Believe Absurdities, Commit Atrocities.
Added 2024-10-21 06:39:11 +0000 UTCOA1079 - An OA Spooktacular! But also a normal episode.
“Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” --Voltaire
We continue our ongoing series on fascism and the law with a fresh perspective on a familiar American legal horror story. Matt explains the terrifying legal context surrounding the 1692 Court of Oyer and Terminar which sentenced dozens of innocent Massachusetts colonists to hang for the extremely real felony of practicing witchcraft--and an unexpected defense strategy which could have spared them. What can the most terrifying run of wrongful executions in US history teach us about the dangers of governance by rumor, paranoia, and conspiracy theories 332 years later?
SOURCES:
In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Mary Beth Norton (2003)
“Salem Witchcraft Trials Research Guide,” Congregational Library (2024)(links to primary sources)
18 USC 611 (voting by aliens)
Order granting preliminary injunction against Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia law amendment in Awad v. Ziriax et al, W.Dist. of OK (2010)(later upheld by 10th Circuit
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Comments
Why are you calling chiropractic pseudoscience?
Meridaandmouse
2024-10-24 17:27:09 +0000 UTCHi. The explanation in this episode of how Hitler acquired dictatorial power wasn't exactly correct--the President (Paul von Hindenburg), not the Chancellor (Hitler), had control over "Article 48" emergency powers. For a reliable, well-told narrative of the Nazi takeover in 1933, please see (or hear, in the well-done audio book version although its German pronunciations aren't great) Peter Fritzsche's _Hitler's First Hundred Days_.
David in Brooklyn
2024-10-24 04:31:43 +0000 UTCThank you so much for this episode; another really important one. I was a Supervisory Immigration Services Officer (SISO) in Tucson AZ. I made a life swerve after 10 years in 2022. I encountered a single incident of unlawful voting-- which is a complete bar to naturalization (becoming a US citizen.) She had inadvertently signed up to vote in front of a Safeway in Tucson. As a result, I put her into deportation proceedings. The concept of voter fraud is well... a fraud.
Status Quo Level Thing
2024-10-23 04:05:32 +0000 UTCfor sure! This is something I have gone deep on before and I considered incorporating here but it really needs its own episode
Matt Cameron
2024-10-22 15:01:07 +0000 UTCAlong these lines, you should definitely talk sometime about the legal side of the Satanic Panic, and the various prosecutions of Satanists in the 80s and the effects on people's lives. It's got the same insanity as the Salem Witch Trials, but it's more recent history than Star Wars.
Devon Hollowood
2024-10-21 23:26:46 +0000 UTCNo cash bail for witches?! But she has a private broom!! 🧙🧹
Austin Flake
2024-10-21 22:52:06 +0000 UTCThomas and Matt's comments about imagine being a defense lawyer in the Salem witch trials has got me thinking of like imagine being the defense lawyer for a character in a Dungeons and Dragons universe. Dungeons and Defense Lawyers
ToddTheOdd
2024-10-21 22:36:28 +0000 UTC“Only” u s citizens can vote means you can exclude some u s citizens. Better to amend to “every, and only, u s citizens” or something like that.
Lawrence Frank
2024-10-21 17:42:11 +0000 UTCThanks for clarifying that. Now I see how it connects back to the idea of establishing a shared delusion. It also seems a bit like grooming and/or cult recruitment. It is getting people used to the feeling of changing who can vote. It's making them feel like they should feel good about using their power for these purposes. Gets them to use it in a subtle way at first and slowly iterate toward the more intense goals. At each step, the subjects are reticent to reverse course because it would mean admitting that all of the past decisions were wrong too.
Drew Vogel
2024-10-21 17:10:00 +0000 UTCTried watching the movie (Crucible) to avoid reading the book for school, and couldn't understand how my teacher could tell hahaha. (I've since read the book, and am painfully aware of the answer to that question).
Katie Herrmann
2024-10-21 16:19:34 +0000 UTCMatt cracking up at "leading mind" is sending me. As my roommate in law school (the nicest midwest woman you can picture) once said of another classmate: "I admire how hard she works to be wrong, I guess?"
Katie Herrmann
2024-10-21 16:17:29 +0000 UTCFrom GA too- I once sent in, i think it was the mail-in ballot during covid, and had to redo it because my signature didnt look right. A person who was looking at it called me ON THE PHONE and told me what i needed to do. These people who think non- citizens are voting must not have much experience voting?? I mean, its not THAT easy.
Reese
2024-10-21 15:36:10 +0000 UTCAs a native-born American, I'm touched that you considered it worth your while to become a citizen of this country. Thank you and (belated) welcome!
David in Brooklyn
2024-10-21 15:26:26 +0000 UTCalso flashbacks to a scarlett letter.
lauren
2024-10-21 15:19:21 +0000 UTC'Crucible' flashbacks!!! I seriously cannot count the amount of Times i've watched that movie!
NSaneAtheist
2024-10-21 14:57:35 +0000 UTCGranting voting rights to "every US citizen" in the state sets a floor which could be expanded to allow for non-citizen voting in local elections, while restricting to "only" US citizens having that right is a ceiling which permanently restricts the right to citizens in a way which opens the door for mass purges of suspected non-citizens from the rolls and much more burdensome voting regulations
Matt Cameron
2024-10-21 14:18:31 +0000 UTCCan someone explain the legal significance of "every" vs "only" re: the Wisconsin ballot measure?
Drew Vogel
2024-10-21 13:58:56 +0000 UTCMatt mentioned they wrote to the queen at one point. Fun fact this took place in the one time in English history where had a ruling king and queen at the same time. Like not a ruling monarch and a consort, William and Merry were joint rulers. Coins from the time have both their images on.
General Contact Unit Problem Child
2024-10-21 12:36:37 +0000 UTCIn the early 2000s, the day I became a citizen I went down to the dmv to register to vote and they wouldn’t register me cause the system didn’t show I was a citizen yet. they told me to come back in a week at which point the systems showed that I was a citizen. This is in Georgia. You can’t just register to vote. And in Denver’s defense they’re mile high city, so closer to the aliens. lol!
KeepingThePlatesSpinning
2024-10-21 11:17:30 +0000 UTC
