a lil bee 🐝 @ alilbee @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Don't sell your rage short. It is one of the constraints on a president's behavior.

And in favor of what? Putin or Xi's moral clarity? I'm unhappy with the situation in Gaza, but as flawed as the West might be, I'm of the opinion that it creates much fewer human rights atrocities. I want it improved and refined, not dismantled. In the absence of stability, do you really think leftism is what is going to rise out of the ashes? Like, really consider what you're advocating for here. How do you fight a genocide in Gaza by dismantling our own democracy at home and kicking off hundreds more in the struggle to fill the void of American hegemony? Again, I find myself questioning the pragmatism of these options.

I genuinely see a path to a better tomorrow through maintaining our democracy long enough for the boomers to age out a bit more and then filling that vacuum with a more leftist party to contend with the more centrist democrats. Even better would be a growing and pragmatic left that uses bargaining, cooperation, and political capital to achieve their ends. Getting back to a sane form of "bipartisanship" once we have rubbed the modern conservative populist movement into the ground. Rivals that can at least agree on the fundamentals of humanity.

At the end of the day, I want to flip the general leftist position. I'm a social democrat. I'm super open to a ton of leftist positions. Why would I want to vote for the left right now? They're angry, disorganized, almost powerless, refuse to compromise, and the rising populism movement's inability to perceive and work with the nuances of government are extremely concerning. I hear more about what's wrong from them than I ever do an actual solution.

I need solutions and I need us to remain on the rails so those improvements can be made. Asking for the country to collapse is just cruel to so many people. Possibly literal magnitudes above a genocide in Gaza.

You admit above that progressives have used leverage to have a large influence on the Biden admin. It's the same principle. Biden makes promises to get elected, which you then hold him to during his term. You did it with student aid (even if the Supreme Court squashed the largest one), you did it with the FTC, you did it with the climate and infrastructure bills. You had to compromise, because of course other people have power and leverage to use, but you got solid returns. You could flip your argument on term limits on its head and say he would be even more unconstrained to pursue the agenda his voters want.

Can you answer me on what the alternative does? Trump is not going to be an anti Zionist. He's going to hurt more Palestinians, harder. He's going to devastate international relations and create similar crises across the globe, which will hurt even more people. At what point do you take responsibility for those genocides you didn't help to prevent? At what point do people's lives override strict principles?

I'm sorry, you're right that I shouldn't be slinging that sort of thing. On that same token, myself and a lot of others have been called "genocidal" and various other things for the belief that it's not as simple as Biden just yeeting every ounce of support out of Israel because of the broader context of the middle east.

To be clear, I love the left. They are America's heart and lead with empathy, which is so sorely needed in politics. I just think that the left, as a combined group, lacks pragmatism in favor of principle. That tendency has led to the left not having any true power for a century, and that's only if you consider FDR a leftist, which a hell of a lot of leftists would not. I need wins. I need rights. The democrats deliver that for me. Not always, but I have multiple rights as a gay woman that I would not have without them. So like, nothing would make me happier than the left infecting and overtaking the democratic party. Please do it! But until then, I think it's foolish to use the left's leverage this way. It's cruel to those you leave behind when you sit at home. It's cruel to those who will be affected by the genocides that will be started and strengthened by a Trump admin. It's cruel for the sake of political gamesmanship, which is exactly what the democratic party is accused of constantly.

I just don't understand the pragmatism here. You sit the election out, Trump wins, Gaza is leveled for a mega church the next week and American democracy is in danger. You sit the election out, Biden wins, he now gives 0 fucks about your leverage in his second term because he doesn't need it. You vote, Trump wins, Gaza still gets leveled for the mega church. You vote, Biden wins, progressives now have leverage to force Biden into a harsher stance on Israel in his second term, exactly like you've been doing already in his first.

Subtlety and nuance have never been a strength of populist movements, but the left should really examine their impact on Biden's Israel stance. No, he hasn't completely blown up our relationship with Israel, but this is the harshest stance America has taken against Israel possibly since its inception. I'm one of the huge percentage who want further action done to bring Israel to heel, but my only realistic avenue to achieve that is by continuing to exact the leverage I have while keeping that leverage intact.

Frankly, if you want anything more, the left needs to grow and get more powerful. Objectively right now, they are weaker than the major political parties, which is what has forced them into this relationship. If you want a president who is going to give you your deepest wishes with no concessions, you're going to need to get a hell of a lot stronger. Frankly, because of that lack of pragmatism and political capital, I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

And wouldn't you know it, there's a lot more to an administration than their stance on Israel. Stop trying to boil everything down to truisms and catchphrases. If you really don't think that the left has had a sizeable impact on Biden's admin, we don't really have a lot to talk about here.

