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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

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
    

  1. Unless you are interested in industrial heritage or Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow is a day-trip from Edinburgh at best.
    2. 

  2. Good idea - the Highlands are beautiful and unique. Personally I think Loch Ness is overrated, and Glen Coe is the best bit of the Highlands. Doing both from Edinburgh or Glasgow gives you about 8 hours of driving time, so doing the loop in 2 days is a bit hard-core. If whisky is the main attraction, you could stop short of Inverness and hit up Aviemore (for Glen Coe and the Cairngorms) and Grantown-on-Spey (for the Speyside distilleries). If you are passing through Inverness (and you will be if you go to Loch Ness) it is worth a brief stop to buy Highland-themed tourist tat. Or if you are in Glasgow at the start of the trip, you could do Glen Coe and Oban. You will need a car in the Highlands unless you are on an organised coach tour.
    3. 

  3. If you can spare the time, York and Bath are probably the best tourist spots in England outside London. If you are driving Scotland-Manchester-London, both are manageable detours. If you are taking the train, only York makes sense. But if you have four or less non-relative days in England, I would spend all of them in London (possibly including a day-trip to e.g. Windsor). Once in London, you may want to consider the Wellcome Museum or the Old Operating Theatre as a historical medical museum.
    4. 

  4. If you are there for the cliffs more than the castle, the Seven Sisters (between Seaford and Eastbourne) are better than the White Cliffs. See this post.
    5. 



I can probably offer more specific recommendations if you let me know what your brother is interested in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You don't need a Schengen visa for Ireland - despite being an EU member it remains part of the Common Travel Area with the UK. Indians are one of the nationalities that can visit Ireland on a UK visa and vice versa.


That said, I think two weeks to do Scotland and England doesn't leave enough time to make crossing over to Ireland worth it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


First, Austen was Regency era. A generation before the Victorians, and there are some pretty significant differences




Also, critically, before railways. The minor gentry (the class the Bennets belong to) was much less geographically mobile than they would be in a Victorian setting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Jesus clearly teaches political quietism in the New Testament, and historically most radical Christian "back-to-the-fundamentals" movements are politically quietist (like the Amish). The first modern capital-F Fundamentalists were obviously not politically quietist (the extent of mass government-backed secular education in America c. 1900 made already it a lot harder to be politically quietist if you didn't withdraw completely from the wider society like the Amish do), but there is no discussion of secular politics in The Fundamentals.


Politically active Christianity is, obviously, almost as lindy as politically quietist Christianity. I think this is because Jesus doesn't say why he is preaching political quietism, so it isn't obvious how "don't be a Zealot and render unto Caesar" translates to contexts other than living as a religious minority in a pagan Empire.




How should a country be governed when almost all of its citizens profess Christianity, like most Western countries up until quite recently?




The most common view between the time of Constantine and the present was "Christians should not seek political power unless it is explicitly thrust upon them by Divine authority" - the exception is broad enough to cover the political power of the Church, Divine Right kingship and appointed authority under it, religious visionary leadership like Joan of Arc, and even Cromwell and his major-generals.


"Democracy good" is an idea that largely skips from pagan Athens (and, to a lesser extent, the Roman Republic) to the explicitly anti-clerical French Revolution without touching the intervening Christian millennia. The first country to see itself as both Christian and democratic is Jacksonian America. I don't know enough about the political thought of the medieval and early modern Christian republics (like Venice or the United Provinces) to comment, although I note that American republicanism was established by men whose Christianity was somewhat heterodox (especially Jefferson) and looked more to the Roman Republic than any of the usual Christian examples.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Moscow is 90% White




The Muslim immigrants ruining Europe are mostly white. Mohammad Atta and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were white. And a lot of the white ethnics (both immigrants and indigenous ethnic minorities) in Russia are Muslims in the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev mold. Assimilability has more to do with cultural Christianity than it does with skin colour.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Has that ever happened? I don't know, and I would be interested in what the response was.


[It is worth noting that the reason why diplomatic immunity is so broad is to present this type of thing being arranged as a plausibly deniable way to murder negotiators]


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At the time of the incident, presumably because the US military did not want to draw more attention than necessary to Gen Wesley Clark's poor decision-making. Later on because it would have looked like a partisan move to embarrass a Democratic politician, to the point where the British would probably have asked Blunt/Jackson to decline the award.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's possible that if you'd been properly taught Jonah and other Bible stories as a kid you would have more respect and understanding for them, and maybe less hostility towards God.




