@MadMonzer's banner p

MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

2 followers   follows 0 users  
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
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					
					Month
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a working definition, I would say a church is a megachurch if


    

  • it is not affiliated to a denomination
    • 

  • more than 1000 people watch the same sermons in real-time (either in person or by videolink)
    • 



But the interesting thing about megachurch Christianity as practiced in Red America is the distinctive theology and Church polity it produces.


The theology is de facto based around the "born-again" experience and the personal relationship between individual believers and Jesus (if you are being polite) or about being gay for Jesus (if you are being rude from a male perspective) or about Jesus wanting to be your perfect romance-novel boyfriend (if you are being rude from a female perspective).


The Church polity is based around the effectively total-within-their-Church authority of individual charismatic lead pastors who are openly permitted to keep a significant percentage of the collection plate for their personal consumption.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People who self-identify as unhyphenated Americans are disproportionately likely to be Appalachian hillbillies, which means they are probably more likely to be descended from transHajnal Europeans (namely the Scots Irish) than other Euro-American subgroups.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


They fund Hamas and Hezbollah




That would make them hostile to Israel, which is not America.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
@coffee_enjoyer is pointing out that most of the people at the music festival attacked by Hamas were Israeli reservists, and therefore combatants. (It is a truth universally acknowledged by any society which still understands war that combatants don't become civilians just because they aren't currently attacking.) There is a colourable argument that the music festival (or any other gathering of military-age Israelis most of whom will inevitably by IDF reservists) was a legitimate military target - that is the nature of a militarised society. (Even if you accept this argument, it was still a war crime by Hamas because of what they did to the women)


But like every other discussion of ius in bello on the thread, this is quibbling. I think we all agree that this is fundamentally a ius ad bello argument - does the US have a (secret) cause sufficiently compelling that it is worth going to war, with all the horrors that entails for individual human beings on both sides, to achieve it? The US can also be blamed for launching a perfidious surprise attach, but that seems to be SOP nowadays - the last time someone actually bothered to declare war before attacking was WW2.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Separately, since you have used the phrase "Palestinian Territories," can you please tell me (1) which land areas constitute "Palestinian Territories" (e.g. do they include Ramallah, Gaza City, Hebron, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc.); and (2) how those areas came to be "Palestinian Territories"? TIA




The term "Palestinian Territories" has a widely-understood standard meaning which includes Ramallah, Gaza City, Hebron, may or may not include East Jerusalem, and clearly does not include West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. You know this as well as I do. These territories became "Palestinian Territories" by virtue of being the parts of Mandate Palestine which remained inhabited by Christian and Muslim Arabs who referred to themselves as "Palestinian" after the Israeli War of Independence. I suspect you know that too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Talking smack about an unfriendly country doesn't constitute waging war against them. Building nukes may justify a pre-emptive war as a matter of sound policy, but it doesn't as a matter of international law, and it certainly doesn't make you the aggressor if someone does wage a pre-emptive war against you - as a matter of ordinary English meanings of words, building nukes does not constitute aggression unless they are used.


You have a better case on point (1) - Iran is indeed supporting proxies which are attacking Israel (and indeed committing war crimes against Israeli civilians). But they are not an aggressor here - they skate on two technicalities.


    

  • The attacks on Israel aren't by Iranians and don't come from Iranian territory. There is a lot of state practice (very much including the US and Israel) of funding plausibly deniable proxies to engage in military action against countries you are at peace with. I don't think the involvement of US government officials in NORAID makes the US the aggressor in the IRA's war against my country. Iran funding Hamas and Hezbullah is a hostile act against Israel, and a despicable one given the circumstances in the current year, but it isn't military aggression in the way the term is usually used in practice.
    • 

  • Hamas and Hezbullah's attacks on Israel are not aggressive. Both are resistance movements that started their wars when Israel was in belligerent occupation of the Palestinian Territories and southern Lebanon respectively. If NATO funds resistance to Russia in occupied Ukraine, that is a hostile act against Russia but not an aggressive one. Hezbullah has continued their defensive war against Israel long after Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory and have been told to stop by the UNSC, which makes their continued war against Israel wrong, but it doesn't make it aggression.
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And notably the one party in the Iran conflict for whom this stuff is - rightly or wrongly - somewhat existential is Israel and they are ultimately pretty accepting of casualties.




The war is obviously more existential for Iran than it is for any of the aggressors. The destruction of the Iranian state is a plausible outcome, indeed it may be Netanyahu's goal. And a million excess deaths (mostly due to starvation and disease) is a reasonable estimate of the likely human cost of a failed state in Iran.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Birthright Citizenship at the Supreme Court
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes - if you adopt the standard modern legal meaning of "jurisdiction" then illegal aliens (and their children) are fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States while physically present in the country, but tribally enrolled Indians (and their tribally enrolled children) physically present on a reservation are only partially subject to it.


