Yep.

Ford pre-emptively pardoned Nixon.

"Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."

Hmmn, from my vantage American culture and economic issues are moving rapidly in multiple directions. As might be expected with a broken consensus.

But yes, I see change happening along all these vectors, 'liberal' and 'conservative' alike.

No, I certainly wouldn't call any counterfactual pre-determined. But I kinda think this post combined with Veronica's hits on the uncertainty I'm pointing out. What you say seems perfectly reasonable, and yet simultaneously obscene.

But the other thing I'm noting that's interesting (at least to me) is that there are some Liberal voices that are trying to do the whole 'velocity' thing and its not at all clear to me that Liberals can alter the velocity... never mind Conservatives or Republicans.

I don't disagree... I don't think the Republican party is 'conservative' in any meaningful way.

But, what is 'conservative' is tiresome and probably past its sell date; so not really what I'm going for here.

On the one hand, I do think there's a notion (often expressed here [cough]) that 'conservative' is just slow motion change... and in practice that seems to be the case - Hey, why can't we have Friday13 level violence? Porn uploaded from *verified* users is the answer - so, maybe that's just true in that we're all really just Liberals. But on the other hand, if we had a conservative political philosophy and a conservative political party, it would be based on different principles and not simply velocity.

But the Republican Party as a conservative political movement isn't a hill I'm going to defend. Heck, I'll probably join you in storming the ramparts.

Sure, but the flip-side question is if Civil Unions had been done, would we all be conservatives defending the sanctity of Civil Unions vs. Marriage... because that was the deal?

That's why the though experiment strikes me as intuitively true but practically a non-starter cause there's no way to make anything 'stick'

There's no deal to be had.

Heh... imagine if this bold party were to negotiate The Grand Deal:

We agree to everything you ask TODAY... but there can be no further adjustments changes for 25-/50-/100-years.

Would that be a good deal? Would 'today' be limited to what we/they want today or would it turn in to what we/they want 50-years from now?

Who would defect first?

Now I finally get why the liberals think conservatism is just slowing down the change...

"why can't we go back to Friday 13th part 1 levels of violence is the 21st century conservative movement"

And are we supposed to be sympathetic to a 2k mile booty call at company Christmas Party in a high-rise that also contains a bank vault with hundreds of millions in bearer bonds? Sometime I feel like the Christmas spirit is dead.

I think the word 'proof' actually diminishes the 'power' of the logic.

In a different age it would have been more accurately described as: The Ontological Subversion of Disbelief. Proof enables Disbelief to take purchase and snap things back; but continual contemplation of the ontological question is unending.

I don't think Aliens present an a priori problem. That is, for all we know, the aliens confirm the fall/redemption narrative that is particular to earth/humanity.

Perhaps they also interact with God and we're delving deeper into theological narratives with different types of theological histories. In fact, my default assumption would be that these advanced aliens believe 'something' and it's ahistorical/idiosyncratic to assume they believe nothing. More likely "we're doing it wrong" than some sort of Kantian disembodied rational animal.

CS Lewis explored what salvation history might look like outside the bounds of planet earth. And Tolkien in his unpublished works (some of his best writing) dives quite deeply into the way in which different sentient beings might interact with God... specifically the Ainur, Elves and Men. It's truly great stuff, if one is inclined to contemplate such things.

There's a fascinating dialog between an Elf and an old woman loremaster (of the house of Haleth) in which he attempts to understand mortality and whence it came... she relates a tale reminiscent of a fall and some sort of sundering of the understanding of death and life. I used to be able to google to refresh my memory of which book/chapter... but it seems google is besotted with Tolkien searches owing to some Jackson fellow.

If MiB taught me one thing...

Pretty sure this is a nonagenarian grudgematch somehow involving Buzz Aldrin.

No, I don't think that's the point of originalism, nor Vermuele's critique of it.

I'm just inserting it here where he'd likely agree that you "push the button" because the next time it comes up it will be over an issue where folks here don't think there's an obvious common good being preserved.

Ultimately it's asking the court to rule not adjudicate... and I think that's increasingly a bi-partisan consensus. We *want* that. Until we get it.

This is slightly oblique... but I feel obliged to point out in a context such as this how Adrian Vermeule (of Catholic Integralist fame) would argue precisely as you reason thus:

"And there are now people standing in front of the Supreme Court saying “hey, to put that feature in, all you have to do is press this button”.

I am arguing that they should press the button."

The anti-Originalist position of the Vermeule faction is the converse of the anti-Originalist position of the liberal faction on the Court... you always push the button in favor of the Common Good.

Preempting the, if you didn't like Originalist Conservative jurists, just wait until...

I suppose the Zyklon B reference is supposed to be the moral zinger... but honestly the deadly words are "competitive disadvantage"

Unpack that and you'll get solidarity.

As well they should.

Or conversely, 21st century scholar: Why Gorgias was a sh*tposter.

Well that should go swimmingly.

Pretty sure Gorgias did not actually believe in ontological negation; but instead used it to demonstrate he could prove anything. Whether he really wanted to rehabilitate Helen of Troy? Well, even Melania has her apologists.

See, that's why the US needs Concordats to determine what's a religion and what's merely a sect.

[he said half joking, half suppressing a maniacal laugh]

It was nearly the perfect murder... but the pickled beets were too clever by half. In Saint Mary Mead we pickle many things, but only a sociopath would pickle a beet.
~Miss Marple

I'm not too concerned... in the event that the restrictions are neutrally applied *and* draconian... you'll see the 'proper' people rebelling at the nonsense of 10 people per Costco and it will be abandoned right quick.

I can't speak for every church everywhere, obviously... but among the churches I've been to during coronatide... no-one has been shoulder to shoulder in months. Churches have implemented all the other common sense requirements such as distancing, extra sanitizing, special rules for communion, minor changes to the rituals to suppress certain person-to-person contact (like the sign of peace) and choirs are generally absent.

I'm personally campaigning for a silent service with a single chanter... but I'll confess here to using the virus as an attempt to impose my aesthetics on everyone else... for their own good, of course.

On the other hand, at Costco you have a bottleneck where every single person passes in contact with a small number of people who are there for hours and hours... I don't blame you for imagining that Costco is reducing your risk... it's a story we're telling ourselves to manage our risk. And this story that NY was telling didn't pass the test.

Just reading part of Justice Breyer's dissent, the obvious bad part of the law is the 10 persons or 25% of capacity whichever is lower. In my experience, people might grumble about 25% capacity, but we'd see broad compliance... as long as that 'Redzone' is enforced neutrally. But that's what makes it not-neutral.

Try enforcing 10 persons or 25% (whichever is lower, mind) capacity at Costco - which if a redzone is a redzone... then the point is that any 10 random people will have x% likelihood of being sick. So... either it's about capacity and space or it's about % likelihood of encountering a sick person regardless of capacity or space.

We can either attempt to build a program to try to manage the spread, or we can try to pretend we are but legislate economic activity (or other activities) as if they don't also spread the virus. The political problem is we're not attempting to limit the spread - because there's no real consensus on how to do that - so we're performing theatrical regulations that are so obviously porous that they fail as both theater and spread reductions. And we haven't even gotten to the obvious defections of the regulating class.

I like the Cruz/Dad reference... I still laugh every time I remember that. Douthat made a similar observation.

"Why would Trump's lawyer accuse Brian Kemp of being on the take?" I dunno, why would Trump suggest that his main primary rival's father killed JFK?

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 22, 2020

Very sorry for your loss. That's a lovely tribute to Deann; will remember her at Mass this evening.