46 Comments

Thank you!

I have definitely repeated the line of "private companies can enforce the rules they want." In principle, I still believe that *should* be the case, but it was indeed naive of me to believe that is anywhere close to actual reality today. Thanks for helping me see a little clearer.

Perhaps another situation is similar: tax collection/withholding. This is mainly done by employers. Does anyone believe that this is a matter of "private companies doing what they want?" WDYT?

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A very, very thought provoking article. As an extremely ardent pro-life advocate, I do think that the practicality of stopping abortion and saving lives and supporting mothers in crisis is tricky and complicated. But wasn't ending slavery similary tricky and complicated?

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It’s also important to note that this strategy is enormously flexible, there’s nothing special about workplaces. If the 1st amendment is destroyed this century, it probably won’t be through hate speech laws but through something like a law enabling social media users to sue companies for not banning people who say ostensibly bigoted things. This ability could be given to readers of books, restaurant customers, etc. The current Supreme Court probably wouldn’t let such a law stand but a future one could well do so and refer to workplace regulations as precedent.

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The irony of you calling the State of Texas a "hitman" and accusing it of "murdering" the right to abortion i.e. the murder of unborn children should not be lost on anyone

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Also the legal foundations for these laws is quite different.

The Title VII gives a cause of action in civil court to someone who has suffered a harm. That's the traditional understanding of a civil cause of action. If I see Joe being harassed at work, I can't sue, but Joe can. This is in line with traditional civil law, you might disagree that Joe has suffered a harm or that the company is responsible for it, but it's consistent with the basic framework of "civil court allows people a redress for harms committed by others".

The Heartbeat law is entirely different in the sense it grants anyone the right to sue. I see Joe give Sue an abortion pill, and I can sue Joe. In any traditional context, I'd be thrown out of court because I have no standing (I didn't suffer the harm). The standing to sue is the legal "innovation" here.

The right approach is probably to argue for constitutional limits on standing and limits on "harm" to actual damages suffered (which in most cases, it is).

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So I don’t really follow the news here but is the jist that:

1) everyone kind of acknowledged, often quite openly, that abortion pills were being used to engage in illegal abortions under some state laws

2) having rubbed this fact in peoples noses some judge decided to cut off access to abortion pills

It seems to me that if abortion is illegal under state jurisdiction thats the law and you ought not argue that people should break that law or assist them in doing so. I understand that traveling to another state with a different law is a burden but far less if a burden then the pregnancy is purported to be. You can also try to change the law.

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A clear difference between workplace lawsuits and abortion lawsuits is workplace lawsuits require an assertion of personal harm and abortion ones don’t.

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This article uses the implication of moral equivalency as the emotional force of its argument; i.e.

"If abortion is morally equivalent to murder, the Heartbeat Act is justified. If speaking offensive words to co-workers is morally equivalent to punching them in the face, hostile workplace law is justified."

However, Caplan wants it both ways and plays coy, claiming the equivalency remains an open question.

If the equivalency really remains an open question, then civil courts are the only places to settle it, in a world where the state pretends neutrality.

Can't have it both ways.

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You might have used the Americans with Disabilities Act as an example.

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This is a useful and interesting re-framing. I find the last two sentences interesting, though.

The implication is that government has the right to act as the arbiter when a legal dispute exists, but also has the right to determine what disputes can be brought forth in the first place. I’ve long thought that the right to sue lies with the citizenry, and, like a marketplace, the weaker the grounds, the quicker and more costly losing will be. From there, the incentives take over. Is this at odds with your view?

