"At its heart, this case is about human dignity."
December 4, 2024 5:37 AM Subscribe
Trans rights case lands at Supreme Court (AP, NYT, WaPo, CNN, SCOTUSBlog, ACLU, HRC)
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson released the following statement ahead of oral arguments:
“At its heart, this case is about human dignity. Transgender youth are not political pawns—they are children who deserve compassion, medical care and the same opportunities to thrive as all youth, and their parents deserve the same rights to support their needs as all other parents. No politician should ever be able to interfere in the decisions best made by families and doctors—but that’s exactly what these discriminatory bans allow.
Every child deserves access to healthcare that supports their well-being. Nearly every major medical organization agrees: gender affirming care isn't a political statement; it's healthcare that can prevent depression, reduce suicide risk, and help children thrive. This is about healthcare, plain and simple.”
“The Supreme Court now faces a fundamental question: Will we honor our constitutional promise of equal protection, or will we allow discriminatory laws to systematically marginalize young people?”
The ACLU's Chase Strangio (New York) will be the first openly transgender attorney to argue a case before the SC.
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson released the following statement ahead of oral arguments:
“At its heart, this case is about human dignity. Transgender youth are not political pawns—they are children who deserve compassion, medical care and the same opportunities to thrive as all youth, and their parents deserve the same rights to support their needs as all other parents. No politician should ever be able to interfere in the decisions best made by families and doctors—but that’s exactly what these discriminatory bans allow.
Every child deserves access to healthcare that supports their well-being. Nearly every major medical organization agrees: gender affirming care isn't a political statement; it's healthcare that can prevent depression, reduce suicide risk, and help children thrive. This is about healthcare, plain and simple.”
“The Supreme Court now faces a fundamental question: Will we honor our constitutional promise of equal protection, or will we allow discriminatory laws to systematically marginalize young people?”
The ACLU's Chase Strangio (New York) will be the first openly transgender attorney to argue a case before the SC.
Kendrick Lamar: "Mr. Preacherman, should we love thy neighbor? The laws of the land or the heart, what's greater?"
posted by kliuless at 6:14 AM on December 4, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by kliuless at 6:14 AM on December 4, 2024 [5 favorites]
I'm trying not to watch this live but I am paying attention to how much of my constitutional rights will be left after the decision next year.
posted by mephron at 6:19 AM on December 4, 2024 [15 favorites]
posted by mephron at 6:19 AM on December 4, 2024 [15 favorites]
Please do not quote the HRC on trans issues. They do not have our back.
posted by hoyland at 6:47 AM on December 4, 2024 [15 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 6:47 AM on December 4, 2024 [15 favorites]
As a practical matter, I find these arguments work best when you can find a personal connection. I would hope the legal teams could find examples from the social circles of the judges.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:57 AM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:57 AM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
LawDork: FAQ: What to know before the SCOTUS arguments over bans on trans care for minors
posted by mittens at 7:07 AM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by mittens at 7:07 AM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
> I'm trying not to watch this live but I am paying attention to how much of my constitutional rights will be left after the decision next year.
I think the only thing we can do is hope Chase Strangio knows what he's doing (and that he'd have the power to put the brakes on). At least it's not cis people making us take the risk?
posted by hoyland at 7:12 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
I think the only thing we can do is hope Chase Strangio knows what he's doing (and that he'd have the power to put the brakes on). At least it's not cis people making us take the risk?
posted by hoyland at 7:12 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
For the masochists who do want to listen live, here is a link.
posted by prefpara at 7:16 AM on December 4, 2024
posted by prefpara at 7:16 AM on December 4, 2024
Trans rights case lands at Supreme Court (AP, NYT, WaPo, CNN, SCOTUSBlog, ACLU, HRC)
I appreciate the variety of coverage, but this would be more intelligible if the actual source names were linked, not arbitrary words in a sentence, i.e.
I appreciate the variety of coverage, but this would be more intelligible if the actual source names were linked, not arbitrary words in a sentence, i.e.
