Strikes me as a reasonable summation given your political positions. Of course, I'd also see your vote as "gettable" come the great realignment (TM).

I suppose I see Biden's replacement value as 0... which means I fervently wish his presidency reaches his ceiling as barely adequate. Though, in my darker moments, I'm not sure his replacement value is 0 anymore... that was peak Biden.

But to answer the obvious rejoinder... yes, I think Trump is negative Replacement value... he has actively devalued whatever decent policies he might have stumbled into.

p.s. [ahem] Do we only put the political/election disclaimer on the articles for the less savory parties, like Solidarity?

In the (very) unlikely event Trump wins... we'll likely be scratching our heads over why a tiny (but significant) shift in support among Black and Hispanic voters in swing states happened at all.

But since I still think that scenario very unlikely... it leaves us only to contemplate the movement of the needle and what it foretells for the Demographic Shifts and their real impact on politics going forward.

The 15 hour workweek is just that much closer!

Curious with regards Brave New World?

Sure... I suppose the leftist dystopia, then, might be calling a bug a feature. Or, becoming so deterministic that we are 'only' our bugs. I think that's kinda the point.

There's no good, only power.

What makes you think the Leftist dystopia isn't revanchist?

I like this as an illustrative aspect. I'd also suggest that a real dystopia would have bi-directional influence in that someone whom we admired as a fantastic Mr. Smith does something that causes us to decide that "Mr. Smith" is bad too... which impacts other people leading very good Mr. Smith lives. So we don't re-define that person as an Alex... we question the choices of all the people we commended for being Smiths. The point isn't to be a Mr. Smith it's always to be in the right group. The group? Which group? That's always in flux.

I see your reamer and raise you one citrus press.

We cook with a lot of lemons/limes... like a lot... like costco bags of lemons are staple purchases. Our problem is that we have to buy the industrial strength presses or we'll break the hinges.

Same with Garlic press... this one is pretty close to what we have.

On the downside, my weekend woods work will be interrupted because a $.01 flange-thingy-holder on the primer bulb of my Stihl chainsaw broke... the primers are 100% point of failure (by design, i'm sure), so I have half-a-dozen... but when the flange-thingy-holder breaks... shit. That said, only ever by Stihl... their engines are the most reliable. If they made a version with a +$30 metal primer pump option, they could hoover up my money.

To me the first go around was such a shitshow of Trump stomping around being Trump that we didn't even really notice Biden.

Honestly, stopping Trump and giving Biden uninterrupted time? Probably made it worse. Uninterrupted Biden just wasn't that impressive.

The unveiling of Biden-care was the shrug heard round the world.

True, it's hard to debate the arguably least racist president since Abraham Lincoln... but if your bat isn't quick enough to catch-up with Lincoln High-heat, then you're just not ready for this game... or maybe the game has passed you by.

https://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/lloyd-bentsens-mic-drop-moment-1988-vp-debate-58255800

He's just not sharp, nor quick witted, nor a commanding speaker... and that's 50 yr old Biden. Now slap almost 30-years on that?... his responses were slow, unfortunately his stutter was prominent, it was clear he was losing his train of thought... odd substitutions in his retorts, like trying to set-up a 'zinger' around 'Poor Boys'. Using Malarkey in an actual sentence... Constant refrain of "c'mon, Man." His set pieces were ok if you're rooting for him, but not in any way impressive or, if I'm honest, convincing.

Trump as a debater is bad in a whole different way, but Biden just doesn't show well if extemporaneous entertainment is on the menu. Trump isn't debating, he's just live tweeting on national TV. Biden didn't really have an answer for that... as I say, I'm not entirely sure I would either... but I'm not the standard bearer for my party.

I sympathize with the position Biden (or anyone sharing the stage with Trump) is in... he's just not a good faith interlocutor - even more so than your average politician. Pulling on all of my sales experience I couldn't see a rhetorical way I'd deal with him in real-time. That is, without destroying my own brand. Honestly, some of the hardest and best decisions I've made over the years is to refuse to engage in a process I didn't feel was in my best interest.

That said, Biden looked bad... I don't think it matters, since people aren't actually voting *for* Biden and I think the voters are gonna vote for who they're gonna vote for already.

But man, Biden isn't up to the task. He's a talisman... keep him safely enclosed in glass and hope everything else just kinda... um, works?

I still think he'll win (and Bigly), but if I'm wrong, I have some strong notions on what's wrong with my model... but it isn't the debates. The debates are just a symptom of the disease.

Constitutional amendment to require Prime Numbers only. 27 is an assault on our judicial aesthetics... as is 15.

