#lawmaking

[astercontrol]

the duality of ideas that sometimes shows up among those who enjoy fanworks-- the juxtaposition of "every creator owes me exactly what I want with nothing required on my part, not even kudos or comments" with "I should get to charge money for every fanwork that I create; my labor deserves payment even though it's from someone else's intellectual property, and ao3 is oppressive for not supporting that"

it feels to me like a symptom of a much wider tendency

which also comes up in regard to original creative works like small-time published novels, with some people both unashamedly pirating others' work and aggressively marketing their own

but it also comes up pretty much every time policies and laws are discussed

the tendency of people to think about any policy, any law-- any generalization about what people should do-- from only one side

either "what it would be like if I had to follow this," or "what it would be like if other people had to follow this."

and often the same person even seems to hold two contradictory opinions on the same rule-- one from each viewpoint, but reasoned completely separately

it's morbidly fascinating and I wonder how such a thought process works

i mean. I guess I had an experience that was maybe sorta like it.

I used to get really angry in crowds. When I was in a hurry to get somewhere and wanted to walk fast, I used to HATE people who wanted to walk slow in front of me. and when I was tired and wanted to walk slow, I used to HATE people who wanted to walk fast behind me.

but the moment I actually thought about both these experiences, I realized that the fact that I hated both those kinds of people meant I WAS both those kinds of people... and I got a hold of myself and managed to subdue the hatred down to just mild irritation.

and I sure as hell never let it get far enough to start saying out loud that laws should be made about it, one way or the other.

[theinklingofcats]

https://thenewinquiry.com/super-position/

Any power capable of creating a system of law cannot itself be bound by them. So law has to come from somewhere else. In the Middle Ages, the solution was simple: the legal order was created, either directly or indirectly, by God. God, as the Old Testament makes abundantly clear, is not bound by laws or even any recognizable system of morality, which only stands to reason: if you created morality, you can’t, by definition, be bound by it.  The English, American, and French revolutions changed all that when they created the notion of popular sovereignty—declaring that the power once held by kings is now held by an entity called “the people.” “The people,” however, are bound by the laws. So in what sense can they have created them? They created the laws through those revolutions themselves,  but, of course, revolutions are acts of law-breaking. It is completely illegal to rise up in arms, overthrow a government, and create a new political order. Cromwell, Jefferson, and Danton were surely guilty of treason according to the laws under which they grew up, as surely as they would have been had they tried to do the same thing again twenty years later. So, laws emerge from illegal activity. This creates a fundamental incoherence in the very idea of modern government, which assumes that the state has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence (only the police, or prison guards, have the legal right to beat you up). It’s okay for police to use violence because they are enforcing the law; the law is legitimate because it’s rooted in the constitution; the constitution is legitimate because it comes from the people; the people created the constitution by acts of illegal violence. The obvious question, then, is:  how does one tell the difference between “the people” and a mere rampaging mob? There is no obvious answer.

[...]

This is why, as Walter Benjamin noted, we cannot help but admire the “great criminal”: because, as so many movie posters put it, “he makes his own law.” After all, any criminal organization does, inevitably, begin developing its own—often quite elaborate—set of internal laws. They have to, as a way of controlling what would otherwise be completely random violence. From the right-wing perspective, that’s all that law ever is. It is a means of controlling the very violence that brings it into being, and through which it is ultimately enforced.

[...]

They aren’t fascists. They are just ordinary, decent, super-powerful people who inhabit a world in which fascism is the only political possibility.

[publishinggoblin]

Today, the first printing of Ultimaeus, my law making card game, arrived!

In Ultimaeus, you work on your secret goals while passing laws that change the games rules, all the while bribing, cheating, and referencing secret rules for the game.

Look for a Kickstarter sometime in the start of 2021! If you can't wait, message me and you can get an early copy!

[eelhound]

"Where there is a deep, simple, all-embracing love of man, of the created world of living and inanimate things, then there will be respect for life, for freedom, for truth, for justice and there will be humble love of God. But where there is no love of man, no love of life, then make all the laws you want, all the edicts and treaties, issue all the anathemas: set up all the safeguards and inspections, fill the air with spying satellites, and hang cameras on the moon. As long as you see your fellow man as a being essentially to be feared, mistrusted, hated, and destroyed, there cannot be peace on earth. And who knows if fear alone will suffice to prevent a war of total destruction?"

- Thomas Merton, from "The Christian in World Crisis: Reflections on the Moral Climate of the 1960s," 1964. The Nonviolent Alternative.

[clemintina]

I don’t get love triangle vibes from the Boruto manga. I feel like y’all created ships and now y’all created a triangle. 🤣🤣

Sumire is the only one who has expressed interest in him that way.

Just because Sarada helps her teammate does not mean they should be in a relationship. Or that she has romantic feels for him.

And you can tell this is Kishimoto’s writing he loves the drama!

[m4a1-shermayne]

U.S. House recognizes Armenian genocide, backs Turkey sanctions

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday in favor of a ...

Woah some decent news

[quakerjoe]

Trump slashes foreign aid, cuts safety net programs in new budget proposal

U.S. President Donald Trump will propose on Monday a 21% cut in foreign aid and ...

Individual 1 promised to run America like a business and he's doing it. Unfortunately for us he's running it like a Trump business (while lining his pockets with taxpayer dollars).

With expected revenues of $3,700,000,000,000 he has proposed spending $4,800,000,000,000 in a budget that would give us our largest budget deficit in 7 years.

Part of that spending includes $2,000,000,000 for the wall he swore Mexico was going to pay for.

It also includes cuts of $292,000,000,000 to social safety net programs.

[ademocrat]

White House considers more coronavirus aid as jobs picture worsens

The White House has begun informal talks with Republicans and Democrats in Congress about what to include in another round of coronavirus relief legislation, officials said on Sunday, while predicting further U.S. jobs losses in the coming months.