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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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From my moderator note the last time I posted here, on the subject of the convict Donald Trump.

I'm actually happy to see someone defending the verdict and pushing back on what's clearly a dominant opinion here (this is completely orthogonal to what I personally think of the verdict) and it's unfortunate that the only pushback is coming from someone whose responses can mostly be summarized as "Neener neener."

I have half a mind to post this on a substack because I don't think it will get a fair hearing here. Out of respect for what TheMotte once was, I'll give it a try.

There's a problem with this inability to recognize evil as evil that is endemic here.

A felony is a kind of serious crime.

It means that a person has crossed a certain line of civility. A transgression against the nature of truth.

Trump is a liar. He lied about something to such a serious degree that twelve citizens were firmly convinced that he is guilty.

If you care at all about law and order, at some point you have to stop endorsing the person who attacks law and order.


I've been the victim of an SJW hate mob. It's one of many things that made me comfortable at a place where people were willing to talk about the deficiencies and self-righteous indignation of lefties.

But you, as in you the people here, you the people reading this message, are not better than the SJWs in this specific way: you demonize rather than argue. If someone makes a short argument, that's somehow bad and unfair and against the rules.

How is that supposed to be tolerating disagreement? How is that supposed to be free speech?

Trump is a bad person. And it's time for him to go.

And if you can't accept that, fuck you.

Any forum in which I'm not free to use my speech like this isn't a free speech forum.

I'm a classic 'law and order' conservative and Trump lost me on January 6th.

We have rules in our society, and he broke them. And your grudge against SJWs, which I share, is no justification for avoiding cleaning up your own shit.


Our entire society is predicated on some amount of trust. Some amount of truthfulness. We have laws about campaign finance. We have laws about falsifying business records. We have laws which brand a person a felon if they are a threat to the public order.

TheMotte became a performative space where people were allowed to tell themselves the story that they were 'grey tribe' neutral at the same time they bitterly denied and resistance any news which made their actual side look bad.

My only side is America. My only side is the Constitution. I am against lawlessness and disorder, and though many Democrats are corrupt criminals, and many SJWs are hysteric shit-flinging busybodies, none of that matters if we can't hold Trump accountable.

  • -52

Do you have anything here? Anything at all, besides some vitriol?

A felony is a kind of serious crime.

Is it now? Suppose you're going to an airport. Your flight is canceled and the next one's not for a few hours, so you drive over to the nearest bar. You have some food, a few beers, head outside to have a smoke and realize you don't have a lighter with you, so you snag a couple of packs of matches from the bar (which still gives them out) and have a smoke before driving back to the airport and getting on your flight. What crimes have you committed? Well, DUI, but that's possibly just a misdemeanor. But also you've violated 49 USC 5124 by knowingly carrying TWO packs of matches aboard the aircraft; only one is allowed. Thats a felony carrying up to 5 years in prison. That's how serious a felony is in this day and age.

I'm a classic 'law and order' conservative and Trump lost me on January 6th.

You're not fooling anyone.