I'm not voting Democrat because of the big D. I'm voting Democrat because I'm going to be tangibly hurt by a Trump administration, along with millions of other people. Must be great to think an implosion will be a fun ride or not such a bad thing for you.

You have? Like, it's been a clear influence in the policies of his administration. I'm my opinion, it would be pretty short sighted to turn that influence into disdain.

Ugh, totally agreed. We are failing our kids. :( We'll just have to keep demanding better of our elected (and appointed) officials. Better lawmaking benefits us all! And of course, we have to keep working to get Republicans out of office, so we can have judges making more sane interpretations of our laws. But even then, I hope our judiciary holds our legislators accountable and makes them be explicit where it matters.

Thank you!! Same to you!

Of course it is. That's their entire job. It's why the judiciary exists in the first place, to interpret laws. Any law, no matter how matter how inconsequential or major, is going to be submitted to hostile judicial review where every word is going to be abused to its maximum. Have you read the CROWN Act? It's insanely short, basically a sentence or two surrounded by a bunch of legal boilerplate. That sentence is not very explicit and the authors of this law did not do their due diligence in writing it, in my opinion.

That's all beside the other important topics like the "conformity is required" superintendent, or the judge. This judge is a republican, and it is highly likely they read this maliciously. It's Texas, which means his presence can't be helped, or it would just be some similar asshole who would read it the same way.

So, how could this have been prevented? Simple. Add the word "length" to the text of the CROWN Act. Even better, spend some time doing research and have conversations with communities that have been adversely affected by discriminatory dress codes and use that information to build a comprehensive, explicit set of criteria listed in the law. That's just effective lawmaking and the less flashy part of what we should demand from our elected reps in addition to their policy positions.

I am also a white woman with long hair, and I agree that the superintendent is practically a comic villain. Those are just beside the point when it comes to the judicial review of the wording of a law. My hairstyle is also "long", but deciding whether that is a descriptor or label is a complex subject! So, we just have to be super clear when we write laws so evil people like this superintendent can't use technicalities to get around the protections we put in place.

Totally agreed on all points, and this is really what I was trying to get across. I cannot stress enough that I despise dress codes and think they have been used to suppress cultural expression for their history.

We're just talking about law here, which means linguistic analysis and the ability to distinguish between agreeable viewpoints and valid ones is critical if we want to have our positions enshrined and defended. There is a disagreeable, but valid, interpretation of the word hairstyle that distinguishes length as a separate factor. This judge didn't try to interpret the word "protected" as "yellow", because that's absurdly invalid. Judges are our society's foremost experts at taking disagreeable, but valid, interpretations and blowing them wide open.

Lawmakers have to be prepared for malicious judicial review. It is certain to happen at some level, particularly when the Supreme Court makeup is as it stands. Don't leave an obvious gap in the verbiage for a shitty justice to exploit, and then this kid would have been in school for the last year instead of dealing with this nightmare.

You're right. I'm not immune to getting frustrated, and I did get carried away there. My central points still stand, but I'll try to keep my head on straight. Thanks for the reminder.

Some hairstyles have a range of lengths as a factor, but others do not. A crew cut cannot be long, but even your other examples have obvious counter arguments. Pigtails cannot be shaved length, but can be very short or long enough to drag on the floor. Dreads can be very short, or as long as down to your hips if you get really carried away with it. Now for me, I'm all for it, you do you. But it's a valid argument that this law is forbidding restrictions to whether pigtails are allowed, but not to the range of lengths of said pigtails. Now just replace "pigtails" with "locs" and here we are. Now, if the school forbid all male hairstyles longer than X inches and your cultural hairstyle of choice has a minimum length of X inches as an inbuilt requirement to achieve said style, that would be a different case and likely to succeed on the CROWN Act alone.

End of the day though, we've just been arguing semantics over the word "hairstyle" all day. I'm happy to just agree to disagree on this. I think we're even aligned on the principle that students should be free to choose their own hairstyle.

I do agree with the law at the core. I do think dress codes should have reasonable limits to avoid them being used to put children in uncomfortable positions or to suppress their culture or self-expression, with reasonable limits for truly disruptive choices. Without these limits, we have seen schools use dress codes to force conformity and I don't think that's particularly healthy.

But yes, the law should be written better. The legislature writes the laws and the laws should be clear and explicit in intent. The law should be written to stand up to strict judiciary review. They know unfriendly judges are going to look at this. That's my point.

