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 -
We need something different and more proactive. When a guy has been picked up by the cops for random violence and felonies and given the catch and release run-around for the umpteenth time, maybe the state should give him a shit test. Ask him point blank if he's released if he will punch/stab/shoot some one for dissing him or stepping on his new sneakers. If he answers yes throw him in the slammer for a minimum of 2 years and then ask him again before he gets out.
Same for racialized(I hate that word) violence. Is whitey the devil who should be killed, quick and easy yes/no question. Is the solution to not getting your EBT on time a justified looting? Congrats, you just bought yourself a trip to prison.
Two years divided by democratic prosecutors and judges is immediate release. There's no point in multiplying laws that won't be enforced and sentences that won't be carried out. We cannot change the laws nor the enforcement, but we can carry a gun.
Not in blue states we can't. (Though technically NJ has Castle Doctrine, I wouldn't bet on it in court. And the word it uses is "premises", which practically speaking isn't going to include curtilage even though it normally does)
Do not quote laws to those with Glocks.
The cops have Glocks too. And once you've been shipped to state prison for violating firearms laws (or homicide laws), you won't have a Glock and you'll be wishing you took your chances with the criminals on the outside. Sometimes your choice is taking a beating (or stabbing or shooting) from a single criminal on the outside, or being sent inside and taking beating after beating (and worse) from as many criminals as care to. Even if you're dead, you're better off than that.
We all have choices to make in life. One can, with a bit of effort, be either above or below the law. The law is for those who cannot make their own.
One can be below the law with not too much effort, on the anarcho- side of anarcho-tyranny. It's a mean, impoverished, but quite possibly freer existence, at least if you have no internal moral constraints on theft and violence. If you do have such constraints you're stuck following the rules but not benefiting from them, which just leads to an unlamented death in short order.
To be above the law requires considerably more. Great work if you can get it, though.
In between, you're on the tyranny side of anarcho-tyranny. Step out of line even once on one of the things those with power care about, and you're headed for the unlamented death. This is enforced in all sorts of ways -- New Jersey's draconian penalties for a law-abiding citizen carrying a gun is only one of them. Drunk driving law is another -- doing that gets a lot of people into a cycle where they drive illegally (because they live and work somewhere you have to drive), get busted, go to jail, lose their job, have their license revocation extended, get out, get another job, repeat, for a very long time.
Others are less obvious; over on another board someone said they once managed to find an employee by sifting through the recruiter's discards, and found one where the employee had been rejected because he'd been previously fired. That employee didn't realize what everyone knows but most will deny: in most of the white collar world, below executive level, to be fired is to be unhireable, so you'd better learn to conceal it.
As it has always been. Choose.
Also, the level of anarcho-tyranny does vary by state. One of the things you could hypothetically choose is to live in a less tyrannical and less anarchic area.
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 you only break one law at a time, carrying a gun everywhere is unlikely to result in legal trouble, because cops are sympathetic and don't want to do paperwork. Obviously won't work if you insist on driving with no license plates while high.
I believe you underestimate the anti-gun fervor of the state of NJ. They'd rather imprison 100 otherwise-law-abiding gun carriers than put one murderer in jail.
You could be right. It's possible. But what are the odds that the cops admit to noticing an otherwise-law-abiding concealed carrier?
I have been told that the trad caths of LA and Baltimore made local anarcho-tyranny work in their favor, and this was an open secret among the nearby ghetto dwellers- related to me by members of these churches. NJ might be worse than those places. It's certainly a theoretical possibility. But 'don't break the law when you're breaking the law' is generally a good enough kludge for avoiding legal trouble.
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
An idea I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is offering elective euthanasia to these people. On a certain level -a level removed enough that I don’t feel morally reasonable to empathize with- I do think high-impulsive, highly reactive, highly violent people are “suffering”, and if faced with a a short prison stint you should “put both silver and lead on the table” and give them an easy way out of their existence. I think a good fraction will take it.
They don't need to be suffering for the rest of society to suffer from them. If we want them gone, we should be upfront about it, formulate clearly what our problem is, why ending a life resolves it, take the responsibility and pull the trigger. Not wink and nudge and see what kind of perverse psychological manipulation schemes spring up while we pat ourselves on the back for how we've helped the poor wretch reduce his own suffering.
That said, sure, make the offer. It probably won't make the world worse. Fewer of them should usually be good, unless you make the next Baron von Ungern-Sternberg kill himself and rob the future world of some amazing history.
I am upfront about wanting them gone: the argument that convinces me is that the state shouldn’t have the power to choose if a person dies. If it’s going to imprison someone for their entire life, let them decide if they want to die it easily. This gets around the capital punishment counter argument very effectively for me
The state also shouldn't have the power to decide that someone will spend the rest of his possibly quite long life as a drain on peaceful, productive taxpayers, and yet here we are.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I appreciate the sentiment behind the idea, but this sounds about as brilliant as the American embassy asking "are you a terrorist" on a visa application.
Asking "are you a terrorist" is there so that if you say no and turn out to be a terrorist, they can deport you for lying on your application.
Back when I was young and innocent I'd ask "...w ...why can't you deport them for being terrorists?", but after the seven zillionth undeported child rapist in Europe, I might need to sit this one out.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Here's the neat part. Some of them are stupid enough/unable to plan for the future and have a sort of honor culture where they will rather claim to be tough/hood/gangster/not gay or whatever than suffer the 'social' consequences of coming out week.
"Honor culture" doesn't mean you can't lie to the authorities to get a shorter sentence, what are you talking about?
Honor culture means you are obligated to lie to the authorities to get your buddy a shorter sentence.
More options
Context Copy link
Stupid enough honor culture does mean that.
Honor culture means that when someone insults your honor, for example by calling you a "retarded faggot", you are compelled to retaliate in order to restore your honor. If you're quick on your feet and have sharp wits, insulting the other party even more might suffice, if not your fists may need to get involved. This is contrasted with "dignity culture" where you would show yourself to be the bigger man by letting the insults slide off you.
Even if members of honor culture did find it insulting for you to point out their statement to the cops (and honestly I think most of them would just YesChad it), all that means is that they'd kick the shit out of you for pointing it out, not that they wouldn't do it.
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