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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
User ID: 896


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					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 April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For bonus points, consider the French guy who found some of the temperature sensors used for city weather predictions markets and started betting on them before applying localized heat. Is that "insider trading"? It seems at least adjacent.




That is closer to "cheating at cards" than "insider trading". Traditionally not a crime in the UK, because the powers that be didn't want the police wasting their time policing cardsharps. A very serious crime in Nevada or New Jersey, if done by or against a licensed casino.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


yeah aside from the 9/11 highjackers and the Unabomber I can't remmber a single smart terrorist. Even the unabomber wasn't the smartest at actually carrying anything out.




The IRA and the old-school PLO had a lot of smart terrorists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is applying conflict theory where mistake theory would be more appropriate.


Handguns are, in practice, orders of magnitude more dangerous than long guns, looking at (murder, suicide and negligent) death tolls. The difference between America and other broadly pro-gun countries like Switzerland and Canada is that America has ubiquitous legal private handgun ownership, and lots of people shooting themselves or each other with said handguns. The pro-gun movement in America largely consists of people who routinely carry a handgun for personal self defence (or would like to if it was legal in their jurisdiction). And they (you?) are winning politically.


And yet the anti-gun movement's best argument is to point at spree killings and call for bans on scary-looking and/or high-powered rifles, because blue tribe normies who are susceptible to anti-gun messaging are not actually worried about the chav-on-chav shootings going on in the rough parts of their own cities, they are worried about the spree shootings they see on TV.


If the anti-gun left were serious, committed gun-grabbers at both the elite and mass levels, I don't think they would be so stupid about guns. I think normie fear of spree killings is very real, is largely driven by media amplification (which in turn is driven by if-it-bleeds-it-leads incentives, not partisan bias), and is grossly disproportionate to any real threat. But the pro-gun right don't have a very persuasive response to it - the real argument they believe is "one classroom of dead kids in a every 4-5 years in a country of 300 million is a good tradeoff for the advantages of widespread rifle ownership for shooting sports, hunting, rural home defence, and tyranny prevention." And that is a non-starter in the public debate because most people are innumerate. [FWIW, I think the tyranny prevention argument is mostly bullshit and I still think the tradeoff points in favour of broadly legal long guns. But if I got my sense of how common spree killings actually are from the MSM, I wouldn't]


tl;dr - the reason why the debate about long guns isn't as one-sidedly pro-gun in the US as it is in Switzerland is because normies overstate the risk of spree killings, not because of a conspiracy of evil gun-grabbers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As far as I know, marking the enemy in red and your own side in blue on maps has also been a tradition of armies.




I always thought it was a tradition of NATO and NATO-trained armies, based on the assumption that the enemy would be Red because it was the USSR. (Both the Nazis and the USSR marked themselves in red on military maps, consistent with the dominant colour on their flag). Googling suggests that the origins of the practice are older - during the long period of Anglo-French conflict everyone agreed that Britain was red and France was blue (mostly based on uniform colours, also consistent wiht the predominant colours on the medieval English and French royal flags), and there are various reasons why the capital-A Allies adopted the French colour scheme as early as WW1. If true this suggests that Germany chose to put themselves in red because they saw France as the permanent enemy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Azathoth is blinder but Trump is more idiotic, so it's swings and roundabouts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Maduro indictment is unusual in that all the counts are extra-territorial, so jurisdiction only ends up in SDNY because that is where they landed him after arresting him overseas. Normally this kind of complex international drug smuggling case ends up in SDNY because the money was laundered through NYC-based banks, making SDNY the easiest jurisdiction to throw in money laundering charges.


But they could have indicted Maduro anywhere - I guess they went with the SDNY because that is where the career AUSAs and judges with the relevant experience are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


We destroyed a large part of Iran’s capacity to build cheap drones.




The Houthi threat to shipping is not based on the Yemeni drone industry. Failed states do not have domestic armaments industries. Somehow they still seem to be lousy with weapons.




We can inflict far more harm on Iran than they can inflict on us.




And? If the US inflicts a lot of harm on Iran an Iran inflicts a little bit of harm on the US, that looks like a bad outcome for both the US and Iran. War is a negative-sum game, and "neither side gets a good result" is a possible outcome, indeed probably the default outcome.




Right now we have Iran half-destroyed, begging for anything but Bridge and Power Plant Day, cardboard cutout of a supreme leader, possibly now an IRGC coup, America is exercising control over the strait, increasing supply of oil from other sources to compensate for what’s being blocked, total air superiority,




Right now America is doing worse than they were doing in Iraq in 2003. Not much worse - I am happy to concede they are still "winning" in the way they "won" in Iraq. But all you are saying here is that US forces are closer to the "Mission Accomplished" moment than some war-sceptics think they are.


The technical ability of the US to administer air-power-based punishment beatings to Iran is not in doubt. The argument is about what political goals, if any, can be achieved using punishment beatings alone, and whether they are worth the consumption of materiel and damage to the world economy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Juries drawn from the district the crime was allegedly committed in is in the Constitution, so de facto not reformable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is there a reason a state should generally allow private actors to play "undercover informant"? Citizens aren't generally encouraged to start writing dossiers on each other even if they did say they were going to turn them over to law enforcement. Doubly so for not-even-illegal activities, some of which are constitutionally protected.




Reporting on the activities of political groups is just as 1st amendment protected as participating in them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The cost of victory is internal dissent. When the left was culturally dominant, they had infinite groups struggling for internal supremacy. They still have some of it.




