Not for the kind of fine- grained, small- bore issues being obsessed about. If the data existed showing non-trivial constituencies who would swing on this stuff, we'd have seen it by now.
My thought process is that the Pundit's Fallacy isn't a thought process. Throwing out a pet peeve on a small- bore issue may be fun, but you do things that will win you net votes, preferably significant net votes. Not non- zero votes, not there must be some votes out there somewhere that might possibly turn if the party accommodates my pet peeve on this marginal issue.
If you have a society that upholds Enlightenment ideals, it won’t matter if the government doesn’t.
If you have a society that doesn’t uphold Enlightenment ideals, it won’t matter if the government does.
I dispute that. We have long had a society where what you insist on calling Enlightenment values are widely unpopular and generally invoked opportunistically. Despite that, there are all sorts of protections against the government punishing people for their speech, indeed, more than we used to have. And they largely work. So the two notions aren't linked the way you suppose.
It has been tried, and people will continue to try. And when they succeed, it will be news, as this one has been. And they will almost always be reversed.
As far as goalposts go, if you want to argue with the voices in your head, that's your right. My original comment said a lot of things, none of which I have heard you dispute.
More of what "sort of thing"? And whatever that sort of thing is, why more than we're already used to? After all, free speech has never been popular and censorious assholes of every persuasion have always been with us. I doubt it's any worse than it has ever been, and, indeed, it's probably better now than before. Our current notions of free speech are barely 100 years old, to the embarrassment of self-styled originalists, and long after the Enlightenment was over.
And that wasn't the case. I read the case I'm vaguely remembering in law school, which was well before 1984.
There was a Supreme Court case -- I'm too busy to look up which one -- in which the Court said there was a significant difference between "First Amendment values" (I believe the term came from one of the parties' briefs) and the First Amendment. The unsuccessful plaintiffs were trying to sell the idea that some nice, speech-enhancing idea they wanted the government to adopt was actually required by the First Amendment. They failed.
Lots of things that would enhance a "culture" of free speech are not required by the First Amendment and many such things are not only not required by the First Amendment, they are forbidden by it. Free speech, whether legal or cultural, is a complicated notion not resolved by slogans. It is also, as a matter of historical and social fact, not an especially popular one.
Let's take the idea that "private companies can do whatever they want," whether you're for or against it. First, it isn't quite true. The government can, and does, forbid private companies to put up Help Wanted signs that say "No Irish need apply" and First Amendment challenges have lost. But it largely is true. And would you have it any other way? If so, what happens to the free speech rights of the private companies themselves? Must they say things, or platform others to say things, that they don't wish to say or be associated with? Maybe there would be more speech in such a world, but not more free speech.
And much social pressure that inhibits free speech is, itself, free speech. Many years ago, when I was working on a major free speech case, someone sent me a memo pad with the printed heading: "Free speech means you can say what you like -- and everyone else can laugh at you." There is no "first speaker" privilege. Anyone who says anything must be prepared for others to disagree. Perhaps they are wrong, unenlightened, and censorious, but wrong, unenlightened, censorious speech is, itself, free speech. Freedom of speech is not freedom from all its consequences. It has always taken guts to say unpopular things, and moving out of small-town America to the sinful big city where you can say what you like and be what you are -- or at least more freely than you could in East Bumf**k -- is a well-documented historical phenomenon and, by now, a literary cliche. As Dr. Gottlieb told Dr. Arrowsmith in Sinclair Lewis's novel, you can't have both freedom and the rewards of popular slavery.
The law can let people talk and prevent interference, and in America it largely does; but nothing can make people listen.
If ditching the performative, stupid and grifty elements of DEI; not (I emphasize -NOT-) the genuine substantive areas where DEI overlaps with our many other principles about helping and protecting minorities and other disadvantaged groups; why the fish should we not do that?
You assume that blatant philosophical inconsistency and shame have more force than they do. The self-proclaimed originalists rarely do originalism in any rigorous or consistent way. Indeed, they rarely do it at all. They, like almost everyone else, are cafeteria originalists. The only potentially interesting question is whether they are cynics or merely believe their own press clippings.
Maybe you can explain why you think your comment makes sense. Like most of us here, I am a "member" of the body politic, and care very much about the rules of that club. I am not a member of a variety of other clubs, like the Roman Catholic Church, the Rotary Club, or the Grosse Pointe Garden Club, which have rules that I might think silly, and might even oppose, if I had to adhere to them. But since their silly rules have nothing to do with me or my interests, or those of people I care about, I don't bother myself about them. If that's "privilege," it's not a definition I know anything about. Unless minding one's own business is "privilege."
