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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   19099 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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After the lefty reaction to the Kirk assassination I absolutely don't care about this, and will never care about anything like this from my own side ever again. OP wildly overestimates the number of fucks the right has left to give.

After the lefty reaction to the Kirk assassination I absolutely don't care about this, and will never care about anything like this from my own side ever again. OP wildly overestimates the number of fucks the right has left to give.

Do you believe that all of politics can only be summed up as "left" and "right" and that it is impossible to be both against killing people like Kirk and against racism/neonazism/etc?

If you do believe this, then why do Republicans like Gov Scott, Elise Stefanik, Roger Stone, etc seem to be able to denounce the chat without saying positive things about killing Kirk? Are they fake right wingers or something?

  • -13

Do you believe that all of politics can only be summed up as "left" and "right" and that it is impossible to be both against killing people like Kirk and against racism/neonazism/etc?

Yes.

Let me put it like this. When a high profile Jan 6 defendant gets tenure at a major university, and becomes the mentor to the next president, I might be willing to entertain the notion that I have enemies to the right. If the town my daughter is growing up in doesn't flip from 80% white to 30% white over her lifetime like mine did, I might be willing to entertain that I have enemies to the right. If I can look up resumes in my field and not see that 50% of them have some variation of "we prioritize hiring diversity", I might be willing to entertain that I have enemies to the right.

But my life has been made so infinitely worse by my enemies to the left, I don't understand why I could possibly care about these theoretical enemies to my right. They've literally never done anything to me.

You appear to think of politics entirely on the basis of whether policies create material problems for you in your life (and, granted, in your daughter's). Don't you have a concept of politics as rooted in moral values unrelated to your own personal fate? Is there any amount of evil that people to your right could wreak on strangers that would outweigh making the trains run on time in your specific neck of the woods?

  • -11

You appear to think of politics entirely on the basis of whether policies create material problems for you in your life (and, granted, in your daughter's). Don't you have a concept of politics as rooted in moral values unrelated to your own personal fate?

1990's colorblind liberalism is dead and it wasn't the right wingers who killed it. Since we now live in some kind of post-liberal racial spoils hellscape, I'll be voting for my own team, thanks.

I ask again: how do you justify this morally? Some might say that unpleasant circumstances when doing the right thing will give you a material disadvantage is when it is most important (and indeed admirable) to behave ethically.

  • -11

how do you justify this morally?

Clearly

I'll be voting for my own team

is a moral position.

It may not be one you agree with, but it's no less a (n a) moral position than the "post-liberal racial spoils hellscape."

You seem to be begging the question that there is an objectively correct morality and deviating from the progressive racism violates that, without actually filling in the gaps of why that is objectively correct and the losers should enjoy being in the hands of an angry god sacrificing their children for the wellbeing of the ungrateful.

You seem to be begging the question that there is an objectively correct morality and deviating from the progressive racism violates that

None of what I've been saying has been about racism, or indeed any object-level Right vs Left issue. My objection is to the principle of basing one's politics exclusively on what will lead to one's personal comfort. That seems to be a textbook example of amoral behavior no matter what moral principles you subscribe to, assuming you have any at all. Sure, "support my own team" could be a moral position! But what @Skeletor posted was:

Since we now live in some kind of post-liberal racial spoils hellscape, I'll be voting for my own team, thanks.

And what bothers me about that is the "Since" clause, not the "I'll be voting for my own team" in a vacuum. It makes it sound rather as if he is voting in whichever direction will maximize his personal comfort at a given time, not in a principled way based on moral positions for which he would be prepared to make sacrifices to his own personal welfare. "I'll always vote for my team no matter what" would be a moral position. "It seems the outgroup has defected and it's a free-for-all, so I'm looking out for Number One" is not.

Okay, well, tough shit.

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