That "Indians not taxed" are even more foreign than resident foreigners is the basis of the OG apportionment clause.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my country we call it Danegeld.


I don't know if Trump thinks he can stop the tide rising with a wave of his regal hand, but he certainly expects his sycophantic courtiers to tell him that he can.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I've yet to hear anyone explain what major concession Delcy made that Maduro was obstinate on.




The darkly cynical answer (that Rodriguez has allowed a substantial amount of Venezuelan oil money to be paid into a bank account in Qatar which is controlled by Donald Trump but operates outside the US laws concerning custody of government funds) remains the most plausible.


Before Maduro was taken out, Trump was imposing a naval blockade against Venezuelan oil exports. After Maduro is taken out, Trump permits oil exports as long as he gets to keep a large part of the money. It looks like Maduro was not willing to accept those terms, and Rodriguez clearly is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Who's to say grandma can't also be a thirst trap?




Cookies sate hunger, not thirst.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But home computers, with social media and video games, are really the first thing to be so engaging as to make this extreme mass consumption viable on a large scale, where it consumes both free time, work, and school.




At 115+ IQ, probably true. But the 100-average masses were watching TV for n hours a day for large enough values of n to support a moral panic back in the 1980's.


Heck - there are middle-aged women with >100 IQs who could spend 4+ hours a day reading romance novels and Readers' Digest short fiction if they had access to enough of it - which is almost as passive as TV-watching. The moral panic about housewives reading novels instead of engaging in the types of community-building activities housewives with free time engaged in was also real - my mother-in-law was not allowed to read novels as a child except when set by the school.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
6yo uses Youtube Kids on iPad so we have to approve each channel individually. 9yo mostly drives himself, and is primarily interested in educational channels when he is less tired and Minecraft slop when he is knackered, which is pretty harmless. He has unintentionally conditioned the algorithm only to show Minecraft slop if he lets it autoplay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the point of "screens" as a concept is to tie in the current moral panic about children's internet use with the earlier moral panic about children watching too much TV.


I remember someone trying to write a serious analysis of what "screens" is actually about and pointing out that there were two different issues:


    

  1. The child is staring at a wall. "Screen time", going all the way back to TV, is replacing activities like outdoor play and in-person socialisation that are more beneficial.
    2. 

  2. The writing on the wall. The screen is displaying content, and that content may be harmful. (It may also be educational, but fear sells better). And here there is a massive increase in variance from TV (the vast majority of which was harmless slop) to the internet, which includes everything from MIT Open Courseware to pro-eating disorder websites.
    3. 



Moral panics about trash media go back a long way and long predate screens - there was a similar panic about mass-market novels, for example. And they almost never make the distinction between the two issues. My sons spend "too much" time on screens, but I follow what they are doing, and it is net educational. If I thought screen time was stopping them socialising in person (they can't do much of that because autism) I would curtail it. It is making it harder to get them to do outdoor exercise.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Back when the PLO was uncomplicatedly a terrorist organisation, the IRA, ETA and PLO saw each other as ideological allies and almost certainly cooperated operationally.


The dominant strain of Irish nationalism is anti-British first and foremost, and therefore anti-Western Civ by implication, which is why it is so hard to organise a right-populist party in Ireland, despite the obvious unmet demand for anti-immigration politics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Having had a British education, I always find myself chuckling when extremely-online libs start fulminating about how Confederates were "traitors". Maybe you should have paid for your tea!




When I'm in a snarky mood, I refer to the American War of Independence and the American Civil War as the "First Slavers' Treason" and "Second Slavers' Treason" respectively.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Almost 1000 years ago - I think the only autochthonous universities are Paris, Bologna and Oxford with all subsequent universities being founded with professors who graduated from existing universities.


And even if you go back to the three original universities, there is a continuous development from cathedral schools to universities. The doctors who granted the first degrees were learned priests who had a formal education and a formal certification from the Church that they had completed it, even if it wasn't called a degree. So the original authority to grant degrees comes from God, not from a group of autodictats declaring themselves the first professors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say that Argentina was a US ally under the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, and since 1983 has, like most democracies, been a supporter of the so-called "rules-based international order" - i.e. the US-led system - but with the warmth of the Argentina-US relationship varying on which party is in power.


One of the issues with determining which countries are "pro-American" in the Trump era is that the RBIO and US leadership were sufficiently linked that being pro-RBIO and pro-US were practically the same thing, but now Trump is trying to overturn the RBIO as anti-American.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As of 1776, type 3. By 1778, type 1. The British cope for losing the American War of Independence is that we took a tactical drop in what we wrongly thought was the least important theatre of a four-ocean mostly-naval World War. It was the global war that bankrupted the French monarchy, not the cost of the American intervention specifically.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There is a certain etiquette about avoiding a shooting war between nuclear powers which has seen us through the Cold War.




