge isn't qualified to say.
It's really up to Congress to change the rule if it needs to be changed. The judge is only able to say that the safety rule wasn't followed by the FDA's own admission.
In my experience, so many experts that I know personally are absolutely fed up with news reports misreporting things about their own fields.
There's a good reason people are losing so much faith in the press lately. We can see for ourselves that they are reporting things that we know, that we can see with our own eyes, are untrue. And then we see reporters supposedly only consulting with experts who will tell them what they want to hear to justify the stories they want to tell.
No, the justices aren't above the law. They're required to obey the same laws as the rest of us.
However, if we want an independent judiciary, then Congress cannot have power over the Supreme Court, and cannot be allowed to bully justices.
Why a newspaper couldn't find an expert to point this out, well, you'll have to ask the paper about their methodology there.
The issue is that the way the US legal system is set up, judges don't really have to option of ignoring law just because they think it's a good thing.
Or a bad thing.
It's a sword that works both ways: because we don't want judges doing bad things outside of law, that means we also can't give them the freedom to do good things outside of law.
Maybe so, but the issue is that the FDA was legally required to respond. No matter how hard the eyerolling is, well, that's how Congress laid out the rules of the road, and failure to follow the legal rules leads to exactly this sort of situation.
Again: YES let's revisit those rules and decide if they need to be changed.
We need to highlight the legal rules at issue so we can call for statutory reform.
@CGHildebrandt
Here's the opinion laying out the reason for the stay.
If the laws about FDA procedure, leading to the stay, need to be fixed, then let's get on it.
Good catch! Hmmm...
It looks like the original plaintiffs, AAPLOG (f. 1973) joined with American College of Pediatricians and others to form the current plaintiff, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
You can see the member badges at the bottom of this webpage:
@trz4747@mstdn.social
You said there were erroneous assumptions and reasoning.
Quoting two terms--not even the judge's own words as he explicitly points out in the opinion--don't amount to citations of either erroneous assumption or reasoning.
What I'm really interested in seeing, though, is the specific error in reasoning that would lead to a different outcome.
(And one thing to keep in mind is that courts in the US system are required to accept questionable assumptions in certain parts of the process, especially preliminary ones.)
Well, FWIW, when I read such a term that's not the impression I come away with.
I do like a label when a government has any financial association with a news organization, but off the top of my head I can't think of a quick label that might be more clear how small the financial association is.
It also reminds me of news orgs themselves (NPR in particular) having disclaimers in their reports, again without getting into the magnitude of the association.
@trz4747@mstdn.social
Well, "the game" at this point is providing citations to support your accusations.
Of course, it's up to you whether you want to do that or not, but if this is something that matters to you, it seems like you'd be eager to invite others to your perspective by showing what you're referring to.
Otherwise, well, social media is no stranger to people whistling into the wind, just venting.
Oh, I forgot to include a link to the full opinion, which I finally managed to come across just a few hours ago.
I feel like so much has been said about this before the actual ruling made rounds, kind of solidifying a narrative before the evidence was in.
@trz4747@mstdn.social
Well, what are some specific examples?
I'd say the label is an improvement for NPR since it's both more literal and allows that the organization is more independent, more credible.
To me "state-affiliated" comes across as a state run mouthpiece.
In fact, when I popped over to Wikipedia to refresh my member of examples, I see the page already uses exactly this language to differentiate the two.
"Government-funded" instead of "state-affiliated" is about journalistic independence in this way.
@barney@mas.to
You misunderstand the federal appointment process.
No president is allowed to unilaterally appoint whomever they want. Instead, they are required to engage with the democratic process to ask permission to make the appointment.
This process is there specifically to make sure the democratic process has a check over unilateral executive power for matters as important as choosing justices.
Yes, a president will be frustrated that he doesn't have such power in his hands, but we prefer democracy over that kind of authority in the federal government.
@gwfoto@newsie.social
Another point is a bit technical, but technically the TX court is **also** maintaining the status quo as of when the case stated.
According to the ruling, the FDA stonewalled this process for over two decades, refusing to come to court, basically.
Both cases, TX and WA, are maintaining the status quo, *as of when the different cases were filed*. That matters to the law, even if it sounds weird to us.
No. SCOTUS normally doesn't get involved at all.
Keep in mind (it might have been said above) that these two rulings don't conflict as applied, as they address different plaintiffs, and in fact they do so explicitly, as if the two judges were taking pains not to step on each other's toes.
There's nothing unusual about different regions of the US being covered by different laws. This is just an example of that, preliminarily, while the judicial system continues work on the case, so it's nothing dramatic that SCOTUS MUST address.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
volkris's choices:
