I thought Kamala was very human while being competent in the debate. I love the bear metaphor or comparison or whatever it is.
Frank On Sat, Sep 28, 2024 at 3:51 PM Santafe <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote: > Didn’t mean to drop this Glen. Busy patch. > > I don’t know. Have been ruminating for a week (or whatever it is) > wondering whether I have any substance to contribute. > > I understand how an argument like the one you make below might hang > together (first para and part of the second). Do I think it does, for this > case? Not really. Gorsuch looks like the kind of patrician who could have > come strainght out of the worst ranks of the Roman Senate. More than any > of the others. So he is probably unreachable for any aim at this point. > We have to wait for him to die of old age, because his character growth > ended decades ago. ACB probably has more decency, but is captured by her > particular (not the most dramatic) cult, and that is limiting. If she were > to show signs of growth, I wouldn’t find it incomprehensible, but I don’t > expect it to be much or to be soon. > > Roberts doesn’t look like the cynical or bitter power-abuser that Thomas > and Alito purposely present themselves as. And I can’t get inside > anybody’s head; the more time goes by I don’t think I even have a good > scope of what human heads can be like. I think I am becoming mind-blind; > they are not more comprehensible to me than bears. But the evidence of his > actions is that he repeatedly, and in a very activist/interventionist > manner, protects a manifest criminal and a clear inside power-takover > faction, from people who are not acting criminally and are far more > democratic — and very much not populist — in their aims and their methods > than the ones he protects. I think that is indicting, whether one forms a > personal impression or not. > > I will go out on a limb and suggest that there is some projection. The > language of Robers’s statements (and things I have seen quoted from the > rulings, which I have not read through) sounds as if he believes lower > courts don’t actually go by any standard of anything, and that’s why he > wants to make the whole judicial system into a giant funnel for all > authority for anything consequential to flow back to him. If I look at > bits of lower-court rulings that I see, or more often hear commentary by > people who seem sound to me, it looks to me like a noisy system with good > and bad choices, but one in which reasoning much better than that issued by > SCOTUS is not uncommon at all. So it seems to me like a kind of admission > by Roberts that _he_ and his cabal don’t actually have any standards, but > just start from the desired outcome and make up a story, so he figures all > the other courts must be doing the same thing, and therefore he wants to > accumulate final say. > > I will admit that I often find the rhetorical language that all the > justices use annoying. Not that I want things in obscure Law French. Just > that they talk as if everything has to be appealed mainly to emotions for a > Sesame Street audience. Often it seems that more sensible reasons are > available, than appeals to the emotional movement of whatever day of the > week it is. They are all smart enough to do that, so the fact that they > don’t feels to me like an admission of their view of the audience from > which they want buy-in. Not a respectful view; unfortunately probably > deserved in large part too. > > On Courts versus Institutions of experts, though: Here I don’t go with > the argument you make. Neither of them has a guarantee of good or of bad > faith. I think what we have seen in every important test throughout > history says that good or bad faith is one of these highly unstable and > dynamically maintained things, which ultimately needs some level of > coordinated maintenance across the society if it is to survive. So no > matter what anyone chooses institutionally, given the complexity and sheer > bandwidth of the problems that need choices made, you are going to heavily > distribute the load. In that case, a lot of whether you can or can’t make > good choices will come down to the simple technical thing of professional > training. Lawyers aren’t trained as empirical derivers; they are some > other social thing. For questions of social consequence, sure; a > good-faith lawyer might see something other professionals would pass over. > But most of this agency stuff is about figuring out what happens in the > thing we refer to as the actual or real world. And they are trained in a > small sub-culture of relatively recent methods that can handle parts of > that reliably in ways that nothing else we ever did before can do. When > those are the structures of the problems, those professionals should be > used, as they are the best tools we have to solve those problems. Making > the whole society into a monoculture of law, which then degrades to a > monoculture of politics, is not the right choice, and I think eventually > not a stable choice. > > I see things (or bits