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Jason Kuznicki

@jkuznicki.bsky.social

5K followers 1K following 8.1K posts

A gay dad cultivating his garden in Puna, Hawaii. Now working on some big projects for the future.🍍🌴🌱📖🌐☸️ Newsletter: https://pacification.beehiiv.com/ Book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/3319839950/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 5d

The remedy for a president who believes he can levy taxes and spend the revenue without congressional authorization is removal from office.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 8d

The remedy for a president who even attempts to invent new crimes by decree is removal from office.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 10d

The remedy for a president who both lies to your face and also expects you to make a deal with him is removal from office.

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Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 5h

This is a good catch. The statutory authorization supposedly being used to transfer R&D funds to regular payroll is, in fact, expired, just like the regular appropriations are also expired.

Ira 'Bluebeard Homer' Goldman @kdbyproxy.bsky.social · 6h

Not that Trump/Vought/Hegseth gaf, but among other ways in which the law says this may NOT be done:
A) The part of 8005 I've underlined in green says money transferred to another account is "available… for the same time period" as that other account; that other acc't expired on Sept 30.

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 4h

…a pared-down version of that. Contrast them both to Aristotle, who viewed friendship and a good polis as the goals of civilized life. Or with Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, in which we are empathetic and naturally seek emotional equilibrium and agreement.

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 4h

Hegel’s view of social history was that it has two essential elements. First, it aims at the Absolute, a living truth won through experience. Second, it gets there through a series of conflicts played out in the world as civilizational conflict. Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction is if anything…

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 4h

I’d call that C, but I still have to say it didn’t look that way to me in the screenshot passage. Probably not worth rehashing though.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 6h

(The argument about whether Obamacare is a well designed rocket is one that I expect wouldn’t exist between us.)

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 6h

I think policymakers meet desires like that constantly. They can:

A) say it’s impossible
B) say the end goal isn’t so great
C) propose rockets instead
D) tell the people they don’t want exactly what they say they want.

You may think you’re doing (B), but I’m afraid it sounds like (D).

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 6h

The actual obstacle hasn’t been addressed at all, and it’s got nothing to do with why the plan can’t work, and it imputes false preferences to further confuse things.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 6h

Suppose I say I’d like to flap my arms and fly to the moon. Then the Cato Institute publishes a report saying that that’s impossible because I’ll die of exposure.

Do you conclude that I don’t want to go to the moon? That’s the overreach.

Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

Simon Lester @simonlester.com · 7h

No lessons have been learned from the Iraq war. All the foreign policy mistakes are being repeated.

Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 7h

It’s perplexing how a country whose politics since 2008 has been shaped by the Iraq War is so easily falling for “if you don’t support a war in Venezuela then you’re defending Maduro” and “we have evidence he’s a cartel boss, just trust us”

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 7h

I think of Robin Hanson’s explanation of music as a demonstration of reproductive fitness.

It may explain why there’s some music rather than no music. Much music though isn’t about reproductive fitness. Celibate monks sing. Old women compose. The collective explanation fails to explain individuals.

Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

Zoomer Antimillenarian ♨️ @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 7h

Periodic reminder that the worst stuff in Schmitt is in significant part downstream of Hegel. Like, seriously, if there's an awful totalitarian philosopher there's a good chance they've somehow imbibed (knowingly or otherwise) the worst magic woo in Hegel.

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 8h

i think this is the logical endpoint of obsession with 'dating' as opposed to 'relationships'

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 14h

this is sociopathic behaviour and I think we need to treat it as such! just because something has become easy to do doesn't mean it has become less creepy, or more acceptable!

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Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 8h

YES

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 9h

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 8h

He seldom if ever uses presidential power for anything else.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 8h

She’s among the strongest examples of how ideology isn’t motivating. It provides rallying points for doing things that people wanted to do anyway, including and maybe especially when those things aren’t related to the ideological author’s stated goals.

Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 8h

I’ve seen posts claiming this “truth” is evidence of dementia, but IMO that’s not the right frame. This is strategy. Since 2021, the right has been rewriting history, bending timelines, to connect their grievances (Covid) and conspiracy theories (Jan 6, censorship, etc) to the Biden administration.

Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 12h

That’s a nice trick, since Biden wasn’t the president on Jan 6.

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 8h

Wake me up when AOC is appointing bishops. Glad someone’s keeping tabs on that threat

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 8h

Sometimes knowing history is just painful.

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Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

Michael🎃🎃🎃🎃👻👻👻👻 @ballstonbakfiets.bsky.social · 8h

Someone needs to ask, "how does it save money to lay off people who aren't receiving paychecks?"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 9h

BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision

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Reposted by Jason Kuznicki

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 8h

This seems true, but it has pretty dark implications, because the consistent historical trend is for radicals of this sort, when stymied, to ramp up the violence in an effort to break through.

I think some folks are expecting a 'soft' Hungary-style tyranny and I don't think that's in the cards.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 10h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 8h

If that order doesn’t exist, then the conflicts become matters of life and death, the stuff of morally compelling high drama. Which is decreasingly true to life.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 9h

And/but there’s a tricky continuum between them, full of difficult mixed cases. Navigating those cases is an exercise of individual freedom, made possible by the larger impersonal order.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 9h

The second season of Silo is about conflict between the rule of law and the rule of personal loyalty. In our world, those two things are both contextually appropriate. I should both be tried fairly by an impartial court system AND be allowed to throw birthday parties only for my kid, not everyone’s.

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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 9h

I suspect this sets up an expectation of precarity that the real world doesn’t bear out. The real world isn’t a sealed chamber. It’s full of escapes and particularisms. Thinking bad thoughts won’t sink it. Not immediately anyway, and probably not permanently either.

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 9h

Neurath’s Boat stories can’t so easily show this cooperation. The boat’s decay is an obvious narrative move, but the real world countervailing force—impersonal cooperation—is absent or can’t work at the needed scale.

No, viewer, the problem turns out to be with the characters and their choices.

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