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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"How robust are our publicly-available models against deliberate misuse?" is a valid question for both real safety and fake wokesafety. A model which can be jailbroken into using a racial slur its developers didn't want it to use can probably be jailbroken into providing a plausible DNA sequence for extensively drug-resistant Y pestis.


If you think Yudkowskian paperclipping is the only AI doom scenario that matters, then worrying about deliberate misuse of the model by humans is a distraction. But it is an obvious real risk.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


(well, if this also happened would not surprise me overall)




Jeffrey was into under-aged girls. Very, very different to corrupt Vatican officials.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good answer, although De Gaulle turned against Israel in the 1960s in a way which would be considered anti-Semitic by 21st century American standards.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Britain has a constitution, it just isn't codified in one place. Most of it is even written down, although in one famous case only in an anonymous letter to the editor of the Times.


(Nor is the US constitution codified in one place - just most of it. The most obvious example is that the President is elected is generally seen by Americans as one of the most important parts of the American constitution, but it isn't in the Constitution).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think it would have done much damage if Patel didn't already have a reputation for junketing. In a world where he already has such a reputation, it turns an insider gossip story into something that is legible to normies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A majority of men will find that a rule that excludes all women from voting, governing and performing on jury based on some objective measure of competence will also exclude them. This is usually considered a bad thing by those who support universal male suffrage.




In the Anglosphere, very much this. No Anglosphere country had universal male suffrage. (The UK gave women the vote at the same time as non-landowning men in rural constituencies, the US and the Dominions all gave women the vote before men from disfavoured racial groups). The principle that there is a right to vote implies that the right extends to women.


In countries whose democratic tradition stems from the French revolution, universal male suffrage explicitly tied to universal male conscription was the default.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Well it's a mixture. Women's tennis often has more varied and exciting rallies because it's less serve dominated, for example, and see 07mk's view on ultimate frisbee.




That was definitely true during my youth, but I don't think it was true during the Big 3.5 era. The last classic serve-volley player was Tim Henman (who is only considered good because of the total dearth of British tennis talent before he started making semi-finals) and the last classic serve-volley player who actually won things was Sampras. I would say the last great male player whose main weapon was his serve was Roddick.


They made the grass at Wimbledon slower in 2001 to produce a less serve-dominated game, and it worked.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But Christians worship a Jew as the son of God? There's a certain kind of esoteric 'And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon Englands mountains green' Christianity but in terms of base elements, Christianity is pretty Jewish.




A Jew who the Pharisees conspired with Pilate to have crucified because they considered him a false prophet. And modern rabbinic Judaism looks like the intellectual descendant of the Pharisees, not whatever kind of Judaism the historical Jesus practiced. "God the Father sent the Son to the Jews as the Messiah in fulfilment of the old covenant, but the Jews rejected him and then suffered divine punishment and exile in much the same way as when they rejected God on previous occasions" is the simple, obvious interpretation of the Gospel story.


But that is about history and tradition, not religious practice. And lex orandi, lex credendi. At the level of day-to-day religious practice, Christianity is focussed on right belief to the near-total exclusion of ritual purity, whereas Orthodox Judaism is the modern religion that is most focussed on ritual purity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Antisemitism was just an idiosyncrasy of Hitler, not a law of history.




Can anyone point to a historical (right- or left-) populist movement in a culturally Christian country that didn't eventually turn anti-semitic? I suppose there is a colourable argument that Disraeli's OG One Nation Conservatism counts as right-populist, but it isn't a central example.


Jews really are over-represented (by somewhere around 10x, as you would expect given high-end estimates of Ashkenazi IQ if we do live in an IQ-meritocracy) in the allegedly-meritocratic elite, so if you think that the allegedly-meritocratic elite is a conspiracy, then it is a Jewish conspiracy.


