sometimes i wonder about the inner life of Lindsay Graham.
“Law always points beyond itself, toward the principle of justice, and that principle means that law can always be called into question. When law claims to be fully self-sufficient, it betrays itself and becomes a tool of injustice”
Excellent and true by @adamkotsko https://itself.blog/2025/02/18/law-and-justice/
a polity that periodically elects a king is no democracy, even if the elections are competitive. it’s not a state in a meaningful sense. either it devolves to “competitive authoritarianism” (one king always wins), or it falls to waste due to vertiginous schizophrenic reversals.
cf https://bsky.app/profile/abeardedpanda.bsky.social/post/3liinbgpozs23
@light @Canevecchio @johnstonphilip i’d say analogies of people to insects and pests are dehumanizing and to be avoided. our Trump of course is fine using that language about immigrants. i am far from fine with it. we now have people deported to Guantanamo and deported to Panama, where apparently they’ll be housed at a camp in the jungles of the Darien Gap. i hope conditions will be exquisite in both facilities. springs eternal.
free speech.
pro life.
from Hannah Arendt, via #EliasIsquith, via @resnikoff https://grattoncourses.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/responsibility-under-a-dictatorship-arendt.pdf
![Text (abridged to fit):
The only domain where the word [obey] could possibly apply to adults who are not slaves is the domain of religion, in which people say that they obey the word or the command of God because the relationship between God and man can rightly be seen in terms similar to the relation between adult and child.
Hence the question addressed to those who participated and obeyed orders should never be,](media_attachments/files/114/027/638/530/275/827/original/f2f60b290cd2f4c8.jpeg)
Text (abridged to fit): The only domain where the word [obey] could possibly apply to adults who are not slaves is the domain of religion, in which people say that they obey the word or the command of God because the relationship between God and man can rightly be seen in terms similar to the relation between adult and child. Hence the question addressed to those who participated and obeyed orders should never be, "Why did you obey?" but "Why did you support?" This change of words is no semantic irrelevancy for those who know the strange and powerful influence mere "words" have over the minds of men who, first of all, are speaking animals. Much would be gained if we could eliminate this pernicious word "obedience" from our vocabulary of moral and political thought. If we think these matters through, we might regain some measure of self-confidence and even pride, that is, regain what former times called the dignity or the honor of man: not perhaps of mankind but of the status of being human.
“The dismantling of Delaware’s corporate code in service of billionaires took a great leap forward today when state senate Democrats unveiled proposed legislation that will dramatically alter corporate governance with national implications.” #JordanHowell https://delawarecall.com/2025/02/17/deldems-roll-over-for-musk/
they found a man starving and pulled out a machete to remove the tumor.
now we only clap if the plane does tricks when it lands.
“the penalty for not complying is simply that you are ordered to comply.” #MattBruenig https://www.nlrbedge.com/p/the-futility-of-the-nlrb
they believe the conspiracy theories and now that it’s their turn they try to run the world like their conspiracy theories, put in service of new ends.
except the world can’t be run like the conspiracy theories pretend it is run.
all these people got fired but nobody is responsible for firing them.
what Musk has done is turn Twitter into 14chan.
@Canevecchio @johnstonphilip it sucks we’re along for the ride, though.
moral of the Musk administration gonna be it’s hard to unscramble an egg.
i used to believe in the Loch Ness Monster, in sasquatches and chupacabra, in Republican congresspeople.
do we believe this "unitary executive" wouldn't abuse NSA's capabilities to routinely spy on domestic enemies? what constraints would prevent or even mildly discourage even the most plainly illegal surveillance?
a "unitary executive" is an untrustworthy executive. how are we expected to be candid on our tax returns if the IRS can't offer confidentiality? https://masto.ai/@unusual_whales/114021367350443443
they claim what they do is theater, but in fact it is only theater theater.
@dukepaaron (i think she's disagreeing. but i can't claim to be a bari-whisperer.)
in hell we'll all enjoy the irony.
Screenshot of Bari Weiss tweet. Bari Weiss, whose career has been spent mocking and deriding anything that might be excess of civilized impulse and who took enthusiastic part in the intellectual currents that elevates Trump says "No." in a tweet to Trump's Napoleonic-ish fascistic "He who saves his country does not violate any Law."