3 ms·

Packing the court worked the last time when they tried to get in the way of the New Deal.

by lesuorac 2y ago

rayiner 2y ago
Which ended up destroying the American republic and the constitutional system.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  I don’t recall the collapse of the republic or the constitutional system, just decades of growing prosperity and rising standards of living culminating in the 1950s, the era everyone is desperate to return to.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    For economic reasons unrelated to what was going on in the legal system. But the mid-20th century also saw a gutting of the constitutional system the founders had created, and replacement thereof with an unelected administrative state. You might want to read the room. Not just in the US, but across Europe as well, people are angry about their democracy having been stripped from them, and rule by unelected, unaccountable experts.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      Anti-intellectualism is nothing new, we’ve always dealt with spasms of it and the current one will pass. When you say unelected experts what you’re referring to are non-crony public servants who aren’t subject to the spoils system of party politics. No modern democracy could function without them. Extremists hate them because they offer a competent buffer against the chaos they hope to unleash.
      - rayiner 2y ago
        It's not about "anti-intellectualism." I think cognitive elites, of which expert bureaucrats are a part, are critical to running society. But they have a moral obligation to stay in their lane. Elites must use their capabilities to do what the public wants them to do. Both in the U.S. and Europe, they have not been doing that, but instead have been abusing their authority to impose their own ideologies. Consider the 2016 "Resistance" by federal employees to the election of Donald Trump. The public had clearly voted against immigration and free trade. At that point, the job of the federal bureaucracy was to put aside their own views about whether immigration and free trade were good things, and use their skills to implement the agenda of their duly elected new boss. Instead, they publicly and vocally declared their insubordination, both to the President and the public who elected him. Likewise, during the 2020 George Floyd riots, you saw public health experts allow their moral ideology to affect their expert recommendations--treating religious gatherings as somehow being different from social justice gatherings. My belief is that these things directly led to the debacle of the pandemic, when people refused to trust experts on vaccination--despite Trump telling them to take the vaccine. My dad spent his life working as a public health expert in the third world, and what happened was, while disappointing, not a surprise to him. A huge part of public health work is getting people to trust you. And you must earn that trust by putting the job first. If you go into a village in Bangladesh and people don't want to be treated by a woman doctor, you provide them a male doctor. You don't chastise them for their "sexism." My dad actually worked for a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Bangladesh. At least back in the 1980s, they were providing family planning services consistent with local beliefs, and not trying to impose western ideals on the public--something that would have swiftly destroyed trust. Most people who aren't that smart understand that and are deferential to their betters. But they also have an intuitive and accurate sense of what's an exercise of expertise, and what's a moral or political judgment. And when experts step out of their lane, they destroy the trust that's critical to doing their jobs.
        mullingitover 2y ago
        > Elites must use their capabilities to do what the public wants them to do. It’s of course ridiculous to expect the city bus driver to take a public opinion poll before they do their job. Public servants get their orders from their managers who are appointed by public officials. That’s their “lane.” People have a problem with this because they expect that when they elect radicals, the entire state apparatus immediately becomes as radical as the demagogue they managed to get in office. The fact it doesn’t work this way is a feature, not a bug.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

Packing the court worked the last time when they tried to get in the way of the New Deal.

rayiner 2y ago

Which ended up destroying the American republic and the constitutional system.

mullingitover 2y ago
I don’t recall the collapse of the republic or the constitutional system, just decades of growing prosperity and rising standards of living culminating in the 1950s, the era everyone is desperate to return to.
- rayiner 2y ago
  For economic reasons unrelated to what was going on in the legal system. But the mid-20th century also saw a gutting of the constitutional system the founders had created, and replacement thereof with an unelected administrative state. You might want to read the room. Not just in the US, but across Europe as well, people are angry about their democracy having been stripped from them, and rule by unelected, unaccountable experts.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    Anti-intellectualism is nothing new, we’ve always dealt with spasms of it and the current one will pass. When you say unelected experts what you’re referring to are non-crony public servants who aren’t subject to the spoils system of party politics. No modern democracy could function without them. Extremists hate them because they offer a competent buffer against the chaos they hope to unleash.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      It's not about "anti-intellectualism." I think cognitive elites, of which expert bureaucrats are a part, are critical to running society. But they have a moral obligation to stay in their lane. Elites must use their capabilities to do what the public wants them to do. Both in the U.S. and Europe, they have not been doing that, but instead have been abusing their authority to impose their own ideologies. Consider the 2016 "Resistance" by federal employees to the election of Donald Trump. The public had clearly voted against immigration and free trade. At that point, the job of the federal bureaucracy was to put aside their own views about whether immigration and free trade were good things, and use their skills to implement the agenda of their duly elected new boss. Instead, they publicly and vocally declared their insubordination, both to the President and the public who elected him. Likewise, during the 2020 George Floyd riots, you saw public health experts allow their moral ideology to affect their expert recommendations--treating religious gatherings as somehow being different from social justice gatherings. My belief is that these things directly led to the debacle of the pandemic, when people refused to trust experts on vaccination--despite Trump telling them to take the vaccine. My dad spent his life working as a public health expert in the third world, and what happened was, while disappointing, not a surprise to him. A huge part of public health work is getting people to trust you. And you must earn that trust by putting the job first. If you go into a village in Bangladesh and people don't want to be treated by a woman doctor, you provide them a male doctor. You don't chastise them for their "sexism." My dad actually worked for a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Bangladesh. At least back in the 1980s, they were providing family planning services consistent with local beliefs, and not trying to impose western ideals on the public--something that would have swiftly destroyed trust. Most people who aren't that smart understand that and are deferential to their betters. But they also have an intuitive and accurate sense of what's an exercise of expertise, and what's a moral or political judgment. And when experts step out of their lane, they destroy the trust that's critical to doing their jobs.
      - mullingitover 2y ago
        > Elites must use their capabilities to do what the public wants them to do. It’s of course ridiculous to expect the city bus driver to take a public opinion poll before they do their job. Public servants get their orders from their managers who are appointed by public officials. That’s their “lane.” People have a problem with this because they expect that when they elect radicals, the entire state apparatus immediately becomes as radical as the demagogue they managed to get in office. The fact it doesn’t work this way is a feature, not a bug.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]