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 -
This past Sunday in Chicago, a 32 year old man killed three people. What made this much more notable than the typical Chicago weekend killings:
The man was caught on video (extreme violence warning) executing his victims in cold blood at close quarters.
The victims didn't seem to be gangbangers, but rather family and friends of a 25 year old girl celebrating her birthday at a nearby bar where the dispute took place. One unscientific hint: the moment gunshots rang out, the victims' instinct wasn't to run or hide, but to attend to the earlier victims, gesture disbelief, and generally show no survival instincts.
The suspect was recently paroled after just 4 years in prison from a 2009 double murder in a home invasion. My quick search seemed to suggest that the 2009 case had some issues, either because he wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, or there was insufficient evidence to prove that he did. So he was allowed to plead down to home invasion and was sentenced for just 8 years.
The judge who sentenced the suspect for the 2009 case himself resigned in 2020 over allegations of sexual harassment. The linked article contains bonus culture war fodder, like how the ex-judge claimed that his "[unwanted] gestures of physical affection" were "part of his Colombian heritage".
IL's SAFE-T Act goes into effect Jan 1, 2023, and among other provisions, eliminates cash bail.
I'm curious how much national attention this will receive. My guess is not much. Chicago has had 660+ murders so far in 2022, or 13+ per week, so one man killing three isn't by itself remarkable. The aggravating factors above should light a match, but that they also go against the narrative will probably douse it instead. And now that we're just done with the 2022 midterms, there is no immediate political urgency to act.
My main point though is that I think society will trend toward more law-and-order as video surveillance becomes ever more ubiquitous. If this video didn't exist, no one outside of the victims' families will think twice about it. But because it does, it will surface and resurface across social media until the end of time, and no amount of narrative from academics and pundits will compete with the visceral viewer reaction that some people are simply evil and need to be locked up for life or executed. Perhaps one day we'll all be effectively wearing body cams if/when AR glasses become mainstream. I believe that future will spell a permanent end to the political expediency of criminal justice reform, at least in the way that opponents label it as being weak on crime.
I think it says something incredibly dire about our civilization that we stopped publicly executing people such as this guy. I truly believe that the vast majority of people who watch this video and learn about this man’s history experience a powerful atavistic desire to see him humiliated and then hung from a tree in a public square. This is the healthy, normal human impulse that drove approaches to criminal justice in, as far as I’m aware, nearly every human society in history until practically yesterday. Maybe this is just me projecting - I’ve been the victim of a crime and very nearly the victim of several more, so my desire to see these people violently dispatched is overwhelming - but it seems to me that the level of cognitive dissonance that most people feel living in soft-hearted Western countries who treat irredeemable human detritus with kid gloves will necessary boil over in the near future, producing a law-and-order backlash like we haven’t seen in centuries.
Irredeemable human detritus are progressive clients and they serve Regime ends.
They drive sane, productive people with families out of cities allowing the cities to be used as vote banks in statewide and federal elections
They satiate the bloodlust of progressives who at the minimum fantasize about using them against their enemies - "don't drop the soap" (said to a guy going to jail for tweeting)
They're so destructive and incapable of living in the modern world that they require a whole host of jobs to do basic tasks for them - jobs filled by progressive clients
"Helping" people in the culture that they come from is seen as a noble good because of how bad the worst of them are and this justifies the utter insanity of the progressive urban money machine - "we need more money for dem programs"
On an even more abstract level the discomfort caused by contemplating this drives a bunch of charity due to cognitive dissonance - charity motivated by the silent idea of solving the "root causes" - "why do they act like that?!?"
Must deal with the root causes for it to work - progressives who created this situation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link