SESTA is a carve-out to 230.

Basically it says you are protected under 230, except for participation in SESTA activities for which 230 provides no specific protection.

Go ahead... start carving. What things can 230 *not* protect you from (I assume the law already prohibits material participation in illegal activities a'la Silk Road).

As to Hawley's exact intentions/strategy/tactics? Perhaps you are right... I only have his public utterances that he's going to pull 230 from these platforms. As of now the *actual* bill he's introducing pulls 230 from "[platforms] that display manipulative, behavioral ads or provide data to be used for them."

And his own website further observes with regards this episode of Twitter: "Senator Hawley has been a leading critic of Section 230’s protection of Big Tech firms and recently called for Twitter to lose immunity if it chooses to editorialize on political speech."

I think we might(?) agree that possibly one could clarify that in order to claim 230 protections, one cannot start to edit end-user-content, unless it censors according to these new 230 provisions for Platform Censoring (i.e. not the whims of a TOS).

Which would be Regulations strengthening 230... so not SESTA and not pulling 230.

Honestly George, if you didn't exist we'd have to invent you.

Yeah, that's the best bucket of all... but since Senators Johnson and Grassley have provided us with information on the matter, do we not have 'unbiased' facts about his tenure, pay, duties and qualifications... I mean, we're not suggesting that the son of a sitting VP *wasn't* given a position on a board for company in an industry in which he has no experience (yes, yes, he was advising them on important 'business process' objectives) shadily run - this we all admit - by people we call 'oligarchs' in a place called Ukraine... the language of which Mr. Biden does not speak? Just that we can't prosecute him for that.

Some of that must be in the Grassley/Johnson report, no?

But then, I'm fine with fathers maximizing their networks to make opportunities available to their progeny... like, we should encourage thick communities and networks and families and opportunities... build privilege at all levels.

But perhaps this runs beyond what reasonable limits we'd place on that? Or against the narrative I'm trying to sell in my campaign? Or can we do anything at all as long as we can't be prosecuted for it? It's all so confusing what is permissible and what isn't.

Tougher than inequality, privilege and exposure of our Meritocracy as systemically anti-merticoratic?

I dunno... I'd 100% shift into the not 'technically' prosecutable corruption bucket every opportunity I get.

Its likely a gift that folks like Trump, Giuliani and the RNC are too dumb to frame it any other way than "lock them up"

"Sen. Johnson and Sen. Grassley spent months looking into Hunter Biden’s alleged corruption regarding Burisma, and their initial report paints a picture – long known and previously reported by the media – of relationships that appeared to be conflicts of interest but in fact aren’t illegal."

Sometimes what matters is the bucket you put it in.

I believe your argument (mostly) that the Hunter Biden thing isn't (probably) prosecutable corruption.

Now. Put it in the "Inequality Bucket" and see how the story plays.

And here I'm talking about the Non-Prosecutorial No-Corruption story that Grassley approved.

As far as I can tell the internet is mostly a mechanism to put stories into the bucket *I* want, not the bucket other people want.

That said, my personal take is that Biden pere & fils corruption is exactly the right level of corruption we want in government. So tolerating this level of inequality and corruption leaves me unmoved by the 'scandal' but then I'm the sort of person Sens. Grassley and Johnson hope receive the message.

I suppose it's possible that Hawley is brandishing 230 as a weapon to force these providers to 'voluntarily' treat themselves as a public access platform; but the problem with that is twofold:
1. The internet doesn't do nuance... the threat becomes the victory condition.
2. Victory, in this case, destroys the thing it looks to preserve.
3. Bonus: In negotiating terms: The stick is too big*

*This happens a lot to me... customers say I'd better give them a great price because they can solve their problem for free... the issue is that I can't possibly beat free so I tell them that's good news, they should definitely solve their problem for free. Godspeed. Then, of course, they tell me what their really problem is and why the free solution won't fix it... then I ask if 'that' problem is worth $XX... if the answer is still no... then I wish them well, shake hands a part as friends. If the answer is yes... then their 'stick' was too big to beat me with... and they received no negotiating advantage. You need to beat me with a stick that's the right size and believable.

Right, the 'danger' of 230 is that it opens these companies up to becoming publicly regulated utilities. They can't be sued for access, but then access become the thing they provide, and the access passes from private to public good... and therefore subject to regulations that vitiate any private TOS.

Hawley *wants* 230 and campaigning against it is why we live in an idiocracy.

As it happens, Dreher is also blogging about ASP.

That's not terribly newsworthy... but this comment from Dr. Alex Salter is.

