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 -
There's a million ways he could have implemented the ICE program completely ineffectually. This way is delivering at least some level of results, and there is no reason to believe that any other plausible method would deliver better results.
This has been a bipartisan pattern throughout the last decade, pretty clearly as a result of collapsing federal authority. Gun laws are routinely enforced this way, and have been for decades. COVID mandates were very clearly enforced this way. Trans ideology was enforced this way.
What job requirements would seem more appropriate to you? Can you point to some examples of how low recruiting standards have resulted in bad outcomes?
As you say, "An accusation must be validated by a supposedly neutral arbiter." I disagree that Democrats are justified in such a belief. On the other hand, I can point to recent cases where federal agents promulgated official orders to violate their core mission to better discriminate against Reds.
I think you overestimate the sociopolitical "pull" maintained by the courts, including the Supreme Court. We are more than a decade into lesser courts, and local, state and federal officials operating in open defiance of rulings they disagree with.
The fact is that systems of law do not constrain human will, individually or collectively. "Treason" is a word invented by humans, applied by humans, and assessed by humans. If the argument here is that Democrat local and state officials probably won't be charged, convicted and sentenced for Treason for the things they're doing right now, I'll readily agree with you. But the fight that is happening right now is more likely to grow than to gutter out, and there does not appear to be an obvious point where it will stop. Blue Tribe has acted for decades as though it is above the law, and it turns out those actions have consequences.
It is certainly true that Trump started raising the temperature, if one carefully defines "raising the temperature" to exclude everything Democrats have done to raise the temperature over the last decade or more. Trump is essentially a copy of Bill Clinton. His cabinet and associates are full of former high-tier democrat figures. His policies used to be entirely normal within the democratic party as recently as a decade ago. Red Tribe has slaughtered numerous sacred cows to assemble their current coalition, essentially capitulating to broad swathes of the Democratic policy platform. The democrats have only moved further left in response, and have made both unconscionable government repression and large-scale, organized lawless violence core aspects of their political program.
The democratic party announced their intention to use mass immigration to secure a permanent majority Twenty years ago. It turns out that this was not quite the silver bullet they expected, but Reds are assessing future cooperation in terms of intentions, not results, and Blues have made it abundantly clear that further cooperation with them leads to no livable future for Reds.
Reds are not going to back down because there is no retreat available to us. We decline to be reduced to second-class citizens in our native country. We decline to be victimized by the full power of the Federal Government. We decline to uphold rules that are enforced only to our detriment and never to our benefit. We decline to maintain systems that exist only to oppress us.
No justice, no peace.
This is factually false. E-verify is a thing. If you want to stop people who are not authorized to work from working, then mandating that employers actually check that their employees are authorized to work for them seems like an obvious step to take.
If you haven't even taken the step of mandating the use of e-verify for all employers, I don't believe you when you say "but we have to disappear people, it's the only strategy that could possibly work".
Nobody is getting disappeared. Everyone apprehended can be looked up on a public website. https://locator.ice.gov/odls/#/search
Nobody, you say?
So ICE arrested someone, detained him for 37 days in the hospital under armed guard, did not charge him with anything, denied him legal counsel, and used a pseudonym when registering him in the locator. That sure sounds to me like "ICE disappeared that guy".
It does not appear he was "disappeared". Otherwise, how would the habeas corpus petition be filed in the first place?
The habeas corpus petition was filed on September 30. He was detained on August 27. That's a solid month. How long do you think is appropriate to hold someone without charging them?
On September 17th, 3 weeks after he was first detained, CBP informed him that they still hadn't assigned him an A-number - so
My non expert reading is that the judge is pissed at a level that is not normal. From the temporary restraining order
And looks like she's expecting malicious compliance from ICE as well
This guy had 2-4 guards posted 24/7 for over a month. Someone high up signed off on this, this can't be written off as a single agent acting alone. Seems pretty egregious to me..
That wasn't the question. The question is whether he was disappeared. He was not. I do not know why it took a month to file the petition.
It's quite possible ICE did wrong here. What they did not do is disappear someone.
I don't much care. Performative pissyness from judges seems to be pretty standard in political cases, and doesn't stop the judges from being overruled.
What if we amend "disappeared" to "breaking someone leg and unlawfully holding them in a hospital for 37 days without charging them and while making them hard to find for a month"
Are you fine with your government doing that to it's people? Weird hill to die on lol
Then
We still don't know if it is true. We know he was held in a hospital and we know he was ordered released. That does not mean he was held unlawfully before the order, nor that he was hard to find for the relevant people (the ones who filed the habeas petition)
We still don't know if the leg breaking was accidental or even justified.
Most importantly, it lacks the gravity of "disappearing". Even if ICE was in the wrong, it falls somewhere between an ordinary fuck-up and some form of small-scale misconduct. If the cops decide they don't like you, break your leg, and hold you in jail for 37 days, you will eventually get over it. If they "disappear" you, you're never seen again.
It is inevitable that ICE will fuck up sometimes. It is unfortunately also inevitable that they will sometimes engage in misconduct, for which any officers who do should be (but probably will not be -- and that's a law enforcement thing in general, not specific to ICE) punished. That's a lot different than "disappearing" people, whether as a more serious form of misconduct or (as has been implied here) a matter of policy. Trying to swap those out mid-conversation is a ridiculous goalpost move.
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