They forgot to have him say "also I guess I'm sorry I jumped out of the car to go yell at you after I cut you off and you honked at me, maybe threatening a stranger with violence was a bad idea after all".
"[T]he Department of Education has emergency funds to allocate to education in disaster areas..."
...which raises the immediate question of "why is this something the Department of Education is expected to do instead of FEMA?"
Like, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that FEMA had a working relationship with Education specifically for that situation, but I am rather questioning the need for Education to have its own budget for "emergency education in disaster areas".
Although you're right that the Department Of Education Emergency Disaster Department does serve a useful purpose; it provides a full multi-level management structure that needs to be filled and it can accept college graduates with non-technical degrees, neither of which we can depend on private industry to do these days.
"Oh wait, he shot a moderately rich guy? Hey, now I love the idea of violent vigilantes using 3D-printed firearms and homemade silencers, I totally support it! And Due Process is really important, I definitely think that process is the basis of justice!"
"the federal bureaucracy decided to solve the problem by creating more federal bureaucracy. "
They had plenty of bureaucracy that was perfectly capable of finding the guys in question, but A) that would involve collection of intelligence against persons legally residing in the United States, and the 90s were a time when we decided that sort of thing had extremely serious privacy concerns and should be curtailed unless there was a clear-and-present-danger situation; and B) Clinton didn't want anyone looking too hard into where he was putting his wiener and felt that knackering the NSA's practice of tipping the FBI was a good way to address that.
So for a variety of reasons we couldn't just go back to the way it used to be, which is why we needed a new outfit to handle it.
"None of us have any idea how much actual damage will happen, but it could indeed be a full-on economic calamity."
yeah, all those people whose business is "resell drop-shipped stuff on etsy or Amazon or off of a table at a 'handmade crafts' fair" will have a tough time!
Well that sure was a whole bunch of words which didn't address the question of what it means when the government says "Dear Colleague, you might want to be careful about what sort of speech you allow on your platform because otherwise the regulatory agency that determines whether you're allowed to be in existence might find itself compelled to regulate differently".
Oh, you mean the Never Trumpers that we were told not to take seriously because they didn't mean it, and even if they did mean it they were racists anyway?
"[F]or most of us, homelessness is way closer than we’d like to think."
Well, yes; I guess if I ran away from my current life to a far-off city where I had no family or friends and then decided that I didn't need to think about anything more complicated than getting high, I'd probably end up homeless pretty quickly too.
Like, these are intentional choices I'd be making to screw up my life, not some completely out-of-the-blue "every possible source of support and assistance instantly vanished along with all my skills and knowledge", but sure, not too far away.
" it makes no sense to see people experiencing homeless as an other"
see you say this like we're supposed to fall down on our knees and break into sobs and realize that we save ourselves by saving them or some manure like that but what I'd say is that I don't see them as "an other", but that means I have even less sympathy because I think about how many times I would have to knowingly choose "worst option" to get where they are now.
Regardless of the ideological makeup of the overall Court (and opinions of certain posters here) you really are unlikely to get away with telling the US Government to Eat It.
" But just as freedom of the press is for people who own one, freedom of speech is for people with the gonadal endowment to speak. "
are you actually standing up in public and saying with your entire mouth that anyone who gets oppressed by the government deserves it for being a wimp-ass bitch
"The big question I keep coming back to is why? The savings are trivial..."
The people who want this just want to see something be done. They don't actually care how much they personally will save or even how much is saved overall, they want to see a statement being made that government waste will not be tolerated, "waste" defined as "the government spending money on literally anything".
Like,
" that means opposition from the wealthy and powerful, who the abundance crowd are usually so unwilling to target."
buddy, the "wealthy and powerful" are the people the abundance message is specifically targeting, saying to them "it's possible for you to make more money by building houses than by not building them", "new power plants and refurbished infrastructure will require large construction contracts and you can make money from that".
