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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

				
				
				

				

					4 followers  

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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 November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I disagree with this, but here's a thought experiment: Suppose that (1) the Israelis were offered a deal - total peace but they had to withdraw to the 1948 line and uproot J & S settlers just like they did with settlers in Gaza; and (2) somehow it was a credible offer. Would they take it? Obviously the answer is "yes" given that they accepted much worse deals in the past. So unless you believe that at some point the Israeli mentality fundamentally changed, it seems pretty clear that the saying still holds.




The whole point I am making is that religious Zionist parties (excluding Likud, which has always had a religious Zionist faction which has become more significant over time) went from 9 Knesset seats in 1992 (when the Rabin government that did Oslo was elected) to 19 in 2026 (if you allocate half of B'Yachad's seats to Naftali Bennet), due to a change in Israeli demographics. Religious Zionists would definitely reject the hypothetical deal you discuss, and Netanyahu built his political career based on opposition to the "worse deals in the past" that Israel accepted, so I suspect most Likudniks would as well. (Netanyahu is one of the Israeli right-wingers who deliberately allowed Hamas to build up its position in Gaza because a stronger Hamas makes a two-state solution less likely, at the cost of a few dead and maimed Israelis).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That is why I specify Modern Orthodox. I agree that Haredim are noticeably less Zionist.


I agree that Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist aren't totally overlapping categories, but they are strongly correlated in the diaspora, and sufficiently correlated in Israel that Israelis use the same Hebrew word (dati leumi) to refer to both groups.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
1992 (both the UK and the US) was the first year I was able to understand what was going on in an election campaign. It was also the closest I have been to a US election, in the sense that we went to Disneyworld in the October half-term, and I remember seeing so many Perot yard signs (for whatever reason Bush and Clinton voters didn't put up yard signs) that I thought Perot would win Florida. Both Buchanan (in the primary) and Clinton (in the general) hammered Bush on being a foreign policy President instead of paying attention to bread-and-butter issues at home. From the other side of the Pond this felt like the main election issue - I particularly remember the Buchanan campaign setting up a giant searchlight to look for Bush in order to ask him about the economy. And Bush lost by a landslide, so presumably the attack worked. Conventional wisdom became that foreign policy could lose elections, but not win them.


The way Trump defended the Iran war once it was clear that the US wasn't going to win a quick victory was "A temporary increase in gas prices is a small price to pay to achieve my foreign policy goals (including something something nukes)." That is a self-admitted case of being a foreign policy President at the expense of domestic bread-and-butter issues.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Also a denominational one. Secular/Reform/Masorti Jews hate Trump in America, and aren't that fond of him in Israel. Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionist Jews love him in both countries. Haredim do what they do, which mostly ends up being transactionally voting right.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As a side note, this is a counterproductive misunderstanding (if you believe in mistake theory). There is a saying that if the Arabs lay down their weapons, there will be peace; if the Israelis lay down their weapons, there will be no more Israel. And in fact, the historical record pretty convincingly shows that this is the case, at least if you are looking at Palestinian Arabs.




If you define peace in the ordinary English sense as the absence of war, this is true. But if Israeli demographics mean that the Netanyahu coalition will be in power most of the time going forwards, then Israel is not offering normalcy (reasonably secure property rights, protection from criminal attacks by radical settlers, freedom of movement within sufficiently large contiguous areas to support a viable economy) to the Palestinian population of the West Bank. This is a change since the Oslo era, and it is an interesting but fundamentally unimportant question whether the change is driven by Israeli demographics (in particular, high religious Zionist birth and immigration rates) or by the counterproductive behaviour of Palestinians (mostly not resident in the West Bank) alienating potentially sympathetic Israelis.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The extremely narrow EHC that Hanania favors is only useful for a few things




Those few things are the main reason why America is so much more productive that the Europoors, which is the main outcome Hanania cares about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Midterms Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The highest value lesson the Republicans need to learn from this election is one of the oldest ones in the book, and one that we thought they had learned after GW Bush.


Never get involved in a land war in Asia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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I don't think a gender gap that large is a good thing for democracy, it isn't normal (compared to other democracies or the US historically) and I don't see either party making an effort to shrink it (Dems think what they are doing right now is fine, MAGA Reps think that a massive gender gap is normal).


