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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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The big story in North Carolina this morning is that power went out across Moore County last night and it appears it was due to intentional vandalism at several substations.

https://www.wral.com/sheriff-intentional-vandalism-at-substations-causes-power-outage-affecting-nearly-39k-moore-county-residents/20612201/

Speculation on the North Carolina subreddit is that it was motivated by outrage about a drag show scheduled to be performed in Southern Pines last night.

https://www.wral.com/drag-show-in-southern-pines-ramps-up-security-after-backlash/20596538/

So yes, nothing is known for sure as of this morning, but let's say they're right, that someone was so focused on making sure the drag show did not happen that they engaged in this intentional vandalism. It's really just an extreme form of no-platforming, isn't it? The same crap college students have been doing for years? The idea is that the featured content or entertainment is so harmful or damaging that it can't be allowed to exist and the community must be protected from it by any means necessary. In both cases I think it's idiotic. If you don't like it, no one's forcing you to go, but just let people do their thing. It's just as wrong to deplatform a drag show as it is to deplatform someone like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson.

I don't think it was the drag show. If it was, then it could just as easily be a false flag.

I think it will be found to be the same kind of idiots who are throwing soup at paintings and gluing themselves to conductor's rostrums. But it is very convenient timing for people who want to make out that there is a huge trans genocide coming down the line, and that anyone who objects to bringing kids to a drag show (which is just like dressing up for Hallowe'en or going to the circus) is also against inter-racial marriage and are homophobes and probably Nazis and fascists.

A conservative activist in the area posted some hot takes on her socials and now claims she was questioned by the authorities regarding the blackouts.

Whoever it turns out to be in the end, this investigation is putting her name in the paper of record for the area, which we know from Operation Hurricane (the FBI’s Trump/Russia investigation) is sufficient to get a domestic spying warrant on her and her personal contacts. We are seeing “sources and methods” in realtime in addition to the smear.

Having read the linked article, it was nobody's fault but her own.

Power stations are closed down by vandalism, Little Ms. Hot Take starts bragging on social media about "“The power is out in Moore County and I know why" in several posts, what did she expect to happen?

Probably exactly what did happen, which she can now use as evidence that she is being persecuted for doing the work of the Lord. This was intended to provoke a reaction and it did. She should be charged with wasting the time of the police:

The Moore County Sheriff's Office just checked in. I welcomed them to my home.

Sorry they wasted their time. I told them that God works in mysterious ways and is responsible for the outage. I used the opportunity to tell them about the immoral drag show and the blasphemies screamed by its supporters.

God is chastising Moore County. I thanked them for coming and wished them a good night. Thankful for the LEOs service, as always

So if "her name is out there to get a domestic spying warrant on her and her personal contacts", well I honestly don't think she's big enough fish for that but (1) she did it to herself and (2) good, she deserves to have her time wasted the same way she wasted the time of the police.

If she wants to preach a sermon, let her find a street corner. I think these "drag shows for kid audiences" are rubbish, and even harmful rubbish, but I don't think "let me pretend I'm involved in criminal activity so I can thump the Bible at cops who have to respond to every crackpot claiming they have inside knowledge" is the way to combat them.

I don't see any reference in there to inside knowledge at all. She blamed it on divine wrath.

Preachers have blamed hurricanes on divine wrath towards gays. Do you think those preachers were claiming to have inside knowledge on hurricanes?

She hinted on social media that she had information about who did it and why. She could have said "it was the wrath of God" online, but she didn't, for whatever reason - probably hoped the local newspaper, radio or TV station would send someone over to interview her and then she could have her sermon on the tea-time news.

Instead, the sheriff's office showed up, as you'd expect them to do, checking out every looper and fake confession claiming they had inside info. Because suppose this bint did know something, they'd be pilloried for ignoring her.

So she gets to waste time of the cops and do her sermonising, in order to feel good about herself like she was doing something.

If she had any guts, she'd have been standing outside the drag show preaching, but this is the flip side of the kind of activism which throws soup at paintings.

I think if Reverend Jimbob at the local IFB church had declared that he knew the real reason for 9/11 or the Dylan Roof shooting or the Boston Marathon bombing without elaboration he would have been questioned by police, and that even if he clarified fully that he meant it was because God sent a calamity to punish the Boston Marathon because of the immodesty of running shorts or whatever, it would still be his fault he got questioned by police for saying that out loud and ambiguously.