Libertarians for Solidarity, yo!

UPDATE: This in today from Prof. Alex Salter at Texas Tech, who gives me permission to post it:

This is Alex Salter, from Texas Tech University. We’ve corresponded a few times over the years. I read your post about the American Solidarity Party and wanted to share why I, a free-market economist, decided to vote for them.
I’m currently writing a book about distributism, which is under contract with Catholic University of America Press. I went back to the classic works of Belloc and Chesterton to see what sort of a dialogue contemporary economists could have with distributists. I was surprised at just how much political-economic wisdom I found.
A central claim is that a free society (by which I mean one that preserves ordered liberty) requires not only political freedom, but economic freedom as well. Freedom in this sense is positive, not merely negative: it requires access to capital. Property must be widely distributed, or at least widely accessible, or else the modal household/family has no reason to ‘buy in’ to the social order.
In economics jargon, you could say that the distributists argue there is a negative externaltiy associated with the market mechanism: the free-market allocation of resources, including productive capital, is not necessarily the allocation that will result in the preservation of democratic-republicanism, subsidiarity, etc.
The American Solidarity Party is the only organization I’m aware of that is taking these arguments seriously. They are also the only party with a substantive commitment to the common good. For these reasons, although I have my reservations about many things in their platform, I eagerly want them to have a larger political voice, both locally and nationally. The rest of my ballot was a mix of parties, but Brian Carroll was my vote for President. (Carroll is an approved write-in candidate in TX.)

After supper tonight the family voted with the first of our remote ballots.

It was fun sitting around the table with the kids googling the candidates and grimacing at their platforms before we made a decision (the R and D platforms, of course, not Solidarity). We agreed before looking that if *any* democrat took a pro-life position, we'd vote for them no matter their other positions. It seems the D's will dutifully fall on their swords rather than send any representatives from anywhere near these environs.

A couple quick hits:
* Ballots have to be witnessed *unless* you don't feel 'safe' having a witness. Which is one of those things that sound fine, but in simple practice means ballots have no requirement for a witness. Which is also fine (I guess)... but just abandon the idea of a witness because there's no need or provision to identify what safety means. It's just dumb... waive the requirement for a witness. Period. Otherwise we're suggesting that its 'possible' that some of the unsigned ballots are invalid rather than 'unsafe'.

*Constitutional amendment to change districting to a bi-partisan committee ... which I like less than defining the data method first, then the review committee... but I've been persuaded that data analytics have transformed districting for the worse, so it shouldn't be done by the majority of the assembly alone.

*Another constitutional amendment for a lovely sentiment, but one which has no business being written into the constitution. That's what laws are for.

*I doubt we'll be removing any statues in my jurisdiction, but thanks for asking.

Thanks Kristin, good of you to say.

heh... just win PA, MI, WI. Getting flashbacks of running up the score in 2016.

I'd say maybe Regan would be the better comp to synthesize with Pinky.

Love him or hate him, he put in the 20-years of work as part of a movement that eventually arrived in 1980. When he arrived he arrived with policies, think tanks, congressmen, Senators, Governors and an entire apparatus that stepped in to the Executive branch on day 1.

Bill Clinton is a similar example in that he aligned with and was championed by the New Democrats which brought in on day 1 an apparatus that had done the pre-work to necessary to take the Democratic party in a different direction.

Obama is an example of a person who didn't and saw his presidency suffer for having jumped the gun. My critique here isn't that he was unfit for the presidency, just that he didn't do the work necessary to make his presidency more than the B- it was.

Interesting how Shire Envy has replaced Polis Envy... Peter Jackson has a lot to answer for in this life and the next.

The answer is that you're viewing Solidarity/Subsidiarity as pre-modern where it is in fact post-Modern. The idea of Democracy held by most of us here is - at best - a 19th century notion that's just beginning to grapple with the fact that we aren't doing Democracy, but instead we're now doing Mass Democracy. We're just now becoming the equivalent of Industrial Revolution Moving Assembly Line Democrats... in the era of advanced Automated Democracy.

The problem with your question is that if you have a single-assembly-line model of Democracy, anything you do to 'fix' the line breaks it elsewhere unless you fix everything all at once.

We don't do factories that way any more, and we can't do democracy that way anymore. Just as we're moving to advanced management principles which give autonomy to workers and business units to accomplish goals rather than tasks, that's how you have to think of Democracy going forward. Some democratic units will handle these issues differently than others... as long as we're within the framework of Lowest-common-denominator Solidarity (or Mere Solidarity as I call it) then you have to allow for those other people over there to do it wrong.