We discuss the future of the #resistance at the Federal Reserve, the outrageous conduct of ICE, Jasmine Crockett vs. Bowen Yang, and the problems facing straight people.
I really appreciated Megan's point to "strip out the cop and imagine this is a guy in a hoodie in a parking lot" when assessing moral culpability in the ICE shooting! There is an absolutely outstanding book by Michael Huemer that argues that we should apply that standard to pretty much everything the authorities do: "The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey"
The ICE conversation reminded me of something David French wrote about the shooting of Breonna Taylor by police. In that case, Taylor's boyfriend was armed and defending his home, and police were armed and defending themselves. A shootout resulted in which Taylor was killed.
French noted that these situations are being created that end up having two parties lawfully firing at each other.
That seems like what the Trump Admin is doing here. They are trying to push ICE personnel into conflict with residents of Minneapolis, even knowing that deadly violence may result (or wanting it to).
I appreciate Josh's concern for The Straights; perhaps the topic is worth another two cents. I agree with Megan that these gender war/slop articles are written by the most unhappy and neurotic people out there, and don't reflect a normal perspective. Nevertheless, I think straight dating is a bit of a disaster now. I'm old enough to have lived an adult life before smartphones, and I think dating is one of the few areas of life that are materially worse since then.
TFC isn't a great place to discuss this, other than for laughs (and that segment was hilarious), because one guy is an old horn dog with no discernible interest in settling down, and the other two have been married since well before The Apps, which I think are what broke the straights. Funnily enough, I think the best diagnosis was written by a lesbian:
Hetero dating has a bunch of challenging asymmetries built in that homo dating mostly doesn't. Ye Old Ways of meeting had mechanisms to ameliorate those which the Apps don't. For example, if you were a woman who met a guy at a party or through friends, you had some overlapping social context that would discourage the guy from treating you poorly.
American cities have employment-related distributional asymmetries in sex. There's an excess of women in New York and an excess of men in the west coast tech hubs. Relative to the overall population, the differentials aren't big, but as you get older and more people couple up, those are magnified. As in other kinds of market, even a numerically-small imbalance can get you bad dynamics.
Straight dating app companies have a terrible incentive mismatch with their customers. Most users want to pair up and delete the app, with zero chance of return business. That's less bad for gays, for whom never settling down, or settling down with some permitted non-monogamy on the side, is more normal.
I think the TFC guys went for the "wouldn't it be great to be gay" trope because a) it's funny and b) I don't think anyone actually has any idea how to fix this. I certainly don't.
I think that she had a hard earned reputation as a smart, pragmatic politician heading into her 2018 race for governor.
While 2018 is thought of as a blue wave, because Democrats swept the House, they actually did not perform all that well in statewide races in "reach" states. Abrams lost narrowly, as did candidates for Senate and Governor in Florida, as did Beto in Texas, Dems lost ground in the Senate that year.
I don't see much to fault in Abrams' 2018 race.
However, from the moment the 2018 race was called against her, I think she made a series of terrible political choices, starting with her non-concession speech and leading into her embracing the role of resistance hero, declining to run in the 2020 special election (which might have been for the best), etc.
I think the 2018 loss simply broke her. Worse people have been felled by less.
I think we need to reckon with bad policing that is driven by bad "law". In my opinion, the Terry stops (which are the framework ICE is using for arrests), are completely and obviously unconstitutional. Where exactly in the 4th amendment does it allow the low standard of "reasonable suspicion" if you are walking or driving in public? We need a constitutional amendment to clarify the 4th amendment that probable cause is required ALWAYS. It needs to be so clear that even Clarence Thomas couldn't contort himself into a justification for Terry stops.
Worth noting that Terry v. Ohio was decided in 1968, and was the product of the not-what-most-would-call-conservative Warren court. It's also worth noting that federal agents operating under Title 8 authority have (or, according to the letter, should have) slightly different policies and laws governing their interactions than those operating under Title 18 or 21. That's been muddled under the current administration with the expansion of Title 8 authority to agencies that didn't previously have it.
In any event, the problem isn't Terry. The problem (an ineluctable problem) is that all law enforcement at a base level depends on the professional integrity of the law enforcement officers implementing it, prosecutors supporting it, and elected officials setting the policy for it and a concomitant level of trust in the populace. We see this in the well-known (if overstated) Peelian law enforcement principles that form the philosophical basis of UK law enforcement, and in the occasionally-renewed push for "community policing" here in the US.
At a certain level, whatever the law says, "good" law enforcement is like "good" politics. It depends on having the right people with the right motives. Bad law can hurt that at the margins, and good law help it, but that's not the rot in the subfloor on this one.
I agree with what you are saying, but I think your points increase the strength of the argument for overturning Terry. What truly is the difference between “probable cause” and “reasonable suspicion”. These things are basically arbitrary. I mean during most jury selection, the attorneys are asking the JURORS what they think “beyond a reasonable doubt” means. It's absurd. These fine details only matter in big appeal cases or constitutional cases. It would be better in these scenarios to have probable cause be the standard for ALL search and detainments. If crime goes up, who the fuck cares? We have so much technology at our finger tips that I would happily take a surveillance state to better establish probable cause that I would continuing to endure unlawful searches.
