SwingingTheLamp @ SwingingTheLamp @midwest.social

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2 yr. ago

Lots of people do want a king,, or at least, a king in the sense of an embodiment and personification of the nation. Abstract thinking is hard, most of us do it as little as possible, and some people can't do it at all, so they can't conceptualize a thing like "the state." They need a figurehead to relate to, like the king in a monarchical system. When you look at the debate through that lens, it makes sense why they'd not want Biden/their nation to appear weak and disjointed.

As an aside, I think that combining the head of government and head of state in the office of President is the worst mistake in the Constitution.

I'll say it again, if you don't like the demonym of "American," feel free to refer to us by our state and territorial demonyms instead.

I think that there's something to that, at least in the case of large universities which are divided into many, many organizational units. They also offer student jobs, which allow good opportunities for learning.

I'll jump in here, though I know that everybody is dug in, and this is akin to poking the hornets' nest. Anyway, it's a matter of differing ethical calculations. On one side is utilitarianism, which says that if your choice is between Nazis who will murder 5,000,000 Jews, and worse-Nazis who will kill 5,000,001 Jews, then it's a moral imperative to support Hitler for the sake of that one person.

And that's... not wrong. I can imagine that many people would make that call, if it were some sort of send-a-time-traveler-to-kill-Hitler-or-not scenario, when the outcomes are fixed. But imagine deciding to support Hitler and personally aiding the systematic murder of 5,000,000 humans when the alternative is speculative, still in the future, when it's not assured. I think a lot fewer people would be willing to do it. How many more people would the hypothetical worse-Nazis have to kill to make that an appealing choice?

Everybody has got a moral line after which we can't abide cold, utilitarian calculations. Maybe some people would help produce the Zyklon B on the prospect of saving one life. Maybe some would only do it if it was required to save humanity from extinction. Probably a lot of people would do it to save themselves. (Hello, 1930's Germans!) That's getting off-topic, the point is that everybody has a line, and some of us would just refuse to aid the Holocaust.

Furthermore, the reality is not nearly so black and white as it is usually framed here on Lemmy. We don't actually know what a future dementia-addled President would do. He has the attention span of a toddler. He's not a strong manager and has a lot of power-hungry underlings (like Vance); his administration might resemble a bucket of rats each scrambling for the top. We don't know how the world would react to anything he'd do. Bottom line, it's speculative at this point.

And on the other side, the usual framing casts Democrats as fixed in their positions and imperturbable as the faces on Mount Rushmore, or at least boxed-in politically. They're not. President Biden has already felt the heat and slightly altered his position on Israel in a couple of instances. In fact, while we could change and abide their support of genocide, they too could change at any time to just simply not support genocide. They could even frame it (accurately, as I see it) as tough love, protecting Israel from itself and assuring its survival long-term.

That's why we pressure the people actually in power now, who are the ones supporting genocide right now, because that's democracy in action. Yes, to be fair, it might result in a worse outcome later, but that's far from assured, and in the mean time, you're telling people not to even try to stop evil.

I started a job at a university department. A previous admin had a habit of re-purposing desktop machines as servers. There were at least a dozen of them. The authentication server for the whole department was on an old Dell desktop. All of the partitions were LVM volumes, and the volume group consisted of 3 physical volumes: The internal SATA drive, a bare SATA drive in an external USB cradle, and an external USB SSD.

This is why we drink.

Great, now I've forgotten my keys!

(I don't need them until I get to work.)

On the original topic, shoes last a lot longer if you don't wear the same pair day after day. The continual dampness from foot perspiration breaks down the materials much more quickly. Giving each pair of shoes a couple of days to dry out between wearings will greatly extend their lives.

This effect may not be visible to many people, but if you have a physical job, it can save you a lot of money.

The Constitution is so vague on the point, it doesn't even require that states hold elections. It just says that the legislature decides how the state's presidential electors are appointed. That didn't stop the Originalists on the Best Supreme Court Money Can Buy™ from ruling in the Colorado ballot case that, well, akshually, legislatures aren't allowed to decide how to run their state's elections.

Now, you'd think that a ruling that federal law supersedes state control of elections means that federal law supersedes state control of elections, but that principle may only apply to who appears on the ballot. It may only apply to whether their guy appears on the ballot. Don't pin down the Best Supreme Court Money Can Buy™, man! They need to know who's going to benefit from ranked-choice voting before they know what the Constitution actually says. Hell, the Constitution may actually contain a list of which states are allowed to have ranked-choice voting, and which are not. We just don't know yet!

I read it. It was not garbage, it contains useful insights. I recommend that people read it to understand politics. BUT, NOTE, CAVEAT: Approach it with your critical thinking cap on. The author is an unreliable narrator, which is unorthodox in a work of non-fiction.

There are "longtail" T shirts that are as your describe, slightly longer.

100% chance that many people would interpret that as saying you can only get benefits for everybody together. The cannier folks would at least ask: "So can I apply for benefits for only my children, or only for all of us together?"

Better phrasing: "You can apply for benefits for any or all of the following people: You, your spouse, and your children."

Source: Years of customer service experience.

I'll add: Turning into the far lane of a multilane street. Phase/faze. Sight/site.

He registered as a Republican in 2021, and voted in the 2022 election, so it wasn't for a strategic vote against Trump, unless he was thinking ahead by several years.

I see what you're saying, and I can wholeheartedly agree that we should have been worrying about our rights for years. I'm not here trying to say that this latest ruling suddenly changes everything, but that it's incrementally worse.

I guess I do have to defend those headlines a little bit. It's not that we worry that the President is going to murder us, personally, but that it's abominable that he could, and not be prosecuted. But, then, I was complaining about that when Obama had al Awlaki killed based on ersatz due process that he made up.

I make it a point not to tell people who they are or what they believe on Lemmy, actually. And yes, Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, et al. are certainly part of a protected class with special privileges. That doesn't make them guilty of whatever their political opponents want to believe. These vague allegations of bank transfers are part of an investigation that's been going on for years without turning up anything concrete, so claims that the Bidens have been protected from scrutiny don't stand up.

Ah, I stand corrected on that point. The judge may see the evidence to determine whether an act was unofficial, but the evidence may not be introduced at trial to establish motive.

Total tangent here, but re-reading the ruling has got me wondering where in the Constitution the Originalists found this principle.

Not one politician was murdered, but funny story about January 6, 2021...

That's a neat little Catch 22 there. You need a ruling that it wasn't an official act to be able to introduce the evidence that it wasn't an official act.

Do I think the average citizen should be worried about the President signing their death warrant? No.

That's not what anybody is worried about, but rather that this is the vanguard of a movement whose followers will happily kill us for any number of out-group reasons, take away bodily autonomy, labor rights, civil rights, and regulatory protections, and then, okay, yes, have the President sign our death warrants should we decide to protest all of this.

As one of the candidates has openly advocated and said he'd do.

You just have to convince a judge that the act was outside of his official duties. Oh, and by the way, the evidence that the act was outside of his official duties is not admissible in court.

Oh, and also by the way, if you somehow manage to convince a trial court judge that the act was outside of his official duties, he can appeal the ruling. All the way back to the Supreme Court.