To someone who grew up with western secular morality, properly explaining the lesson "God grants and denies mercy capriciously and we should not question his decisions" makes God less sympathetic, not more. The kiddie moral of "Johan was punished for his disobedience but forgiven in the end" is  much more palatable to even Victorian sensibilities, let alone today's.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Goldilocks was extremely popular with small boys of my generation as soon as they were old enough to read - you didn't need to set it as a course book for illustrated copies to fly off the library shelves. I don't think this was motivated by misogyny because Tailypo was equally popular with boys who came across it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My understanding (see for example this old article) is that Texas has a public comment process that allows random unhinged people to have a disproportionate input into curriculum design.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Which is a very odd case because Sacoolas' husband was not a diplomat, so whether she enjoyed diplomatic-like immunity depended on the terms of a secret agreement between the US and the UK. She claimed immunity (with the support of the US authorities) in the immediate aftermath of the crash to get out of the UK, but the later legal proceedings were conducted on the basis that she didn't have immunity, but that the US were refusing to extradite her on public policy grounds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I believe he still counts as libertarian and most of the old libertarians have gone down the road to fascism to save liberty.




The Murray Rothbard/Hans-Herman Hoppe wing of US libertarianism was always fascist-adjacent, in the sense that they approved of white supremacy and disapproved of democracy. I don't think they went down any roads, I think they just found a receptive audience (beyond the old generation of Jim Crow dead-enders that were dying off on them) that didn't previously exist. Thiel isn't a fascist, but he came out against democracy in 2009, which is well before the Current Thing. The Cato/GMU wing of libertarianism is mostly NeverTrump.


So I don't think very many libertarians have changed their views on "fascists" - I just think the ones who were always open to collaboration with "fascists" have found a lot more "fascists" to collaborate with.


(Sneer quotes because the arguments about whether US-style white nationalism and opposition to democracy should properly be called fascism is irrelevant to the points been made here - we know what the thing Rothbard and Hoppe wanted to align with is and "fascism" is what a lot of people including @Opt-out call it)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Gueorgui Makharadze




The Georgian government waived Makharadze's immunity - which is within the rules. (The immunity belongs to the sending state, not the diplomat). But the US would not have had jurisdiction without Georgia's permission.


My understanding of first-world diplomatic culture is that most first-world countries would waive immunity if a diplomat committed a serious crime unrelated to their official duties. But it is also the case that no first world country would appoint the kind of person who commits serious crimes as a diplomat, so real-world cases are vanishingly rare. It is also worth noting that the US has a double standard on this specific point, and does not waive immunity when its diplomats commit vehicular manslaughter in foreign countries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Its not like a diplomat (or their child) can commit a homicide and the US will just ignore it and not prosecute.




The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says that the host country can't prosecute an accredited foreign diplomat, an accredited member of the administrative and technical staff of a foreign embassy (except an host-country resident employed locally) or the accredited family members of those groups - and this absolutely applies to crimes committed outside the embassy.


This immunity can be waived by the sending state, and most host countries would seek such a waiver if a foreign diplomat committed murder, but they probably wouldn't get it. The most cases are probably Yvonne Fletcher (a British cop shot out of the window of the Libyan embassy in London, causing us to suspend diplomatic relations and kick the Libyan diplomats out, but no attempt to arrest the shooter) and Jamal Kashoggi (a Saudi citizen and US green card holder butchered in the Saudi embassy in Ankara, leading to no official response).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But wouldn't dry technical cases be more likely to be procrastinated than hot-button cases?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's controversial because states get to make their own election rules with a very limited set of exceptions (in the case of Presidential elections, only the ones explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, including the date of polling day). So the question isn't "As a matter of policy, should late-arriving postal votes be counted?" It is "Does the Constitution (plus the regular law setting polling day for the Tuesday after Nov 1st) prohibit counting late-arriving postal votes?"


The policy case for counting late-arriving postal votes is that it prevents postal delays (which could be generated maliciously by USPS management or by the postal union) from affecting the result of an election. The policy case against is as you put it, but is weaker in the US context because the overnight count in American elections is explicitly preliminary - the time to formally certify elections is normally 2-3 weeks and the lame duck period is about 2 months in the case of further delays.