Trans rights case lands at Supreme Court (AP, NYT, WaPo, CNN, SCOTUSBlog, ACLU, HRC)posted by zamboni at 7:28 AM on December 4, 2024 [10 favorites]
Erin Reed, an excellent source on trans issues, will be reporting on site at the Supreme Court.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:32 AM on December 4, 2024 [11 favorites]
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:32 AM on December 4, 2024 [11 favorites]
There was a day when I'd have been hopeful about the outcome.
This is not that day.
posted by evilDoug at 7:37 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
This is not that day.
posted by evilDoug at 7:37 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
If I'm understanding correctly this is about whether trans people will seriously need to contemplate evacuating the US or not? I wonder if they'd be granted refugee status in real countries. I bet that comes up real soon. Which is probably the outcome the transphobes want anyway. What a timeline.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:39 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:39 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
I'm trying real hard not to catastrophize, but it's not easy, and also when has not catastrophizing ever done me any good?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:41 AM on December 4, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:41 AM on December 4, 2024 [4 favorites]
if they'd be granted refugee status in real countries.
Already looked into it with the Netherlands. They require proof of refugee status, so there may be a particular bar to meet. I doubt we’re there yet, but this case could become one terrible piece of that proof, depending on outcome.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:46 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
Already looked into it with the Netherlands. They require proof of refugee status, so there may be a particular bar to meet. I doubt we’re there yet, but this case could become one terrible piece of that proof, depending on outcome.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:46 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
This was anticipated and precisely why Trump selected the people he did.
posted by tommasz at 7:48 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 7:48 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
The podcast Law & Chaos and did their Monday show with a segment on this. Apparently, supporting the Tennessee law will require a couple of the conservative justices to reverse opinions they have expressed publicly before. Which, given the current court, I Don’t know what to expect.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:51 AM on December 4, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:51 AM on December 4, 2024 [4 favorites]
I'm following Elie Mystal on BlueSky who is posting the oral argument while ranting about, you know, the actual law. The outrage is surprisingly helpful.
posted by ceejaytee at 7:52 AM on December 4, 2024 [19 favorites]
posted by ceejaytee at 7:52 AM on December 4, 2024 [19 favorites]
Thanks for that share, ceejaytee, I'd apparently missed Mystal when I moved over to bsky. Here's some fun: "The *worst* case scenario for this decision isn't just the recission of trans rights. It's that SCOTUS basically makes sex discrimination a thing you can never prove."
posted by mittens at 8:17 AM on December 4, 2024 [9 favorites]
posted by mittens at 8:17 AM on December 4, 2024 [9 favorites]
A loss in this case would greenlight a torrent of explicitly discriminatory legislation without much, if any judicial recourse.
I fucking hope the people bringing this case know what they're doing. I wouldn't want to take that risk, myself.
posted by Dysk at 8:39 AM on December 4, 2024
I fucking hope the people bringing this case know what they're doing. I wouldn't want to take that risk, myself.
posted by Dysk at 8:39 AM on December 4, 2024
Trans newssite Assigned Media has a team in DC to cover the story. So far they’ve got two stories up, What You Absolutely Need to Know About U.S. v Skrmetti and Long Lines, Cold, and Fears of Kettling at the Supreme Court Wednesday Morning.
posted by Kattullus at 9:04 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 9:04 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
I will warn that listening to the oral arguments is enraging, I had to cut it off before I threw my 700 page law textbook at something.
posted by corb at 9:08 AM on December 4, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by corb at 9:08 AM on December 4, 2024 [6 favorites]
Jules Gill-Peterson, Understanding What's at Stake (It's Always Been Transition)
posted by eruonna at 9:09 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by eruonna at 9:09 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
I strongly agree that listening to the argument is stressful and upsetting in the extreme. I do not recommend it. The written transcript will also agitate the reader, but at least you won't have to hear Alito's tone.
posted by prefpara at 9:11 AM on December 4, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by prefpara at 9:11 AM on December 4, 2024 [7 favorites]
I wonder if they'd be granted refugee status in real countries.