There is a long history of homogeneous societies turning on Jews because domestic politics required a scapegoat. Admittedly it hasn't happened in an English-speaking Christian society since the late 18th century, and not in a murderous way since 1290.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Saudis (and pretty much all the Gulf sheikdoms except Qatar) have been collaborating with the international Jewish conspiracy (if it exists) or allied with Israel and the US against Iran based on shared interests (if it doesn't) since well before the Abraham Accords formalised the situation. In the world we live in, there is nothing at all odd about the Saudis investing on commercial terms in Hasbara Inc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Buying up news and media properties does seem to be the cool thing for billionaires to do these days. Musk bought twitter, Bezos bought the Washington Post, Rupert Murdoch was ahead of the curve owning Fox. Now Ellison gets some of the crappy leftovers.




Rupert Murdoch is a different animal to the others in that he made his money in newspapers, so buying other media companies is a commercially plausible decision to diversify rather than a vanity purchase (and he made a lot of money off Fox, whereas Musk probably lost money on Twitter and Bezos definitely lost money on Wapo).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As long as it doesn't have a point of the compass in the name, it's probably okay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
True in western culture, but the wisdom from my internet is that in South-East Asia femme lesbians are supposed to perform femininity sufficiently that they can't be mistaken for butches.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting, because even back in the stone age (the early 90's) I was taught that all women above school age who were not personally known to you were "Madame" and that calling an undergraduate-age waitress "Madmoiselle" was hitting on her.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I understand the feminist objection to referring to women as "girls" regardless of age in dating-related contexts, but it is in fact standard English (both BrE and AmE) usage.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah - I don't think that would move the needle either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If those, specifically, are the people you're talking about, they don't run Syria so your original post was wrong.




Not my OP - I don't think the US-backed Salafi-jihadi group that currently controls Damascus "is" Al-Qaeda, although it clearly includes people in senior roles who used to be involved with Al-Qaeda back when Al-Qaeda was a thing. On the other hand, I would make exactly the same statement with "Damascus" replaced by "Riyadh", and that regime is considered uncomplicatedly pro-American. Al-Qaeda the specific terrorist group led by Bin Laden is absolutely defeated (and had been defeated long before Bin Laden himself got taken out in Pakistan), but drone-strikes against large numbers of alleged number 2s were not sufficient to do so.




"If". The US had the ability to blockade with Maduro there, it wasn't sufficient.




Agreed - to the extent that US operations in Venezuela are succeeding, it is a combination of a blockade that made capitulation the sane thing to do and a black-bag op to remove someone not sane enough to capitulate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Wellesley icily replied that:






It is not the business of generals to shoot one another.




Note that Wellesley had three horses shot out from under him, presumably to bullets intended for the rider - and he was an infantry officer so he was only on horseback later in his career when he was in field-grade and general officer positions.


Sniping enemy officers as SOP appears to date back to the invention of effective sniper rifles, given when troops stopped saluting on the battlefield.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Asking a yes-no intention with the transparent intention to treat "yes" as an endorsement of the bailey and "no" as an attack on the motte is one of the oldest tricks in the motte-and-bailey arguers playbook.


I'm sure that Republicans will run on "Democrats are for illegal immigrants, we are for you" in the mid-terms, regardless of what Democrats say or do, and that the Democrats will respond with stories about Republicans deporting nurses, military spouses etc. The voters already know that the Democrats are insane on immigration, and that Trump in particular is borderline-insane in the other direction.


I am reasonably sure that the effectiveness of these lines does not depend on a specific audience-participation kafkatrap - if the Democrats actually had a credible immigration policy, then running tape of them not dancing like monkeys during SOTU would just be standard-issue negative campaigning of the type that doesn't move elections relative to the fundamentals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The defeat of "Al Qaeda" (the professional terrorist organisation with global reach run out of a cave complex in Afghanistan that did 9-11) involved NATO and their local allies in the Northern Alliance conquering Afghanistan with boots on the ground. (The only reason "Al Qaeda" the meme which inspires Muslim immigrants to drive trucks into European Christmas markets isn't a problem for America is that you have fewer Muslim immigrants). I don't think you can defeat either the professional org or the meme by drone-striking enough "Al Qaeda number 2s".


