Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Ah, the ineffable majesty of the law.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This stems from the border issue. I've not read much about that issue, but one would hope the focus on that cruel practice would bleed over to a focus on the impact of ludicrous sentences on the children of inmates.

I understand we should not allow people to avoid justice simply because they have families. But the children of inmates have committed no crimes. Jailing a young mother for a decade under a mandatory minimum drug charge* sentences the kid to a lousy childhood and higher likelihood of committing a crime him/herself.

I doubt this conversation will take place, however. If we'll effectively jail kids of people who've committed no crimes, there's 0000.00 chance we'd consider mercy for the kids of those who have actually done so.

_____
*Or, really, almost any other crime, as sentence is based on the amount of loss some prosecutor can attach to the crime (usually speculative and puffed to 5X the actual loss), reminding all Americans: The most significant rights, if not the only rights, our state and fed governments give even a hint of a shit about are property rights. And if you doubt this, compare sentences for violent crime other than murder to crimes involving economic loss. Steal money, go away for a decade. Rape somebody, do three years, out in two and change with good behavior.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Tyler Cowen rightly made that point in his most recent column but I'm not sure it's really getting any traction. Seems pretty obvious that there's often greater harm in jailing parents and leaving the kids in limbo than in foregoing jail time as punishment.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I may hear more about this than others because I talk daily to one of the people leading justice reform in Massachusetts, but I think there is a lot of attention to these issues right now. I think you'll see the Blue states address them productively, the red states compound the problem, and the Republicans in Congress, not surprisingly, help the red states, get in the way of the blue states, and fuck up the national policy as much as possible. There are a handful of sensible Republicans on the issue, but they have zero influence.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Generally, Republicans tend to be more tough on crime. But in conservative states, the Democrats aren't much help either.

The punitive mindset remains. Which I understand. People cannot be allowed to get away with crime. But these eye-for-an-eye sorts tend to be the same people who refuse to raise taxes.

If you wish to jail lots of people for non-violent crime, at costs of $85-150 per day, you need to understand the cost of doing so.

This right here should be replicated in every state, and at the federal level: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...476987333.html

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Conservatives do not want to put people in prison out of an empirical belief that it reduces aggregate harm to society. At the risk of stating the obvious, the attraction of putting people in prison and separating families, whether they are immigrants or citizens, is that it signals and reinforces dominance and power. Trump can, almost in the same breath, say that Arpaio and D'Souza and Manafort have been treated unfairly, while there is zero tolerance for other charges. Mercy and fairness are not abstract goods, but the benefits of being at the top of the hierarchy. They see politics as a zero-sum game for control and status.

This was a response to Adder's post, but it's more a response to Sebby. No one really gives a sh*t about the costs of crime. The people who want to jail lots of people for non-violent crime certainly don't. They want to jail lots of people for non-violent crime because they want to jail those people, and it's not Manafort's non-violent crime they care about.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I can buy most of this. But I cannot concede that there isn't also some Puritan psychosis behind our prison state. And I cannot agree that the costs of incarceration aren't an issue for conservatives.

Human sacrifice hasn't existed for millennia for no reason. People are animals, and a lot of them get some form of catharsis - some twisted release of primordial urges toward violence - from inflicting pain on others. You're correct a lot of it is about dominance. But you credit the minds of the tough on crime crowd too much by citing dominance primarily. The elite, educated nihilists in this camp see the dominance benefit. The dumb, lower class shlubs who get behind tough on crime initiatives are filled with bloodlust, anger, and a desire to punish proxies for their loserdom (i.e., sacrifice junkies).

And there are a ton of conservatives who are very much concerned with the cost of incarceration. But like conservatives who balloon the debt for tax cuts, they're all cognitive dissonance.

Regarding conservatives who worry about the cost of economic crime, that's a pillar of their philosophy. They don't give a damn about a minority being assaulted, robbed, or raped, but pull a Bernie Ebbers on them - cost them a few hundred grand of their portfolio - and you'll go away forever. Hence rape gets you an average of three years, while Bernie does 25.

Is there anyone who thinks and Ebbers, or a Madoff, is more a threat to society than a rapist? How in the fuck do we square the disparity in sentences there? Shit, the whole fucking Fed Crim Code is one big pile of outlandish, draconian penalties for property crime. (Where it isn't a minority-control instrument.)