That bit about "a useful idiot for the right" is the reason so much stuff proposed by the left never goes anywhere, because they're worried about giving any impression of any kind that The Right was correct about literally anything, even in the tiniest imaginable way.
"You can’t pass laws that do not clearly explain what people cannot do, that people cannot read and understand what behavior is barred."
hey remember all those times I'd quote Nancy Pelosi saying "we have to pass the law to find out what's in it" and you would get really upset and post a whole bunch of words about That's Just How Laws Work And If You Thought Differently You're Either Stupid Or Dumb?
"[T]hat itself has strange first amendment implications, as now other countries can punish people in the US for their speech by using US law. "
people have been asking for this for years. now they're getting it.
That essay has rather more than most of Freddie's work of "thinking that he can justify his aesthetic distaste for Centrist Liberals as Actually Objective Moral Judgement if he throws enough words at the problem".
Saying "abundance" in a nose-wrinkled tone has become very popular among the Online Left, and it's very clear that it's not really about any problem they have with the idea and more about a new way to...well, to signal ingroup allegiance, as it were.
I mean, the only place they might find to criticize it is that it suggests you can get Capitalism to produce desirable results, versus smashing Capitalism And Also The State.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 5/5/2025”
"So your opinion is that societal improvement is impossible and nothing can or should be done to make humans better? "
Lee, she shouldn't have done that.
What do you think should happen to her?
(Also, she shouldn't have done that.)
"
"You make that sound like a bad thing."
I can doomscroll all day on Twitter, bro.
"
They forgot to have him say "also I guess I'm sorry I jumped out of the car to go yell at you after I cut you off and you honked at me, maybe threatening a stranger with violence was a bad idea after all".
On “The Department of Good Things”
"[T]he Department of Education has emergency funds to allocate to education in disaster areas..."
...which raises the immediate question of "why is this something the Department of Education is expected to do instead of FEMA?"
Like, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that FEMA had a working relationship with Education specifically for that situation, but I am rather questioning the need for Education to have its own budget for "emergency education in disaster areas".
Although you're right that the Department Of Education Emergency Disaster Department does serve a useful purpose; it provides a full multi-level management structure that needs to be filled and it can accept college graduates with non-technical degrees, neither of which we can depend on private industry to do these days.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 5/5/2025”
"Oh wait, he shot a moderately rich guy? Hey, now I love the idea of violent vigilantes using 3D-printed firearms and homemade silencers, I totally support it! And Due Process is really important, I definitely think that process is the basis of justice!"
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/28/2025”
Maybe. Or maybe they'll vote to make those things illegal.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 5/5/2025”
(thank you for writing "counsel" and not "council" there, although in this case the latter might be less incorrect than usual)
"
they're going to be very disappointed to learn that you do more stonework when you've been banned from the Masons than when you're in them
On “The Department of Good Things”
"the federal bureaucracy decided to solve the problem by creating more federal bureaucracy. "
They had plenty of bureaucracy that was perfectly capable of finding the guys in question, but A) that would involve collection of intelligence against persons legally residing in the United States, and the 90s were a time when we decided that sort of thing had extremely serious privacy concerns and should be curtailed unless there was a clear-and-present-danger situation; and B) Clinton didn't want anyone looking too hard into where he was putting his wiener and felt that knackering the NSA's practice of tipping the FBI was a good way to address that.
So for a variety of reasons we couldn't just go back to the way it used to be, which is why we needed a new outfit to handle it.
On “US Department of Education Announces that it is Restarting Loan Collection”
"None of us have any idea how much actual damage will happen, but it could indeed be a full-on economic calamity."
yeah, all those people whose business is "resell drop-shipped stuff on etsy or Amazon or off of a table at a 'handmade crafts' fair" will have a tough time!
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/28/2025”
Meanwhile, the other side makes Absolutely Certain that their demands are met.
"
"Amazon Haul", actually, which is their in-house version of Alibaba -- direct-from-the-factory Chinese-supplier purchasing.