of things, because I don’t spend lots of time on > this) like the presidential debates, and it makes me think of what wags > what. There is a sensibility of trashiness that has grown up through the > generations of reality TV. There are those of us (probably many) who find > this so tedious and grating that we will do a lot not to be trapped in a > room with it. But it has metamorphosed so that levels of public exchange > that can be consequential and should be treated that way, have been > completely gobbled up by the reality TV aesthetic. It seems important that > a society can do that to itself. I think not good that it can and has. > > Eric > > > > On Sep 24, 2024, at 11:16 PM, glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Unfortunately, I'm still thinking about this. [sigh] But in my long > covid induced fugue on the interminable flight across the atlantic, I > landed on the idea that while, yes, the Roberts court is aggregating power > back to themselves (particularly - not the judicial system as a > institution), perhaps there's an -urgic demon at work. The power > aggregation to the particular humans on the SC is a merely symptom of the > work of that demon. And the demon is, in general, moving to protect us from > populism. Bear with me a bit. > > > > Regardless of what we think if, say, Cannon or Thomas, it seems ACB and > Gorsuch are in the tradition of rationalists we might want the study of the > Law to produce. (Kavanaugh is different, I think. And I'm leaving out the > liberal Justices because I keep my enemies closer than my allies.) In > considering the Chevron overturning, on the surface, it seems stupid ... a > rejection of expertise. But combining Chevron with "Schedule F", I would > trust the dialectic pursued by Good Faith members of the judiciary more > than I would trust some rando appointed to "govern" in one of those > executive agencies. This is especially true in a scientific environment > where so many publications come out each day/week/year (many of which are > on preprint servers but cited as if peer-reviewed), no collection of Good > Faith scientists can keep track of them, much less curate them for > non-experts. Barring abdication of truth-curation to LLMs (i.e. > transnational corporations like Google, MicroSoft, Apple, etc.), the > judiciary may be a decent buttress. > > > > And the somewhat hierarchical composition of the judiciary (from > schools/tests to experience dealing with batshit rhetoric) provides a kind > of institutional inertia that the blast of "scientific" research doesn't > provide. The judiciary might be the last bastion of the Deep State, capable > of resisting demagogues like Trump. > > > > What say ye? Is my optimism showing? 8^D > > > > On 7/17/24 17:17, Santafe wrote: > >> Back to the Roberts court, the things I have seen written that seem > most cogent to me argue that their one consistent tack is to aggregate > power to their specific selves. There are these nonsense rulings, which > are vague or inconsistent, and honest lower courts often cannot figure out > whether or how to comply with them. (There was just one of these, I think > the Domestic Abuser with a Gun case, along exactly this line, a month or > two ago. Rahimi?) And once it is a mess of appeals in the lower courts, > it can get back to SC, who can then make up whatever outcome they want for > that case. It gets very close to trolling for Roberts to write > condescendingly that the lower courts were “confused” by the SC’s ruling; > in fact they had it dead to rights, and Roberts surely isn’t so dumb he > doesn’t know that. So to act as if they have made the mistake is to put > out loud what the game is. It’s like Gaetz’s text about “Cannon for > Supreme Court” or whatever it was. Trolls gonna troll. @The cruelty is > the point. It’s about the assertion of domination, once you think you have > enough of a lock that your advantage is to get out of the “hiding” phase > and go into the “demoralizing” phase. > >> So I don’t know that there really is new “law” power in the Monarchical > Executive. There may or may not be, but the SC would like to make itself > indispensible in operating that machinery. > > > > -- > > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,1_aBeFAwklctHPs6JGVLzZoH4qg9y7TS6UGq2ZF0_hfMvCPEC2EDVkbcRZL9ICnerPdAhfUHf3qJKiKWm79RVU3aYmswEXd1zW-2iyEPsMa0FQ,,&typo=1 > > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,sOxvZwQQzqNYV1Ur98s2I7RZLM8Mw8miDOdMCFLALZhbCt0X8NkHsUeyPI7H59a74eH2So1fY64-P2o350zNZFaIPB9u3iLIKRaA_hPZLu1STXVcsMOm--YOQQ,,&typo=1 > > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,LOYG0etBbN2igT6uy7-ovK7heagzc594b7GzOje6YIkOzQM10Ur-gC3wLesZsowLk_HWWykGOYD8856c_KMBkg2ekh0m_ZcRpIQc7l0C&typo=1 > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,TG1CxHlWJe5v_syOzFRB1pB_ZnqfWfnf2jOiBhjimimXKWLuAMzAHBWSCDp-qlQA865mGyMI8hFlChWc4gM0NG_Z0wQh0EygZz3CBNT3xCjhcXGmQA,,&typo=1 > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -- Frank Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
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