Yes, I listened to the entire episode, and no, you have no way of disproving that. Excellent episode in my book, but I understand why it may be too much for most people. The discussion of the nondelegation doctrine was interesting, and now I have thoughts to share for my Substack. Need more of those, so thank you!
I was struck by the discussion near the beginning about the decisions where the majority does not provide reasoning. I think it is very bad if the majority is choosing not to write because they do not agree on the rationale for a given decision. The court would be choosing not to share pertinent information - for what purpose? To save face? Does anyone want to argue that choosing not to write a majority opinion because the justices in the majority are not all in agreement about the details is in the best interest of the country?
The justices are public officials and their power is derived from the public. They may not be currently legally obligated to write in shadow docket decisions, but I do think they have an ethical obligation to not choose not to write when they otherwise would because of some fear of embarrassment. The court is making decisions with massive impacts on the people of the US. The public has opinions about those decisions, as is their right in a democratic society. I think most of the public would care if the majority is making those decisions without agreement on the legal rationale.
I don’t want it enough to campaign for five friends to write in requesting it, but I was disappointed we never got some takes on Feliciano v DOT. It’s a rabbit-or-duck-ish 5-4 textualist-v-textualist case, with some wrinkles differentiating it from Bittner, Pulsifer, and other cases with similar dynamics. My other nomination would be Parrish. Even more interesting than the majority opinion (which is more interesting than the holding would suggest) is the lineup concurring in the judgment and the dissent (if it really can be called a dissent).
Im having trouble finishing this episode after Will's aside that David Shor's exit from his firm in 2020 was a "radicalizing" event. I haven't heard him use that description before and it's a very strange incident to be radicalized about. Unless lots of other things are radicalizing him and he just opts not to mention it.
Possible reason: Shor was a professional getting fired for his expert analysis being politically unpopular (with a certain sub set of the population). It is not hard to see why other professionals with potentially unpopular views might be concerned.
I completely understand this viewpoint, but given all the people who have been fired for having politically unpopular views in the past few decades, and especially just the past few months, I was surprised to hear that this was a "radicalizing" event.
Institutions that fire people for publishing unpopular research (even though the research is thorough, original, ethical and important) are corrupt. It's pretty reasonable for that to radicalize someone against such institutions.
I don't know all the details about Shor's dismissal/departure, but I am confident that it wasn't actually his research (he was just highlighting it). I remember most of the criticism of him at the time being about his timing and framing of the issue and not that Wasow's research was bad/wrong.
I'm actually not sure how I feel about the institutions we are talking about (data analytics/software companies). I guess I lean toward it being fine (but not my preferred stance) that they have particular political viewpoints they want their employees to not contradict.
I do take slight umbrage at Will's framing of Warsow's research though: I don't think the relevant distinction was between violent vs non-violent protests. I think the biggest factor was that the general public tends to side against whomever acts violently--be that protesters, governments, other locals, etc.
> but I am confident that it wasn't actually his research (he was just highlighting it).
Thank you for reminding me of this.
> I guess I lean toward it being fine (but not my preferred stance) that they have particular political viewpoints they want their employees to not contradict.
I do think that it's bad for generic-company-X to fire people because they cited high-quality research relevant to a current political issue, and got a bunch of people on the other side of that issue mad at them.
Obviously, if it were an ideological company like a think tank, or Ben and Jerry's, or Ramsey Solutions, the calculus is a bit different. And I'm also more tolerant if the advocated position is way outside the Overton Window, like, say, pro-Nazi advocacy or whatever. But "violent protests aren't effective" has never been outside of the Overton Window among the general populace.
> I remember most of the criticism of him at the time being about his timing and framing of the issue and not that Wasow's research was bad/wrong.
But anyone complaining about his timing is very obviously unreasonable; in the middle of an occasionally violent racial-justice mobilization is the BEST timing to bring up research about the effectiveness of violence in prior racial-justice movements! There's no argument there. They don't really dislike the timing, they dislike the results of the research.
The fact that such a farcical argument motivated the company to fire him reveals a lot about the company, and what it reveals is (IMO) amazingly negative and was pretty surprising (in 2020, at least; we all updated a lot on the health of our various institutions that year.)
My nomination for a future episode before the season ends: McLaughlin Chiropractic v. McKesson.