I'd say probably Canada, but right now this country is also busy persecuting trans folk (see: Alberta, soon the rest of the country if Pierre Polievre ascends to PM).
Add that we are reducing allowing immigrants full stop because Trudeau is capitulating to our own version of the worst people and it doesn't look hopeful for anyone.
posted by Kitteh at 9:23 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
I'd say probably Canada, but right now this country is also busy persecuting trans folk (see: Alberta, soon the rest of the country if Pierre Polievre ascends to PM).
Add that we are reducing allowing immigrants full stop because Trudeau is capitulating to our own version of the worst people and it doesn't look hopeful for anyone.
posted by Kitteh at 9:23 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
I think Elie Mystal has summarized Justice Jackson's opinion very well: "Shorter Jackson: DOES ANYBODY HERE REMEMBER HOW THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE WORKS OR IS THE BLACK LADY THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO HAS READ THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT???"
posted by ceejaytee at 9:42 AM on December 4, 2024 [23 favorites]
posted by ceejaytee at 9:42 AM on December 4, 2024 [23 favorites]
The decision will cement whether the US, a very very imperfect democracy, will do at least one decent and right thing, or will show us to be the hard nasty thuggish country we seem to be headed towards. This country was founded on genocide and slavery. We are supposed to be taking toddler steps past that. Please you right wing fucks on the court, do one damn decent thing, just this one.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:54 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:54 AM on December 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
There is a trans advocacy rally outside the court being streamed by unicorn riot now: youtube
posted by alb at 9:54 AM on December 4, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by alb at 9:54 AM on December 4, 2024 [7 favorites]
trans people will seriously need to contemplate evacuating the US
What about Minnesota?
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:13 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
What about Minnesota?
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:13 AM on December 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
I'm following Elie Mystal on BlueSky who is posting the oral argument while ranting about, you know, the actual law. The outrage is surprisingly helpful.
posted by ceejaytee at 7:52 AM on December 4
Thanks ceejaytee. It's a great thread. And I think my first for bluesky from mefi :).
posted by bluesky43 at 11:34 AM on December 4, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by ceejaytee at 7:52 AM on December 4
Thanks ceejaytee. It's a great thread. And I think my first for bluesky from mefi :).
posted by bluesky43 at 11:34 AM on December 4, 2024 [4 favorites]
Conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices suggested during oral arguments Wednesday they’re inclined to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:43 PM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:43 PM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
There is something so deeply evil and authoritarian about the wording of the law in question framing it as the state of Tennessee having a "Legitimate, substantial, and compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex" and prohibiting anything that might "encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex." Just saying it out loud that the state can and will tell you how you are allowed to feel about your own body. It is so frighteningly clear that it's not just about being able to control people's ability to access medical care, which is already abhorrent, but also to control what we are allowed to think and feel. I know invoking 1984 is cliché but it really does call to mind the ending of the novel where it is not enough that Winston is captured and rendered helpless, no, that is not enough. He must love Big Brother. It is not enough that the state of Tennessee makes it impossible to legally transition. NO! You must love your assigned sex.
posted by metaphorever at 3:00 PM on December 4, 2024 [31 favorites]
posted by metaphorever at 3:00 PM on December 4, 2024 [31 favorites]
[The USA] was founded on genocide and slavery.
posted by WatTylerJr
While true, and nothing to be proud of, it would also be hard to find many countries/nations in history that were not founded on or have not subsequently engaged in some form of genocide and slavery.
Mine – Australia, supposedly one of the more enlightened and fair ones – is certainly guilty of both, including within living memory.
posted by Pouteria at 1:06 AM on December 5, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr
While true, and nothing to be proud of, it would also be hard to find many countries/nations in history that were not founded on or have not subsequently engaged in some form of genocide and slavery.
