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RoyGBivensAction

Zensunni Scientologist

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RoyGBivensAction


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Zensunni Scientologist

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There's one false flag that I think you haven't ruled out, though, and that's the possibility that this was yet another FBI sting gone wrong. The FBI would have recruited Song under false pretenses, provided him with the guns and some plans, and planned to arrest the bunch at some point, but the group jumped the gun and actually did it. That's probably not what happened here, but it does fit their M.O.




I do always enjoy being reminded of the FBI's involvement in the shooting at the "draw muhammad" contest in Texas.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It could be, but it would be an unusual setup and it's not similar to any real case I've personally seen. One inmate talking to multiple women, where (some of) those women realize he's talking to (and scamming) multiple women but continuing to engage (and send money and run errands and help him further his criminal schemes) with him? Yep, seen those cases. One woman engaging with multiple inmates and sending them all money? Sounds odd.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I literally do not know anyone who has been to jail. Or if they have, they've never told me about it.




I know lawyers who have been to jail (and I don't mean they were visiting clients). They did not go around broadcasting it. You might be surprised who has gotten to spend a night or weekend in jail without you ever knowing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Probably seen friends, family and coworkers spend a weekend in jail on some trumped up charges. I had a coworker arrested because his ex said he broke into her place. On a night he was on security cameras working late in the office.




Yep. I'm obviously biased because I work in the system, but court is open to the public. Anyone can go hang out in misdemeanor court sometime and watch the DV cases flow through. They can watch some misdemeanor DV trials (where the defendant often does not get a jury trial, only a bench trial) where a conviction can result in all kinds of direct and collateral consequences and see what they think of the accusations and evidence. Also, they'd need to keep in mind that the trial might be many months down the road after an allegation was made, a temporary restraining order was granted on little-to-no evidence, and the man could already have been forced out of his house and kept away from his kids the whole time.


Watching in family court can also be instructive to see how many divorces have an opening salvo of vague claims of abuse and getting a temporary restraining order. 100%? Not even close, but it doesn't take long watching family court or talking to attorneys who handle divorces to Notice there's a trend there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, had his conviction overturned by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals:




Mackey was convicted of conspiring to injure citizens in the exercise of their right to vote
in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241 based on three memes he posted or reposted on
Twitter shortly before the 2016 presidential election. These memes falsely
suggested that supporters of then-candidate Hillary Clinton could vote by text
message. On appeal, Mackey argues, inter alia, that the evidence was insufficient
to prove that he knowingly agreed to join the charged conspiracy. We agree.




The opinion is focused on the evidence presented by the prosecution and avoids the first amendment claim advanced by Volokh among others at the trial court and appellate level in his amicus briefs. I also recall seeing some arguments that the trial court improperly combined some statutes in its jury instructions, but I'm not finding any briefs on that issue at the moment.


I understand the concept of avoiding constitutional issues whenever possible, but I do wish the 2nd Circuit had addressed the first amendment concerns. I agree with Volokh that the statute here is overbroad and vague, and it needs to be limited somehow (ideally by Congressional amendment, but good luck with that). This reversal is obviously a win for Mackey, but since it's focused on the evidence presented at trial, it's of limited use for anyone else in the future who might get charged criminal for memeing too well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The only thing beards correlate with nowadays is being ugly. Sorry, there is almost nobody who looks better with facial hair than without.




A bold claim. I'm hardly Henry Cavill, but I have a strong jawline, and my experience in being both clean-shaven and having a beard is that women who are strongly or mildly into beards on men far outnumber women who are mildly or strongly against them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Started the Annihilation Score which only supports the conclusion so far. Maybe it will get better, but starting it I found it a bit hard to sympathize with Mo so far. We'll see how it goes.




Annihilation Score was the last one I read. I was not terribly impressed with it, and since I didn't think Rhesus Chart was all that great, either, I saw no reason to keep going.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A shifting part of the culture war: beards and long hair.


Once upon a time, having a beard or long hair meant Something, and usually meant being a leftist/liberal. Even by the early 2000s when I was in college, facial hair was still coded as an academic/liberal kind of thing. Outside the university, anyone who had either was definitely left-of-center.