The left had infinity groupuscles stuggling for internal supremacy long before it was culturally dominant. The problem goes back all the way to the 1st century AD and the conflict between the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


some already were




The ICE wall of honour continues to show zero deaths due to enemy action since Jaime Jorge Zapata in 2011. Like a medieval army, the vast majority of service-related deaths are due to disease (COVID-19, cancer from toxic exposure during the WTC cleanup, and one case of dengue while on a field assignment in Indonesia).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you are right, then in a few weeks the north coast of the Strait of Hormuz will be under the "control" of a failed state and anyone who wants to create havoc can set up shop there and harass shipping with cheap land-based drones (with the Houthis being the proof of concept that this is technically feasible, and hard to counter without boots on the ground). This is one of the predictable bad outcomes of a successful war against Iran, and a large part of why conventional wisdom (including among non-leftists) was that the war was to avoided if possible.


The chance of Donald Trump, as the Oracle would put it, invading Persia and destroying a great empire, continues to rise.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So a return to the situation under the JCPOA then? A reasonable goal, but one that Trump has consistently said he doesn't support. And if that is the goal, then the war was unlikely to achieve anything compared to the status quo ante - as of December 2025 the Iranian nuke program was non-functional and Iran was not extorting neutral shipping.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A trusted component can break the system's security commitments, a trustworthy one won't. I agree that Trump is widely trusted (mostly by countries which are too weak to have an alternative) despite his lack of trustworthiness.


Of the people on your list, Iran, Saudi, Qatar and the UAE have seen their security break as a result of trusting an untrustworthy component.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Totally disagree. Another possibility -- consistent with this kind of fraud -- is that in reality, the SPLC values fund-raising (and its continued existence) far more than its nominal mission. Something which, to put it mildly, is not unheard of among not-for-profits.




That's obviously true, but not criminal. It is, unfortunately, perfectly legal for the Save-the-World foundation to raise a million dollars (using chuggers who take a 40% commission), and spend $400k on executive salaries and the other $200k on a big celebrity-studded party to "raise awareness" of worldsaving.


If, as seems likely, the only crime (in the legal sense) here is opening bank accounts in false names, then absent losses to the banks or IRS, the likely penalty is a slap on the wrist. That said, using banking-related process crimes that the SPLC is clearly guilty of to throw the book at a fake charity doesn't seem like an abuse given US norms re. prosecuting white-collar crime.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can, and I do. I therefore oppose them, for the same reason that I oppose Azathoth's achievement of his similarly ineffable objectives.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What does the pro-war side want?


Trump doesn't need to, and shouldn't, share operational and tactical level plans, but in a democracy the side who leads the country into war is traditionally expected to say what the political goals are, and why it thinks they are achievable (which in practice means sharing the big-picture strategy).


I would say Trump has not done so, but it would be fairer to say that he does share goals and strategies, but different ones every speech (and sometimes two different ones in the same speech). Given a choice between "allow Trump to do his thing" and "make him stop", the only argument currently being made in public for allowing Trump to do his thing is that his approach to complex negotiations (as documented in e.g. The Art of the Deal) depends on the enemy having no idea what he wants, and we should trust him on that basis. That argument is not persuasive to people who, based on decades of publicly-documented experience across four careers, consider Trump untrustworthy. (And The Art of the Deal also advocates routine dishonesty in negotiations - one thing Trump is honest about is being a liar).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suspect part of what is going on is that almost every political party for whom not being red is part of its identity (which covers the centre right, the far right, right-liberals and some left-liberals, particularly in the former Soviet bloc) wants to use blue if it is available.


Looking at the member parties of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, I would say most right-populist parties end up using a darker shade of blue than the main centre-right party in their country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Per Steve Sailer's extensive investigation of SPLC finances, very little of the money here is taxpayer money - the whole point of the SPLC was to maximise unrestricted donations from left-wing Jews so Morris Dees and Jo Levin could keep the money. DOGE wasn't going to find this one - it required old-school criminal investigation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And broken up when the undercover FBI agent starts suggesting actual serious criminal activity and the undercover journalist calls the local cops on him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I despise Israel-the-political-entity and I cheerfully agree with you on this point. 10/7 was an act of barbarism, and the best model for Hamas' behaviour since then has been "identify the most evil thing an insane evil person could come up with, and watch them do it".


If you are going to us methods of barbarism in a somewhat-justified war, you should do so in pursuit of a somewhat-justified military objective and with a somewhat-justified hope of military success. 10/7 was some evil cunts getting off on Jewish pain from the safety of their Qatar hotel rooms with no visible path to military victory, or even a draw.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I reject this discourse by referring to myself as a "sperg" which is not a term politically correct people are willing to use even if the sperg in question is welcome to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes - pre sexual revolution the vast majority of marriageable, single older men were widowers. If a man was a bachelor at thirty there was a reason. "Confirmed bachelor" was a euphemism for gay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This situation is also rough on the kids from the first marriage, who suddenly acquire a stepmother who isn't old enough to be their mother, but will need to play the social role of mother unless the kids spend ~100% of the time with their biomum. I'm going to date myself by pointing out that acquiring a stepmother young enough that she could just about have dated him instead of his father was what pushed Bill of Bill and Ted over the edge into loserdom. (Ted was just as thick as two short planks).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The whole point @magicalkittycat was making (which I agree with) is that these guys are exceptional among rich/powerful/successful men. Most R/P/S men are still married to the mothers of their children, so they are facing weaker taboos against taking up a younger girlfriend than they used to - both the taboo against adult age gaps and the taboo against adultery in 2026 are weaker than the taboo against adultery was in 1980.


The informal institution of "rich men having mistresses but being discrete about it" was not created by seekingarrangement.com.


The purpose of the age gap taboo from the point of view of the feminists and allies imposing it is to force middle-aged divorced men with options to date middle-aged divorced women rather than dating prime-age never-married women. Middle-aged divorced women, and women who want to improve their options should they choose the life of middle-aged divorced woman, are the core constituency of feminism.