bc's comment is a bit of a misapprehension, because in this context, I imagine that there would be new principles enshrined as amendments rather than trying to contort current rulings into something new. We don't have a lot of history to work with, but I see amendments as making new law to specifically overturn earlier decisions. They didn't say 'how can we reinterpret Dred Scott so that African-Americans are actually citizens'.
WRT BC's linking of environmental justice to the rights of the unborn, the opposite legal flourish would be to invoke Castle Doctrine as a defense for an abortion in a state with restrictive abortion laws, but liberal firearms laws.
The think I noticed was that the rhetoric of retribution was about evenly split between End Times dogwhistles and QAnon dogwhistles. Either way, it's pretty clear that I, being an academic, am on the wrong side of the friend/enemy distinction.
I think the potential for some sort of campaign of retribution is very high, and California campuses have to be near the top of that list. I especially worry for my friends and colleagues at UCLA, but I think we all need to be wary.
Seems to me that it is preferable to have some framework rather than none, even if inconsistently applied (at least you have something to measure against and criticize). Otherwise, you are just making things up. And by a small group of people no less. Claiming the Constitution is "living" runs a great risk of just making things up and thwarting the amendment process.
That's what happened with Roe. Although the article mentions this, it seems to ignore that the modern resurgence of originalism was a direct response to the "penumbra" of Roe. Well, that and the protests that broke out on the Supreme Court's steps hoping to influence what the vote couldn't bring.
GftNC, if originalism is "insane," what do you suggest?
Btw, I think of Scalia more of a textualist first and foremost. I lean textualist as far as that can get you, originalist after that.
Lj: "an amendment specifically about environmental protection, possibly couched in terms of the rights of future generations."
Interesting thought, especially in light of Dobbs. Trying to bring back discussion of the rights of the unborn at the federal level are we?
Well, these are people who have been absolutely hammered with eliminationist propaganda for a generation now. If you can accept the premise the rest flows naturally, despite the lack of names. Anecdotal violence is pumped up to provide examples of the violent left, and that is sufficient for these warriors for Truth and Good. They love the righteous feeling, but will that be enough to pull the trigger when the moment arrives? We will all find out together, because this kind of worldview never stays controlled, only unleashed.
I never thought I'd paste a link to a facebook post, but here it is. A friend of mine shared it. The original poster is someone (I'm guessing an actual human) going by Cory Nichols. I haven't a clue who that is.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DC6bLNdGj/
The first 20% or so:
The misinformation surrounding Charlie Kirk is astounding - and I’m not talking about average people sounding off on social media - I’m talking about the BS being spread by major news outlets.
While Kirk’s shooter was obviously overly steeped in internet whackadoo memelord culture - the “normies” don’t have a clue about how internet culture works at all.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t someone who was looking for honest debate. He was a political operative spreading hate and divisiveness. When you show his fans his racist, sexist or bigoted rhetoric - they defend it by saying “That’s not (racist, sexist, bigoted) - it’s true.” And that was his goal.
The whole “Prove Me Wrong” setup that made Kirk famous wasn’t really about proving anyone wrong. It was about creating content. Kirk mastered a specific type of performance that looked like debate but functioned more like a carefully orchestrated show designed to make his opponents look foolish and his positions seem unassailable.
What the writer gets into later tracks with some of the things nous has said about what constitutes meaningful dialogue.
More simply than that murk, though, I'd expect that The Papaya of Hate would either pardon or under-bus-chuck whoever oversaw the whole thing, and then sleep secure in the cover that the USSC has given him over presidential immunity.
At some point, with any luck at all, an administration which actually believes in the law may try to arrest and try those responsible.
In my honest but non-lawyer opinion, not a chance. US Navy action in international waters: the legal questions that may reach civilian courts will be about authorization to use force; those under the UCMJ will be about rules of engagement. Obama and Biden weren't as bad as Bush and Trump, but all four stretched the hell out of Congress's AUMFs on terrorism including rules of engagement. To be blunt about it, from 2001 the US military has been in the assassination business. My prediction is the best we might expect is that suspected drug smugglers outside of US waters will be made non-targets going forward*.
