volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@pearlbear Like I said above, one effect is in cutting off a means for owners to be able to raise money to afford housing.

@pearlbear and that makes it even harder to afford housing.

Not only is rent high, but I can't even have the option of trying to make it easier to afford by renting the place out when I don't need it?

Regulations like these hurt the exact people they are supposedly trying to help.

@SteveThompson Oh, The prosecutions are happening under Biden's administration; he bears ultimate responsibility for such authoritarian actions against these people.

To say he really has little control over it absolves him of his fundamental responsibility for overseeing it.

This is his administration. If he wants to run such an overbearing administration looking to crack down on the little guy, that's a great reason we need a different candidate.

@micchiato@mastodon.social this sort of idea misses that it's the executive branch, not this judicial branch, that threatens freedom.

It is based in a fundamental misunderstanding of the US system of government.

@micchiato@mastodon.social It sounds like you just don't like the outcomes regardless of the logical reasoning that may have required them.

Over and over we see the court applying the results of the democratic process, but instead of using the tools of the democratic process to realize better outcomes, we end up blaming the court for the very things that we asked for through our voting practices.

We keep electing really awful representatives to Congress. We should stop that. But we keep re-electing them even after they fail us.

To blame the Supreme Court is to ignore our own role, and even worse, it's to buy into a disempowered philosophy where we give up our own right to change these things.

@DeeGLloyd@mastodon.world you do not have that right.

But thanks for asking.

@SteveThompson Yeah, and so any administration needs to take into account minority viewpoints. That's built into the structure of the US government, part of both democratic and administrative processes.

And it's part of our concept of trying to aim for a fair justice system.

Part of the checks and balances intended to keep the administration from going overboard and ruining too many people's lives is the idea that a president will be held responsible for perceived injustices.

This is an example of that.

@petersuber that's not how Shelby County worked, though.

It's a misreading of the Court's decision.

@lessig @matt_seligman

@PeggyStuart what? Those cases tended to be about promoting fundamental rights, not ripping them away.

When you read the rulings directly it gives a completely different view than what so many outfits on the left tend to promote.

@mswoods except that it was a court, not the president, who issued the ruling. Wrong branch of government.

It bothers me when people give Trump too much credit instead of recognizing him as the ineffective loser that he is, as that plays into his strategy and builds him up to his supporters.

@rberger the problem is that the media has spent so many years declaring that things are lies when they were provably true, to the point that people stopped believing the media itself.

It's not about partisan or non-partisan, but about people having lost faith in the media when they noticed they were being gaslit.

@darnell that would run against their business model, so it wouldn't be the smart move for them.

@everton137 that's not really compatible with a distributed platform like this, where what people see is determined by others.

Being distributed, this system hands that sort of decision to others.

@Free_Press no, that's not how the US system of government works.

It's not about blocking but rather about finding policy proposals compelling... or not.

To say Congress is blocking the aid package is like saying I'm blocking McDonald's from having my $5 when I don't feel like buying their hamburger.

It's not a fair framing of the situation.

@SteveThompson Hi, I'm one.

Congrats. You are now aware of such a person :)

There are plenty of us. I know lots.

@freemo sounds like you prefer to have a generic accent.

Which is itself the adoption of an accent--a generic one :)

@DeeGLloyd@mastodon.world I want to hear arguments, not links to others.

What part of the argument do you find compelling? How would you frame it?

If I wanted to hear from others I'd go hear from others. I'm asking here because I want to hear from the people here.

@freemo well, think about yourself. Do you ever find yourself speaking a different way around certain people as a conscious or unconscious way of relating to them, especially as a positive way of matching them, showing kinship?

I think that happens to a lot or even most of us.

We codeswitch as a way of engaging with other humans.

@SteveThompson the problem is that quite a few voters believe that Biden has gone overboard with these prosecutions, so the promise of pardons bring them over to vote in favor of Trump.

It was yet another misstep on Biden's part, where he might end up having given up reelection to Trump, of all people, which is quite a feat.