Yes, I listened to the entire episode, and no, you have no way of disproving that. Excellent episode in my book, but I understand why it may be too much for most people. The discussion of the nondelegation doctrine was interesting, and now I have thoughts to share for my Substack. Need more of those, so thank you!
I was struck by the discussion near the beginning about the decisions where the majority does not provide reasoning. I think it is very bad if the majority is choosing not to write because they do not agree on the rationale for a given decision. The court would be choosing not to share pertinent information - for what purpose? To save face? Does anyone want to argue that choosing not to write a majority opinion because the justices in the majority are not all in agreement about the details is in the best interest of the country?
The justices are public officials and their power is derived from the public. They may not be currently legally obligated to write in shadow docket decisions, but I do think they have an ethical obligation to not choose not to write when they otherwise would because of some fear of embarrassment. The court is making decisions with massive impacts on the people of the US. The public has opinions about those decisions, as is their right in a democratic society. I think most of the public would care if the majority is making those decisions without agreement on the legal rationale.
Kousisis might be interesting to talk about?
I don’t want it enough to campaign for five friends to write in requesting it, but I was disappointed we never got some takes on Feliciano v DOT. It’s a rabbit-or-duck-ish 5-4 textualist-v-textualist case, with some wrinkles differentiating it from Bittner, Pulsifer, and other cases with similar dynamics. My other nomination would be Parrish. Even more interesting than the majority opinion (which is more interesting than the holding would suggest) is the lineup concurring in the judgment and the dissent (if it really can be called a dissent).
I will join your campaign should you start it! Feliciano is fascinating. Might write about it myself in the future.
Im having trouble finishing this episode after Will's aside that David Shor's exit from his firm in 2020 was a "radicalizing" event. I haven't heard him use that description before and it's a very strange incident to be radicalized about. Unless lots of other things are radicalizing him and he just opts not to mention it.
Possible reason: Shor was a professional getting fired for his expert analysis being politically unpopular (with a certain sub set of the population). It is not hard to see why other professionals with potentially unpopular views might be concerned.
I completely understand this viewpoint, but given all the people who have been fired for having politically unpopular views in the past few decades, and especially just the past few months, I was surprised to hear that this was a "radicalizing" event.
Institutions that fire people for publishing unpopular research (even though the research is thorough, original, ethical and important) are corrupt. It's pretty reasonable for that to radicalize someone against such institutions.
I don't know all the details about Shor's dismissal/departure, but I am confident that it wasn't actually his research (he was just highlighting it). I remember most of the criticism of him at the time being about his timing and framing of the issue and not that Wasow's research was bad/wrong.
I'm actually not sure how I feel about the institutions we are talking about (data analytics/software companies). I guess I lean toward it being fine (but not my preferred stance) that they have particular political viewpoints they want their employees to not contradict.
I do take slight umbrage at Will's framing of Warsow's research though: I don't think the relevant distinction was between violent vs non-violent protests. I think the biggest factor was that the general public tends to side against whomever acts violently--be that protesters, governments, other locals, etc.
> but I am confident that it wasn't actually his research (he was just highlighting it).
Thank you for reminding me of this.
> I guess I lean toward it being fine (but not my preferred stance) that they have particular political viewpoints they want their employees to not contradict.
I do think that it's bad for generic-company-X to fire people because they cited high-quality research relevant to a current political issue, and got a bunch of people on the other side of that issue mad at them.
Obviously, if it were an ideological company like a think tank, or Ben and Jerry's, or Ramsey Solutions, the calculus is a bit different. And I'm also more tolerant if the advocated position is way outside the Overton Window, like, say, pro-Nazi advocacy or whatever. But "violent protests aren't effective" has never been outside of the Overton Window among the general populace.
> I remember most of the criticism of him at the time being about his timing and framing of the issue and not that Wasow's research was bad/wrong.
But anyone complaining about his timing is very obviously unreasonable; in the middle of an occasionally violent racial-justice mobilization is the BEST timing to bring up research about the effectiveness of violence in prior racial-justice movements! There's no argument there. They don't really dislike the timing, they dislike the results of the research.
The fact that such a farcical argument motivated the company to fire him reveals a lot about the company, and what it reveals is (IMO) amazingly negative and was pretty surprising (in 2020, at least; we all updated a lot on the health of our various institutions that year.)