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 -
Is this actually happening, and if so, how often? Searching for your story I see a lot about a "shocking video" but the video i find, while it does show a man in running gear being arrested, shows nothing more than that and isn't shocking at all. All the "shocking" details seem to come from biased sources.
https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will
170 citizens detained and counting
... So about 1 in 2 million American citizens? Are you genuinely concerned you'll be one of them? You weren't in the past year. I'll hazard a guess you also weren't struck by lightning in the past year and that is the more surprising fact (about 1/1,222,000 per year).
I'm actually shocked the number is so low; this isn't deportations, just detainment. I'm pretty sure the normal police have a much worse record of detaining innocents (though my attempts to look it up only give results about ICE, perhaps predictably).
If this number is accurate, it's just not a real problem: it's not going to happen to you and it's not going to happen to anyone you personally know. In fact, it happens just enough the media can make it seem like a common occurrence. The fact you're aware of it at all is the Chinese Robber Fallacy in action.
I'm not American, so no
I just think standing up (or massively expanding) a new militarized government force, one who also in this case likes to mask up, not uniform up, and generally act like aggressive retards is a massive self own. They're racking up a small, but growing resume of doing awful shit to American citizens which will only grow larger and more frequent as they expand.
I think further, if you support the government creating yet another group of goons who get to fuck people up, detain them without rights or due process, and above all, operate in an environment of "eh whatever, shit happens" then you are a cuck.
You might feel fine about it, but make no mistake, you're sitting in the chair
More options
Context Copy link
A similar number of children have been receiving trans medicine and surgery and this forum has been absolutely livid. Seems like every user with children expressed genuine fear of their kids being transed. It is quite fair to be livid about similarly miniscule numbers of detained citizens, especially when the supporters of ICE indicate that they want the numbers to increase.
I'm not sure I'd say 'similar;' 5700 over 4 years (1425 a year) out of not all American citizens but only the 73 million American children is nearly 40 times more common!
But sure, I at least am willing to bite the bullet and say that neither of these are real problems. Could they become problems if they become vastly more common? Sure. ... But realistically, is that going to happen? Given, as you implicitly agree, these events are so rare an order of magnitude isn't nearly enough to elevate them to a substantial risk, ICE is going to have to massively accelerate operations before this becomes something genuinely worth worrying about. I'd personally put the floor for even considering a given risk at around 1/50,000 per year -- your odds of dying in a car crash in a given year are about ten times that, all-cause mortality for a 30-year-old 100 times that -- and it's got a long way to go to get there.
Actually, given the current ratio of detained citizens to deported non-citizens (about 170/500,000), they're going to run out of people to deport well before crossing that threshold; well before even breaking 5700. Their error rate could get much worse, I suppose? Well, again, I'm surprised it's as low as it is now, so that definitely seems plausible. Still, it's an enormous gap.
More options
Context Copy link
A detained citizen is inconvenienced for a couple of days and many of them were very literally asking for it. A transed kid has their endocrine system skull-fucked forever because people they trusted lied to them.
One of these things is 4-6 orders of magnitude worse than the other.
I think policies should also have a "needless stupidity" modifier.
Some things are bad implementations of policies that are at least somewhat necessary. Some things are just needlessly stupid and never needed to happen and that makes them more egregious because of what they imply about our systems.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The thing is I've been told that it's not, and I never saw you step in before. Can I count on you saying something the next time someone uses this argument?
Anyway, sure, give these people some restitution. Unlike transgender care, this is actually reversible.
I didn't have a precedent to refer to before.
Only if it actually becomes a commonplace bipartisan argument. Otherwise I'll follow the example of other users and keep only using it when it's my side suffering the miniscule excesses.
How exactly did you run into this forum being absolutely livid about the small number of kids being transed without seeing the "come on, it's just a tiny percentage of people affected"?
I literally just agreed with you, what more do you want?
I did see it, I mean I noticed no precedent of the "come on, it's just a tiny percentage" people having had their own tiny percentage they visibly cared about a lot.
First, I don't recall you agreeing with me when it was about the tiny number of transed kids. Second, you appear to be one of the three principled autistically-consistent-argument-appliers among seven zillion culture warriors, so unilateral disarmament is not in my interest.
Wait, so you're not even arguing for the argument that "It is quite fair to be livid about similarly miniscule numbers" , you're just hypocrisy-policing? If that's what you're going for, are you telling me you never saw anyone being bothered about school shootings?
Uh... surely you must have seen one of my many top-level comments on the subject. If anything I don't remember you saying all that much about it.
Well, if you're just pursuing your interest, why not say that from the top, instead of acting like you're bothered by a violation of a principle?
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
"Detained". So, comprehensive examples of "detained" that have come up in the stories I've seen and that we've discussed here.
Retired vet who was working security at the weed farm that used illegal child labor. Was held for a few days.
The guy who was technically born in the US, then his mom took him back to Mexico to raise him in a remote village that didn't even speak Spanish. Guy snuck back over the border with his actually illegal friends and got stopped by them in Florida. Was held for a few days while the authorities figured out what Aztec language he spoke and confirmed his identity.
And in general, 170 out of 500k is an arror rate of 0.00034. Can you name another government function with an error rate that low?
As I said in my other comment, I'm not against ICE at all, I think that agents of the government exercising a monopoly on force should be held to extremely high standards, and relaxing those standards because they're "on your team" is stupid, because they very much are not on your team, even if your goals are aligned right now.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link