5 ms·

The harder problem is designing remedies that make illegal government action actually expensive enough to discourage it, without also making officials afraid to

The harder problem is designing remedies that make illegal government action actually expensive enough to discourage it, without also making officials afraid to make legitimate decisions.

cucumber3732842 1mo ago
>officials afraid to make legitimate decisions Yeah, god forbid they drive right down the middle of the lane rather than drive right up to the line of what the public will tolerate. There is a direct causative line between government actors feeling like they can get away with unpopular things and the populist politics we've had brewing in this country for the past 20yr. The tea party, the Bernie bros the ron paul era libertarians, even MAGA, they were all ultimately captured by the establishment. The establishment wielding progressive (lowercase p) types would do well to understand that on some level you, the peddlers of government, must cater to the demands of the people, because if you don't eventually the pressure will build until a populist movement you cannot contain comes around and stomps you. And what that could look like is a serious power transfer away from the feds and toward the states. So if your policy goals involve people in other states, which just about all progressives do, this would be bad for you. Which is to say turn down the damn heat on the frog, this is all happening because you're going too fast.
- pjc50 1mo ago
  Unclear why you seem to be blaming progressives for Trump.
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  > if your policy goals involve people in other states, which just about all progressives do That does not seem like a feature unique to progressives? Conservatives are trying explicitly to involve other states, they'd happily put us all under the thumb of a Evangelical theocracy if they had the power to do so.
  - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
    What part of "lowercase p" was unclear? Those jerks in NC to cram Christian values down everyone's throat via the federal government are no different than the jerks in CA who think that if they have to suffer through a low flow shower head some guy in Alton Missouri ought to as well. They're all progressives. We can debate the merits of the directions in which they seek to progress but they're both progressives on a fundamental level. They're seeking to use government to shape society, to what they think is everyone's benefit but in reality that's not so clear.
    - rootusrootus 1mo ago
      > What part of "lowercase p" was unclear? All of it, apparently, I've never heard the term progressive used to describe conservatives. I gather that you don't like the divergence between the dictionary definition and the practical one? That's valid, but in a discussion it helps to use terms in the most commonly accepted way to avoid that confusion. I don't think modern conservatives are very conservative at all, but I have to stick with the terminology other people understand.
    - heylook 1mo ago
      > What part of "lowercase p" was unclear? The whole thing. I spend way too much time in the politics/political-philosophy rabbit hole, and it still whooshed right by me. I bet you got like a 2% hit rate on people understanding what you meant.
    - jhbadger 1mo ago
      The part where you gave the word your own private meaning was the unclear part. There are no two sides to "progressive". It means thinking the past was bad and that we can make a better, fairer society in the future. Those who think society was better in the past and think the 1950s or even the 1850s or even earlier were the Golden Age aren't progressive upper or lower case. They are regressive by definition.

The harder problem is designing remedies that make illegal government action actually expensive enough to discourage it, without also making officials afraid to make legitimate decisions.

cucumber3732842 1mo ago

>officials afraid to make legitimate decisions Yeah, god forbid they drive right down the middle of the lane rather than drive right up to the line of what the public will tolerate. There is a direct causative line between government actors feeling like they can get away with unpopular things and the populist politics we've had brewing in this country for the past 20yr. The tea party, the Bernie bros the ron paul era libertarians, even MAGA, they were all ultimately captured by the establishment. The establishment wielding progressive (lowercase p) types would do well to understand that on some level you, the peddlers of government, must cater to the demands of the people, because if you don't eventually the pressure will build until a populist movement you cannot contain comes around and stomps you. And what that could look like is a serious power transfer away from the feds and toward the states. So if your policy goals involve people in other states, which just about all progressives do, this would be bad for you. Which is to say turn down the damn heat on the frog, this is all happening because you're going too fast.

pjc50 1mo ago
Unclear why you seem to be blaming progressives for Trump.
rootusrootus 1mo ago
> if your policy goals involve people in other states, which just about all progressives do That does not seem like a feature unique to progressives? Conservatives are trying explicitly to involve other states, they'd happily put us all under the thumb of a Evangelical theocracy if they had the power to do so.
- cucumber3732842 1mo ago
  What part of "lowercase p" was unclear? Those jerks in NC to cram Christian values down everyone's throat via the federal government are no different than the jerks in CA who think that if they have to suffer through a low flow shower head some guy in Alton Missouri ought to as well. They're all progressives. We can debate the merits of the directions in which they seek to progress but they're both progressives on a fundamental level. They're seeking to use government to shape society, to what they think is everyone's benefit but in reality that's not so clear.
  - rootusrootus 1mo ago
    > What part of "lowercase p" was unclear? All of it, apparently, I've never heard the term progressive used to describe conservatives. I gather that you don't like the divergence between the dictionary definition and the practical one? That's valid, but in a discussion it helps to use terms in the most commonly accepted way to avoid that confusion. I don't think modern conservatives are very conservative at all, but I have to stick with the terminology other people understand.
  - heylook 1mo ago
    > What part of "lowercase p" was unclear? The whole thing. I spend way too much time in the politics/political-philosophy rabbit hole, and it still whooshed right by me. I bet you got like a 2% hit rate on people understanding what you meant.
  - jhbadger 1mo ago
    The part where you gave the word your own private meaning was the unclear part. There are no two sides to "progressive". It means thinking the past was bad and that we can make a better, fairer society in the future. Those who think society was better in the past and think the 1950s or even the 1850s or even earlier were the Golden Age aren't progressive upper or lower case. They are regressive by definition.