And Russia violated that etiquette by invading Ukraine. The rules of the game post-Korea were that you didn't attack the other side's client directly, only by arming your own client as a proxy. The only countries that a superpower invaded directly during the Cold War were their own clients in order to suppress rebellions. Vietnam is a good example - the Soviets could arm and defend North Vietnam, and the US could arm and defend South Vietnam, but when North Vietnam actually sent troops over the border and invaded the South they were Vietnamese. [The reason why the US couldn't win in Vietnam is that Cold War rules meant you couldn't win by invading the North, and you failed to build a South that could do defend itself without Americans at the pointy end of the spear].


Russia invaded Ukraine, justifying this by saying that Ukraine was a NATO client. They then said that they would consider NATO defending its client to be nuclear provocation. This isn't an obviously insane position, which is why we let Putin get away with it. But Russian troops invading a NATO client with no plausible deniability is a provocation that Stalin or Brezhnev (or Reagan) would have considered excessive. American and Russian planes shooting at each other over Ukraine is nevertheless worse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not if the oil market continues to clear.


If x% of the oil supply is cut off in a liquid market, then the price rises until the lowest-value x% of demand is suppressed. The Chinese war machine is not in the lowest-value x% of oil demand for reasonable values of x. And because demand for oil is price-inelastic, that could be a very large price increase with concomitant windfalls to a bunch of unsavoury people like Russia.


It is obvious from his rhetoric that Trump (who does not appear to understand how markets work, apart from the ultra-illiquid and heavily politicised real estate market) is imagining a world where the global oil market does not clear, and somehow Americans have access to $2/gallon gas on tap while the Chinese military has to beg. He even has a vague plan for getting there that would work if Russia didn't exist - namely invading countries which sell oil to China.


I don't know if the Trump administration has a contingency plan for imposing export controls in a way which doesn't create Nixon-era style gas lines, but even though the US is a net oil exporter the domestic politics of the US deliberately cutting oil supply on the global market are toxic-by-default.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


China's deterrence power is fundamentally flawed.




Why does this matter? The big geopolitical question in 2027 isn't going to be China's capacity to deter America - it will be America (plus some bit player allies)'s capacity to deter China from invading Taiwan. If China wants to attack Taiwan and thinks they can win, they just do it. The act is self-communicating.


The core point that Tanner Greer is making is that America curb-stomping a weak enemy in days rather than the expected weeks* doesn't change the credibility in Chinese eyes of American deterrence very much.


* No, there isn't a huge body of establishment Iran doves claiming that Iran could beat America. The standard Iran dove argument was (and is) that


    

  • A ground war with Iran would be a 2003-Iraq-style operational victory followed by a 2003-Iraq-style quagmire
    • 

  • An air-only war would not achieve American political goals
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Apart from building and maintaining a world empire, what else did unite the English, Scots and Welsh?




@Botond173 - it really was the Frogs. After the Scottish Reformation, the Scots hated the French (who had attempted to prop up Catholicism in Scotland) as much as the English did.




I would say that Britain isn't a proposition nation any more than England/Scots/Wales is. It's an ethnic one with multiple very similar ethnicities.




I think "ethnic nation with multiple ethnicities" is a contradiction in terms. The non-propositional view that makes sense given the history is that the Britain (or the UK - if you are doing this type of analysis the Irish Question matters) is a multinational state based on an alliance between friendly nations. And in the modern age they don't work (with Czechoslovakia as the textbook example).


Empirically, the folk nationalism of the British nations agrees. Scottish ethno-nationalism has, in fact, defined itself as anti-English first and foremost. Welsh ethno-nationalism is fundamentally pro-Welsh rather than anti-anyone (it focusses on preservation of Welsh language and Welsh-speaking culture). And in England, polling shows that self-identification as English is a proxy for ethno-nationalism and self-identification as British is a proxy for civic nationalism. And "British" nationalists based in England (like Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage) see suppressing Scottish (but not English) nationhood as part of their British national project. English nationalism isn't anti-Scottish per se, but it wants to reduce Scottishness to a cuisine and a costume.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My read was that it defined working age as 15 and over with no upper limit.




female working-age population (ages 15 and over)




Looks to me like the words inside the brackets explain the locally used meaning of the words before them. Given the very wide range of female retirement ages around the world, I think they would say what maximum age they were using if they were using one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the tradwife vision assumes that one of the skills that would be taught in these "I can't believe it's not finishing school" less-academic women's institutions would be healthy eating. But Ozempic solves the problem withe less effort.