Part of me says that this is an inevitable outgrowth of drone technology. The idea has been kicking around for many years. In Real Genius (1985) the purpose of the 5 MW one-shot laser is assassination from a bomber flying tens/hundreds of miles away. The main piece of military porn in Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon (2000) is smart bombs that can be dumped from high altitude, then autonomously identify targets and strike straight down, wiping out whole divisions' worth of armor while the top brass watch from the other side of the world via a drone called Marilyn Monroe.
* I have an occasional nightmare that my kids probably and my granddaughters certainly will live to see the day when the 20 km on the Mexican side of the border will be labeled a no-go zone. Spotter drones and artillery will enforce it against climate refugees. And yes, in the nightmare Tijuana and Juárez and all the smaller cities have been reduced to rubble.
I think the contributions of lawyers can be very helpful. I wonder whether, for example, pollo de muerte knows about our move? bj is a lawyer of course, and someone we have heard from over here, but I don't recall ever getting any criticism of the current regime from that quarter.
Funnily enough, I only posted that last Klein/Shapiro piece for the preamble about the reaction to Klein's last piece! I didn't even read the Shapiro stuff - I barely knew of his existence until he was interviewed by Andrew Neil, one of our best known rightwing journalists (and ex-editor of the Sunday Times), fearsome and respected enough that BoJo refused to be interviewed by him the last time he ran, and saw Shapiro (obviously completely unaware of who Neil was and his background) responding to his proper questioning by calling him a leftwinger! Andrew Neil merely chuckled and moved on. But it was such an astonishing exhibition of ignorance and arrogance (Shapiro hadn't even bothered to look up who was interviewing him), and such an example of the tendency of these people immediately and brainlessly to label anyone who disagrees with them "leftwing", that I lost any interest in ever hearing anything else from him again. However, I suppose this phenomenon is now so widespread in the US that journalists can't just decide to boycott any politician or commentator who displays it.
I didn't read your comment about bringing in Shapiro as being about the timing, but rather the positioning. I think both reflect Klein's commitment to staying together and keeping up appearances for the sake of the kids.
i have some minor WP coding experience: i've written a couple of plugins that i use on my own site, and i've tweaked the PHP for some theming things I couldn't get from plugins.
if there's anything specific you need, i could possibly help. or possibly not - WP is large and ever-changing.
At this point, the best hope for anyone with a small boat in the southern Caribbean is probably the short attention spans of the people in this administration. They'll likely move on to the next shiny thing soon. Especially since, after they first couple of outrageous instances, it will no longer be generating the media attention they crave.
At some point, with any luck at all, an administration which actually believes in the law may try to arrest and try those responsible. Not holding my breath, especially given the statute of limitations. But as I recall (IANAL either), there is no limitation on murder, so....
I accidentally skipped over a part to go to the dialogue where Klein notes that he had taped his coversation with Shapiro before Kirk's death, so it was wrong for me to link the two.
I mentioned that I hadn't seen the video associated (if there is one) to the first Klein piece, though looking at it, it is probably too short to record. I have seen the link for the YouTube video of the Shapiro conversation (It's here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAqG00FUOK8&t=1s ) but haven't seen it, so I appreciate GftNC for putting it up here.
Some thoughts about the two. Klein says in the second that Many appreciated the [previous] piece, particularly on the right. It saw their friend and ally more as he saw himself. There were many, closer to my own politics, who were infuriated by it.
It's amazing that he doesn't really analyze what his piece did, which was basically white/sanewashing Kirk, and take the divided response as supporting it. I'd also say that the fact that he brought Shapiro on is indicative that Klein doesn't want to take a side and thinks that bringing Shapiro will let him play the centrist. He seems to edge up to understanding when he says Much of what I would describe as Kirk’s worst moments were standard-fare MAGA Republicanism. And the leader of that movement is the president of the United States. He is now in the White House, having won about half the country’s votes in the last election. But then he ends the paragraph with We are going to have to live here with one another, believing what we believe, disagreeing in the ways we disagree.
I don't understand how, if one side doesn't want us to live here, doesn't want us to participate in society, doesn't want us to exist, we can actually do this.
