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
There are serious problems, both legal and practical, with all of those proposals.
But the part worth highlighting is how they would be a detriment to democracy and democratic principles, undermining the institutions that we put in place to amplify peoples' voices.
You're framing the issue backwards.
The status quo in the US has drugs being illegal until allowed, for better or worse.
In this case, the feds claimed to allow the drug, but basically admitted they didn't follow legal procedure for allowing it.
So this is not about whether to allow restrictions on the drug--that's just the norm--but whether to recognize federal efforts to approve the drug for sale.
What lies? And how is this biased?
A lower court handed down a ruling that's not compatible with the state of US law, so the appeal summarily called for a reexamination, as is completely consistent and appropriate.
The sad thing is that we'll probably reelect the Virginia (and national) politicians that botched the redistricting process in VA.
Of all the seats that needed to change, at least to different representatives in the same party, those are the real tragedy.
Republicans think lots of goofy stuff. We need to elect better.
The reason it's not nearly as extreme as those other cases is because this is merely reversing illegal orders by lower courts.
It's not imposing or justifying anything like racial regulations. In fact, the ruling emphasized that racist policies are illegal. Instead, this is just saying a lower court issued a ruling that doesn't match US law.
This is about court action. That needs to be understood.
One of the fundamental jobs of a US political party is to secure votes.
So YES, if a party isn't getting the margins they need to do whatever, then that IS a problem with the party as getting votes is their job!
The headline example is when Democrats lead the charge to oust McCarthy as Speaker of the House and kept the chamber seized for so long, only to have it reopen under Johnson. Instead,
Democrats should have used that position of high ground to gain advantage in rules if not speakership.
It was a powerful moment for them, but they used it for optics instead of taking real, substantive control in exchange for reopening under better terms.
I also ignored what my neighbor had for breakfast. What of it?
The political choices of politicians positioning themselves for points ahead of election later on have absolutely no relevance here.
Heck, if you buy the story that's so prevalent in Democratic circles, those politicians have run directly afoul of what the Supreme Court ordered.
Yes, I ignored the irrelevant actions of the when it comes to the SCOUTS decision, and the point is that we all should because it is irrelevant.
Keep in mind that a lot of people get wrong what the SCOTUS decided. It REFUSED to agree with Trump that he had complete absolute immunity:
"At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient."
Trump lost on that count.
What the Court actually decided is rather tame: a former president is immune from prosecution for things that were legal exercises of his office.
He can still be prosecuted for illegal things.
It's a pretty different implication, right?
If it really was such a disenfranchisement of a protect class then it would run directly afoul of the Supreme Court's ruling in Callais, and a suit against the state would have that direct ammunition against the move.
It's not on you to organize, mobilize, etc. It's just on someone to file a lawsuit demanding an immediate injunction of what the supremes had *JUST SAID* was illegal.
You know, assuming it really was what you describe.
@renewedresistance
Yes, in example after example the Democrats had the upper hand and could have made progress toward their platform, or at least blocked Republicans.
But they didn't.
Why not? That's the question. Did they have a longer strategy of letting Republicans do more damage now to get elected later? Were they simply preserving campaign slogans? Were they too damn ignorant or incompetent to succeed? They're certainly not going to tell us their inner strategy.
IMO it doesn't matter. I'm happy to assume they chose to fail because they saw that they received donations every time they did, just as you're experiencing.
**I'm adamant that we need to hold them accountable, refuse to reelect them because for whatever reason they're an ineffective opposition.**
The best platform in the world amounts to nothing if the politicians can't or won't implement it even though they had the tools to move in that direction.
But it's not chaos. It's different states choosing to follow their procedures surrounding districting as they see fit.
It's nothing new that politicians wanted to do this for a long time, and now they see a political opportunity, and it's regardless of the SOCTUS decision since that has no legal weight in so many of these examples.
Even the Virginia nullification was predictable as the normal process in the commonwealth was to reject the referendum as invalid.
This is only chaos if separated from the rules and factors aligning it.
No, if you read the opinion the opinion they're very clear: "This interpretation of §2 does not require abandonment of the Gingles framework."
They bother talking about social change in the context of the section, bringing legal processes, the Gingles framework, in line with the law.
The decision on law was in the previous section, but they used this section to talk about how the decision on law would work in the lower courts.
It's law vs legal practice.
In the previous section the Court found that racial districting was disallowed by US law regardless of history, but they brought up legal history to show the process by which courts could reject racial districting.
"The facts of Gingles afford a good example of how a §2 plaintiff can properly meet these preconditions."
I love how you said there was a legal dispute but then completely ignored the legal dispute.
So many Republicans simply refuse to believe it, and so many Democrats seem leaderless.
Or maybe the Democrats who would be more likely to protest it take a stance that's so anti-carbon that they can't reconcile protesting it.
I don't think that has anything to do with its death. Quite the opposite, I'd say.
It's dead because people didn't watch it anymore, so it cost too much for too little audience.
It was far too political, in the vapid, culture war of today sense. Maybe not in the political questions throughout human history sense. "Can men wear skirts?" instead of "How do we reconcile democracy vs human nature to harm?" sense.
Both political, but on very different levels.
And people just didn't care about men wearing skirts. That drama is a dime a dozen, so why tune in here?
Hopefully they can take a break and fix the franchise.
Interesting point.
And it makes me wonder if the pilots refused to participate in such a show.
Back up to the beginning of the section to see what that applies to: "This interpretation does not require abandonment of the framework"
"This interpretation" isn't being proposed in the section or justified by historical developments. Instead, it's referring to the conclusions made in previous sections not based on social change.
This part of the ruling says, given that we've already settled the major question (without citing social change), how do we handle this practical objection, and how do we put this finding into practice?
If the opinion was saying VRA was obsolete because of racism then the statement needed to be in the previous section.
Where were they wrong, and why?
Why in the world would you use a political action to resolve a legal dispute?
And jump through the extra hoops by imputing the motivations of multiple independent parties based on each others' motivations when motivations aren't relevant in the first place?
We have the legal arguments in front of us. We have the losing argument, and we have the winning argument laying out not only why it's right but also why the losing arugment is wrong.
But you're not bothering with any of that, just going right to personal attacks involving completely different governments.
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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