I cannot sit and admire a forest without being reminded of the alarming rates at which we are cutting down trees or the statistics of global warming…
Er, really? Who's reminding you of this while you sit and admire forests? Are there protesters with signs? Do people just walk up to you and say, "What about anthropogenic climate change"?
I get that you aren't speaking literally, but at the same time I really can't work out what you're alluding to figuratively.
But is there evidence of corruption? Isn’t that pretty important?
Good question, and the weakest aspect of my line of argument is that I don't know the answer to it.
Your second point is unclear to me. What alternatives do you propose?
The traditional alternative is to start (or buy) a newspaper, and then when you want to praise or criticize a candidate for whatever reason, you publish an editorial that does just that. That was a perfectly viable solution before Citizens United.
And if you restrict the ability of individuals and organizations to contribute money and help raise awareness about candidates and issues, then you have effectively left the media and existing political parties as the gatekeepers to the political process.
So start your own media outlets to spread your views. This is a thing people do now, and have done for ages, and the costs of entry certainly don't seem higher now than they did a century ago.
I can see why some people like that, but I’m not sure why I ought to trust them more than I trust random rich people.
Random rich people have a long and storied history of starting their own newspapers and magazines, or buying up existing ones.
But the obvious question is: what does it mean to buy a politician? Are we talking about quid pro quo exchanges or are we talking about fuzzy “reflects the interests of” stuff?
We're talking about quid pro quo exchanges, and being able to have anything like reasonable certainty that they aren't happening.
How is that not a pretty fierce restriction on speech?
I'd make my argument in two parts.
The first is that it's because of the relatively narrow, viewpoint-neutral scope of the restriction (electioneering communications right before an election) in service of a compelling state interest (avoiding soft corruption and the appearance of same).
The second is that there were many alternatives left open for groups and people like the one you're speculating about. "We want to band together to say this thing, without directly contributing to a candidate, or starting a newspaper or magazine of our own, or writing letters to the editor of an existing newspaper, or getting an editorial published in that newspaper, or...."
So their voice can say, “Black lives matter!” but not, “We support Clinton and here’s why?”
Then there's no problem that I see.
And of course it should go without saying that the argument would be identical if they wanted to say, "Unborn lives matter!" but not, "We support Ted Cruz and here's why!" but it probably won't.
Kazzy: So what happens when 1000 poor Black and Hispanic folks from the South Bronx want to make their voices heard — their voices and not amplify the voice of a candidate who may or may not really represent them?
Then they can just do that? It would only be an issue if they were supporting or opposing a specific candidate right before an election, in which case the "make their voices heard" objection doesn't seem relevant.
And at the same time, the empirical research on campaign financing generally fails to find any of these supposedly I’ll effects.
I've seen summaries of research indicating that campaign spending doesn't really work for buying elections. I haven't seen similar research indicating that it doesn't work for buying politicians.
I don't think they could be anonymous in the sense required to ensure the integrity of elected officials, i.e., they could effectively prevent the official from being told the secret of who is behind the donations.
The Kinsley argument in favor of Citizens United shares a common infirmity with many other defenses of that decision: it proceeds from the assumption that campaign finance laws are there to keep rich people from wielding disproportionate influence over elections. If that were the only thing at stake, then I think CU would be an obvious slam dunk. The problem, however, has less to do with buying elections, and more to do with buying politicians.
This, in my mind, significantly shifts the calculus. Just because money is speech doesn't mean it stops being money, and CU makes it all too easy to make quid pro quo arrangements with the politicians you're supporting with gobs of cash.
I'd argue that they shouldn't, because the fundamental rationale for the restriction on firearm ownership among felons in public safety. They greatly enhance an individual's capacity for violence, which is really the basis for why we have a right to own them. A person with a gun can cause a great deal of havoc on their own.
A person with a vote, on the other hand, really can't do much at all on their own, and what they can do is heavily restrained by the other checks that we have on our government.
