Felgraf: damnit I meant to post that in the NC supreme court thread.

qorkfiend: Felgraf: At some point the dems really, really need to realize the Republicans aren't playing the same Game anymore, and that the Rules aren't the same as the Game.

(From A.R. Moxon, who lays this out REALLY well:)


1) There's the game and there's the rules. Two different but entwined things.
Without the game, the rules don't make sense. If somebody tries to call you offsides when you're walking down the sidewalk you're going to look at them funny even if they're wearing a striped shirt and blowing a whistle. Right? Offsides of what? Offsides to what end?

2) The rules exist to make the game work, not the other way around. Without the rules, the game doesn't work. I'd go further: if one team playing the game stops following the rules, and nothing exists to stop them, and they're allowed to go on playing like that, then you aren't playing that game anymore. You're playing a different game, defined by the people allowed to go on breaking the rules. If your rules don't include checks and consequences for those who have no regard for the rules, then you don't actually have rules. If such checks and consequences exist, and those charged with imposing them lack the will or the ability to impose them, then the rules don't exist anymore, nor does the game they defined.
If you're playing football, and one team starts using aluminum bats as weapons, and sets their goalposts on fire, and ignores downs and the clock and penalties, while demanding that the other team continue to play by the established rules, it's not a football game anymore. Correct?
At that point, if the referees don't take control of the game, then the game has been abrogated and the refs are just weirdos in striped shirts. The game has become "open melee," which isn't really a game. Anybody on the opposing team who agrees to the demands for continued compliance to the rules and keeps trying to play football, or anybody in the stands who cheers such an effort, would have to be considered side-eye, as you would anybody who has abandoned observable reality.
If you want to go on having a football team, you're going to have to get rid of the bats and eject the players wielding them. Getting rid of the bats means recognizing that you're not playing football anymore. To stop playing football then shouldn't be thought of as more disruptive than what the rule-breaking team is doing.
It shouldn't be thought of as an act against football.

3) The rules are necessary to the game, but the rules are not the point.
The game is the point.
Which leads me to this question: what's the game?
We ought to know.

It's not a game at all.

The main problem that everyone seems to forget is that there are no referees or central authority that can make or enforce rules for the "players".