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 -
Two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead late yesterday night as they were walking just outside the Capitol Jewish Museum. The Capitol Police have identified the suspect as one Elias Rodriguez of Chicago. Reportedly, Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine” as he executed the couple, who were engaged to be married.
I have been meaning to write a “Civil War vibe-check” top-level post. My intuition was that the danger of such a nightmare scenario was receding, having peaked twice, with the mass-shooting at the Congressional baseball team practice game, and the George Floyd Riot/January Sixth Riot forming a stockbroker’s double blow-off top before a consistent decline in risk.
Recently multiple events have made me question this. The Zizian cult killings, the suicide bombing in Palm Springs over the weekend, and now this, make me feel like something is perhaps coming. Maybe not a full Syrian Civil War, but at least another Days of Rage similar to the period in the 1970s after the great wave broke and began to recede. I would appreciate hearing anyone’s thoughts.
Israel bombed an embassy a few months ago and has a long history of fighting dirty. They shouldn't be surprised that they get the same treatment back. The expectation can't be that they can finance terrorism, assassinate people, and bomb embassies and then not get the same back.
I will go out on a limb and say that I do not consider the Israeli airstrike against an Iranian general in Damascus all that bad.
Attacking an embassy is both an act of war against the host country and the country running the embassy.
Killing a general, his staff, and civilian Iranian embassy employees alongside two Syrian civilians (a mother and her child) is not great, but it is pretty tame both in the context of the Syrian civil war and compared to what Israel considers acceptable civilian casualties when taking out Hamas leaders in Gaza.
There is also a point to be made that this probably was a causal factor in the collapse of the Assad regime which happened in the same year, ending (hopefully) a decades long civil war.
Now, if you show me that the two Israelis which were killed were instrumental in the Israeli military efforts, perhaps tasked with sourcing US weapons, and the attacker picked them for that reason, then I will grudgingly grant you that they would have been acceptable targets from Iran's point of view.
But based on what I heard, some dude just shot two random embassy employees because he was unhappy with Israel.
Well agreed that compared to Israels other bombings in this war, this event is not so bad. The problems is that Israeli propagandist in the west always try to make every attack on them some major moral and civilizational issue. So playing by their own rules its relevant that Israel has no problem at all attacking an embassy and killing staff there.
There doesnt need seem to be more proof of this claim:
Than this one:
It seems like a case of isolated demand of rigor.
Okay, I will go first. WP:
Are you arguing that the main target was actually just a foot soldier, or a civilian, or that Hezbollah had not been used to prop up the Assad regime?
Given that eight times more people were killed in the Israeli airstrike than in the shooting, you don't even have to find a source claiming that one of the people shot was the main military liaison between the US and Israel. If the victims were in charge of procuring small arms from the US and the shooter had picked them for that reason, I would concede that this was purposeful violence.
(All of this is discounting that there is an obvious difference between the military leadership in autocratic countries and stable democracies. In autocratic countries, a powerful general is a coup risk, so you want someone with a close personal relationship to the leader, think Crusader Kings. In a stable democracy at peace, there is a functionally unlimited supply of loyal and competent military leaders. If Iran managed to blow up the top ten military leaders of the US, this would not hamper the effectiveness of the US military very much.)
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