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Dude you want to be disgusting do that, but why on my territory ? There is also the fact none of you people can draw and will run out of illustrators to make your nfts and art. You don’t have the vision, the passion, the ability to write a cohesive article, the mental state without the brain damage, and imma gonna make a statement even in goblin town , you will not be able to compete with other goblins when it comes to hard work, right work, being smart, learning and improving and having any thing beyond a goldfish brain , art is subjective, but even artists need to create, you need non goblins to make you look valuable cause they are scared they will lose their standing. Man even goblins and demons won’t pick you. You have no spirit. Nothing except being shit posters on drugs having psycho brain, which will never be cured by pills cause there isn’t a limit to how much your brain is damaged. Your Celebs are stupid they think constant shitposting online means you work, you don’t. You can’t draw, do anything , write anything, shit any sort of creation even if it’s grotesque beyond shitposting about other people and they only support you cause they can’t compete with me.

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I bet on you critics amounting to nothing in the next ten years at all. You will remain either the same due to support or die off when the supports weans off. You will never improve.

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I think this terminology is wrong as a civil court does not convict but rather 'finds for the plaintiff' or 'defense'.

"If convicted, the defendant owes..."

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1. You ignore that this is not how Title VII works. Both the government and private plaintiffs can enforce the law. The EEOC has primary jurisdiction to bring all claims, including hostile work environment claims.

2. If these provisions were really that similar, shouldn't we - nearly 60 years later - be free from a world filled with Title VII claims? Shouldn't employers be doing a better job of heading these off at the pass and not hiring Archie Bunkers? I haven't looked at case statistics but it seems unlikely Title VII claims have fallen precipitiously in the last decades, even before the purported rise of "woke" hyper sensitivities.

3. The idea that Title VII stands as some sort of novel restriction on free speech is farcical. In your telling, how is this different that state laws against defamation? Both severely restrict the world of purported "free speech." Or what about securities law?

4. Contrary to your assertion, the employer's incentives are not actually to enforce against the law but to appear to enforce against the law. The employer wants to avoid disrupting incumbent employees, including the managerial class that is over-representatively white and male. It does, however, want to avoid liability. So its incentive is to not actually disrupt employees by preventing discrimination and the creation of a hostile work environment but to appear to be doing so.

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The debate over abortion is how guilty people should be over getting an abortion.

If you want six weeks, people should feel really guilty. If you think 40 weeks you want to throw an abortion celebration party.

It does not surprise me that the TFR of people that support six weeks is a lot higher then of those that support 40 weeks. I bet vibes over how much the people like children is a big driver of the stance on abortion. I wouldn't date a girl that had an abortion, shows bad character.

That there are people who find out their fetus has a terminal disease at 30 weeks and get an abortion that is totally justified is one of exceptions by which the system breaks down. It's not about age but why your pregnant and why you are getting an abortion.

You can see it most in the "exceptions". Why does rape or incest matter if the fetus is "alive"? It doesn't. But it matters in terms of "how guilty you should feel about getting an abortion"?

I've dated one girl that I know for a fact had an abortion. We met in online dating when I was younger. She put out pretty quick. Lied compulsively. Had existing children she lied about, was using online dating to cheat. Broke up with her when I found out. Vowed not to bang sluts anymore, starting going to church and married a good girl.

A decent chunk of abortions are by dumb sluts using it as a method of birth control. People are pretty disgusted by that. When they support a six week ban its not really about six weeks, its about finding such behavior abhorrent.

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Apr 10, 2023·edited Apr 10, 2023

It seems pretty clear that, at some point, the Supremes have to either a) rule that the state cannot enforce any rule - including allowing civil lawsuits - that effects an end-run around the constitutional rights of its citizens or b) accept that the Bill of Rights (if not the entire Constitution) is moot, and the Court itself relegated to a minor role in our society.

At first I was surprised that no Progressive legislature did anything to force this issue - for example, rule that any person assisting a Supreme Court justice in any respect could be sued, or ruling that anyone could sue any legislator from the State of Texas for being in their state - but of course the fact is that Progressives have bypassed the Bill of Rights also in pursuit of their goals, so they weren't going to do that.

At present, therefore, the Bill of Rights is moot. The only remaining question is whether the Supremes will let that be.

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