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<p>EricS-</p>
<p>There are times when our system of governance feels a bit like
someone's attempt to re-enact "Fury Road" in Core Wars... maybe
it is inevitable that our best attempts to create modularity and
orthogonality (terms, separation of powers, checks and balances,
etc.) that we will have developed (caustic/toxic?) self-modifying
code...<br>
</p>
<p>Convolving the political process of selecting our representatives
and the execution of their duty *as* our representatives would be
more fascinating if it didn't have so much potential impact on our
everyday lives. I believe we tolerate (encourage?) it *partly*
because the biggest effect is on the top and the bottom of our
caste/class pyramid... such that the Koch Bros & their ilk
have the resources to game the system and the base of people below
a poverty line are so without resources (including confidence and
will sometimes) as to be entirely manipulable by the carrots and
sticks that our representatives are given to wield to support
their popularity/electability rather than to apply thoughtfully to
help shape (not inform) the socioeconomic context their electorate
has asked them to achieve.</p>
<p>- SteveS<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/10/20 3:47 AM, David Eric Smith
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:352C04EF-4634-4082-8578-A64D6DAE455E@santafe.edu">
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Yes, and not only Ugh.
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The two places this bothers me as a category error
are:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">1. It conflates writing the rules of the game and
being a player in the game. Shubik used to harp on this: that
the government’s role as the declarer of monetary policy, and as
the participant in fiscal policy, were roles at different
levels, game designer versus large atomic player. The category
isn’t quite as clean here, in that a rule targeting balanced
affiliation isn’t exactly the same as playing for one side. It
is a bit more like certain monkey societies, in which the
problem-solver steps in on the side of whoever is being attacked
to lessen the asymmetry.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">But it still feels like it has a related problem, of
defining an outer law (constitution or statute for structure of
the court) in terms of a non-legal convention (the particular
parties and how they are non-formally categorized and weighted
in the society at this time), and that feels completely unstable
against drift. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">A more mechanism-design-y thing would be to revisit
whichever Federalist Paper it was that talked about the
destabilizing role of parties, never imagining the technologies
for coordination that would be available to them 230 years
later, and ask what the mechanism update is to the constitution
in a world where instabilities toward consolidation are so
extreme. Kind of the same spirit as revisiting capitalist
property rights laws when a warehouser and distributor can come
to own the whole economy.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">2. In the Coney Barrett talk that Nick circulated,
she made an important point that should be true, even if we
could argue that it is a smokescreen that isn’t true in reality.
She says “liberal/conservative” in regard to the interpretation
of constitutional law are different categories from
“liberal/conservative” as political affiliations. She probably
even believes it, though I expect that her SCOTUS decisions will
magically align with the political axes 100% of the time, and
one must ask how that happens to always be the case. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Of course, the question is whether it is all
disingenuous. Thomas Edsall had a decent article in NYT a few
days ago on originalism/living-text definitions, that was right
on the thread we were on. It is interesting that the opponents
of each side make _exactly_ the same accusation toward it: that
the side they are criticizing has no real method and is a
program for rationalizing whatever outcome the judge wanted
politically. To the extent that that is true in substance, if
obfuscated in appearance, then Coney Barrett’s claim that they
are different categories is a falsehood. One wonders then at
what level of argument one could force her to acknowledge that
error.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Eric. </div>
<div class="">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Oct 9, 2020, at 11:18 PM, Eric Charles <<a
href="mailto:eric.phillip.charles@gmail.com" class=""
moz-do-not-send="true">eric.phillip.charles@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">--- reconfigure (expand) it from 9
to 15 but<br class="">
*balance* the Left/Right ideology (I think he proposed
5/5) and then ---------
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">Note that one thing
both parties agree on is that we should
conceive politics as utterly and
completely a choice between the two of
them. God forbid that we conceive of
judges using any other dimensions. In
fact, let's enshrine it in law that we
must forever focus on exactly whether we
have a "balance" of "left" and "right".
Ugh!</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at
4:48 PM Steve Smith <<a
href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com" class=""
moz-do-not-send="true">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>>
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px
0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Ha! I refer to the
last bit as "ok fine, TWIST my drinking arm!" when<br
class="">
someone offers to buy me one... the only one to
twists my drinking arm<br class="">
this last six months has been Mary... and Maybe
Stephen and his circle<br class="">
on "ZoomGrappaNight".<br class="">
<br class="">
I don't like the language around "packing the
court". I don't think<br class="">
"reconfiguring the court" is the same as "packing the
court". Clearly,<br class="">
the (not so) loyal opposition to the Dems *would* pack
the court... add<br class="">
6 more justices and make sure they are ALL
conservative leaners. Pete<br class="">
Buttegeig was the first to speak of this in my
earshot, and HIS version<br class="">
sounded pretty reasonable... reconfigure (expand) it
from 9 to 15 but<br class="">
*balance* the Left/Right ideology (I think he proposed
5/5) and then<br class="">
leave it to the Justices themselves to fill the
remaining 5 (through<br class="">
some arcane process?). What the Republicans have
been building up to<br class="">
for decades is "packing the courts". <br class="">
<br class="">
Checks and balances are tricky, as is depending on
social norms and<br class="">
standards, but I think it might be "as good as it
gets", at least for<br class="">
the time being.<br class="">
<br class="">
- Steve<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
On 10/8/20 1:36 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:<br class="">
> Ha! That was the essence of one of the 538 panel
member's phrasing suggestion for Kamala Harris in
response to Pence's question about packing SCOTUS. The
elaborated version was: "Because confirming Barrett,
NOW, is such a horribly wrong thing to do, we have no
choice BUT to pack the court." ... I.e. now look what
you made me do. That was my dad's favorite phrase to
justify whatever abuse he chose to mete out that day.
He once ran over my bicycle with his truck. I *made*
him run over my bike because I left it laying in the
driveway. It's a running joke with my fellow drinkers
who *regularly* FORCE me to drink more than I should.
There is no free will. I live to serve.<br class="">
><br class="">
> On 10/8/20 11:28 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:<br
class="">
>> Look what you made me do,<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
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