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

And racism. Black and brown people who do things wrong, and we *know* they all do, deserve to be imprisoned and maltreated. They are animals to be controlled.

It doesn't hurt that private prison campaign donors also can be enriched either.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I didn't omit racism. I just kind of figure at this point, any comment on why we imprison people is assumed to start with, "In addition to racism,..."

People who are interested in punishing people are inherently suspect sorts. You've got to be a very strange fuck to think, "I want to devote my time to making sure punishment is meted out." It's a psychologically creepy mindset.

I get we need to have these weird people in society. But I don't want to hang out with any of them. I don't even want them near me.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don't think it's strange. It's essentially "If things are bad for me, they better damned well be worse for other people."

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

With Sarah Huckabee Sanders getting asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant, people are pointing to the hypocrisy of outrage from conservatives who supported the right of the Colorado baker to decline to serve a gay couple. And other people have pointed out that liberals are told that a failure to respect opposing views will provoke a backlash from conservatives, something that never comes up when conservatives, e.g., wear shirts that say "fuck your feelings."

There's no hypocrisy. It's all of a piece. Conservatives do not care about process and equality. They care about outcome and hierarchy. They believe that Sarah Sanders Huckabee deserves deference and gay couples do not. The point of the "fuck your feelings" shirts is that liberal feelings do not matter and conservative feelings do. Conservatives do not believe in the Golden Rule. They believe, I've got mine, and fuck you. Since Trump expresses that better than anyone else, they adore him for it. People who thought they were conservative who disagree are discovering that they are no longer conservative.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

For future reference, I live in "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts" and one is not a true Boston legal pedant until one corrects someone's failure to capitalize the "T" in "The" in legal documents.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

It's kind of amazing how three years of positive reinforcement for pedantry can have such enduring effects through one's lifetime. Although I suppose it's quite possible that law school simply selects for pedants.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

you seem to know a whole fucking lot about how conservatives think, especially for someone living in SF. I assume blogs inform you? or are you going to Sebby's parties now?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Thanks! I do my best.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don't generally reply to the same post twice, but just heard the alleged voicemail message from Red Hen, " if you are a trump supporter, or even smell like one, you aren't welcome here."

Problematic? Can a restaurant avoid serving someone that might think likely supported Obama?

also, side note, actually legal question- Ollie's BarBQ was a case because there was a federal law preventing discriminating due to race? Everyone on FB talks about rights being violated by not making a cake for a gay couple- without a law, is there really a constitutional right violated if a baker doesn't want to make a cake?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

We might know if Justice Kennedy and the majority not deftly avoided deciding (and here I'm assuming you mean a baker does not want to make a cake because the customers are gay). Just Kagan says yes, though.

I might be wrong, but I don't think there's any federal law defining senior white house officials or chief propagandists for creeping fascism or even republicans as a protected class. The last one I'm pretty sure varies by state under state law, though.

Maybe Sanders at Red Hen is different, but I'm going to spend exactly zero time worrying about Miller or whoever showing up at a Mexican restaurant and not being welcome. They're trolling.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Umm, what? Protected class means con right, correct? But if it takes a law to say a restaurant can’t discriminate based upon race then that isn’t a right. Is there a parallel law that extends it to gay people? Or did the original law extend to all protected classes and not just race? Or are the people explaining how kicking Sarah is ok but not cake isn’t just not understanding the law?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

If this made any sense, I would attempt to answer it.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don't do discrimination claims, my understanding is sexual orientation discrimination suits are brought under the sex discrimination laws.

I'm pretty sure if there were a law, against discriminating against propagandists with challenging understanding of fact or truth, it'd be cited (incorrectly) in hundreds of memes all over the internet.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Haven't heard it. Has Snopes?

I thought the issue there was violation of a state right.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I thought I would stop by since I have cooled off a bit, but I see Ty has it under control and can tell you all about what Conservatives think and believe.

For the record, Ty is wrong, and my twitter feed was full of people saying that Jack Phillips shouldn't have to bake a cake AND that the Red Hen should be able to deny SHS service, though the situations are not really comparable, as the cake case pertained specifically to furtherance of what is to many believers a sacrament, and thought Masterpiece was not decided on this basis, decorating a cake for a wedding is certainly more expressive than say throwing together a Caesar salad. See the twitter feed of every National Review contributor for confirmation (or specifically, David French, whose most recent Ordered Liberty podcast deals specifically with this issue). And many conservatives also thought that SHS bringing it up on twitter was a jackass move, but whatever. There was a fair amount of pointing out that the people cheering the Red Hen also largely intersected with the "Bake that cake, bigot!" crowd, but that's to be expected. Some people seem to be totally cool with the freedom of association thing, but only as long as it is their side "winning" by being assholes. I'm sure that the same people will be equally thrilled when someone like Cecile Richards is booted from a restaurant.