The only saving grace is that US exit polls are inaccurate (because of the difficulty exit polling postal and early voters) and can be wildly wrong if the demographics of people who actually voted doesn't match historical averages, which I suspect was the case yesterday.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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One point - with real Dan Sullivan a nose ahead of Peltola (and likely to win on transfers even if he is a nose behind when the first count is complete because the also-rans are another Republican and fake Dan Sullivan), it looks like voter irritation at the fake Dan Sullivan affair allowed the Republicans to hold on in a state Peltola should have won comfortably given the national swing.


Was fake Dan Sullivan the second biggest self-own of this election cycle (after Iran)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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Bitcoin appears to be holding up better, at 0.3% off over 24 hours.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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80% of what's wrong with the UK comes down to NIMBYism. My impression was that this isn't a partisan issue in the US, and that YIMBYs are winning intra-Dem fights at the moment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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Silly question - Americans talking about a big Democratic win in this election are using aquatic metaphors like waves and tsunamis. Whatever happened to the good old landslide?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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On the other hand, so far it looks like congratulations to the NC GOP for a perfect dummymander. After multiple rounds of litigation they finally managed to draw a map which was supposed to be 11-3, but Dems are leading in all 14 districts according to CNN.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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The black machine politicians who determine Democratic primaries don't want four years of President Vance, so Kamala is unlikely to be the nominee.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
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Florida House results are looking interesting. The Republicans have avoided a dummymander by the skin of their teeth - based on current leads they are going to get a 17-11 split of the seats while winning both statewide races 51-49 or so. But a lot of districts which were drawn as safeish R are ending up in recount territory.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If the Democrats win the Senate, which I am hopeful they will not, then they will likely refuse to confirm all of Trump's judicial nominees, which will start a constitutional crisis whereby judges will only be confirmed when the same party controls both the Presidency and Senate.




Out of interest, I took a look at the list of failed SCOTUS nominations. Only 8 since 1900:


    

  • Parker. Nominated by Hoover. Rejected by a bipartisan (Dems and Progressive Republicans) vote because of his anti-union jurisprudence.
    • 

  • Fortas. Nominated for promotion to Chief by LBJ. Rejected by a bipartisan (Republicans and Dixiecrats) vote on grounds of corruption but lefties think it was really ideological. Resigned as an Associate justice a year later due to another corruption scandal.
    • 

  • Thornberry. Nominated for Fortas's soon-to-be-vacant seat as an Associate justice, nomination lapsed due to the lack of a vacancy.
    • 

  • Haynsworth and Carswell. Nominated by Nixon, both rejected by bipartisan (northern Dems and moderate Reps) vote because they turned out to be closet segregationists.
    • 

  • Bork. Nominated by Reagan, rejected on a near-party-line vote. Dems said they voted against based both on his role in the Saturday Night Massacre and his ideology. Bork and his supporters said that Bork did not hold the extremist views he was accused of and the motivation was pure partisanship.
    • 

  • Miers. Nominated by GW Bush, would have been rejected on a bipartisan, non-ideological basis due to being obviously unqualified.
    • 

  • Garland. Nominated by Obama, rejected by McConnell based on pure partisanship.
    • 



So of the seven substantive rejections, at most two (Miers, and probably Fortas) were on personal grounds. The other five were all an ideologically coherent bloc in the Senate opposed to the President, rejecting the nominee based on their political views. The change is that the ideological line-up in the Senate now matches the partisan one in a way it historically didn't.


Given that only the Bork and Garland rejections became scandals, I think the mos maiorum that people want to exist (but doesn't, given that there was no political price in either case) is "Party-line rejection of the President's SCOTUS nomination by a Senate majority of the other party is inappropriate."  Unfortunately, given increased ideological coherence and party discipline in the modern Senate, this would cash out as "the President can nominate anyone he wants as long as they are broadly acceptable to the President's own party", and would be a bad rule on that basis.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that TDS is powerful enough that their supporters in the country will expect them to impeach Trump regardless if there is any chance of conviction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I saw (both at the time and as part of the discussion of the recent Iran war) "Trump's pulling out of JCPOA will make a war with Iran (or a nuclear Iran, which nobody wants) inevitable, and the people* who convinced him to pull out of JCPOA know this and are actively trying to maneuver America into a war Americans don't want."  That isn't "Trump, personally wants to start a war" but it is close.


* Whether the people in question are Netanyahu and the Israeli right, or GOPe neocons and the Deep State in the US.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Some cases of genuinely disabling PTSD exist, but it is easy to fake.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Normalizing to miles or equivalent trips helps reduce the range and can put them around motorcycle risk, but helicopters as a full class remain a good bit more dangerous than cars. To be fair, that’s heavily driven by training flight and Robinson incidents, so fair-weather flight operations under Part 135 are a lot less concerning, but it’s still a risk-taking behavior.