Now, though, if I meet a guy with a beard or long hair, those features tell me very little if not nothing about his political positions. Radical anarchists, normie libs, Joe Rogan listeners, fervent MAGA types, and just about every other political type could have a beard or long hair (the major exception being devout Mormons). Clothing, tattoos, general level of fitness, and other features are much better indicators now than facial/long hair. The mustache/goatee combo might be slightly right-coded because it’s popular with certain types of boomers and early Xers, but even that’s a weak indicator.


I suspect the change was in full swing by 2010 since Duck Dynasty started airing in 2012. All of the major male characters have long, shaggy beards, and most have long hair as well. This article from 2015 notes the upsurge of beards among the right. That means we’re at least 10 years into the change.


As big as the change has been among regular people, though, perhaps the even bigger change is politicians. I don’t remember any major politicians having facial hair prior to 2018ish. I remember Al Gore growing a beard, but that was only after he was VP.


JD Vance has a beard, and is the first Pres or VP to have facial hair since VP Charles Curtis (Hoover’s VP), who had a mustache. Vance had a beard when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2022, Ted Cruz has grown a beard since being a senator (but was clean-shaven when he initially ran for senate), and Ruben Gallego (D) of Arizona ran for U.S. Senate in 2024 with a beard.


Article about Vance’s beard

I think this comment probably sums it up:




“There’s not a single millennial out there who would find the question of whether a politician has facial hair to be relevant,” said Republican consultant Brad Todd. Is the stigma against beards subsiding? “I think it’s completely gone,” he said, “due in large part to the Silent Generation moving out of politics.”




With the WW2 veteran generation gone and the Silents almost gone from politics, their aversion to facial hair appears to have gone with them.


This article on politicians and beards has this interesting comment considering the former association of beards with leftism:




”The right has been leading in the beard movement recently, and I think the left has been trying to play catch-up,” [Professor Oldstone-Moore] added.




Obligatory link to “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. (Isolated bassist camera for those who want to see Entwistle's master class in playing)




The parting on the left

Is now parting on the right

And the beards have all grown longer overnight




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sorry, I should've been clearer. My point about JWs was that they are now falling under state scrutiny even though they are small fish compared to Catholics. If the eye of the state can fall upon them to the point they are being used as a partial example for new legislation, then the same could easily happen to the Amish.




Are sexual offenders going to testify that they confessed their sins and then the priest didn't provide testimony to the state?




Based on lawsuits I've seen in other states, I think this is the route that victims' rights advocates have in mind:


    

  1. Abuse occurs and abuser confesses it to his pastor
    2. 

  2. Pastor does not report
    3. 

  3. Victim makes allegations, abuser is prosecuted, and during the investigation the state learns that the pastor knew (in a few cases I've read, the abuser specifically tells other people or law enforcement that he told his pastor first)
    4. 

  4. Victim sues church for millions of dollars
    5. 



Currently, #4 is being blocked due to pastors not being mandatory reporters. By removing the clergy-penitent privilege and making pastors into mandatory reporters, then it would open churches to liability if they fail to report.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've never thought about it that way. Do you have other examples that come to mind?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I would not be surprised if, within the next ~40 years, there was a push to bring the Amish to heel, most likely with "child (sexual) abuse" as the casus belli.




I'd say odds are high, and I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't happened yet. Look at the flurry of stories from the past few years involving Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a relatively small sect (but larger than the Amish). Washington's recent law removing clergy-penitent privilege specifically referenced them along with Catholics as the reason for needing to remove the privilege.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The minor character of the Green Man was included in the Book of the New Sun just for you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


He also seems to really distrust and maybe dislike white women. Which is going to make having white babies very hard.
I hope he found happiness with a good Mexican or Asian woman, since he doesn't much seem to like white ones.




Reading that article and a few others of his, the story isn't that hard to put together. He's a manipulative and hyper-verbal BS artist (he's a guy with 2 email jobs and calls himself a pirate, c'mon), and his style works very well for seducing leftist women who have poor defenses to that approach. He moved to the midwest, and his approach was less successful. However, at one point he tried to run his game on a disagreeable, intelligent conservative woman (whom he describes as a "Dagny Taggart" type), and she saw through him and hurt him in a way that still smarts a decade later. He asserts it's because he showed weakness and wasn't "batman" 24/7, but far more likely is that she realized he was unable to live up to his BS claims and was disagreeable enough to hold his feet to the fire.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm a mischling, which "soft WN" is full of.(BAP, Yarvin, etc.)