That Shapiro conversation really captures the reasons why I think Klein is an unproductive voice. Shapiro claims over and over throughout the conversation that "the right" saw Obama in a particular way, and Klein spends all of his time trying to empathize with how they might have felt, rather than stating that Shapiro spent his entire career crafting the very narratives by which the right learned to see Obama in that way.
It's the asymmetry of empathy that is just allowed to sit there and not be spoken of that makes me dismiss Klein. Shapiro can just passive voice away his own role as an ideological insurrectionist and sower of division and Klein cedes that ground in order to imagine himself a good and sensitive listener and participant in dialogue.
Yes, a preview button would be great if not too troublesome to set up. Otherwise, it's taking me time to get used to the new layout, but no doubt it will get easier with more use.
I once declared on the old site that it was perfect IMO. Being fickle, I say this one is perfect too. Lacking Michael's god-like powers, I am not tempted to customize the presentation for myself, and anyway I like it as is. FWIW, my laptop browser is Firefox and my Android browser is Chrome. From the start, I set Chrome to show me the laptop version of the page, as I had done on the old site. Works for me.
A preview function would be nice, but I haven't seen its absence be a problem so far.
So, that's my 2 cents worth of opinion. My gratitude for setting up the new site and for creating the archive site is boundless.
The Academica theme is oriented a little more towards discussions. It's what I used when I was fooling around at the beginning of the month and trying to recreate the old layout. I prefer the new look overall. My main complaint (with my script disabled) is that there's way too much vertical white space.
WordPress provides an "Additional CSS" textbox in one of its configuration places that's a convenient way to override the theme's styling. Of course, using it requires that you have some understanding of the theme's use of CSS classes, ids, etc. Or you can define a plug-in that has just enough PHP to load a CSS file that overrides the style. I probably haven't said this here before since the old site was Typepad, but between the core/theme/plugin model, PHP, and CSS, WordPress has managed to recreate all of the development nightmares of late-90s Microsoft Windows.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “An experimental first post”
bc's comment is a bit of a misapprehension, because in this context, I imagine that there would be new principles enshrined as amendments rather than trying to contort current rulings into something new. We don't have a lot of history to work with, but I see amendments as making new law to specifically overturn earlier decisions. They didn't say 'how can we reinterpret Dred Scott so that African-Americans are actually citizens'.
"
WRT BC's linking of environmental justice to the rights of the unborn, the opposite legal flourish would be to invoke Castle Doctrine as a defense for an abortion in a state with restrictive abortion laws, but liberal firearms laws.
On “I just can’t…”
The think I noticed was that the rhetoric of retribution was about evenly split between End Times dogwhistles and QAnon dogwhistles. Either way, it's pretty clear that I, being an academic, am on the wrong side of the friend/enemy distinction.
I think the potential for some sort of campaign of retribution is very high, and California campuses have to be near the top of that list. I especially worry for my friends and colleagues at UCLA, but I think we all need to be wary.
On “An experimental first post”
No, not really, I was thinking of these
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/29/historic-german-ruling-says-climate-goals-not-tough-enough
and
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/29/south-korea-court-climate-law-violates-rights-future-generations
On “Precursors”
We don't even need Godwin's law anymore. The probability is 1 from the get-go now.
On “An experimental first post”
Seems to me that it is preferable to have some framework rather than none, even if inconsistently applied (at least you have something to measure against and criticize). Otherwise, you are just making things up. And by a small group of people no less. Claiming the Constitution is "living" runs a great risk of just making things up and thwarting the amendment process.
That's what happened with Roe. Although the article mentions this, it seems to ignore that the modern resurgence of originalism was a direct response to the "penumbra" of Roe. Well, that and the protests that broke out on the Supreme Court's steps hoping to influence what the vote couldn't bring.
GftNC, if originalism is "insane," what do you suggest?
Btw, I think of Scalia more of a textualist first and foremost. I lean textualist as far as that can get you, originalist after that.
Lj: "an amendment specifically about environmental protection, possibly couched in terms of the rights of future generations."
Interesting thought, especially in light of Dobbs. Trying to bring back discussion of the rights of the unborn at the federal level are we?