Part 135 helicopters are only about 2x as dangerous as part 135 aeroplanes and 2-3x as dangerous as cars, and it isn't clear if this is driven by things like search-and-rescue work where you know you are taking a risk. My guess is that fair-weather part 135 helicopters are safer than cars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Checking the statistics, road fatalities in the US are 1.2 people per 100 million vehicle-miles, which is slightly less than 1.2 fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle-miles because most fatal crashes only kill one person.


Part 135 (i.e. all commercial flying except scheduled airline service) has about 1 fatal crash per 250,000 flight hours. If we assume an average speed of 200 mph for part 135 flying, that works out at 2 fatal crashes per 100 million flight-miles (and the typical fatal crash is going to kill everyone on the plane) - i.e. worse than driving, but not much. Part 135 helicopters are more dangerous than planes, but the FAA thinks this is because the helicopter accident rate is driven up by specific dangerous missions (like bad-weather search-and-rescue) and the intrinsic safety gap is small.


Scheduled airline service has less than 1 fatal crash per 5 million flight hours, which at airline speeds gives you <0.05 per 100 million flight miles. Very safe.


Bizjets will be safer than the part 135 average, but not as safe as scheduled airlines. So potentially not that much safer than driving.


Incidentally, private flying is about 1 fatal crash per 100,000 flight hours, and speeds are lower, so you are looking at 5-10 fatal crashes per 100 million flight-miles. Which I suppose is safer than a motorbike (about 30 deaths per 100 million miles).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes - the only reason why trans bathroom laws are not an 80-20 issue is that thirty seconds of thought tells you that they will be unenforceable in practice because of false positives. Most female-presenting people with manjaws are cis women and, given that nobody gets undressed outside a stall, it doesn't matter enough to make it worth asking cis women to bring ID to go to the toilet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Agreed. Male homosexuality is a bigger sticking point than trans - all three Abrahamic religions unequivocally prohibit it, and to be a leftist in good standing requires you to take Pride in it.


If the Abrahamic God, heaven, and hell exist, then there are no unrepentant Sodomites in heaven, and this is a hatefact by conventional left-wing standards. Tim Farron was forced out as leader of the UK Liberal Democrats over this point - he was unwilling to say that male homosexuality is not a sin, and the party was not willing to be led by someone who believed that it was.




I can’t see “anti-Israel” being a core belief




I think "Israel is the permanent hereditary enemy of my tribe" can sensibly be a core belief if Palestinians, or Arabs or Muslims more generally, are your tribe.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Christian views on lying are complicated. As far as I am aware, only Quakers categorically forbid both making false statements and selectively making true statements with intent to induce false beliefs. The Biblical passages normally cited as unequivocal condemnations of lying appear in contexts where it is clear that they refer to defamation (thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour) or commercial fraud.


It is an edge case of "Christian", but Mormons explicitly encourage deception-by-selective-truth-telling as a seeker-sensitive way of introducing LDS doctrine to potential converts. The traditional term is "milk before meat".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In so far as the mos maiorum required the Senate to confirm qualified SCOTUS appointments even if the President's party was in the minority, it was thrown out some time ago. Democrats think it was thrown out by Senate Republicans when they refused to hold a vote on Garland and then rush-confirmed Barrett, Republicans try to both-sides it going back to Bork. The Garland precedent is that the Senate can reject nominees based on pure partisanship in order to hold the seat open for their own party President. Since the Republicans paid no political price for it, it is the new mos maiorum.


I think the real issue is that Presidents of both parties have working increasingly hard to nominate partisan justices, that Bush v Gore made this a lot more salient, and that party discipline in the Senate has been getting stronger over time. The last nominee who was sufficiently less-partisan that an opposite-party Senate should have confirmed them was Roberts.


The other point is that strategic retirements mean that a vacancy coming up other than when the retiring justice's party controls the White House and Senate is a rare event. There were no vacancies with opposite-party control of the White House and Senate between 1991 (Souter and Thomas were confirmed by a Dem-majority Senate, but one with a conservative majority if you count Dixiecrats as conservatives) and Scalia's death in 2016.


Assuming regular alternation of the parties in office, and that incoming Presidents have strong enough coat-tails to control the Senate in the first half of their term, the default is that the partisan composition of SCOTUS is fixed. The Democrats obviously have an incentive to disrupt this.