I don't want to get into a big back-and-forth on this, but what I will say is that reasonable articulable suspicion is not nearly so vague as many in the commentariat would have people think.
In actual practice - and particularly since Rodriguez and its progeny giving the issue increased importance in traffic stops - there's a great deal of case law refining what facts and inferences LEOs may and may not use in forming reasonable suspicion. It's really not that much less defined than probable cause or reasonable doubt or any other legal standard in the criminal contex; it's just a lower standard.
And, the government loses on the issue of reasonable suspicion with some frequency (though obviously not commonly, because it's a low standard).
https://substack.com/@tomhoefling/note/c-199823136?r=880hf I'm pretty sure the "stop recording" is not allowed, but I do believe that everything else the officer is doing is legal based on case law. The suspect kinda appears foreign and sounds a little foreign. I think it's inappropriate that this is legal. I also think the issue is so important that we should amend the constitution. Sure maybe I don't have all the facts and this person's immigration status is known from the license plate, but I want that information to be required to be disclosed to the suspect when they are detained.
Sure, but as a citizen... What do we want the standard to be? Do we want to have a low standard when we know there will be a not insignificant number of bad LEO's? I feel like the belief amongst the people of what the 4th amendment is does NOT match what case law over time has defined. I think you can very clearly see this by the way regular people are talking about "their rights" or the "legality" of ICEs behaviors. There are alot of incorrect statements from average people. In a democracy, I think that means that change is likely warranted.
Women with young children, demanding jobs, etc, can’t be expected to give mind blowing Fellatio every night. Totally get it. But, meeting his needs, has to be a priority. Otherwise, resentment builds. Men need to be patient as well…. Gay men, seem less uptight about sex, even those who are married.
Can you also get off the identity politics hobby horse? First, the only people who think Whitmer is a good idea are people who aren't from Michigan. She is an abysmal politician with a D behind her name that won a blue state. Second, your dream candidate for Texas senate Colin Allred LOST last time and gave up this time. Texas is only winnable in a blue wave where ICE brutalizes their cities ahead of the election. It isn't going to matter one bit who the candidate is, for that reason, democrats are wisely choosing to run progressives. You guys just can't see that.
I really appreciated Megan's point to "strip out the cop and imagine this is a guy in a hoodie in a parking lot" when assessing moral culpability in the ICE shooting! There is an absolutely outstanding book by Michael Huemer that argues that we should apply that standard to pretty much everything the authorities do: "The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey"
Sounds interesting... Anybody else heard of this guy? Seems like he has a large body of work, but I've never heard his name before.
The ICE conversation reminded me of something David French wrote about the shooting of Breonna Taylor by police. In that case, Taylor's boyfriend was armed and defending his home, and police were armed and defending themselves. A shootout resulted in which Taylor was killed.
French noted that these situations are being created that end up having two parties lawfully firing at each other.
That seems like what the Trump Admin is doing here. They are trying to push ICE personnel into conflict with residents of Minneapolis, even knowing that deadly violence may result (or wanting it to).
I appreciate Josh's concern for The Straights; perhaps the topic is worth another two cents. I agree with Megan that these gender war/slop articles are written by the most unhappy and neurotic people out there, and don't reflect a normal perspective. Nevertheless, I think straight dating is a bit of a disaster now. I'm old enough to have lived an adult life before smartphones, and I think dating is one of the few areas of life that are materially worse since then.
TFC isn't a great place to discuss this, other than for laughs (and that segment was hilarious), because one guy is an old horn dog with no discernible interest in settling down, and the other two have been married since well before The Apps, which I think are what broke the straights. Funnily enough, I think the best diagnosis was written by a lesbian:
https://eurydicelives.substack.com/p/dating-apps-giving-men-what-they
A few other thoughts.
Hetero dating has a bunch of challenging asymmetries built in that homo dating mostly doesn't. Ye Old Ways of meeting had mechanisms to ameliorate those which the Apps don't. For example, if you were a woman who met a guy at a party or through friends, you had some overlapping social context that would discourage the guy from treating you poorly.
American cities have employment-related distributional asymmetries in sex. There's an excess of women in New York and an excess of men in the west coast tech hubs. Relative to the overall population, the differentials aren't big, but as you get older and more people couple up, those are magnified. As in other kinds of market, even a numerically-small imbalance can get you bad dynamics.
Straight dating app companies have a terrible incentive mismatch with their customers. Most users want to pair up and delete the app, with zero chance of return business. That's less bad for gays, for whom never settling down, or settling down with some permitted non-monogamy on the side, is more normal.
I think the TFC guys went for the "wouldn't it be great to be gay" trope because a) it's funny and b) I don't think anyone actually has any idea how to fix this. I certainly don't.