Mine – Australia, supposedly one of the more enlightened and fair ones – is certainly guilty of both, including within living memory.
posted by Pouteria at 1:06 AM on December 5, 2024 [2 favorites]
While true, and nothing to be proud of, it would also be hard to find many countries/nations in history that were not founded on or have not subsequently engaged in some form of genocide and slavery.
And that's why all nations must be abolished.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:22 AM on December 5, 2024
And that's why all nations must be abolished.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:22 AM on December 5, 2024
Well, it's the day after, and while I think that Chase Strangio did an amazing job in his arguments, I'm still getting my passport and keeping an eye on the cost of flights to Germany.
The Bloc of Six looks more than ready to rule on guts and vibes rather than law and precedent.
And I have a doctor's appointment three days before the inauguration, so we'll see if I can find a way to cajole extra HRT from them.
posted by mephron at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2024 [3 favorites]
The Bloc of Six looks more than ready to rule on guts and vibes rather than law and precedent.
And I have a doctor's appointment three days before the inauguration, so we'll see if I can find a way to cajole extra HRT from them.
posted by mephron at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2024 [3 favorites]
And that's why all nations must be abolished.
posted by Faint of Butt
How does abolishing the nation-state solve the problem of tyranny?
posted by Pouteria at 5:08 PM on December 5, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Faint of Butt
How does abolishing the nation-state solve the problem of tyranny?
posted by Pouteria at 5:08 PM on December 5, 2024 [1 favorite]
non-territorial voting?[1,2,3,4,5]
But if representative government turns out to be your intention there still may be ways to achieve it better than the territorial district. For example you each represent about ten thousand human beings, perhaps seven thousand of voting age -- and some of you were elected by slim majorities. Suppose instead of election a man were qualified for office by petition signed by four thousand citizens. He would then represent those four thousand affirmatively, with no disgruntled minority, for what would have been a minority in a territorial consituency would all be free to start other petitions or join in them. All would then be represented by men of their choice. Or a man with eight thousand supporters might have two votes in this body. Difficulties, objections, practical points to be worked out -- many of them! But you could work them out ... and thereby avoid the chronic sickness of representative government, the disgruntled minority which feels -- correctly! -- that it has been disenfranchised.which isn't sufficient of course... so my kid chose 'where is the parthenon' for bedtime reading and tonite we learned:
Pericles was much more than a high-ranking soldier. He was the leader of Athens. Pericles believed that it was every person's duty to take part in government and in the life of the city. For instance, he thought all people should serve on juries. Not just the rich. Poor people, however, couldn't afford to take off from work to be jurors on trials, even if the trial was a short one. So Pericles came up with the idea of paying people for jury time...anyway, here's judith butler:[6]
Pericles believed that the arts weren't just for entertainment. He thought that they actually made people smarter and better. That's why he wanted everyone to see the plays of Sophocles and Euripedes and Aristophanes. Because going to plays was expensive, Pericles saw to it that free tickets were given to the poor. He had a huge open-air theater built below the Acropolis that could seat thousands of people.
Maybe all this seems far from gender. But when gender is figured as a threat to humanity, civilization, “man,” and nature, when gender is likened to a nuclear catastrophe, the Ebola virus, or full-blown demonic power, then it is this escalating fear of destruction to which political actors appeal. They see the escalating fear and know that they can make use of it for their own purposes, so they escalate it even more. There is the ready and continuous fear of destruction, the source of which is difficult to name, which is solicited and spiked to fortify both religious authorities and state powers—or their strengthening alliance, as we see in Putin’s Russia, the Republican Party in the United States, and various countries in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Africa. The displacement of this fear of destruction from its identifiable conditions of production—climate disaster, systemic racism, capitalism, carceral powers, extractivism, patriarchal social and state forms—results in the production of “cultural” figures or phantasms invested with the power to destroy the earth and the fundamental structures of human societies.posted by kliuless at 12:06 AM on December 6, 2024
Precisely because that destruction is happening without its sources being named and checked, the fear and anxiety congeal without a proper vocabulary or analysis, and “gender” and “critical race theory” are produced and targeted as the causes of destruction. Gender is not just a matter of individual identity, but a category that describes the division of labor, the organization of states, the unequal distribution of power. Gender has never been “merely cultural” but has been cast that way by opponents who want to regard gender as a secondary concern or those who believe that cultural pathologies are responsible for social worlds breaking apart. Once identified as a cause of destruction, gender itself must be destroyed, and what follows is censorship, the de-departmentalization of gender studies and women’s studies, the stripping of rights of health care, increased pathologization, restricting spaces for public gathering, the repeal or rejection of laws that protect against discrimination, and the passing of laws that segregate, silence, and criminalize those who are trying to live their lives without fear. All those laws say: No, you will live your lives with fear, or perhaps you will not even count as a life at all.
