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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • There is a substantial difference between “being suicidal” in the clinical sense and having decided to commit suicide. We have no reason to believe, lacking an avenue for the “self expression” of immolation, that he would have jumped from a bridge or hung himself in the attic. As far as we can tell, he looked at the present political situation and judged that the most effective thing he could do to accomplish what he believed had to be accomplished was by doing something that required the investment of dying. That’s not the same thing as “being suicidal”, though you and I both disagree with his choice for our respective reasons.


  • As far as I can tell, that’s mostly not what the study says. What it is saying is that the event of a judicial election and the pressures associated therewith demonstrably cause systemic disadvantage to defendants and appellants near election time, but it doesn’t actually address how the overall rulings of elected judges compare to appointed judges except for one study it mentions that does say, in your defense, that they [elected judges] reverse death sentences less often in the states that have the death penalty. However it goes on to say:

    These studies leave open several important research questions. For example, they generally do not compare systems, and thus do not address whether some re-election or retention election systems have more of an impact on criminal justice outcomes than others, or whether reappointment processes may also have an effect.

    And later says:

    Much of the empirical research considering the impact of judicial selection dynamics on criminal justice outcomes has focused on elections. Further study is needed to understand the incentive structures created by appointive systems, particularly those that provide for reappointment. The few studies that have considered these dynamics suggest there may be reasons for concern.

    For example, in one such study, Joanna Shepherd examined how the political preferences of those determining whether to extend a judge’s tenure impact judicial decision-making. Just as the public’s preferences may impact case outcomes within electoral systems, Shepherd found that the preferences of governors can have a similar effect in states where they play a role in reappointing judges. 92 Indeed, Shepherd determined that as governorships change hands, so too do judicial rulings; when a Republican governor replaces a Democratic governor, judges’ rulings in a variety of cases, including criminal cases, shift.93 Shepherd’s findings suggest that reselection pressures are a concern even outside the election context, and highlight the need for further inquiry into the dynamics of appointive systems.

    And that’s really the full extent to which it addresses the subject of appointment.




  • I’m pretty sure Yog isn’t the one doing the deleting, though I don’t know 100%, but you can still see deleted comments in the modlog, so the context isn’t actually lost, just inconvenient (that’s how I know what all the comments were, since I got here after the deletions). Anyway, I’ve antagonized yog multiple times and he’s never deleted any of my comments. My view on him is that he’s very driven and determined with his agitating and gets a little caught up in his passion for it when he gets resistance from people, especially since a substantial amount of that resistance if from genuinely reactionary assholes. I can understand being frustrated with him, though.


  • There’s no evidence Trump will be worse on Palestine than the Dems. The idea that Trump is worse than any future frontrunner is myopic alarmism, you’ll be whipped into a new frenzy just the same with most or perhaps all future candidates (some of whom will be substantially worse). Furthermore, most people live in states where their vote doesn’t have any impact on the winner of the election, sothem voting blue only serves to legitimate the popular mandate of the genocidal dems. I don’t know, this is all very obvious but it’s like my 50th time saying it in this stupid thread.

    You say we’re on the same side, but your ideology is one of supporting perpetrators into perpetuity because the tautology you’ve been talked into has no off-ramp, no point in the future where you stop taking “emergency” “temporary” “provisional” “compromises” to “reduce harm” and instead make actual positive progress. There will always be a new election, there will always be a new Republican platform that declares an interest in doing heinous shit, and very frequently there will be more sincere fascists than Trump, like if Tom Cotton ever runs, and there will never be some demon democrat you won’t vote for because they are running against someone who is 1% more reactionary, and that thereby necessitates everyone giving them unconditional support.

    It’s an unserious strategy based on the panicked mindset of people who are stuck in an abusive relationship with liberal media.



  • The other fellow was being a real asshole, so I think perhaps the mod was primed to a very hostile reading (e.g. of our friend yog being a paid shill or something), since I think you were being obnoxious but it’s counter-productive to take mod action against something so trivial when just responding suffices.

    If you’re interested in an answer, while I don’t entirely agree with Yog on most issues relating to China, Marxists are obliged to have quite a lot of evidence to back up their claims while liberals can just sort of coast off of cultural norms because their ideology is already hegemonic. I don’t keep a list of links because I don’t take notes for almost anything, but I definitely make sure to remember the titles (etc.) of useful articles so I can retrieve them in a circumstance like this. That’s very inefficient though, so it makes sense that yog would just keep them on-hand for common liberal talking points to prevent needing to look them up over and over.






  • First in our current system the president needs Congress to get things done

    There is quite a lot that the President can do independently using Executive Orders. Even tasks that, on paper, require congressional approval can be subverted, and you can look at the US’s record of entering undeclared wars as evidence of that.

    Beyond that, see what I already said about how there’s no such thing as an autocrat.

    Second, we’ve seen with the freedom caucus that a small group of congressmen can wield a lot of power

    These are people who would do the best in an imaginary Fuhrer Trump political machine. Think of it like getting promoted to a bigger, more powerful Freedom Caucus.

    Third, I think we definitely can expect a very different Trump in a second term versus his first term and he definitely HAS expressed an interest in this with all of his dictation envy too become Fuhrer and worse there is a large portion of the population that is content to be rolled under a Trump dictatorship.

    People have been talking about him admiring dictators before he was elected and all throughout his first term. There’s nothing new here, no evidence that suggests something has changed.

    I promise you it’s just hysteria. So there’s a chance of something beneficial happening in this conversation, I want you to just take note of this conviction you have that Trump will be Hitler and then, if he is elected, just remember it as he blunders his way through being racist and doing war crimes just the same as he did before with no particular change besides Vance leading a new rhetorical tact.

    No, I won’t be doing a mirror version of this exercise. I’m a communist, so if I’m wrong and he’s a neo-neo-Nazi, I get the wall anyway and it’s no harm done.


  • How do you think that will play out with Palestine should he get in again?

    Liberals keeps saying that Trump will do genocide x 2, but they have no evidence, nor any indication of how.

    Look, it does actually work in Western Europe, the UK, Australia and NZ. All this talk that it can’t work is plainly wrong.

    Your courts are mostly more professional than America’s but I don’t find that to be a compelling argument when every country you listed is a reactionary shithole, Australia especially. NZ is the only one that I’d give kind of a pass to there.


  • It has very little support, it’s DOA. That’s just what happens. Look at all of Bernie’s failed bills; they just don’t push the needle. You can tell me that at some point in the future the Rapture will definitely happen, the righteous will be saved and the sinners will be cast into perdition and so on, but I don’t see any reason to believe it considering the history of the Democrats for the last 40 years and their incredible ability to pretend to want good things while either conspiring with open rightists or making limp gestures like this.

    You will not see the Democratic Party vote its own power away, it just won’t happen.


  • Making a declaration is worthless. This is three people saying that they’d like to do something and they will fail just as these attempts have always failed. I can give them as people some amount of credit for trying to make the world better, but that does not exonerate the system! The system – including the rest of the Democratic Party – will still put their attempt down regardless.

    Do you not see the difference here? The fact that people can and do propose to do good things now and again and those attempts are shot down even by the so-called left wing party is not a defense of the republic, but an indictment!


  • I said

    admitted that there may be

    Which is what you said. I characterized your statement correctly.

    Campaigning on the issues will lock judges into their biases.

    What does this mean? Everyone has biases, I don’t see how campaigning matters for that. Do you mean, perhaps, that it prevents judges from changing for branding purposes? Because that objection has two serious problems: 1) what the public wants will change over time and 2) people should do what they’re elected to, so what does it matter if someone keeps getting elected for maintaining the same popular platform?