Alright cool, let me rebut with the following: yes it can, and yes it did. You're looking at it, right now. Racist piece of shit or no, he's got power and he just used it to take advantage of an ambiguity to get this result. So argue all you want, that's an objective fact. The lawmakers can be pissed off all they want, but this is on them. They should have done what has always been asked and required of good law, which is being explicit and clear.

And frankly, it's really fucking stupid to argue that definitions of words, especially in a legal context, are objective anyway. Words and definitions are exceptionally subjective, which is why we even have a judicial system to interpret the law. Yall can be pissed at me all you like, but the fact of the matter is, here we are talking about this because it was taken advantage of on a technicality, that should have been considered in advance and covered.

...I genuinely can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Either way, that's pretty funny.

Right, but you can have a short mullet or a long mullet. Short dreads or longer dreads. There is a factor of length separate from style. As much as you want it not to be, interpretation is complex. This judge could absolutely be a racist piece of shit, and likely is, given that he's a republican judge. But the fault here lies at the feet of the legislature who wrote an inadequate law.

I actually have a person in the same room as me right now who is a hairdresser, and they do see both arguments. I'm not asking for you to agree with the judge (and I have to stress again that I do not and would include length in style) but there is a valid view of that word here. But honestly, I'm not that keen to argue about it. If you still think it's not a matter up for debate, let's just agree to disagree and move forward aligned with the idea that this kid should be able to wear his hair however tf he wants.

I'm not so much arguing that you should feel ashamed for thinking women's rights aren't under attack, as much as your lack of knowledge on the political process. I think that misinterpretation is another example of your inability to actually understand and converse on these topics. That aside, I'm also not arguing that women's rights aren't under attack. Of course they are, and likely will be for all time. That's much different than saying that reproductive rights were not under immediate threat in the supermajority timeframe and there were higher priorities given that lower level of risk. That's a nuanced statement. Congress had 72 days of a democratic supermajority, a very small period of time for legislative action, and there were multiple ideological factions within the party that prevented the progressive dream plan. That's also a nuanced, factual statement.

You can want, want, want all you like. Put up or shut up. Dems gave my partner healthcare, gave us the right to marry, gave me the ability to vote by mail. Democrats on the court gave me reproductive rights for decades before Republicans stripped it away. Real, tangible wins for me, my family, my neighbors. The left, for all its ideals that I very much do share, has given me nothing but the vestiges of what they accomplished a century ago and a metric ton of words and ideas. Here you sit, complaining about Dems not doing enough when you haven't gotten a single gd thing done. And can't even be intellectually honest at that. Democrats might fail a lot, but they win a lot too. List your wins.

Not sure I totally agree. For instance, a mullet is a style, but there are many lengths a "mullet" can be. So, the argument is that the law is forbidding the restriction of mullets, but not the length of said mullet.

For what it's worth, I agree with your interpretation. I have no qualifications to be a judge, but I would also include length in the definition of hairstyle. But, this is a system of laws and playing devil's advocate, the legislature left a loophole that can be exploited. Regardless, your OP is incorrect in saying that length is explicitly protected. It's implicitly protected, but that is subject to judicial interpretation of definitions. They should amend the law to be more clear rather than relying on a favorable judicial reading.

See my second edit. I agree, but put yourself in a judge's shoes. They spend a large amount of time focusing on narrow definitions of words. While I disagree with it, I think that a judge interpreting hairstyle to purely mean style and not restrict length is valid. I don't think the judicial system failed here. The legislature should have written a better law with explicit language on length, color, extension, embellishment, etc. "Hairstyle" is vague and can be interpreted in all sorts of ways.

It's been a while since I saw the original text in a thread on this same topic, but I think the issue might hinge on length specifically not being included in the law's text, but only style and such. It's obviously a malicious reading of the law, but it's also an indication of flawed legislation that should have been done correctly instead of leaving wide loopholes for people to exploit. Like, even beyond being malicious, Republicans are also just inept at the process of lawmaking. The school system and the legislature of Texas are failing this kid, but I'm not sure if the justice system is or isn't, without the text in front of me. I'm trying to track that down right now to verify.

Edit: If I'm looking at the right text, I'm not seeing length mentioned at all. Only "hairstyle" and "texture" are mentioned as descriptors really. Again, this is foolish. Is it really too much to ask for lawmakers to be explicit in the laws they create? This is like, the first thing you consider as coming up if you think about it for a few minutes.

Double edit: Also, good chance to find a more sympathetic ruling on appeal. The right judge could absolutely interpret "hairstyle" to include length. I would.