There is something endlessly entertaining about many of the thought leaders of the "soft WN"/dissident right/very online right having Jewish heritage (BAP, Yarvin, L0m3z, Peachy Keenan, and others I'm forgetting, I'm sure).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I guess I might be more willing to believe Adelstein was serious if I saw him walking around everywhere with a broom and facemask--and if he does, he's still wrong, but at least he's not performatively wrong.




When I saw the article, the thought occurred to me that it was an awful lot of work to re-invent Jainism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This view of suffering, as some sort of negative imposed on life, is bizarre to me.




It almost seems gnostic: we've been trapped by a terrible demiurge into a prison world of suffering. If only we can deprive ourselves of enough material items (now including honey) in this prison world, we'll finally be able to reach the perfect spiritual realm.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Replace the default bored or stressed activity of scrolling with ... reading an easy fiction/pop sci book.




At times I have great success with this approach, but then I run out of easy fiction books I want to read. When I recently read Ellroy's LA Quartet and then the American Tabloid trilogy, I basically did zero scrolling because I was reading them at every opportunity (including between sets while lifting). But then I finished them and went back to bad habits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No garage, daily driver, extensive "pin-striping" from off-road driving, and it gets washed when it rains.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't know how many people noticed given that the anti-establishment right didn't have a megaphone at the time.




The American Conservative is the big one that I remember, and their opposition to the Iraq War is how I remember finding them. But they were certainly a tiny percentage of the right. There was also libertarian opposition at Reason and Raimondo's antiwar dot com, but again pretty small audiences in the grand scheme of things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Money is the main reason I always tell people it's not worth it. If the GI Bill fully covers it, then that's not a problem.


Have you done any legal work? Did you enjoy it? The vast majority of legal work is terrible, and you're working with and/or against terrible people (other lawyers). If you haven't interned at a firm or government agency specifically doing legal things to see if you like it, then I advise doing that first.


Pay is often mediocre. There is a strong bimodal pay distribution. Unless you go BigLaw, there are probably many ways a vet can make more money working in defense contracting or consulting or something as opposed to legal work.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does the urge to engage in poor coping strategies ever go away?


I'm in my 40s. When hitting a certain level of stress/burnout, I used to engage in a very particular unhealthy behavior. Thanks to some combination of aging, better choices, and limiting my ability to engage in those behaviors, it's been years since I did them. But every time I hit that level of stress, my first instinct is still, "fuck this, I'm going to go do X." Obviously, not doing X is good, but it would be nice for that impulse to go away.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is exactly it. They often mean "guy who looks like he can deadlift and bench a VW Beetle, but has some softness around the midsection (so he's probably not insane about tracking his diet, but also so him having too-defined abs doesn't make me feel insecure about my own body)."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As always, relevant TLP: No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up




Let me offer a contrary position, unpalatable but worth considering: the only appropriate time to wear make up is to look attractive to men.   Or women, depending on which genitals you want to lick, hopefully it's both.  "Ugh, women are not objects."  Then why are you painting them?  I'm not saying you have to look good for men, I'm saying that if wearing makeup not for men makes you feel better about yourself, you don't have a strong self, and no, yelling won't change this.  Everyone knows you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, now you're saying the cover of the book influences how the book feels about itself?




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I haven't read his paper, but given the novelty of the argument, if it were well-written and had appropriate citations, I can see why a professor might give it an award. After reading 1000 papers of "um ackshually the constitution is like, really racist and bad," something that far from left (or right) field would be an interesting change that might get a professor's attention (especially one willing to get contentious).


I also appreciate that the NYT is following their classic framing: white people using speech to say something unpopular is violence towards minorities and it's necessary to devote many paragraphs to exploring how terrified the minorities are by that speech (and you shouldn't remember how many times the NYT has claimed that actual violent rioting by minorities is the "language of the oppressed").


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree, but I wasn't necessarily referring to politics. I meant things like: should the person get a new vaccine, should they try a new medication, should they follow the vaccination schedule for their children, should they send their children to public schools, is this food item being sold at the store safe, etc. The FDA says red dye #whatever is safe to consume and won't make your kids adhd lunatics. Can that be trusted? Every little question related to food or medicine now is up for grabs, and people are unsurprisingly going in all kinds of directions.