So, sure, not not Amazon, but also not the "Amazon" that you'd shop on by going to Amazon Dot Com or getting things for your Kindle.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/14/2025”
Well that sure was a whole bunch of words which didn't address the question of what it means when the government says "Dear Colleague, you might want to be careful about what sort of speech you allow on your platform because otherwise the regulatory agency that determines whether you're allowed to be in existence might find itself compelled to regulate differently".
On “Back When Patriots Opposed Kings”
Oh, you mean the Never Trumpers that we were told not to take seriously because they didn't mean it, and even if they did mean it they were racists anyway?
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/14/2025”
"[F]or most of us, homelessness is way closer than we’d like to think."
Well, yes; I guess if I ran away from my current life to a far-off city where I had no family or friends and then decided that I didn't need to think about anything more complicated than getting high, I'd probably end up homeless pretty quickly too.
Like, these are intentional choices I'd be making to screw up my life, not some completely out-of-the-blue "every possible source of support and assistance instantly vanished along with all my skills and knowledge", but sure, not too far away.
" it makes no sense to see people experiencing homeless as an other"
see you say this like we're supposed to fall down on our knees and break into sobs and realize that we save ourselves by saving them or some manure like that but what I'd say is that I don't see them as "an other", but that means I have even less sympathy because I think about how many times I would have to knowingly choose "worst option" to get where they are now.
"
I dunno, maybe you could explain in more detail what you meant by "freedom of speech is for people with the gonadal endowment to speak"
"
Regardless of the ideological makeup of the overall Court (and opinions of certain posters here) you really are unlikely to get away with telling the US Government to Eat It.
"
" But just as freedom of the press is for people who own one, freedom of speech is for people with the gonadal endowment to speak. "
are you actually standing up in public and saying with your entire mouth that anyone who gets oppressed by the government deserves it for being a wimp-ass bitch
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
bro we're not asking for "all children to be above average", we're asking for "all children to be able to pass a basic skills test."
On “Throughput: Telling Women They’re Womening Wrong, But In Space”
"The big question I keep coming back to is why? The savings are trivial..."
The people who want this just want to see something be done. They don't actually care how much they personally will save or even how much is saved overall, they want to see a statement being made that government waste will not be tolerated, "waste" defined as "the government spending money on literally anything".
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
Like,
" that means opposition from the wealthy and powerful, who the abundance crowd are usually so unwilling to target."
buddy, the "wealthy and powerful" are the people the abundance message is specifically targeting, saying to them "it's possible for you to make more money by building houses than by not building them", "new power plants and refurbished infrastructure will require large construction contracts and you can make money from that".
"
That bit about "a useful idiot for the right" is the reason so much stuff proposed by the left never goes anywhere, because they're worried about giving any impression of any kind that The Right was correct about literally anything, even in the tiniest imaginable way.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
"You can’t pass laws that do not clearly explain what people cannot do, that people cannot read and understand what behavior is barred."
hey remember all those times I'd quote Nancy Pelosi saying "we have to pass the law to find out what's in it" and you would get really upset and post a whole bunch of words about That's Just How Laws Work And If You Thought Differently You're Either Stupid Or Dumb?
"[T]hat itself has strange first amendment implications, as now other countries can punish people in the US for their speech by using US law. "
people have been asking for this for years. now they're getting it.
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
That essay has rather more than most of Freddie's work of "thinking that he can justify his aesthetic distaste for Centrist Liberals as Actually Objective Moral Judgement if he throws enough words at the problem".
Saying "abundance" in a nose-wrinkled tone has become very popular among the Online Left, and it's very clear that it's not really about any problem they have with the idea and more about a new way to...well, to signal ingroup allegiance, as it were.
I mean, the only place they might find to criticize it is that it suggests you can get Capitalism to produce desirable results, versus smashing Capitalism And Also The State.
On “What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Trade War”
and I'll be honest, based on local results the "high-speed pizza delivery" ain't lookin' so great either.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.