People like Ty thinking they understand conservatives in middle America is why we have Trump. I have seen a few #NeverTrumpers move to Trump agnostics and are now are full on MAGA. And it had nothing to do with Trump, but everything to do with idiots like Maxine Waters. I'm increasingly resigning myself to Trump 2020.

I'll go back to clinging to my guns and religion, now.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

But of course there are also some of the MAGA assholes who were saying pretty much exactly what Ty was saying. It shouldn't surprise people that conservatives aren't always in agreement with each other, even if they unify to hate the likes of Ty, TM and me (though, of course, there's particular vitriol for TM in certain circles).

I've taken to following a bunch of conservatives I rather like, and it lulls me into complacency. I mean, if all the conservatives were Podhoretz, I wouldn't worry about the country as much. But then one of them quotes Charlie Kirk or Laura Ingraham, and I'm reminded that pretty much all we hold dear is at risk, including the ability to put together 280 characters of coherent thought.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

What really pisses me off about the damn bakers is not their politics, it is that they give Christianity a bad name. The religion I cling to is a faith in which God is not a bigot.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Well, those weird people are likely coming a highway near you soon! Or are you outside the 100 mile limit for ICE roadblocks?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

also to Thurgreed-

People on FB contrast Sarah's not being able to eat with the baker, because Sarah choose to work for Trump, whereas the baker is discriminating against how people are, not what they choose. To me this implies some constitutional right. But i don't think there is a right for a couple reasons- first the Ollie's BarBQ case was about the civil rights Act making it illegal to not let people eat in one's restaurant based upon race. The question was is Ollie's "in commerce." If there was a "right" to eat there then there wouldn't need be the law, or any "in commerce" test. As to sexual preference, I know cities pass "human rights" laws that extend protections based upon preference- here again, this implies there is no con right to get a cake if the baker doesn't want to make it- perhaps there is a law violated, at least in some locations.

But I'm not up on con law at all, so i am asking for a sanity check from the scholars here.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

It sounds like you're on a search for state action. In Red Hen v. Smoky Eyed Liar, isn't Smokey the State? 3rd Amendment case.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Not necessarily.

Wrong.

Many states and municipalities have laws that extend civil rights protections to gay people. Indeed, the Masterpiece decision was decided on whether Colorado appropriately enforced it's version.

ETA: Having seen your further response to TM, apparently you weren't just trolling, so I may have over-snarked.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Show me a demonstrated history of discrimination against conservatives in public accommodations and maybe I'll care.

Yes, the angry black lady made them to do it. They can't be blamed.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

With the caveat that I used to be a con law junkie, but have never been a con law scholar ...

In the Supreme Court’s gay wedding cake case, the Court limited its holding by focusing on procedural aspects relating to how the Colorado Civil Rights Commission handled the baker’s claim that his freedom of religion permitted him to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple.

In the 1960s restaurant cases, the Supreme Court held (based upon the Civil Rights Act of 1964) that freedom of religion did not permit a public accommodation to refuse to serve customers based upon race, color, religion, or national origin.

I understand that certain states and cities prohibit discrimination based upon membership in a political party, so if Mrs. Sanders was kicked out of the DC Red Hen, it would be a violation of the law, but it wasn’t against the law in Virginia. And I don’t believe being a Republican or a member of the Trump Administration is a protected class under federal law or jurisprudence.

The ethics and wisdom of refusing service to Mrs. Sanders, or of booing Secretary Nielsen and Mr. Miller is another issue. And I’m finding myself more and more in agreement with Representative Waters than I am with Speaker Pelosi. There is a big difference between now and when I politely shook the hand of then-Speaker Gingrich at a restaurant in 1995 and the hand of Justice Thomas at a law school function in 2006. At least in my mind.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

So I was right? This is exactly what i said.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Okay, but that is that the baker's right doesn't trump (Hi Thurgreed!) the law. But that says my understanding is correct- w/o the law the restaurant (or hotel) could refuse service? Not making any argument, just wanting to make sure i understand the law.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I can't credibly claim to be an atheist because I can't entirely disprove the existence of some creating force.* But I can and do insist on strident agnosticism.

