site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   35094 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Reasoning backward and forward: Birthright citizenship and the horseshoe

Appellate litigator (and former Scalia clerk) Adam Unikowsky explains why expansive jus soli birthright citizenship is the "correct" interpretation of the constitution... and also the plausibility/challenge of reasoning backwards to expanding exceptions:

Well, I am happy to entertain living-constitution arguments. Some of my best friends are living-constitutionalists! But I wouldn’t choose this case to get behind living-constitutionalism. Imagine telling someone: “You were born here. You went to school here. You’ve never been to China. You don’t know anyone in China. You don’t speak Chinese. The Fourteenth Amendment’s text says that you’re a U.S. citizen. The Supreme Court held in 1898 that you’re a U.S. citizen. But too bad, you’re being deported to China because the Constitution has undergone an epigenetic shift, like the Moirans in Seveneves.” I just don’t think it’s a very attractive argument.

...

Most judges profess to use the balls-and-strikes approach. One notable exception was Richard Posner, who described his method of judging this way:

My approach in judging a case is therefore not to worry initially about doctrine, precedent, and the other conventional materials of legal analysis, but instead to try to figure out the sensible solution to the problem or problems presented by the case. Once having found what I think is the sensible solution I ask whether it’s blocked by an authoritative precedent of the Supreme Court or by some other ukase that judges must obey. If it’s not blocked (usually it’s not—usually it can be got around by hook or by crook), I say fine—let’s go with the commonsense solution.

Few judges are as open about reasoning backward as Judge Posner. But any lawyer will tell you that it sometimes happens behind the scenes.

Judge Posner applies that form of reasoning in a concurring opinion opposing birthright citizenship. He first opines that there’s too much birth tourism, and then says: “We should not be encouraging foreigners to come to the United States solely to enable them to confer U.S. citizenship on their future children. … A constitutional amendment may be required to change the rule whereby birth in this country automatically confers U.S. citizenship, but I doubt it.” In other words, he starts from the premise that birthright citizenship is bad, and then optimistically conjectures that there must be some way to get it done legally.

He concludes with a section on legal horseshoe theory. I thought it was a good post - I didn't know just how clear Wong Kim Ark was on the breadth of jus soli birthright citizenship, prior to reading this. I previously wondered if Congress could statutorily define the aliens whose children would be citizens, since a statute had extended birthright citizenship to all American Indians, but I'm now convinced it would take a constitutional amendment. (Unless five SCOTUS justices are motivated to do some pretty extreme mental gymnastics and/or be openly activist.)

Personally I find the "we've always done it this way" pretty compelling.

Set aside for a moment the question of what the 14th amendment means, who it grants citizenship to. Whatever it means, that meaning is not open to change by executive order. If the 14th amendment granted (or not) citizenship to some group of people it did so whether or not Trump ever signed his executive order. Then either:

1. The understanding of the 14th amendment that's prevailed for the last century and change is correct. In which case Trump's executive order is unconstitutional. OR

2. The meaning of the 14th amendment implied by Trump's executive order is correct. In which case there is some unknown population (probably numbering at least millions) of people who the government has been treating like citizens (voting, passports) but aren't and never have been.

The Trump EO tries to sidestep the problems in (2) by purporting to be prospective only but that's not how the constitution works!

I think it’s more of a “this was the situation before mass travel was trivial.” Its aim was people born in the USA to former slaves who had been in the USA for generations. While it mentions immigration, it mentions people naturalized as citizens, they’re not why the amendment happened. The 14th amendment was about citizenship for slaves and the children of slaves being given full citizenship.

And at the time, most immigrants were coming on boats legally. It’s wasn’t a mass of people walking across the Rio Grande in the dead of night. Mass migration of the scale seen today didn’t happen in 1870 when travel was by steamship or trains or horses. Trying to figure out what the writers of the bill mean about a situation that they absolutely never anticipated does no Justice to the law itself.

To be fair the same argument applies to the second amendment (and others). The founding fathers couldn’t have foreseen in 1791 the developments of unwieldy muskets.

couldn’t have foreseen in 1791 the developments of unwieldy muskets.

Muskets have been around since the 16th century. What are you talking about?

Presumably by "developments" he means how muskets would develop in their future, not the contemporaneous state of their development.

Though IMHO this argument doesn't apply extremely well to the Second Amendment. Some of the Founding Fathers thought it was just Common Sense that private merchants should be allowed and encouraged to own their own warships. I don't think "maybe they can have a ship with fifty cannons on it, but surely they can't have a semiautomatic rifle!" would be the devastating argument that some people imagine.

Ah, fair, I guess I misread that.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats