[FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance

Fri Jul 19 11:54:49 EDT 2024

(2a) The heuristic power of good theories is partly established through "elegance" or something like minimal expression. Does the "size" or complicatedness of a Justice's opinion indicate the extent to which they made less effort to *fit* this particular into the space covered by current law? E.g. a "small" ruling means they did work to make it fit, whereas a "large" one exhibits logorrhea? (I'm thinking in terms of logorrheic proofs we get from things like supervised theorem proving.)

(4) It seems reasonable we could use natural language processing methods (not merely LLMs) to discover such. It would be a data wrangling nightmare. But we're doing a lot of that already. If there are phrases in Cannon-generated documents that exhibit patterns matched (within some ε) in other documents, that would give us the smoke to follow.

"to aggregate power to their specific selves" & "the SC would like to make itself indispensible in operating that machinery": I feel like this may be a good thing to some extent. I'm prolly naive. But the separation of powers only works if each branch is self-aggrandizing in this way. I guess I'm postulating that the difference between us and Putin's, Duterte's, Orban's, etc. can be maintained if we can get Judges to be in-group loyal to the Judiciary, admins to be in-group loyal to the Executive, and legislators to be in-group loyal to the Legislature. It seems like we're OK on the out-group relationship between the Executive and SCOTUS to some small extent. But Congress seems to be full of Presidential sycophants.

On 7/17/24 17:17, Santafe wrote:
> I think your earlier, bad-faith account, was in the right direction, though each of your last three notes has had a structure I like and take seriously.  (Hard to decide what I think of, or whether I agree with, anything at this point.)
> 
> But if I look at the 3-way dialogue among Thomas, the Federalists, and Cannon, the structure I think I see is this:
> 
> 1. One of the very useful things Shubik commented to me early in our working relationship — obvious in hindsight, but there are all sorts of obvious things I never think of until somebody tells me — is that laws are inevitably finite and thus inescapably coarse-grained.  This is the problem of induction, control systems with finite variety, etc.  Meanwhile, experiences are extendable without limit and indefinitely variegated.  So the essential and unavoidable work needed from judges and litigators is, for each case, to get to some decision of how it can be categorized within and responded to from laws, more or less in their spirit.
> 
> 2. Thomas’s gambit is the equivalent of one of my nieces when she was young — a child who knew she could drive any person past all limits of patience, and did so at every chance — putting her fingers into hear ears and saying loudly blah-blah-blah-I-can’t-hear-you.  Thomas’s rulings (when they arrive at one of the insurrectionist positions he wants to support) have the structure that any law can be ignored if one can find some detail of the particular case that was not written explicitly into the text of that law.  This is a general-purpose deconstructionist tactic that has nothing to do with any specific law or any specific case, and can just be used to ignore any law in any case if that is the wanted outcome.
> 
> 2a.  2 is flatly a nonsense position.  But the only thing that can assert that it is a nonsense position is a notion of “legitimacy”.  Because all this is in the non-robotic dimension of human social behavior.  Hence if legitimacy is jettisoned, all subsequent discussion is just performative, while the substance is in the fight over who can be holding power at the end.
> 
> 3. The Federalist Society supports these warrens of little legals and paralegals to come up with Gish Gallops of footnotes or other details that can be slotted into Thomas-like arguments.  I figure GPT could be programmed to do this — a job it is perfectly suited to — and put them all out of business on the spot.  But for now it is people doing it.  Those Gallops get sent to various judges for “notarizing” — aka delivered as “the judge’s” “ruling”.
> 
> 4. I would like the investigative journalists to find where the rulings Cannon is notarizing came from.  They look so fine-grained and frivolous, it seems unlikely that just she and her staff could have come up with them.  Seems like it would require a bigger factory.
> 
> 
> But all this is then within the category of the “anything from an absurdity”.  Since the Thomas Gambit can be used to nullify any law, all the action then goes to whether the ones using it happen to want to nullify the applicability of law to some case, or whether it serves their ends to apply the law in something like the normal way.  But that then becomes sort of the Russian system, or Duterte’s system, or any dictator's.
> 
> 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.
> 
> But I don’t know.  I don’t do this for a living.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
>> On Jul 18, 2024, at 6:29 AM, glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Not really. What's happened is the law has now been refined/redefined to require actions be categorized as official and unofficial. So actions that are deemed official are not against the law. Actions that are unofficial are, then, subject to traditional laws. It remains to be tried/ruled whether a particular assassination was official/legal or not. If Biden orders Trumps assassination and it is deemed unofficial, then he'll be tried for it. If it's deemed official, then it was legal.
>>
>> On 7/17/24 14:03, Russ Abbott wrote:
>>> Don't want to drag this out forever, but ...  The immunity decision is extraordinarily dangerous precisely because it allows a President to break the law and to ignore traditional safeguards and then to claim immunity if charges are brought against him.
>>> _
>>> _
>>> __-- Russ Abbott
>>> Professor Emeritus, Computer Science
>>> California State University, Los Angeles
>>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 7:19 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>    Well, OK. It seems pretty clear that there are laws protecting citizens (that don't protect non-citizens). Situations like arresting a citizen and holding them for a very long time before charging them are the in-between wiggle room. And we have things like opening investigations into them, etc. And it would be pretty easy to "disappear" a nobody like me. I think it's not so easy to disappear Trump. Anyway, there are some pretty hard constraints like due process, posse comitatus, and such. The only way the President could make an assassination of a citizen plausible is to deem them an enemy of the state, revoke their citizenship, present some flimsy justification for that revocation, etc. And even then, as long as they're on US soil, (again, to be legitimate) you'd want to use the ATF, FBI, ICE, or something, not the Navy or CIA.
>>>    IDK. This scenario just feels like spy novel fantasy to me. It was a good quip in the SCOTUS hearing. But there are too many holes in the mechanics to do it with the appearance of legitimacy. (This says nothing of doing it Nixon- or Hoover- style, of course.)
>>>    I am kinda on pins and needles to see what Chutkan makes of some of this, though.
>>>    On 7/16/24 19:34, Russ Abbott wrote:
>>>> I think it's an official act if it involves the use of powers designated by the Constitution as Presidential. As I understand the SCOTUS ruling, the motivation for that use is not relevant. That's one of the things that's so terrible about the immunity decision. Seal Team 6 and all that.
>>>>
>>>> -- Russ
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 16, 2024, 11:17 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     It's pretty hard for me to see how that would stand up in court. If assassination of citizens, much less a fully cleared and daily int-briefed President-elect, is ultimately ruled an "official" action, we've already lost the Republic and committing the actual deed would be futile. No need to worry about losing the Republic if the Republic is already lost.
>>>>
>>>>     On 7/16/24 10:47, Russ Abbott wrote:
>>>>> Why has no one pointed out the possibility that if Trump wins, Biden could take advantage of his newly declared immunity and have him assassinated?
>>>>>
>>>>> -- Russ
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Jul 16, 2024, 6:24 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>     Yeah. It's one thing to wish it or want it. It's another to think more in Marcus' terms and come up with a more complex strategy not involving stupid 20 year olds and no violence at all. I still hold out hope for my own personal conspiracy theory. Biden becomes the nominee. After the convention fades, the Admnistration announces Biden has gone to the hospital for bone spur surgery. Kamala takes over temporarily and campaigns furiously for Biden-Harris. Biden is re-elected. Biden recovers and gets through the Oath (fingers crossed). Then he goes back to the hospital with some minor thing like a dizzy spell. Kamala takes over again. Biden's condition worsens. First Female President. Biden recovers and becomes America's Grandpa.
>>>>>
>>>>>     Come on Deep State. Make it happen. 8^D
>>>>>
>>>>>     On 7/15/24 17:30, Russ Abbott wrote:
>>>>>> I wonder what Scott's response would have been to those of us who, in response to the shooting, thought: better luck next time.
>>>>>> On 7/15/24 17:28, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>>>>> It ignores the option of doing things quietly and indirectly.
>>>>>>> On 7/15/24 16:46, glen wrote:
>>>>>>>> [Scott's] Prayer
>>>>>>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,Kc0nve-ID8ZuMnxfHott8_EjzHPqSka_WqgZkkzic2VWUuwfh16jk9-qxG9QpF2Pc81NCga2zyZR-_2__aCrw7Z64NYF51xO1JwURofDdjqOyzcDgg,,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,FNQzDcG9q2tcg37yj6yHiy31MLDmGYRdfIIXXN0Fq4nwPhxNmkBIu2Pf-QFrxN4Bd8_xi6gJcAJutuyxIbTyLPrWpcBE6toGOjsRAdcJc6oRZMlY&typo=1> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,HJKhS398AnYQi-qPXVLWMPmNSYE_-UAxCP3GSO2Sr851ZSG9nWXnhDaK8QuySkSQ4lCW6rrH2vRqHne7tqtB10k11a4rRQco9rdunmozdFU2XBDMg6lpErPCeLM,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,vR863cPrw71kM1Rolwllu3I4RAn7wGKJLvax6dDJ1xC_fG7R6kWSRdVN8I-pGxcqlNp9OV_rHoV4QypGqMuGKplCvgDkJKrLYrzOIQhQ3BeBDY5QQoyTmg,,&typo=1>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,dahafZf8GzIGj4DLrDC7R2YfQn1e-ivhtfpz-tXPqCtDTT8F9zEiVFbkU-KDbjQ0J2k_E8KQpLAQfYHW0NvHHHHE2ChEmBB5fQ3VdNpvrcQdJYSOeYZIGZ0oNNXp&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,EEsiirTCqK6-17CjMrdHw5z7qNRHsP6uDwGt5fiO59cYbVyywlg4DKMRJOYLvACBfBlozFlFs8104mA_bwCID4OJjxJEXqbJ46zvFeHH7dBFMTy9dQ,,&typo=1> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,cyXZGdIl2YXQCzVqDdj0hvyyeJ92SbOaycyMbSU0MoF42L0z2dKplNbWmQxwOaYMZLrbc9lPg6Pf9EKNOuF2FEOI6INOHDbcropzKOilsL1CYqM,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,d23_VaAqV2XaAV-CuHUHhaWNQswHHnXMMLH9ldW-0M2GPSNV1dbbjwbFqGmUZuOSvbKi8clhOBnPKV2IH2LVaHYfgwJnU3bcqn0aGP_eY2xF&typo=1>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm currently surrounded by people who believe intolerance is properly not tolerated. Scott's message, here, seems extraordinary Christian, to me. (Real Christian, not the Christianism displayed in things like megachurches and whatnot cf https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,saKhGMCXB7zEAEJtg7l5vLZwf3d6SwFxyRy5iq2LU7ukXwqwSRYuNd2kfVOXQ1rv-34-bINgZP2h-1plogDpH4skyULo1d5Yk_nHl4kirLVc19L9&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,Mg1qNXe6ijI-uxUOkVhjdq9wo3eBGbflKBnproUcq1g2Rrngy9t0QLRs6hBTr-biIHMGN5iZDz_STPvgMciapAz1TIwBI4p_AOXC7mHx7q8,&typo=1> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,0Y4KeF6gpaIb1pwqNUlOTryS1HthyxnzKaxv90QOgX0vb-O9INRWSOivCRC2mSKfEIQODoUCJ6Rd1_lpx1pLtGaBqIHBuTubujmNuErd&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,QN_6Op8hZpq9j_3MG0M0h30LMg0OzSRCbPCFQf_4g88QhS0dAC9SH9T7Ql0ZGR2M6dK3Vjt6xbEEF4kj85m2jjRAweJI4fzhE25eDxHg5opDKmYOJeI,&typo=1>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,qJJ8BDP1MwGby7iP3F0rKrvQrYwzxyPstpJe5DAXcBcQ3AfEdog-bKrMFu3lZsBjN5yFXu84v7jPg1LuuyC2Q31m36qeQ6I4Ywb81g7EVkP-&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,ItuqvWBOMA09XFUYwkL5QxWEOmvc__1VDYaKnUtuIBmChkVmZplFHBOsnk5RO0ig6IPEmoZPyC3OM_XkRksUAtpLD420gwVRBtjrQlg0LXgdWRs,&typo=1> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,fq_ZACAnxyxnBvJC8BbP1b4DqRyBIQB7VdpFV3DXkDq2ZJoWPUpWRUNsBtTn9CTcLx2Cq3rjLU_t71AFTb01Vr_gVF4PeKslX-zwuMtZkzNkJsokGGjHc0yf&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fraymondsmullyan.com%2fbooks%2fwho-knows%2f&c=E,1,p_Ne5wSL00tCF67cfhJiFnPfuEHE0m7nWsEJqMT2edWHrFElf7N4KuqNNArzIYDjW_OckXNOwsPcrvZz4LqNQjgki17GFAaynIP416ag8Pbgj4As8CE,&typo=1>>>). This faith that "going high" will, in the long run, win out, seems naive to me. The temptation to "hoist the black flag and start slitting throats" isn't merely a thresholded reaction, it's an intuitive grasp of the iterated prisoner's dilemma, tit-for-tat style strategies, and Ashby's LoRV. But I'm open to changing my mind on that. Maybe I'm just too
>>>    low-brow?
>>>>>>>>
-- 
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