We can easily prove that all religions are fairy tales. And that if there is a creative force, it's in no way related to and communicated with via religion. Jesus, Moses, Mohammed - none of them have anything to do with God. They're historical figures, or characters, in myths and stories. So from one long lapsed Christian to you -- perhaps dispense with the rituals altogether. If a thing must be clinged to, and so many mountains of evidence prove it is not at all divine, and in no way endorsed by any creative force, is it worth following? And particularly where it can be so easily and neatly used to justify not only bigotry but slavery (the Big Three all endorsed slavery).

I think if there is a creative force, it's diametrically opposed to organized religion. Nothing could create so much and yet be tied to something so counterproductive.

______
*Try as I might, scientifically, logically I can't get there. And this effort involves substantial efforts to use Hitchens' Razor to knock out the theist position. No matter how I labor in that regard, the fact that this universe exists renders me unable to say there's no evidence supporting the existence of a creative force that may be defined loosely as "God."

Go and do likewise.
 

Do you really think so? Is Ty’s arrogance and the condescension of the coastal liberals on social issues really enough to drive you and people like you to vote for Trump as a way of retaliating against the arrogance, smarminess, and condescension of liberals? Why not support a Ted Kennedy to Trump’s Jimmy Carter instead?

As for religion, I wouldn’t call myself a good Catholic by any means, but at least the Church is being consistent with its version of Christianity - pro-life means more than just being anti-abortion, and its answer to WWJD is found in the four Gospels in places like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, where a lawyer asked Jesus “who is my neighbor?”

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This part really is remarkable. The idea seems to be that it's ok not to have your own moral compass, and just to react to others.

Re: Go and do likewise.
 

There is no one more condescending or smarmy than a right-wing evangelical.

I've got pretty strong faith that God isn't a bigot, but wouldn't pretend to be able to speak on Her behalf. Who knows, may She really does just want everyone to give money to Franklin Graham, vote for Trump, and wave guns at liberals. But the way some of these folks speak on behalf of the Lord makes me cringe.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I’m pretty sure that current equal protection principles would prevent the BBQ owner from discriminating based upon race because of his religion, even if the Civil Rights Act was thrown out.

But that is just the supposition of a former con law junkie. Maybe tell one of your versions of Fenwock to spend an hour or so on Westlaw to find a solid answer?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

"Feelings" should not have any place in policy or law. The correct word is "rights."

You have certain rights upon which I cannot infringe, regardless of my "feelings" about whether and to what extent you should have those rights.

So lump me in with the "fuck your feelings' crowd in regard to policy and law. Policy and law are not the place where we assuage anyone's "feelings." There is no obligation to make sure people's feelings are not hurt. We can and should discuss things like feelings, but that's between private individuals, not a matter for govt intervention.

But the rest of your point - that most conservatives today (and almost all Trumpkins) aren't conservatives at all, is accurate. Conservatives today favor government intervention where they wish to make others behave as they desire and demand enforcement of negative rights where they are being compelled to behave in a manner they do not like. That's not conservative at all. Nor is it liberal. It's authoritarian. Which explains why they like Trump so much.

It's not hyperbole to argue rabid Trump supporters are quasi-fascists. I don't know if the criticism ultimately sticks because I think if Trump became a true authoritarian, these people would have significant buyer's remorse and rally against him. But they are "temporarily deluded quasi-fascists."

True conservatives, libertarians, moderates, quasi-conservatives, and quasi-libertarians are adrift. I don't know where we go. I'm just floating around, and occasionally my boat runs past Hank's or SEC Chick's or Slave's and we wave to each other. But we really don't have a place in Trumpland.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

"People who thought they were conservative who disagree are discovering that they are no longer conservative." I was thinking of you when I said that, actually. Your twitter feed may be full of those people, but you have been left to guard an isolated outpost while the rest of the army is fighting its battles somewhere else. If conservatives thought like you, we wouldn't be here.

"People like Ty thinking they understand conservatives in middle America is why we have Trump." This, on the other hand, is quintessentially conservative nonsense. No one votes for Trump because of what I think or say. (Oddly, no one ever suggests that people changed their minds to vote for Hillary because of "Fuck your feelings" shirts.)