This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
From my moderator note the last time I posted here, on the subject of the convict Donald Trump.
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.
Furthermore,
No. Not only no, hell no. Not only no, a thousand times no.
Dictators are never good. Open calls for authoritarians are a sign of deeply misplaced idiocy and ignorance.
Our Founding Fathers did not create a bulwark against sheer hellish authoritarianism, they did not rebel against a king just so some shitbrained internet commentators who got hurt by a blue haired person once could lust after the inherently violent nature of a dictatorship.
I reject utterly this uncivilized madness.
All dictatorships are dysfunctional. Anyone who says otherwise is making a partisan and inflammatory claim.
The entire point of rejecting the authoritarian left is to avoid the hell that is a dictator in charge.
I think for example Pinochet was probably net good for Chile. Salazar may have been a net good for Portugal.
More to the point, the administrative state already exercises near dictatorial powers. Look at what they’ve done to Latin Mass Catholics. Look at what they’ve done with locking up some of their opponents while not locking up their own for the same transgression. Look at what they did to parents at school board meetings?
They’ve put some on a watch list. Have they done anything else?
No, they haven't even run a surveillance program.
I was shown the internal report from the SSPX. It broadly agrees with the FBI's story- there was a crazy person at a traditional Parish trying to recruit parishioners into a terror attack, the pastor reported him, and the FBI tried to recruit the latin mass community into running sting operations to catch domestic terrorists. "No, we want nothing to do with that" got escalated up to some senior leaderships and a few FBI agents showed up to recruit CI's, stood around awkwardly, and then either went native or left.
This program was stupid, but it was never directed against Latin mass Catholics- it was intended to convince us to use our streetcred with the actual literal far right to infiltrate white supremacist groups for the FBI. When we declined to do so and couldn't be convinced, the FBI gave up.
Interesting! And rather reassuring!
Is there anything published where I can read more about this?
Not in view of the public, although the report from the FBI that was broadly interpreted as an ass-covering exculpatory lying is more-or-less in agreement with what traditional Catholic leadership themselves thought was going on. I mean it cites things like the SPLC but the factual description of the program in the leaked internal memo was "we intend to recruit tradCath CI's who can infiltrate white supremacist groups using their existing street cred with the far right". This didn't happen and was always a dumb idea. But there don't seem to have been any pressure tactics other than requests from regional headquarters, which did the common sense thing and wanted nothing to do with such a program.
This was a convenient rhetorical cudgel for Josh Hawley, but an actual threat to the community- no, not really. TradCaths are too connected to conservatives with actual power to have their first amendment rights blown out of the water- freaking scientology gets theirs respected, and an eccentric sect of the largest religion in the country with two members on the supreme court is somewhat more protected.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That is enough. The whole point of putting someone on a watch list is designed to discourage the relevant group. There is zero reason to put LMC on a watchlist. It is evil.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link