Not only do I think voting is a civic responsibility, I’d agree that it’s a responsibility that is discharged through the exercise of a degree of discretion. To the extent that we want our laws and our government to reflect our shared morality, the discharge of that responsibility requires making intelligent, informed, and morally-weighted judgments.
This argument appears to prove far too much.
After all, voting is just one form of political participation which is necessary for democracy to function correctly; so is advocating one's case via writing or speech. The latter is, at least arguably, more powerful than voting, and I think it's every bit as easy to cast it as a civic responsibility. One can argue, just as plausibly, that one ought to discharge that responsibility in a manner that is informed, intelligent and morally weighted.
Yet do we really want to say that felons should not be able to speak? It's not even clear to me that the Constitution would be a bar, here.
I'd think allowing felons to vote absentee in their home districts, instead of the district where they're imprisoned, would largely resolve that issue.
Art Deco:
No, what you mean is that you have an understanding of what constitutes a problem and you cannot be bothered to appreciate anyone else’s understanding.
Art Deco:
I’ll wager the franchise is of almost no interest to convicts.The whole controversy has been ginned up by black politicians as part of their grievance shtick.
Or that people who enacted the suffrage restriction had some civic principle in mind, such that people who don’t respect the law are not properly members of the body politic?
...is exactly the motivation I was thinking about when I described stripping convicts of the right to vote as a non-solution to a non-problem.
Because striping convicts of the right to vote appears to be a non-solution to a non-problem.
Also, I really think the argument that because the state already exerts a lot more power over the lives of convicts, they shouldn't be allowed to vote is downright perverse.
Right, and the rationale in all those cases is that engaging in those activities would either make them more likely to commit crimes or would facilitate the commission of crimes. It's really hard to see how either concern would apply to voting.
I'd think people who insist on the importance of "equality of opportunity instead of equality of outcome" would be all for a very aggressive estate tax. Strangely enough, it rarely plays out that way.
They are, and they're also prone to seeing (for example) someone on the other side simply having a strong opinion as "snobbery" or "arrogance". People don't engage in sustained advocacy for a set of policies if they aren't pretty sure they're right, and thus that people opposed to those policies are wrong.
I think the issue is less FATE vs d20 and it's more just managing the weight of dealing with all the stuff that comes with a game. I introduced two newbies to D&D via the (now ten years old!) D&D 3.x "basic" boxed set, and they had a blast--even with the Attacks of Opportunity. But it came with a big map, and minis/counters, and pregen PCs, allowing it to work more like a (familiar and comforting) boardgames while avoiding the daunting "flip back and forth through the PHB" of character creation.
Imagine that I described something you actually cared about like this.
Would you even be interested in talking to me?
If something I actually cared about could be accurately described in this fashion, I don't see why my lack of interest in discussing it would be any great loss to you.
Getting all pissy and bent out of shape because your system is obviously hackable, especially when it can be pretty easily fixed, is right up there with corporations or governments yelling at security experts who publicly expose their IT holes. In short, I have zero** sympathy for the offended parties. Quit yer bellyaching and fix yer system.
I don't share the outrage, but I really don't like the idea that we should have to harden all of our social interactions to such an extent that no one can make our lives difficult by violating informal social norms. Nor do I think it's reasonable to expect that people who've come to rely on those norms fail to try to enforce them when they're violated. That's what the vitriol was and is, IMO, an enforcement mechanism, even if, in this case, it looks to be an ineffective one.
The Left Hand of Darkness won a Hugo more than 40 years ago. In Ancillary Justice, the pronoun thing is just a little detail in what's, overall, a pretty straightforward space opera adventure.
I don’t disagree that there’s a lot of really gross classism bound up in the way many liberals talk about food,
As an aside, one of my knee-jerk objections to the Johnathan Haidt stuff about moral universes is that he argues that conservatives care about purity while liberals basically don't, while my sense is that liberals care about some kinds of "purity" (especially around food) while conservatives care about others (especially around sex).
