alexsaysstuff.bsky.social
Historian of the former Yugoslavia and ethnic partitionism. X-Men opinion-haver. Did a PhD on diplomacy in the Bosnian War. Host of The History of Yugoslavia podcast.
15,378 posts
4,285 followers
462 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Malicious compliance, essentially.
comment in response to
post
I wouldn't read it as an argument they expect SCOTUS to approve of so much as implicitly telling them "We're going to find a reason to keep doing it regardless of what you say"
comment in response to
post
I broadly agree with this as a possibility, and I think the criticisms about SCOTUS and whether or not it adheres to the spirit (pun intended) of the amendment are irrelevant here, but this could also just have the adverse effect of no-one selling whiskey in NY?
comment in response to
post
But you say it has to be included within an intoxicating liquor.
comment in response to
post
Yeah, just an insanely undemocratic state, even by Jim Crow standards.
comment in response to
post
There was, I should note, one minor exception to this. Cape Province originally had a non-racial property-based male-only franchise, which did allow rich Black men to vote. In the 1930s universal White suffrage was introduced, but rich Black men in the Cape could still vote until 1960.
comment in response to
post
Indeed, one notable major advantage Ike had that all prior Republican candidates didn't? South Carolina finally introduced the secret ballot in 1950! Right up until then voting for the handful of Whites that had the vote was entirely public for everyone to see!
comment in response to
post
In 1977, at the peak of the NP's electoral strength, White opposition parties still won 35% of votes and 31/165 seats.
In South Carolina there were zero non-Democrats in the state legislature from 1903-1961. Eisenhower in 1952 was the first non-Dem POTUS candidate in the 20th Century to get >10%.
comment in response to
post
By contrast, African-Americans in the Jim Crow South de jure *did* have constitutional rights, and de facto *had* them under Reconstruction. So the Dixiecrat regimes felt much less secure and had to expend much more political energy and effort keeping their Black populations down.
comment in response to
post
Why the difference? Well, in my view it's paradoxically precisely b/c of greater formal codification of segregation in SA. Black South Africans were constitutionally excluded from political rights, and had never had them in the 1st place, so the regime felt secure enough to allow White opposition.
comment in response to
post
It's actually an intriguing distinction between segregation in the American South and South Africa - which did actually allow White opposition parties, meaningfully contested (if not exactly *fair*) elections, and courts that kept to something vaguely resembling the rule of law.
comment in response to
post
I remember @bartaway.bsky.social remarking back on the other site that The Dukes of Hazzard's Boss Hogg - one ultra-rich family patriarch essentially holding supreme arbitrary power over a small county - was actually a surprisingly accurate depiction of Southern politics.
comment in response to
post
King of hard to give a precise definition, but you get what I mean?
comment in response to
post
Erm, kind of both tbh? I guess I mean any of the prominent cases of Labour figures who were generally regarded to have done or said things that were antisemitic or encouraging/defending antisemitism during the Corbyn leadership?
comment in response to
post
And of course back at the time of the Civil Rights Movement, the Dixiecrats were all insisting that of course they had always thought slavery was bad and in fact the Confederacy was actually totally against slavery, but segregation is nothing like slavery etc etc
comment in response to
post
We remember the real motivation - in this case, aristocratic elitist desire to dilute and limit the political power and representation of poor people - while the made-up insincere defences fall by the wayside and are forgotten when people stop bothering to make them.
comment in response to
post
Yup...
comment in response to
post
It's kind of morbidly fascinating to see the early 19th Century defences of rotten boroughs (fake constituencies with few if any real voters) in Britain - that they were a kind of affirmative action for young MPs, that they somehow represented the colonies, etc
comment in response to
post
It's a very consistent pattern with civil rights struggles - the genuine motivation is obviously prejudice, but absurd disingenuous arguments contorted to provide that conclusion are always advanced, and swiftly forgotten as soon as the struggle is won.
comment in response to
post
Listening to myself in my scripted podcast episodes vs my interview ones is so cringe-inducing. I stutter, pause, and talk meaningless nonsense so much more when I've not written down what to say beforehand 🤦♀️
comment in response to
post
To clarify, I am not talking about the existence of the state here, that's another question, but rather the state policy of a broad consensus of its current political elite.
comment in response to
post
Regardless of the original context of its creation, I think it's now clear that the State of Israel in 2025 is making Jews around the world considerably less safe. More at risk from violent attacks from neighbouring states/actors in Israel, and from empowered antisemites & fascists in the US.
comment in response to
post
There's still this perception that Rowling has just said a few things which purely coincidentally clash with trans rights, when in reality at this point she's deep into conspiratorial bigoted obsession that is basically her entire public activity.
comment in response to
post
That's not really a major or relevant difference, but more importantly you're still treating them as objects of study, rather than people with their own thoughts and self-conceptions.
comment in response to
post
It doesn't really matter, because words do not necessarily mean their etymologies, but evolve, hence why lesbian no longer refers (only) to a person from Lesbos. And "not useful" is not the same thing as "wrong".
comment in response to
post
Probably a not insubstantial number of DSA members are members essentially because they really like AOC, don't dislike any other prominent DSA Dems, and see joining essentially as akin to a social media follow combined with a small campaign donation.
comment in response to
post
Yeah, the US is really to deep into the idea that a party is really just a vague personal labelling that you might join or leave depending on whether you like the politicians nominally part of it rather than out of a deep commitment to its supposed official programme.
comment in response to
post
As @michaelhobbes.bsky.social notes, the compromise position most liberals want to see on trans issues is already the default. Kids go to counseling long before they socially transition, they socially transition long before starting puberty blockers, etc. Almost no minors get surgical interventions
comment in response to
post
Yeah, particularly in the pre-monarchical sections, "Israel" means more like "the Israelites", the tribal/ethnic group, not the political entity because it doesn't exist yet!
comment in response to
post
Also, even if Cruz's quote were accurate, the Book of Kings would clarify pretty clearly that it's not a general blessing of any state called "Israel".
comment in response to
post
Arthur tonight watching the show:
comment in response to
post
Fwiw, the likely reason Cruz learned from the GNB at Sunday School is because it's deliberately written in very simple and basic language designed for children and those learning English.
comment in response to
post
The second incidence in Numbers has a bit more variation, but there's still a pretty broad consensus that the statement is vocative rather than accusative. Some go with "you, O Israel", but the only English translation which says "Israel" in the accusative sense is the GNB.
comment in response to
post
Nazis in summer 1941, only fighting Britain, be like: "Feels like we aren't at war with *enough* global superpowers right now, let's add two more for good measure."
comment in response to
post
By contrast, trans kids taking blockers are typically in their early teens and usually their consent must be sought for medical treatment.