On “I just can’t…”
Well, these are people who have been absolutely hammered with eliminationist propaganda for a generation now. If you can accept the premise the rest flows naturally, despite the lack of names. Anecdotal violence is pumped up to provide examples of the violent left, and that is sufficient for these warriors for Truth and Good. They love the righteous feeling, but will that be enough to pull the trigger when the moment arrives? We will all find out together, because this kind of worldview never stays controlled, only unleashed.
On “Don’t know much about [ObWi] history…”
Thank you for doing all this work
"
Thanks! Can I ask you a few more questions off list? Email me at libjpn@gmail.com.
On “Precursors”
I never thought I'd paste a link to a facebook post, but here it is. A friend of mine shared it. The original poster is someone (I'm guessing an actual human) going by Cory Nichols. I haven't a clue who that is.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DC6bLNdGj/
The first 20% or so:
What the writer gets into later tracks with some of the things nous has said about what constitutes meaningful dialogue.
On “Don’t know much about [ObWi] history…”
same katherine
On “IANAL, but…”
More simply than that murk, though, I'd expect that The Papaya of Hate would either pardon or under-bus-chuck whoever oversaw the whole thing, and then sleep secure in the cover that the USSC has given him over presidential immunity.
"
At some point, with any luck at all, an administration which actually believes in the law may try to arrest and try those responsible.
In my honest but non-lawyer opinion, not a chance. US Navy action in international waters: the legal questions that may reach civilian courts will be about authorization to use force; those under the UCMJ will be about rules of engagement. Obama and Biden weren't as bad as Bush and Trump, but all four stretched the hell out of Congress's AUMFs on terrorism including rules of engagement. To be blunt about it, from 2001 the US military has been in the assassination business. My prediction is the best we might expect is that suspected drug smugglers outside of US waters will be made non-targets going forward*.
Part of me says that this is an inevitable outgrowth of drone technology. The idea has been kicking around for many years. In Real Genius (1985) the purpose of the 5 MW one-shot laser is assassination from a bomber flying tens/hundreds of miles away. The main piece of military porn in Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon (2000) is smart bombs that can be dumped from high altitude, then autonomously identify targets and strike straight down, wiping out whole divisions' worth of armor while the top brass watch from the other side of the world via a drone called Marilyn Monroe.
* I have an occasional nightmare that my kids probably and my granddaughters certainly will live to see the day when the 20 km on the Mexican side of the border will be labeled a no-go zone. Spotter drones and artillery will enforce it against climate refugees. And yes, in the nightmare Tijuana and Juárez and all the smaller cities have been reduced to rubble.
"
I think the contributions of lawyers can be very helpful. I wonder whether, for example, pollo de muerte knows about our move? bj is a lawyer of course, and someone we have heard from over here, but I don't recall ever getting any criticism of the current regime from that quarter.
On “Precursors”
Funnily enough, I only posted that last Klein/Shapiro piece for the preamble about the reaction to Klein's last piece! I didn't even read the Shapiro stuff - I barely knew of his existence until he was interviewed by Andrew Neil, one of our best known rightwing journalists (and ex-editor of the Sunday Times), fearsome and respected enough that BoJo refused to be interviewed by him the last time he ran, and saw Shapiro (obviously completely unaware of who Neil was and his background) responding to his proper questioning by calling him a leftwinger! Andrew Neil merely chuckled and moved on. But it was such an astonishing exhibition of ignorance and arrogance (Shapiro hadn't even bothered to look up who was interviewing him), and such an example of the tendency of these people immediately and brainlessly to label anyone who disagrees with them "leftwing", that I lost any interest in ever hearing anything else from him again. However, I suppose this phenomenon is now so widespread in the US that journalists can't just decide to boycott any politician or commentator who displays it.
"
I didn't read your comment about bringing in Shapiro as being about the timing, but rather the positioning. I think both reflect Klein's commitment to staying together and keeping up appearances for the sake of the kids.
On “Time for a makeover: a webpage design thread”
i have some minor WP coding experience: i've written a couple of plugins that i use on my own site, and i've tweaked the PHP for some theming things I couldn't get from plugins.
if there's anything specific you need, i could possibly help. or possibly not - WP is large and ever-changing.