Is this the first time he's said such things? Economists, even left-leaning ones, tend to be pretty enthusiastic about consumption taxes, regressiveness aside. I mean, he's not wrong about how important they are to funding European welfare states.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Hinges & Doubts: Musings on Social Justice & Activism”
I cannot sit and admire a forest without being reminded of the alarming rates at which we are cutting down trees or the statistics of global warming…
Er, really? Who's reminding you of this while you sit and admire forests? Are there protesters with signs? Do people just walk up to you and say, "What about anthropogenic climate change"?
I get that you aren't speaking literally, but at the same time I really can't work out what you're alluding to figuratively.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.05.10.T}”
But is there evidence of corruption? Isn’t that pretty important?
Good question, and the weakest aspect of my line of argument is that I don't know the answer to it.
Your second point is unclear to me. What alternatives do you propose?
The traditional alternative is to start (or buy) a newspaper, and then when you want to praise or criticize a candidate for whatever reason, you publish an editorial that does just that. That was a perfectly viable solution before Citizens United.
"
And if you restrict the ability of individuals and organizations to contribute money and help raise awareness about candidates and issues, then you have effectively left the media and existing political parties as the gatekeepers to the political process.
So start your own media outlets to spread your views. This is a thing people do now, and have done for ages, and the costs of entry certainly don't seem higher now than they did a century ago.
I can see why some people like that, but I’m not sure why I ought to trust them more than I trust random rich people.
Random rich people have a long and storied history of starting their own newspapers and magazines, or buying up existing ones.
"
But the obvious question is: what does it mean to buy a politician? Are we talking about quid pro quo exchanges or are we talking about fuzzy “reflects the interests of” stuff?
We're talking about quid pro quo exchanges, and being able to have anything like reasonable certainty that they aren't happening.
"
How is that not a pretty fierce restriction on speech?
I'd make my argument in two parts.
The first is that it's because of the relatively narrow, viewpoint-neutral scope of the restriction (electioneering communications right before an election) in service of a compelling state interest (avoiding soft corruption and the appearance of same).
The second is that there were many alternatives left open for groups and people like the one you're speculating about. "We want to band together to say this thing, without directly contributing to a candidate, or starting a newspaper or magazine of our own, or writing letters to the editor of an existing newspaper, or getting an editorial published in that newspaper, or...."
"
@kazzy
So their voice can say, “Black lives matter!” but not, “We support Clinton and here’s why?”
Then there's no problem that I see.
And of course it should go without saying that the argument would be identical if they wanted to say, "Unborn lives matter!" but not, "We support Ted Cruz and here's why!" but it probably won't.
"
Then they can just do that? It would only be an issue if they were supporting or opposing a specific candidate right before an election, in which case the "make their voices heard" objection doesn't seem relevant.
"
And at the same time, the empirical research on campaign financing generally fails to find any of these supposedly I’ll effects.
I've seen summaries of research indicating that campaign spending doesn't really work for buying elections. I haven't seen similar research indicating that it doesn't work for buying politicians.
"
I don't think they could be anonymous in the sense required to ensure the integrity of elected officials, i.e., they could effectively prevent the official from being told the secret of who is behind the donations.
"
The Kinsley argument in favor of Citizens United shares a common infirmity with many other defenses of that decision: it proceeds from the assumption that campaign finance laws are there to keep rich people from wielding disproportionate influence over elections. If that were the only thing at stake, then I think CU would be an obvious slam dunk. The problem, however, has less to do with buying elections, and more to do with buying politicians.
This, in my mind, significantly shifts the calculus. Just because money is speech doesn't mean it stops being money, and CU makes it all too easy to make quid pro quo arrangements with the politicians you're supporting with gobs of cash.
On “Morning Ed: United States {2016.05.04.W}”
I'd argue that they shouldn't, because the fundamental rationale for the restriction on firearm ownership among felons in public safety. They greatly enhance an individual's capacity for violence, which is really the basis for why we have a right to own them. A person with a gun can cause a great deal of havoc on their own.
A person with a vote, on the other hand, really can't do much at all on their own, and what they can do is heavily restrained by the other checks that we have on our government.
