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
The thing about #Trump is that he thrives on people getting energized around him, including calls for boycott. That's the sort of thing that keeps him in the game.
I'm not watching, nor am I boycotting, simply because I'm not going to play his game and keep him around.
If we'd ignore him he'd get bored and go home. "Trump who?" should really be the bumpersticker slogan if we want to move past the guy.
He WANTS us to boycott him.
PS: I truly believe that we would elect better people to serve in government if we all knew the rules better, if we had more education in civics.
It's always sad to me to see, every four years, people simultaneously eager to vote and also asking for a reminder on how we elect presidents.
It's a dangerous game to play if it's full of people who don't know the rules.
It's a weird thing to say, considering the trust fund is already, by law, deposited into the general fund of the Treasury to be spent like anything else.
That money is already accounted for.
For years I've been beating a drum that we should normalize the cryptographic signing of mainstream content, for example politicians signing with their own identities to certify that a quote or video clip is real and accurate.
Not only would that help assure that a quote wasn't taken misleadingly out of context, but in this new age it would help protect against outright deepfakes.
Unfortunately, I've often heard journalists respond that such a norm would interfere with journalistic independence, and lead to people being skeptical of journalists.
I think such responses get it exactly backwards.
In any case, yep, I'm still beating the drum, but sadly I think the ship has sailed and we're now entering the more dangerous waters without that protection in place.
Wow, that's quite the conspiracy theory you have there.
But in the end this crisis was set up by the last Congress that appropriated money out of accounts that wouldn't have enough to fund the appropriations, thus leading to the crisis.
I hardly think the Democrats who passed that legislation were focused on helping out the fossil fuel industry. I'd say they were just bad at their jobs.
@VuAustern
Welcome to democracy.
Ha, CRs don't pass themselves!
The problem isn't the CR. The problem is politicians that we elect that promise spending they don't actually fund, run by bragging about that, and then we reelect because we don't pay attention to the problem they've set us up for.
The problem isn't the CR. The problem is the politicians, from the last Congress, who actively voted us into this position.
You're missing the point that the appropriations didn't come with funding to appropriate.
Yes, they appropriated money out of an account that didn't have money.
The debt ceiling is absolutely a real thing, right there in the original Constitution, that requires it since in Article I it gave to Congress authority "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States"
That's your debt ceiling right there, the amount that Congress has chosen to borrow.
Yeah, but Democrats have a history of rejecting this exact issue, refusing to get behind legislative efforts to make birth control OTC.
Also, it's one of my gripes that this administration in particular was ignoring FDA advisory panel conclusions during COVID.
I figure they will follow this advice, but I still wish they were held accountable for their past actions.
The GOP voted for giving the president authority to borrow more money.
Democrats have not, meanwhile the Democratic president is still threatening not to pay the country's debts.
Given those facts it is pretty silly to say it's the GOP holding the US economy hostage.
Sure.
The Electoral College has very few constraints on who they can choose for president. Being convicted of a civil crime is definitely not in the list of disqualifiers.
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.
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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