Let us remember that the killing of women and trans, queer, bisexual, and intersex people is an actual form of destruction taking place in the world. The killing of Black women, the killing of Black queer and trans people, the killing of migrants, including queer and trans migrants—all these are destructive acts. As the numbers increase, it becomes increasingly apparent whose lives are considered dispensable, and whose lives are not. The inequality of the grievable makes itself known. Once gender, in its phantasmatic and abbreviated form, comes to include abortion rights, access to reproductive technology, sexual and gender health services, rights for trans people of any age, women’s freedom and equality, queers of color’s freedom struggles, single parenting, gay parenting, new kinship outside of heteronormative models, adoption rights, sex reassignment, gender-confirming surgery, sex education, books for young people, books for adults, and images of nudity, then it represents a wide range of political struggles that its opponents seek to shut down in their effort to restore a patriarchal order for the state, religion, and the family, an authoritarianism for the present. The only way forward is for all those targeted to gather themselves more effectively than their enemies have, to recognize their alliance, and to fight the phantasms prepared for them with a powerful and regenerative imaginary that can distinguish between the destruction of life and a collective life-affirmation defined by struggle and even irresolution.
[...]
For those who think that gender is a secondary oppression or that feminists should get in line behind the presumptively masculine Left, it is time to rethink the coordinates of the contemporary political map. Gender is not a secondary issue for Orbán, Putin, or Meloni, but a key rallying point in the defense of national values and even national security. For feminists who think that trans rights or LGBTQIA+ mobilizations are a distraction or a menace, they should, quite frankly, realize that all of our struggles are now linked as we seek to overcome the powers seeking to deprive us of basic conditions of livability. There can be no successful struggle against the forces denying women basic rights without recognizing everyone who is a woman, without acknowledging that these same forces are closing down borders in the name of racist and nationalist ideals, and targeting lesbian, gay, gender nonconforming, and trans youth, especially youth of color.
We may think that the anti–gender ideology movement is wrong, but why maintain that it is fascist as well? As I insisted at the outset of this book, fascism names the passions, but authoritarianism the emerging, if not accomplished, political reality. On The Michael Knowles Show online, which attracts hundreds of thousands of listeners, Knowles, a right-wing commentator and featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States, stated the following:If transgenderism [sic] is false, as it is, then we should not indulge it, especially since that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of so many people. If it is false, then for the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely. The whole preposterous ideology—at every level.The language of eradication belongs to fascism, and today it is directed not only against trans people but against all those who have been clustered under the signs of “gender” and “critical race theory” and “wokism.” The ready definitions for fascism tend to rely on the study of its twentieth-century form, so new vocabularies are required to understand new iterations of fascism that have emerged in the last decades. Given the shifting character of economies and the contemporary ways of extending militarized forms of power to the police, prison, and the patrolling of national borders, we are faced with a combination of neoliberalism and intensified forms of security that rationalize the destruction of lives and livelihoods.
