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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025

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You're right. Revenge is bad and unprincipled. I stand ready to applaud your valiant and arduous efforts to convince the Democrats to not seek retaliation or revenge after what gets done to them over the next 3.5-12 years, and to lash them with scathing criticisms for every hypocritical turn.

Just point us to where you're doing that. I'm eager to start applauding.

Thank you Seer for predicting what I will and won't be doing. But sure, I'll do with them what I am doing right now. Posting about it online.

The Dems should not abandon any policy decisions they claim to support as good policy in order to pursue a quest of emotional vengeance. We should focus on the good of our nation and the future, not tribalism.

If you want to argue for disarmament and cooperation, you have to already have a plausible commitment from your own side.

What's "my side"? Also this doesn't address the point whatsoever! If someone truly believed that small government involvement in business was good for the nation and our economy, then what gain is there in doing big government involvement? If you see the left stabbing the country with bad policy decisions, why pick up a knife and join in?

Can you draft up a letter to Gavin Newsome, explaining that he's being a hypocritical, unprincipled fool?

Wait why would I have to draft up a letter to Newsom? I'm not drafting a letter to republican politicians here. I'm posting on the internet.

Because in the real world of Iterated Prisoner's Dilemmas between actual factions that have their own beliefs and minds and aren't just going to be Jedi Mind Tricked into suicide, tit-for-tat is a generally optimal policy. Revenge is a fully sufficient justification when you don't want people to hurt you again, and you don't have a trustworthy arbiter to seek justice on your behalf.

But again, entirely missing the point here! The idea that free trade, government involvement, etc are just questions of morality. That the only reason conservatives shouldn't press the "government owns companies" button is just because of tradition instead of an actual belief that government involvement in private enterprise is bad. If conservatives believe that government ownership is harmful to the nation, then embracing it is like throwing molotovs at your own house and calling it vengeance.