(Compare the UK case, where the overnight count, or next-day count if there are multiple local races, is official and there is no lame duck period - we couldn't count late-arriving postal votes without delaying the formation of the incoming government).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One candidate explanation I considered for the delay of Barbara is that the straw poll was 7-2 or 8-1 and the majority are trying to find some concession to make to Thomas/Alito to achieve a unanimous verdict.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah - I'm not a constitutional historian, but I think laws restricting the President's removal power were commonplace and generally accepted as constitutional (with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883 being the most important), and Humphrey's Executor happens when it does because FDR is the first President (since Johnson?) to violate one and double down when called out on it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does SCOTUS normally "save the best till last"? We have seen a flurry of opinions at the end of the term, and they appear to be in roughly increasing order of importance, with no sign of the 3-4 biggest cases, which I think are:


    

  • Barbara (Birthright Citizenship)
    • 

  • Slaughter (Will SCOTUS overturn Humphrey's Executor and ban Congress from creating executive-branch offices with just-cause removal protection)
    • 

  • Cook (In effect, can the President manufacture just cause to remove a Fed governor by indicting them for a serious crime they may or may not have committed)
    • 

  • Watson v RNC (Can states count postal votes postmarked before polling day but received after it)
    • 



The first three are all "Is this even the same Constitution?" level cases, and noisy idiots on both sides think that Watson is a "Do we still have a functioning democracy?" question, although in my view it is an unimportant technicality of election law. I would say the only cases of this importance which have been decided are Learning Resources (the tariffs) and Callais (race-based redistricting), both of which had strong practical reasons for the majority pushing a decision as fast as possible. Cook and Slaughter weren't even argued late in the term.


So the question I am asking is whether the justices are holding the biggest cases to drop together on the last day of the term out of some daft sense of drama (or more nefariously, to minimise the amount of public and press attention they get compared to dropping them separately), or is there some hitch delaying getting the opinions written. I can definitely imagine the cases being delayed because the justices are writing increasingly angry concurrences and dissents at each other, but it is also within the realms of possibility that there is still substantial haggling about getting to 5 votes. Barbara and Slaughter are both cases where a plurality opinion would embarrass the Court as well as being a practical headache.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think @quiet_NaN is saying that widespread gun ownership or widespread concealed carry of handguns is incompatible with a modern society - he is saying that the text of the 2nd amendment doesn't distinguish between "citizen grade weapons" like AR15s and "military grade weapons" like F35s, VX gas grenades, and nukes, and therefore taking it literally and seriously would allow nuclear-armed Branch Davidians and suchlike, and that that is not compatible with a modern society. I agree - I think that a government that is actually meaningfully restricted in its actions by fear of small groups of armed citizens is a failed state, and would perform like one.


See for example this subthread where pro-2nd amendment Motteposters argued that it protected a private right to own siege artillery and warships at the time of the founding.


At some point there is going to be litigation over whether the 2nd amendment permits private ownership of killer drones. The legal arguments will be about as edifying as the litigation over full-auto and scary-looking semi-auto rifles, but the results will matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Identify as bisexual. Then you can come out of hiding and any SJW/woke who attacks you is engaged in biphobia. You don't need to actually sleep with someone of your own sex to be bisexual nowadays.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In general you are correct, but in this specific case I remember the moral panic around historical connections to slavery around the time the Edward Colston statue was pulled down in Bristol, and nobody except the aforementioned right-wing trolls connected it to the moral panic about the return of African artifacts (including the Benin Bronzes) going on at roughly the same time.


My theory of Peak Woke is that the pro-establishment left eventually realised that being tarred and feathered by the anti-establishment right was a lot scarier than being called racist on social media by the anti-establishment left.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Nikke featured an artwork where the placement of a female's hand somewhat resembled the small penis gesture




My understanding is that this relates to a Korea-specific moral panic over penis length, rather than being applicable to gender politics more generally. The other key difference with Korea is that the sex (not gender) wars being actively fought on both sides is comfortably inside the Overton window.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There's people and people. In the UK, the pressure to repatriate the bronzes and the buzz around them came from the progressive crowd who I think were pretty surprised to learn the historical context (I personally didn't know until maybe 2021?) and the pressure to export seems to have dropped considerably. You're right it's not the same, and maybe I was muddying the waters, but I don't know that many torture porn cases so I was feeling out the area.




The pressure to return artifacts has declined because of Peak Woke, not because of the specific connection of the Benin Bronzes to slavery. The claim that the Bronzes belong in the British Museum as lawful trophies of a just war against slavery is mostly advanced as a piece of right-wing trolling, although I believe it unironically.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That falls into my second category of "teenagers who are above the age of consent but where the age gap is large enough to give curtain-twitchers the ick" - I agree with you that a lot of scolds will at least hint at it, and some will actually call you a "paedophile" straight up. But the British tabloids are careful not to throw around the "paedophile" word when the girl was 17 because it would be legally defamatory. If the girl was 15 essentially everyone would be calling you a paedophile, and would be happy to defend the allegation as straightforwardly true in front of a judge.