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
@Guinnessy again I emphasize that if people don't have trust in journalism then none of it works anyway.
The choice is between a non-ideal path and one that's unworkable from the getgo.
If journalists aren't up to trying to engage the public even with, shall we say, low brow devices like bothsidsm, then we might as well shut the remaining news rooms and go home.
If they're not meeting the people where they are, then it's all futile.
@ginaintheburg Well they were all very different types of cases with different levels of complexity.
@vij no, it's the opposite: the Court *supported* the amendment's grant of power to Congress while pushing back against the idea that states could rise up and interfere in federal processes like that.
It's BECAUSE of a bloody civil war that states were somewhat disempowered here.
The Court upheld that principle.
@TCatInReality there are a lot of problems with the proposal to just make a test.
Practically, that's a pretty important test to be created out of whole cloth, without development in courts below, without solid briefing or study.
US courts recognize the importance of that development.
But more importantly, the Court found that this was a state interfering in a federal activity without authority. Considering the history of the amendment, that's a particularly ironic bit.
The Court would be devising a problematic test for a process that's not allowed as it would allow states to undermine the federal government.
@gkmizuno glancing through the ruling this morning I had forgotten that on page 10 the Court did go through such avenues of relief, particularly citing 18 USC §2383.
I think they should have developed this for a paragraph or two more, but with the expedited schedule, well it wasn't the most organized ruling I've ever read.
@jpanzer the option is only foreclosed unless there's a valid grant of authority to the states to intervene in federal elections that way.
Once states have such a power, everything changes, and the Court may be in a position to develop the sort of test you're talking about, hopefully through a solid legal process that was missing here.
At this point, when it comes to such a test, the Court would be developing a test for a procedure that was itself illegal.
The Court said that states didn't have authority over feds like this. The test would be about something that states couldn't do anyway.
@christianschwaegerl there's a reason the quote is from a dissent, though: the Court didn't find the statement to be correct, or else it would be in the opinion itself.
So it's not authoritative.
In any case, far from Congress being unable to act, the opinion is all about Congress acting.
But yes, criminal conviction would lead to automatic exclusion, as the opinion itself cited the specific law, already on the books, that would cause that.
@Guinnessy No, I think bothsidsm is actually a really useful tool for connecting with readers, so I think that's a point where he's particularly offbase.
SO MANY no longer respect or trust news sources. Polling and just daily life shows that. Without that respect, everything else is just recordkeeping, writing the history of a society struggling without solid, trusted journalism.
If a tool like bothsidsm helps avoid the appearance of bias and restore faith, then by all means use it.
But that conclusion relies on recognition of the importance of rebuilding that trust.
@rant I should have said a bit more: state courts can't apply federal law against the federal government.
The Court recognized the presidential election as a federal process, and it drew a contrast against state offices.
I'm not fully on board with it, but I get where they're going.
@christianschwaegerl I often get the impression that my fellow Trump critics end up buying into his shtick way too much.
Trump says it will be wild? So? The guy's a moron. Why would we take his blather as valid or realistic?
Trump will try to grab power? That's nice. He'd fail, just like he did before, just like others failed, over and over again, because that's not how the US system is set up.
And all the while, treating Trump as a well-oiled anything just buys into his rhetoric and builds him up to his supporters.
The way to oppose Trump is to recognize him as a loser who will not offer his supporters success.
But as you say, consistent application *of law* and here the Court is saying that the law (statute) is missing, so they wouldn't have any law to ensure the consistent application *of.*
And practically, I don't know if I mentioned it above, but I don't think the record before the Court was sufficiently briefed on any sort of test that it might choose, which is another reason it wouldn't have basis for going there.
It would be a pretty important test to issue half-briefed and on an expedited timeline.
The lack of a circuit split in this case also makes it problematic to develop such a rule.
@christianschwaegerl That's not quite what the rulings said.
@christianschwaegerl The thing is, we don't leave it up to losers to decide whether they have won or lost. It doesn't really matter what they think, when they lose they lose, and they don't have the option of just ignoring the loss.
If they don't accept it, well that's going to be pretty sad for them, because whether they accept it or not, they've lost.
We saw how utterly impotent the January 6th tantrum was, how there was no possible way that they were going to change anything. The real lesson is that, no, in the US system that sort of thing cannot work.
It's not as if they are going to find some magic loophole next time. Nope, they would be equally rebuffed next time because that's how the US government is designed.
There is no loophole.
So all of the claims that next time they are going to succeed, it's hysteria. They cannot succeed that way. It's just not part of the US system of government.
We don't let losers decide whether they've lost.
Are we talking about the same ruling? Here's the one I'm talking about.
@mpopp75 meh. in my experience there is so little understanding of the US from other Western countries that, well, often enough they don't know enough to even judge accurately.
Yeah the countries in a bad state, hell the world is in a bad state, but not because of what outsiders think based on what they think they know.
Just for example, I listen to BBC World Service get things wrong about the US and the US government pretty regularly.
@jpanzer from what I heard there are serious problems that would prevent the Court from doing that, not the least that such a question was not before it.
The dissent was already complaining that the Court went to far, but crafting such a process out of whole cloth makes that much worse.
But yeah, I understand that the court wasn't briefed on background that would be needed to craft such a standard, and without development below to rest on, it would be a significant overreach.
@Guinnessy I think the author fails to answer his original question, even though it's a very important question to answer: How and why is journalism failing us?
It's not because the media isn't covering Trump. If anything I'd say it's because it doesn't matter if the media covers Trump because people have lost so much faith in journalists-- or to put it more functionally, journalists have burned so much faith-- that people aren't all that interested in listening anyway.
The crisis of faith in journalistic institutions is an enormous one with enormous implications.
To just sit and shout that the story is that the sky is still blue doesn't address that serious failure.
There's no point in shouting even true statements if there's no one around to listen.
@OpenComputeDesign maybe let Google's cloud handle it?
I keep finding that I'm able to search image PDFs, so maybe if you upload your PDF to Google drive it would provide a way to copy and paste the text?
I also wonder if the OCR built into phones these days would take care of it.
@GoWeaponsHot but that was in a dissent that the court did not agree to take as its stance. And it seems like it's just getting the majority ruling of it wrong, which is why the court didn't agree with it.
@jaredwhite I at least consider the theory that he's behaving like this because after years of positive reinforcement he just realizes that if he acts this way it gets the crowd stirred up, so he does.
In the past there have been times when he has coherently stated a position that his own supporters didn't like, so he had to kind of walk it back. But, if he just remains incoherent he lets the supporters fill in the blank with what they want him to have said, so he stays out of trouble that way.
It might be a learned behavior just from years of getting ahead by doing 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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