Is there some sort of connection between your first and second paragraphs?
Are you under the impression that anyone whose name ends in a vowel is a member of the Catholic "club"? Or that, to the extent that you're asking a non-member whether he happens to agree with what the club boss says on something other than club rules, some non-club-related identity is relevant? If the Pope says "X," and X is a matter of club rules (e.g. who can be priests, what age you have to be to receive communion, whether you can eat pork), non-members are well-advised not to bother themselves about it. If X is a matter of general moral argument (abortion, capital punishment, treatment of migrants, whether you can eat meat at all), non-members can agree or disagree with the Pope just the same as they can agree or disagree with some random social media pundit.
It's certainly "another thing," but what kind of thing is it? You're pointing out that a religious leader, purporting to rely on the word of some God, has said something you agree with and hoping that what the religious leader is saying will get some traction. People who care what the religious leader has to say may find it compelling; people who don't, won't. And the problem is?
"Invoking God" is pretty much the job description of a religious leader. Maybe that sounds silly to those of us who don't believe that there is a God or that the religious leader in question has some pipeline to the God being invoked, so we don't have to take the invocation seriously. But we can't really ask them to play by our rules.
It wouldn't surprise me if that was what's behind this, but a President has always been able to say what he damn pleases and can make what he says the "position of the United States." The "position of the United States," however, is merely that, a "position."* It isn't law, and isn't a license to disregard what is law.
*Just the other day, I was talking with a lawyer who kept saying "our position is..." I told him that may be his "position," but if push came to shove he'd have to come up with a reason that a court would buy it, and he hadn't given me one.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
You asked, I answered. A thing is true or it isn't. Someone who says something exists can back it up or he can't. Do you play by different rules?
"
Not for the kind of fine- grained, small- bore issues being obsessed about. If the data existed showing non-trivial constituencies who would swing on this stuff, we'd have seen it by now.
"
The complaint is don't waste my time on this s**t unless you bring the receipts.
"
My thought process is that the Pundit's Fallacy isn't a thought process. Throwing out a pet peeve on a small- bore issue may be fun, but you do things that will win you net votes, preferably significant net votes. Not non- zero votes, not there must be some votes out there somewhere that might possibly turn if the party accommodates my pet peeve on this marginal issue.
"
That's certainly a theory.
"
OK, you want me to dispute something?
If you have a society that upholds Enlightenment ideals, it won’t matter if the government doesn’t.
If you have a society that doesn’t uphold Enlightenment ideals, it won’t matter if the government does.
I dispute that. We have long had a society where what you insist on calling Enlightenment values are widely unpopular and generally invoked opportunistically. Despite that, there are all sorts of protections against the government punishing people for their speech, indeed, more than we used to have. And they largely work. So the two notions aren't linked the way you suppose.
"
It has been tried, and people will continue to try. And when they succeed, it will be news, as this one has been. And they will almost always be reversed.
As far as goalposts go, if you want to argue with the voices in your head, that's your right. My original comment said a lot of things, none of which I have heard you dispute.
"
More of what "sort of thing"? And whatever that sort of thing is, why more than we're already used to? After all, free speech has never been popular and censorious assholes of every persuasion have always been with us. I doubt it's any worse than it has ever been, and, indeed, it's probably better now than before. Our current notions of free speech are barely 100 years old, to the embarrassment of self-styled originalists, and long after the Enlightenment was over.
And that wasn't the case. I read the case I'm vaguely remembering in law school, which was well before 1984.
"
There was a Supreme Court case -- I'm too busy to look up which one -- in which the Court said there was a significant difference between "First Amendment values" (I believe the term came from one of the parties' briefs) and the First Amendment. The unsuccessful plaintiffs were trying to sell the idea that some nice, speech-enhancing idea they wanted the government to adopt was actually required by the First Amendment. They failed.
Lots of things that would enhance a "culture" of free speech are not required by the First Amendment and many such things are not only not required by the First Amendment, they are forbidden by it. Free speech, whether legal or cultural, is a complicated notion not resolved by slogans. It is also, as a matter of historical and social fact, not an especially popular one.
