It's always interesting to look at what periods the use of the filibuster spiked, and what was going on at those times.

Very hard to argue the common thread was "small town Americans being particularly oppressed".

Fingers crossed the liberum veto gets a mention!

The answer is that all backlash is astroturfed and conspiratorial.

Which isn't always *wrong*, but is a convenient half-right belief to hold if you don't want to believe politics, policy and governance are just hard sometimes.

How bad could it be

Just one podcast can't hurt

It really does become a lot clearer when you make the step of "oh, they're just *lying*"

You filthy pocasters are doing a really good job with your banter of convincing me to check out your podcast.

"It's a national crisis, it's tearing us apart! Oh no, not me personally, and not anyone I know. Just, y'know, I heard on the news there are no-go zones and urban decay and social media says there are poor people who can't doordash half their meals."

Big key to the Skaven's success is their sheer novelty and alien-ness.

I don't know for *sure* that "rat people but pathologically obsessed with backstabbing and ladder-climbing (and ladder-kicking)" has never been done before, but I also can't think of a near analogue off the top of my head.

Well, he's definitely striking out.

Any more baseball and I'm pretty sure that it's technically cricket.

Also, "an institution capable of doing a lot of good will also require intermittent reforms, against the wishes & opposition of those who benefit from its excesses" is a statement that's true about basically *every* decent institution.

That said, the weak case is more like "...most markets SO FAR, and there's a promising aet of institutions for fighting that trend", amd the strong case sounds overall more like an article of religious faith more than an argument. "It can't be done bc something something hum-*ahem* SYSTEMIC nature".

I think the best argument for that case, with some decent evidence, is that markets, outside the theory and in actual practice, seem to have a strong tendency towards wealth accumulation, which eventually erodes the value that markets initially promise.

The dark side is that we have never extended that luck to indigenous Australians.

But ee can and we should! Primarily because they deserve it, but also because unjust inequality is a social rot that must be excised from society before it spreads.

The story of Australia since federation is of a nation that was lucky enough to receive pretty-alright institutions from its contemporary elites, and then doubly lucky to received a workers movement and party that renovated them for the next century.

Compulsory voting? Invented in a failed attempt to crush Labor.

Preferential voting? Same (see attached)

You cannot kill Labor. You can only make it stronger.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xyOm...

Medicare? Labor

Compulsory superannuation (not listed but incredible)? Labor

The GFC response? Labor

Covid response? Technically Liberal, but followed plans suggested by Labor, bc the Libs were hopeless.

Only major "inclusive institution" he left out was the Australian Labor Party - the greatest Anglo centre left party on earth. Nearly all institutions he lists that were invented since the ALP were one of the major parties of government were invented *by* Labor or in a mistaken attempt to beat Labor

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" was some bars.