Contemporary authoritarians may not consider themselves to be fascists, but they rely on fascist technique and stoking fascist passions to stay in power. The new authoritarians rail against social movements, including feminism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQIA+ rights and freedoms, against civil rights and the protection of the rights of migrants and refugees, all of which are cast as internal enemies threatening the nation, or as external ones about to break down the door and threaten the phantasmatic purity of the nation.
Perhaps it is in the exhilarations of shameless sadism that one finds fascist potentials in the present. All of the contemporary authoritarians promise a “liberation” from a leftist superego that would affirm trans lives, “woke” culture, and feminist and anti-racist struggles. This shameless attack on progressive social movements unleashed a “liberation” from moral accountability and an entitlement to privilege and power that, in turn, demonstrated its triumph by destroying the basic rights of migrants, queer people, women, Black and brown people, and the Indigenous. These authoritarians seek to bolster their public support by destroying any sense of common political belonging in favor of nationalist, racist, patriarchal, and religious forms of sociopolitical supremacy, subordination, and dispossession. The posture and practice of impunity and shamelessness that we find in the figures of Trump, Bolsonaro, Orbán, Meloni, and Erdoğan, for example, are distinctly different from so-called charismatic fascists of the twentieth century. The contemporary fascist trends—ones that engage in death-dealing and rights-stripping in the name of defending the family, the state, and other patriarchal institutions—support ever-strengthening forms of authoritarianism.
That is why it makes no sense for “gender-critical” feminists to ally with reactionary powers in targeting trans, non-binary, and genderqueer people. Despite our differences, we have to create a struggle across differences that keeps the source of oppression in focus, testing our theories about the other by listening and reading, remaining open to having one’s traditional suppositions challenged, and finding ways to build alliances that allow our antagonisms not to replicate the destructive cycles we oppose. We cannot oppose discrimination against ourselves only to support it for others. We cannot oppose systematic forms of hatred against one group by allying with those who would intensify that hatred in multiple directions. We cannot censor each other’s positions just because we do not want to hear them. It is no time for any of the targets of this movement to be petty and divisive, for to defend gender studies and the importance of gender to any concept of justice, freedom, and equality is to ally with the fight against censorship and fascism.
Admittedly, we are not seeing fascist states on the order of Nazi Germany, but even that history advises us not to look away from the fascist potentials that are increasingly actualized in several regions of the world through the anti–gender ideology movement. Since fascism emerges over time, we need to know the steps by which it emerges and to identify fascist potentials when they appear. None of this implies that fascist potentials will materialize as fascist regimes, but if readiness to resist is imperative, which it is, then we have to identify those potentials and act against their escalating momentum. We can stop that momentum, but only by intervening as an alliance that does not destroy its own bonds. For that would be to reiterate the logic that we oppose, or that we should oppose.
Rather, releasing radical democratic potentials from our own expanding alliances can show we are on the side of livable life, love in all its difficulties, and freedom, making those ideals so compelling that no one can look away, making desire desirable again in such a way that people want to live, and want others to live, in the world we envision, where gender and desire belong to what we mean by freedom and equality. What if we make freedom into the air we together breathe? After all, that is the air that belongs to us all, sustaining our lives, unless, of course, the toxins—and there are many—pervade the atmosphere.
For example you each represent about ten thousand human beings, perhaps seven thousand of voting age -- and some of you were elected by slim majorities. Suppose instead of election a man were qualified for office by petition signed by four thousand citizens.
This extended proposal to a society where you literally had to pay to breathe from a man who didn't acknowledge the legitimacy of any government. I think the direct subscription method of government would have perverse incentives worse than the current system. One where minority issues would be completely swamped by plurality interests.
posted by Mitheral at 12:59 PM on December 13, 2024
This extended proposal to a society where you literally had to pay to breathe from a man who didn't acknowledge the legitimacy of any government. I think the direct subscription method of government would have perverse incentives worse than the current system. One where minority issues would be completely swamped by plurality interests.
posted by Mitheral at 12:59 PM on December 13, 2024
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posted by mittens at 5:54 AM on December 4, 2024 [11 favorites]