"
Not only do I think voting is a civic responsibility, I’d agree that it’s a responsibility that is discharged through the exercise of a degree of discretion. To the extent that we want our laws and our government to reflect our shared morality, the discharge of that responsibility requires making intelligent, informed, and morally-weighted judgments.
This argument appears to prove far too much.
After all, voting is just one form of political participation which is necessary for democracy to function correctly; so is advocating one's case via writing or speech. The latter is, at least arguably, more powerful than voting, and I think it's every bit as easy to cast it as a civic responsibility. One can argue, just as plausibly, that one ought to discharge that responsibility in a manner that is informed, intelligent and morally weighted.
Yet do we really want to say that felons should not be able to speak? It's not even clear to me that the Constitution would be a bar, here.
"
I'd think allowing felons to vote absentee in their home districts, instead of the district where they're imprisoned, would largely resolve that issue.
"
El. Oh. El.
"
Did Chesterton’s fence ever occur to you?
No. Why would it? After all, this...
Or that people who enacted the suffrage restriction had some civic principle in mind, such that people who don’t respect the law are not properly members of the body politic?
...is exactly the motivation I was thinking about when I described stripping convicts of the right to vote as a non-solution to a non-problem.
"
How is no voting anything different?
Because striping convicts of the right to vote appears to be a non-solution to a non-problem.
Also, I really think the argument that because the state already exerts a lot more power over the lives of convicts, they shouldn't be allowed to vote is downright perverse.
"
Right, and the rationale in all those cases is that engaging in those activities would either make them more likely to commit crimes or would facilitate the commission of crimes. It's really hard to see how either concern would apply to voting.
On “Train Wreck: Wealth Towers Over New York’s Crumbling Subways | Freddie”
I'd think people who insist on the importance of "equality of opportunity instead of equality of outcome" would be all for a very aggressive estate tax. Strangely enough, it rarely plays out that way.
On “Morning Ed: World {2016.05.02.M}”
They are, and they're also prone to seeing (for example) someone on the other side simply having a strong opinion as "snobbery" or "arrogance". People don't engage in sustained advocacy for a set of policies if they aren't pretty sure they're right, and thus that people opposed to those policies are wrong.
On “Weekend!”
I think the issue is less FATE vs d20 and it's more just managing the weight of dealing with all the stuff that comes with a game. I introduced two newbies to D&D via the (now ten years old!) D&D 3.x "basic" boxed set, and they had a blast--even with the Attacks of Opportunity. But it came with a big map, and minis/counters, and pregen PCs, allowing it to work more like a (familiar and comforting) boardgames while avoiding the daunting "flip back and forth through the PHB" of character creation.
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.04.27.W}”
Imagine that I described something you actually cared about like this.
Would you even be interested in talking to me?
If something I actually cared about could be accurately described in this fashion, I don't see why my lack of interest in discussing it would be any great loss to you.
"
I don't share the outrage, but I really don't like the idea that we should have to harden all of our social interactions to such an extent that no one can make our lives difficult by violating informal social norms. Nor do I think it's reasonable to expect that people who've come to rely on those norms fail to try to enforce them when they're violated. That's what the vitriol was and is, IMO, an enforcement mechanism, even if, in this case, it looks to be an ineffective one.
"
The Left Hand of Darkness won a Hugo more than 40 years ago. In Ancillary Justice, the pronoun thing is just a little detail in what's, overall, a pretty straightforward space opera adventure.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.04.26.T}”
I don’t disagree that there’s a lot of really gross classism bound up in the way many liberals talk about food,
As an aside, one of my knee-jerk objections to the Johnathan Haidt stuff about moral universes is that he argues that conservatives care about purity while liberals basically don't, while my sense is that liberals care about some kinds of "purity" (especially around food) while conservatives care about others (especially around sex).
"
Is this the first time he's said such things? Economists, even left-leaning ones, tend to be pretty enthusiastic about consumption taxes, regressiveness aside. I mean, he's not wrong about how important they are to funding European welfare states.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.