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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

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GWB, is that you?

So Muslim Arabs are terrorists, disrupt international shipping with rockets, and vote Democrat?

9/11 was masterminded by a rogue Saudi. The vast majority of Arab Muslims do not make it their life's work to blow up anyone. Of those that do, most will join regional projects like Daesh and murder their local neighbors (who are often also Muslim), not far-away Americans.

There are causal arrows in either direction for "the US supports Israel" and "Muslim Arabs tend to hate the US". Sure, in an alternate world where Israel had been founded in the Mojave instead, Muslims would still not be thrilled about the US support for various repressive regimes starting with the Shah, but I think 90% of the butthurt is about Israel (which is seen as a US colony).

Hamas needs to be wiped of the Earth in the same way that the NSDAP was. However, the Allies got rid of the Nazis (at least as a relevant political force, many adjusted well to the post-war environment) without genociding Germany. Starving Gazan kids in the hope that sooner or later Hamas will also starve seems a terrible way to accomplish that goal.

I think that apart from minor dogmatic differences, American Muslims and Evangelicals have a lot in common. The idea that sex should only happen between husband and wife, with implications for birth control, LGBT rights, abortion. I would expect that Islam would have a generally similar attitude towards germ-line gene edits in humans, embryo selection, MAID. Neither seem to care a lot about key concerns of secular Westerners such as animal welfare, climate change or AI x-risk.