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 really don't care about party.
It's about pointing out the individual legislators and president who got us into the situation as they passed appropriations bills without actually funding them, promising to spend money that they would not have, and now putting us into this state of chaos.
I don't care what party my representative claims. If he voted for this situation, he needs to be held accountable for that, and I would vote against him.
But no. The people who caused this situation are going to be largely reelected, they were largely reelected, because they are allowed to point fingers elsewhere for the situations they are responsible for.
Oh it's definitely constitutional. Congress can appropriate whatever money it wants, and Congress is perfectly free to pass very irresponsible bills because we elect irresponsible politicians to engage in that legislating.
And we keep reelecting the same people who have passed irresponsible bills. So I guess we're cool with that.
But none of that changes the situation we're in now where the president wants more power to borrow, and Congress isn't really happy to give it to him, as is the whole point of the process, the checks on power built into the US system of government.
Yes, the last Congress was irresponsible. This president is not only complicit in that irresponsibility but is promoting it now with his threats of default.
And since we don't call these politicians out on what they are doing, well we will just keep getting more of the same going forward.
Yay democracy.
Fun fact: Supreme Court opinions are posted publicly!
We are all free to read them, and I encourage everybody to read them.
The main work product of the court is entirely transparent.
Oh no, they did not vote for this debt, and that's why we are in such a mess!
Had Congress voted to provide borrowing authority along with their appropriations bill we wouldn't even be talking about this. But the last Congress didn't do that, setting up this huge issue where they authorized spending of money that they did not actually provide to be spent.
That's the whole core of this controversy. And I really wish we would hold those congresspeople accountable for putting us in this situation, and the president accountable for signing it.
Unfortunately they are going to skate accountability as they point fingers elsewhere for the mess that they themselves created.
What direct benefit?
The Supreme Court is extremely limited in its ability to provide direct advantage to anybody, and I haven't seen any allegations that would represent that in this case.
So?
Correct decisions benefit a lot of people, and that has absolutely nothing to do with their correctness.
It's such a stretch to try to say that simply because this guy indirectly benefited, therefore let's ignore all of the checks and balances and protections and systems of governance surrounding the place of the Supreme Court in the US system of government, and just draw the sensationalized, politically spun drama into the center of it all.
It's really naive.
I appreciate that as I criticize people for promoting the reality TV nonsense instead of actually looking at the substance of Thomas's work, you reply with more reality TV nonsense.
Really captures the state of affairs there, and why it's so easy to dismiss these accusations as hollow.
Because this is a rush to judgment based on a factually screwy narrative put out by an organization with a history of sensationalized reporting that gets debunked farther down the line.
That's hardly a good basis on which to threaten judicial independence.
I honestly don't care what Thomas did in his personal life. I only care about what he did in the job that he was hired to do, and there's amazingly little actual criticism of his work in office.
This isn't a legislator. He doesn't get to just vote yes or no, subject to bribery. His opinions are published and only count to the extent that they are logically coherent and factually correct.
So yeah, not only do I think these accusations are generally false, but it wouldn't even matter if they were true, because that's not the role Thomas plays in the US system of government.
You say experts, but that overlooks that these are political agencies, so it is really letting politicians in the executive branch interpret the laws outside of the democratic process in the legislative branch.
That's a very important thing to keep in mind when talking about this deference, and it's a huge reason to be skeptical of it.
It's funny to see a statement that the Thomases offer an example of malfeasance when I'm still waiting for anybody to offer an actual example of the Thomases committing malfeasance with regard to their actual jobs.
It's amazing that with all of the sensationalist headlines, the thing I never ever see is an actual reference to a place where the actual decision of Thomas was wrong. That is the job of the Supreme Court, to issue opinions, but no one ever actually talks about places where the opinions were actually wrong.
It's all this reality TV drama that just distracts from anything that could be seen as actual malfeasance.
But it doesn't matter. No matter how reasonable or unreasonable the Supreme Court may be, they just don't have the authority to order around the Treasury as that exists in the executive branch.
There would be no constitutional crisis. The order lacking authority would simply go in the trash can, and that would be that.
It's pretty simple. The Constitution says that the president can't borrow without permission of Congress, and that law was an example of Congress giving permission.
This is just enacting the clear text of the Constitution.
I mean you can say there are no checks and balances until your face goes blue, but it cannot change the fact that there are checks and balances.
You are spouting conspiracy theories here. And it does no good.
There are so many reasons that is a stupid thing to say.
Bought a Supreme Court Justice? As if that makes any sense at all, one of many justices, with the checks and balances in place already to make sure that no justice can be bought and impact the rest of the legal system? Not to mention the role of the judicial branch in the US system of government?
No. That doesn't make any sense at all. It is idiotic to even suggest such a thing, and I'm not mincing words here because, seriously, that is an idiotic thing to say.
That conspiracy theory makes no sense considering the design of the US government, and anybody who believes such a thing does not know how the US government functions.
And I'm just sad for you that you would buy into such a idiotic theory.
Oooh! Sounds like you're spinning up quite the conspiracy theory! Do keep us apprised as you write your plotline!
No, we need to be calling out all of these sensationalist clickbait stories that just don't really make much sense.
My taskmaster is my own idea that we should probably call out all of this moronic reporting.
It's not about trust. It's about passing actual legislation. It's ridiculous to talk about trust in this sort of situation, it's about what will and will not be passed by the people's representatives in our democratic process.
I mean in a way he clearly did as he passed a budget that didn't have funding, that wanted to spend a lot more money than the Treasury would have.
That's the whole reason we're in this mess.
And that sounds very literally like a miscalculation.
Yeah stonewalling, here the idea that private matters should be private, and the legislature branch should not violate judicial independence at the same time as they want to engage in political grandstanding over private matters.
Really the guy just called out congresspeople for going off the rails.
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
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