Members of the crowd, some wearing shirts reading “Purebloods Stand Together,” took turns reading out a statement charging a government lawyer with obstruction of justice for attempting to have Dr. Daniel Nagase’s $66.6-million lawsuit against the B.C. Supreme Court tossed out.

  • Anomander@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    They exist in perpetual No True Scotsman - the people who fail “didn’t do it right” while all of the myriad minor ways that they feel their members have scored victories confirm that the theories are “correct”.

    If they manage to make themselves so annoying that city hall or traffic court drop the proceedings, that’s a win that proves The System can’t beat their arcane legalese rituals. But if they fail, it just means they didn’t do it right, that they need to use the crimson-red pen instead of the vermillion-red, or whatever nonsense it is. The whole thing is Cargo Cult Courtroom from a perspective that is wholly and completely defined by Air Bud. They understand that court and law has gaps in it that other people slide through - rich people “avoid” taxes rather than evade them, or Billy got out of XYZ charges on “a technicality” - quite literally inspired by the same logic where “it doesn’t say dogs can’t play basketball” allowed Bud to play, so they try to chant the magic words they’ve learned and invoke the arcane rituals in this or that specific way, understanding deep down that the mysteries of Court System will be ensorcelled by their incantations and must give them what they want.

    These people are not approaching this from a sense of logic and facts - which means that logic and facts don’t mean anything to them. It’s far closer to faith.

    I see these folks on the regular via work, and I often get tapped in dealing with them because I dealt with them last time. In general, what’s needed is rebuffing their arguments without engaging with them, but without dismissing them outright. So like, “if your ‘corporate personhood’ is separate from you, the ‘corporate personhood’ is the one we’re paying and that ‘personhood’ needs to do XYZ.” I don’t care if you refuse personally, I don’t care if you aren’t the corporate person - that’s not my problem. But we are paying one specific person and that person cannot both receive money and dodge obligations. They can dodge money and obligations, or they can have money and obligations. Have them tell us which option they pick within the week.

    The other one I love is the persistent myth that your “government name” is in ALL CAPS and if you don’t write your name that way it doesn’t count … and the reason your name is in all caps is that 80s computer systems didn’t support capital/lowercase distinctions, so everything was stored in block caps and you’re old enough your name is in that format still.