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 is a way of addressing the problem. If ICE stopped being masked goons who look like they came straight out of a bad YA dystopia movie, and became normal accountable government officials who behave kindly and civilly, I think this would reduce the violent sentiments against them tremendously. Don't turn your guys into Stormtroopers if you don't want people to start fancying themselves Jedi rebels.
(I'm not saying the Left's "thinking everyone is a Nazi" problem is unilaterally the Right's fault or anything. But in practical terms, that problem is not going to go away until the Right stops leaning into it.)
If they wanted accountability they would just requires id numbers to be visible but keep those ids separate from their personal identity so they can be held accountable without also risking lynch mobs. Newsom clearly is just engaging in stochastic terrorism.
The "accountable" is only part of it. The main part of it, as I said, is that the masked look (and ICE's overall vibe) is clearly meant to be threatening, and we would like the government to cool it with the scary goons immediately. If it was just a matter of protecting agents' identities there would be many ways for them to present themselves that didn't make them look like video game mooks. Unfortunately, Trump thinks having scary-looking Stormtroopers looks badass.
Being fair, it’s fairly clear that any connected with ICE who gets identified is being doxxed, and the officer as well as his family are being threatened, and now that we’re at the point of shooting at them, isolated calls for de masking ice agents may as well be stated as “please make it easier for random crazy people to identify you, find your home address and threaten or even kill you.” Theres perhaps reason for numbers, or some other unique ID to be visible, but a full face and a name in the era of the internet are enough that you may as well have them wear their name, address, phone number, and instagram account name.
If police officers manage to work without masks, why shouldn't ICE agents? Leftists have raged against police officers as much as they have raged against ICE agents.
The stakes are much higher in the average ICE raid over the average police intervention. The vast majority of interactions between police officers and citizens are not a life ruining event for the citizen. An ICE agent during a raid is going to be ruining or at least seriously affecting people's life; many of which if given the chance would do a lot to avoid that happening to them. Note that the police officers whose average interventions are also high stakes, like SWAT teams, often wear face coverings as well.
Sorry, I thought that the narrative was that they needed the masks to be safe from all the bloodthirsty antifa lefties, not from violent illegal immigrants.
I agree that arresting illegals who might prefer death to deportation is inherently risky. But I also think that this danger is largely situational. Illegals using facial recognition to figure out the home addresses of ICE agents and then taking revenge for them deporting their buddies looks rather far-fetched.
Few illegals prefer death to deportation; they expect they can just come back.
Getting deported is viewed as a serious inconvenience that sometimes happens at random, not a life-ruining one.
They did, but the perception might be different with this administration.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link