Too late?

[Sunsilver]

Yes, definitely! This must NOT be tolerated!

[Eldy]

Critics Call It Theocratic and Authoritarian. Young Conservatives Call It an Exciting New Legal Theory. - Politico

Interesting article about the influence of Adrian Vermeule and his "common good constitutionalism" theory in the conservative legal world. I first encountered Vermeule's ideas in April of this year and was gobsmacked by the utter disinterest in disguising his agenda—make no mistake about Politico's choice of article title, Vermeule's philosophy is theocratic and authoritarian by design. In his own words:

This is not the occasion to offer a bill of particulars about how constitutional law might change under this approach, but a few broad strokes can be sketched. The Court’s jurisprudence on free speech, abortion, sexual liberties, and related matters will prove vulnerable under a regime of common-good constitutionalism. The claim, from the notorious joint opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that each individual may “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” should be not only rejected but stamped as abominable, beyond the realm of the acceptable forever after. So too should the libertarian assumptions central to free-speech law and free-speech ideology—that government is forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech, that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” and so on—fall under the ax. Libertarian conceptions of property rights and economic rights will also have to go, insofar as they bar the state from enforcing duties of community and solidarity in the use and distribution of resources.

(Trivia: Vermeule converted to traditional Catholicism as an adult, but his sister is married to Terry Castle, a major figure in the queer intellectual scene. Go figure.)

Honestly, this sort of thing is a much greater threat (to e.g. the ability to live openly and without fear as a trans woman in this country) than the Proud Boys and their ilk, if it truly displaces originalism as the preferred ideological framework of the conservative law students and lawyers who will be tomorrow's conservative judges and, eventually, SCOTUS nominees.

[Eldy]

Yet another case of armed right-wingers protesting LGBT events, but this time there was a decently sized contingent of armed pro-LGBT counter-protesters open carrying in response. So ... progress? In any event, there was no violence, the pro-LGBT side was much larger, and the drag event that sparked this was not interrupted. Lots of photos and videos in this Twitter thread:

[Sunsilver]

Harrison Ford answers the question that was the original title of this thread, in a very Harrison Ford way:

Not necessarily punched but confronted:

[Sunsilver]

Today the Orlando Sentinel published a list of 673 books that have been banned from schools in Orange County. They include titles such as John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

Others were part of high school curricula, the newspaper reported, citing teachers. Those included “The Color Purple,” “Catch-22” and “Brave New World.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... y-in-2023/

I wish I could see the list. However, looking at the photo in the top right corner, I can see some of the titles. Game of Thrones is apparently on the list. Given the sexual content of those books, I am not surprised!

Edit: found a copy: https://archive.ph/Nz9Qu#selection-2459.1-2459.28

[RoseMorninStar]

This is interesting. From the Washington Post:

Screen Shot 2024-02-12 at 7.33.31 PM.png (125.02 KiB) Viewed 1552 times

Books for the win!

[N.E. Brigand]

You may have heard that someone punched "far-right" activist Spencer on the Inauguration Day. ... I have quite a bit to say on the subject of punching Nazis, most of it positive...

Possibly this was mentioned earlier in this thread, but I just read how the eminent American attorney Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) was quoted in the New York Times in 1934 hoping that Adolf Hitler would be assassinated. This was just one year after Hitler became Germany's leader and five years before the start of World War II.