Let's take the idea that "private companies can do whatever they want," whether you're for or against it. First, it isn't quite true. The government can, and does, forbid private companies to put up Help Wanted signs that say "No Irish need apply" and First Amendment challenges have lost. But it largely is true. And would you have it any other way? If so, what happens to the free speech rights of the private companies themselves? Must they say things, or platform others to say things, that they don't wish to say or be associated with? Maybe there would be more speech in such a world, but not more free speech.
And much social pressure that inhibits free speech is, itself, free speech. Many years ago, when I was working on a major free speech case, someone sent me a memo pad with the printed heading: "Free speech means you can say what you like -- and everyone else can laugh at you." There is no "first speaker" privilege. Anyone who says anything must be prepared for others to disagree. Perhaps they are wrong, unenlightened, and censorious, but wrong, unenlightened, censorious speech is, itself, free speech. Freedom of speech is not freedom from all its consequences. It has always taken guts to say unpopular things, and moving out of small-town America to the sinful big city where you can say what you like and be what you are -- or at least more freely than you could in East Bumf**k -- is a well-documented historical phenomenon and, by now, a literary cliche. As Dr. Gottlieb told Dr. Arrowsmith in Sinclair Lewis's novel, you can't have both freedom and the rewards of popular slavery.
The law can let people talk and prevent interference, and in America it largely does; but nothing can make people listen.
"
If ditching the performative, stupid and grifty elements of DEI; not (I emphasize -NOT-) the genuine substantive areas where DEI overlaps with our many other principles about helping and protecting minorities and other disadvantaged groups; why the fish should we not do that?
How many votes would it swing?
"
Wait and see.
"
I'm starting a new Jaybird Bingo Card. This is a contender for a square.
"
Well, that certainly clears things up.
On “Musk vs Gore”
You assume that blatant philosophical inconsistency and shame have more force than they do. The self-proclaimed originalists rarely do originalism in any rigorous or consistent way. Indeed, they rarely do it at all. They, like almost everyone else, are cafeteria originalists. The only potentially interesting question is whether they are cynics or merely believe their own press clippings.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
Maybe you can explain why you think your comment makes sense. Like most of us here, I am a "member" of the body politic, and care very much about the rules of that club. I am not a member of a variety of other clubs, like the Roman Catholic Church, the Rotary Club, or the Grosse Pointe Garden Club, which have rules that I might think silly, and might even oppose, if I had to adhere to them. But since their silly rules have nothing to do with me or my interests, or those of people I care about, I don't bother myself about them. If that's "privilege," it's not a definition I know anything about. Unless minding one's own business is "privilege."
"
Well, that certainly clears things up.
"
Is there some sort of connection between your first and second paragraphs?
Are you under the impression that anyone whose name ends in a vowel is a member of the Catholic "club"? Or that, to the extent that you're asking a non-member whether he happens to agree with what the club boss says on something other than club rules, some non-club-related identity is relevant? If the Pope says "X," and X is a matter of club rules (e.g. who can be priests, what age you have to be to receive communion, whether you can eat pork), non-members are well-advised not to bother themselves about it. If X is a matter of general moral argument (abortion, capital punishment, treatment of migrants, whether you can eat meat at all), non-members can agree or disagree with the Pope just the same as they can agree or disagree with some random social media pundit.
"
I don't have an opinion about the rules of a club of which I am not a member. Orthodox Jews don't eat pork? No skin off my nose and more bacon for me.
"
The Supremes have been hard at work on this for about 50 years.
"
It's certainly "another thing," but what kind of thing is it? You're pointing out that a religious leader, purporting to rely on the word of some God, has said something you agree with and hoping that what the religious leader is saying will get some traction. People who care what the religious leader has to say may find it compelling; people who don't, won't. And the problem is?
"
"Invoking God" is pretty much the job description of a religious leader. Maybe that sounds silly to those of us who don't believe that there is a God or that the religious leader in question has some pipeline to the God being invoked, so we don't have to take the invocation seriously. But we can't really ask them to play by our rules.
"
You tell us.
"
So whom?
"
Typo or Freudian slip?
"
It wouldn't surprise me if that was what's behind this, but a President has always been able to say what he damn pleases and can make what he says the "position of the United States." The "position of the United States," however, is merely that, a "position."* It isn't law, and isn't a license to disregard what is law.
*Just the other day, I was talking with a lawyer who kept saying "our position is..." I told him that may be his "position," but if push came to shove he'd have to come up with a reason that a court would buy it, and he hadn't given me one.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.