In partial defense of Stacey Abrams...
I think that she had a hard earned reputation as a smart, pragmatic politician heading into her 2018 race for governor.
While 2018 is thought of as a blue wave, because Democrats swept the House, they actually did not perform all that well in statewide races in "reach" states. Abrams lost narrowly, as did candidates for Senate and Governor in Florida, as did Beto in Texas, Dems lost ground in the Senate that year.
I don't see much to fault in Abrams' 2018 race.
However, from the moment the 2018 race was called against her, I think she made a series of terrible political choices, starting with her non-concession speech and leading into her embracing the role of resistance hero, declining to run in the 2020 special election (which might have been for the best), etc.
I think the 2018 loss simply broke her. Worse people have been felled by less.
I think we need to reckon with bad policing that is driven by bad "law". In my opinion, the Terry stops (which are the framework ICE is using for arrests), are completely and obviously unconstitutional. Where exactly in the 4th amendment does it allow the low standard of "reasonable suspicion" if you are walking or driving in public? We need a constitutional amendment to clarify the 4th amendment that probable cause is required ALWAYS. It needs to be so clear that even Clarence Thomas couldn't contort himself into a justification for Terry stops.
Worth noting that Terry v. Ohio was decided in 1968, and was the product of the not-what-most-would-call-conservative Warren court. It's also worth noting that federal agents operating under Title 8 authority have (or, according to the letter, should have) slightly different policies and laws governing their interactions than those operating under Title 18 or 21. That's been muddled under the current administration with the expansion of Title 8 authority to agencies that didn't previously have it.
In any event, the problem isn't Terry. The problem (an ineluctable problem) is that all law enforcement at a base level depends on the professional integrity of the law enforcement officers implementing it, prosecutors supporting it, and elected officials setting the policy for it and a concomitant level of trust in the populace. We see this in the well-known (if overstated) Peelian law enforcement principles that form the philosophical basis of UK law enforcement, and in the occasionally-renewed push for "community policing" here in the US.
At a certain level, whatever the law says, "good" law enforcement is like "good" politics. It depends on having the right people with the right motives. Bad law can hurt that at the margins, and good law help it, but that's not the rot in the subfloor on this one.
I agree with what you are saying, but I think your points increase the strength of the argument for overturning Terry. What truly is the difference between “probable cause” and “reasonable suspicion”. These things are basically arbitrary. I mean during most jury selection, the attorneys are asking the JURORS what they think “beyond a reasonable doubt” means. It's absurd. These fine details only matter in big appeal cases or constitutional cases. It would be better in these scenarios to have probable cause be the standard for ALL search and detainments. If crime goes up, who the fuck cares? We have so much technology at our finger tips that I would happily take a surveillance state to better establish probable cause that I would continuing to endure unlawful searches.
I don't want to get into a big back-and-forth on this, but what I will say is that reasonable articulable suspicion is not nearly so vague as many in the commentariat would have people think.
In actual practice - and particularly since Rodriguez and its progeny giving the issue increased importance in traffic stops - there's a great deal of case law refining what facts and inferences LEOs may and may not use in forming reasonable suspicion. It's really not that much less defined than probable cause or reasonable doubt or any other legal standard in the criminal contex; it's just a lower standard.
And, the government loses on the issue of reasonable suspicion with some frequency (though obviously not commonly, because it's a low standard).
https://substack.com/@tomhoefling/note/c-199823136?r=880hf I'm pretty sure the "stop recording" is not allowed, but I do believe that everything else the officer is doing is legal based on case law. The suspect kinda appears foreign and sounds a little foreign. I think it's inappropriate that this is legal. I also think the issue is so important that we should amend the constitution. Sure maybe I don't have all the facts and this person's immigration status is known from the license plate, but I want that information to be required to be disclosed to the suspect when they are detained.
Sure, but as a citizen... What do we want the standard to be? Do we want to have a low standard when we know there will be a not insignificant number of bad LEO's? I feel like the belief amongst the people of what the 4th amendment is does NOT match what case law over time has defined. I think you can very clearly see this by the way regular people are talking about "their rights" or the "legality" of ICEs behaviors. There are alot of incorrect statements from average people. In a democracy, I think that means that change is likely warranted.
It's true, it's great to be tall. 😉
Women with young children, demanding jobs, etc, can’t be expected to give mind blowing Fellatio every night. Totally get it. But, meeting his needs, has to be a priority. Otherwise, resentment builds. Men need to be patient as well…. Gay men, seem less uptight about sex, even those who are married.
Can you also get off the identity politics hobby horse? First, the only people who think Whitmer is a good idea are people who aren't from Michigan. She is an abysmal politician with a D behind her name that won a blue state. Second, your dream candidate for Texas senate Colin Allred LOST last time and gave up this time. Texas is only winnable in a blue wave where ICE brutalizes their cities ahead of the election. It isn't going to matter one bit who the candidate is, for that reason, democrats are wisely choosing to run progressives. You guys just can't see that.