If black-bagging Maduro out of Venezuela delivers on the Trump administration's goals it will be because (a) Delcy Rodriguez was already compromised and (b) the US can threaten a naval blockade to make sure she stays compromised. If they had done the black-bagging with no blockade the regime would be back in control by now (with Rodriguez either working with Maduro's people or replaced).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How do we know they aren't burning it? Given the current political situation, the principal target would be Trump personally. And given administration policy towards Iran, either Trump was totally lying about his foreign policy plans in the 2024 campaign (remember "No More Wars"?) or Israel and/or the Gulf Arabs have compromised him.


Dragging America into a forever war against Iran would, from an Israeli perspective, be more than sufficient to justify the whole Epstein operation.


[I don't actually think this is a particularly likely story - just the most likely conditional on Epstein working for Mossad].


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This, but seriously. The only reason why there isn't a populist uprising against the paedophile-riddled establishment is that the person who was supposed to be leading said uprising turned out to be compromised. * Epstein is far worse than the Dutroux scandal (which led to a reorganisation of the Belgian political system) and although the sex crimes were not as bad as the Pakistani rape gangs in the UK, the complicity of elites is far worse. (This has not yet led to a reorganisation of the British political system, but it looks like it may do).


There is an obvious N-dimensional chess story where Qanon and Comet Ping Pong were a deliberate ploy to spike the future Epstein reveal by making paedo panic (a) low status and (b) sufficiently MAGA-coded that opponents of Donald Trump wouldn't jump on it as an issue. (The hypothetical conspirators know that Trump is lying when he engages in populist anti-paedo messaging because he is one of the paedophiles.)  I don't think this is true - I think paedo panic is right-coded because the Anglosphere left have made being the defenders of sexual deviance (other than paedophilia) part of their core values, and the man in the street (mostly correctly) believes that other forms of sexual deviance are strongly correlated with paedophilia.


Right now it looks like the only Americans sincerely opposed to powerful men sexually abusing teenage girls are dissident right-populists like MTG, although I think the MeToo movement showed a few mid-rank figures on the feminist left who were also consistent on this point even when the perp was a Democrat.


* I am using paedophile in the dangerously loose sense the public do - what is relevant to the politics is the view of the typical low information voter, and normies don't care about the Hannaia/Tracey "words have meanings" argument. There were no prepubescent children involved, and accordingly nobody involved is a paedophile in the technical sense, and it is not clear whether or not Epstein trafficked the girls to the clients until they were over the local age of consent. But there was definitely sexual abuse of teenage girls going on.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


They argues that the media focused too much on the money and didn't pay any attention to their personal lives, which made it clear that it wasn't a sham relationship.




But the story about the money was so much more interesting that even Anna Nicole Smith's tits. 25 years of litigation, continuing after the deaths of both parties and a judge, seven courts in three jurisdictions, two trips to SCOTUS (with amicus briefs by two different SGs), and meaty issues around conflict of jurisdictions and separation of powers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"he left me and married his secretary"




This almost never happened until the 1990's and even then mostly among people in the public eye like actors and politicians. The scenario the older wife would have been worried about before then is "he began an affair with his secretary and I felt duty bound to kick him out".


Given a free choice, men who can keep both women will, and men who have to choose would mostly prefer to go back to the mother of their children than marry a floozy.  At some point the social rules changed so adultery is a purely private matter, whereas trifling with your mistresses affections is mistreating a vulnerable member of a protected group, which made it increasingly disreputable for a man not to marry his mistress, and also increasingly embarrassing for the wife to stay with a cheater.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I disagree. Kavanaugh makes a strong argument that given the Nixon tariff, the meaning at the time of the statue would’ve been clearly understood to include tariffs and therefore MQD is not applicable. The fact presidents haven’t used it since is largely irrelevant.




And Jackson makes a stronger argument based on the Congressional Record that the statute was not, in fact, clearly understood to include tariffs at the time it was passed. I am a textualist, and I would prefer to interpret IIEPA according to its text (which makes this an easy MQD case). But if we want to know what Congress thought IIEPA meant, they told us.