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 -
I guess we could just not have a House of Representatives for a while. If it goes on long enough Democrats might break for McCarthy so that something can get passed.
I think that's unlikely. It would basically be an invitation to be primaried in the next election. "My opponent voted to hand Republicans control of the House of Representatives" attack ads would write themselves. Maybe if we made it long enough that the government was in danger of hitting the debt ceiling or something.
They need 17 or so people, I think there are more Dems that are entrenched enough that it'd be nigh impossible to primary them, at least not without the support from the top of the party. And if it's done under the orders from the top, then they'd be pretty safe.
More options
Context Copy link
Depends on Cook PVI for the district. Reps who are trying to hold on to a R+N>0 or D+N<2 district showing their leadership by getting some sort of political benefit from electing McCarthy and that they "care about getting things done" can use that as a strong appeal.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The seemingly eternal dysfunction of the American government, as ordained by the founding fathers or so I've been told never ceases to amaze me.
Like Belgians, Americans would rather not have a government than let it run unpopular edicts.
The limits of this show in the politicization of escape valves like the courts, but in principle it's an admirable demonstration of the solidity of Liberal engineering of institutions.
That one could run the world hegemon like this and still trounce organized autocracies would be even more admirable, if Congress actually had anything to do with it.
This is something that seems like such a disconnect. People say “what, do you just want there to be no federal government?!?!”
…yes? What does the federal government DO most of the time other than take my money and spend it on shit that is meant to destroy my way of life and make it harder for me to raise my family?
This is a genuine question. What is the federal government doing for me that my state couldn’t do? I’ll give you the military, but what else?
The first and biggest boon the federal government brings us is uniform federal laws. In a republic with minimal federation interstate laws could become disparate enough to cause logistical and commercial problems. As a really nonsensical hypothetical, MN, IA, MO, AR, and LA could band together and say "it's illegal to ship goods through our state without paying an interstate transit fee", and theres no way around them on the ground without crossing into Canada. The federal government stops this nonsense from happening.
More realistically in a world without federal regulation state regs would be a giant mess and we would lose tons of efficiency to having a million little x state to y state compliance experts and all the insane bureaucracy that would come with it. It would be way less profitable to sell stuff to americans if shipping stuff had 50 different sets of rules.
I also think that having some uniformity in laws helps keep America from polarizing to an actual national divorce level. If california can make wholistic veganism mandatory and texas can outlaw saying the word vegetarian, we really might start living in our own corners and not seeing eachother as at all similar. National identity is essentially a federal IP.
Most of that nonsense happens anyway. Look into the significant complexity for direct-to-consumer interstate (ecommerce) alcohol sales. Combine the classic sales tax layered regime (which is already much more complicated post South Dakota v. Wayfair) down to municipal levels with fun state/county/municipal regulations like limiting how much of certain types of alcohol can be delivered to a given address in a calendar year (book keeping with indexing based on addresses rather than accounts and hope nothing is missed because of semantically equivalent but literally different street names). On the other end of the spectrum is the influence of things like CARB on the national vehicle market because of CAA waivers that in practice once granted by a friendly administration cannot be revoked by a later hostile one or at least have not been given the ability for lawsuits to hold up the revocation until the hostile one is replaced (8 years at the longest) by a friendly one. In practice California in particular has leveraged its population and economy to influence or de facto regulate national commerce and the 9th circuit has played along with SCOTUS typically denying cert. They did grant cert in National Pork Producers v. Ross so that may change. It is much less profitable on a per-unit basis scaling up to cross state lines or go national, but that very barrier to entry becomes a major competitive advantage for larger businesses that have already invested in compliance. There is also a small but thriving market in companies that sell compliance-as-a-service.
oh man, i am aware of and annoyed by how alcohol distribution is set up. Idunno if its national or just some states but where i'm at, a brewery HAS to sell to a licensed distributor and not directly to a customer, which prettymuch ruins any comparison to a free market. Anyway, i think the difficulties with alcohol shipping is a pretty good indicator that federal regulation can bring a uniformity that is preferable to each state having bespoke rules. Like, as bad as things are now, without federal regulation that small but thriving compliance sector would become a ubiquitous and heavy player in interstate commerce.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
People vary on whether this is actually a good thing, but enforce certain rights, e.g minimum wage, abortion legality, no slavery, etc.
There are benefits to having a national system in certain areas like healthcare, postal services, highway construction, etc. where it'd be very awkward for each state to need to find a way to individually interface with each other, although the US federal government is dysfunctional enough it doesn't always see benefits.
Well I think that minimum wage is pretty obviously a bad thing (as we have unfortunately been forced to see demonstrated in real life as "living wages" have immediately meant "rent increase and dozen eggs is now $7."
Slavery is done. The laws were passed 150 years ago, and we don't need a bunch of busybody congressman in Washington there to make sure nobody tries to bring it back.
Abortion "legality" is an excellent example of the type of vote pandering by societal destruction that I want the government to stop doing.
I'd love to hear these articulated. To go point by point:
Healtchare: What is the federal government doing WRT healthcare that is in any way beneficial to me? They create a system where I have to waste hours of my time and hundreds of dollars to get simple things like antibiotics, and yet mail out safe crack smoking kits to drug addicts to make it easier for them to live in tents in the street and do crack. I would like the federal government to FUCK OFF of my healthcare, please and thank you.
Postal service: the USPS is a great idea. In practice, it is a box in my driveway where a guy delivers trash every day that piles up on my kitchen table and eventually gets moved to another box on the driveway where another guy comes and picks it up. I see absolutely NO downside to replacing the USPS with UPS and FedEx and would LOVE it if mailing me something cost a minimum of $5.
Highway construction - highway funds are used as leverage to get states to implement ridiculous, unpopular federal policies. No I don't agree that this is a good thing. If the federal government wanted to work on absolutely mundane boring things like writing regulations around how wide an interstate highway lane should be, then great. Stealing my money to give it to Pete Buttigieg so that he can use it to pre-campaign for president by flying around the country and "giving" this money to various state infrastructure projects feels comically corrupt and horrific. No.
Nobody has pointed out what I think is the biggest benefit, which is the U.S. Dollar. Backed by the Federal Reserve, it's the most reliable financial instrument that exists, and the citizens of the U.S. as well as the rest of the world have benefited substantially by this arrangement. It has its downsides as well, of course, and is not worth an unlimited amount of tyranny.
Okay the dollars is a good one! In fact I would say: I'm frustrated at the current state of the federal government because they're putting the stability of the dollar at risk.
I have the opposite concern actually, that I increasingly feel that the federal government is pressuring me to accept policies that I don't care for and don't really approve of, because it's financially good for the bank that we call the U.S. Government and its many executives.
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
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't even this not necessarily the case pre-1900/pre-WWI?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link