On “IANAL, but…”
At this point, the best hope for anyone with a small boat in the southern Caribbean is probably the short attention spans of the people in this administration. They'll likely move on to the next shiny thing soon. Especially since, after they first couple of outrageous instances, it will no longer be generating the media attention they crave.
At some point, with any luck at all, an administration which actually believes in the law may try to arrest and try those responsible. Not holding my breath, especially given the statute of limitations. But as I recall (IANAL either), there is no limitation on murder, so....
On “Precursors”
I accidentally skipped over a part to go to the dialogue where Klein notes that he had taped his coversation with Shapiro before Kirk's death, so it was wrong for me to link the two.
"
I mentioned that I hadn't seen the video associated (if there is one) to the first Klein piece, though looking at it, it is probably too short to record. I have seen the link for the YouTube video of the Shapiro conversation (It's here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAqG00FUOK8&t=1s ) but haven't seen it, so I appreciate GftNC for putting it up here.
Some thoughts about the two. Klein says in the second that
Many appreciated the [previous] piece, particularly on the right. It saw their friend and ally more as he saw himself. There were many, closer to my own politics, who were infuriated by it.
It's amazing that he doesn't really analyze what his piece did, which was basically white/sanewashing Kirk, and take the divided response as supporting it. I'd also say that the fact that he brought Shapiro on is indicative that Klein doesn't want to take a side and thinks that bringing Shapiro will let him play the centrist. He seems to edge up to understanding when he says Much of what I would describe as Kirk’s worst moments were standard-fare MAGA Republicanism. And the leader of that movement is the president of the United States. He is now in the White House, having won about half the country’s votes in the last election. But then he ends the paragraph with We are going to have to live here with one another, believing what we believe, disagreeing in the ways we disagree.
I don't understand how, if one side doesn't want us to live here, doesn't want us to participate in society, doesn't want us to exist, we can actually do this.
"
That Shapiro conversation really captures the reasons why I think Klein is an unproductive voice. Shapiro claims over and over throughout the conversation that "the right" saw Obama in a particular way, and Klein spends all of his time trying to empathize with how they might have felt, rather than stating that Shapiro spent his entire career crafting the very narratives by which the right learned to see Obama in that way.
It's the asymmetry of empathy that is just allowed to sit there and not be spoken of that makes me dismiss Klein. Shapiro can just passive voice away his own role as an ideological insurrectionist and sower of division and Klein cedes that ground in order to imagine himself a good and sensitive listener and participant in dialogue.
"
And since Ezra Klein talks today about the reaction to that piece, here is his latest on that:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ben-shapiro.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk8.DjGX.vndkpD-Jytfn&smid=url-share
On “Time for a makeover: a webpage design thread”
Yes, a preview button would be great if not too troublesome to set up. Otherwise, it's taking me time to get used to the new layout, but no doubt it will get easier with more use.
"
I once declared on the old site that it was perfect IMO. Being fickle, I say this one is perfect too. Lacking Michael's god-like powers, I am not tempted to customize the presentation for myself, and anyway I like it as is. FWIW, my laptop browser is Firefox and my Android browser is Chrome. From the start, I set Chrome to show me the laptop version of the page, as I had done on the old site. Works for me.
A preview function would be nice, but I haven't seen its absence be a problem so far.
So, that's my 2 cents worth of opinion. My gratitude for setting up the new site and for creating the archive site is boundless.
--TP
"
The Academica theme is oriented a little more towards discussions. It's what I used when I was fooling around at the beginning of the month and trying to recreate the old layout. I prefer the new look overall. My main complaint (with my script disabled) is that there's way too much vertical white space.
WordPress provides an "Additional CSS" textbox in one of its configuration places that's a convenient way to override the theme's styling. Of course, using it requires that you have some understanding of the theme's use of CSS classes, ids, etc. Or you can define a plug-in that has just enough PHP to load a CSS file that overrides the style. I probably haven't said this here before since the old site was Typepad, but between the core/theme/plugin model, PHP, and CSS, WordPress has managed to recreate all of the development nightmares of late-90s Microsoft Windows.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.