site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

bitching like a Karen

muzzle these retards first

If your reaction to this is to make fun of a guy acting the way most people in his situation would act, and then express anger at the people protesting it instead of the federal agents actually doing it, you’ve lost me and most Americans, and you’re gonna see it at the ballot box.

First, you don't get to just assume what's happening there. What the agents are actually doing in that video is restraining a guy. There are countless examples of old, boomer libtards assaulting these officers because they are bad people with delusions of grandeur. Maybe the ICE actions against that guy were unprovoked and unreasonable, but you certainly don't get to just assume that.

Have you ever actually lost a fight or suffered serious physical pain? Most people, in that situation, act a certain way. They become irrational and agitated, stressed and panicked.

The guy in that video reminds me of a different video. I won't link it because it's quite upsetting, feel free to look it up. In the video, a couple confronts a male neighbor in the snow over some petty bullshit, the culmination of months of relentless Karen harassment, and the man, a single father of an extremely disabled child, finally loses it.

He goes back into his house, gets a gun, and opens fire on the couple, fatally injuring both of them. And the truly remarkable thing about the video is that while the couple is bleeding to death on the ground they are still ranting and screeching like the unholy avatar of Karen. Not "OMG, help, I'm in so much pain." But "I don't care if I'm dying, your brutally autistic son's wheelchair makes too much noise in the morning, and I'm going to report you to the HOA! Why haven't you shoveled your driveway?! You're a disgrace, no wonder your son is a retard!"

That's the energy that dude brings in the ICE video. He doesn't sound hurt, or even alarmed. He sounds like he's saying the magic words that make law enforcement the bad guys. He'll probably get to pop a Cialis and fuck an old hippie afterwards.

But I don't think you're correct about "most people". This crap comes from a special breed of entitled Main Characters and every bit of enabling just makes the world a worse place. Do you really want carefully clipped sections of those videos to be the new meta for what we see at the ballot box? Because there's about a million hours of body cam footage going the other way.

"I don't care if I'm dying, your brutally autistic son's wheelchair makes too much noise in the morning, and I'm going to report you to the HOA! Why haven't you shoveled your driveway?! You're a disgrace, no wonder your son is a retard!"

I don't recall this part of the altercation post the actual shooting starting. I assume you're talking about Jeffrey Spaide killing James and Lisa Goy.

Well, with that I had to go rewatch the video. (Obviously disturbing, people dying.) You are correct. The bit immediately after the first shooting where she's yelling "You fucker!" was much more involved in my memory. And the son being theirs instead of his... woof. Talk about misremembering important details!

Well, I suppose this is in line with eyewitness testimony being famously unreliable. I'd expect for video review the mind can also add/remove/compress the events in such unusual ways that it becomes a completely different story in memory.

Also a solid reminder to double-check sources. I actually thought about it, but decided that the video was quite unpleasant and I didn't want to rewatch it. I still could have found an article or transcript that might have helped.

In fact, that would make no sense. It's the Goys who were murdered and they were also the ones with the autistic son. Spaide shot himself but no last words after he pulled the trigger were recorded.

Yeah, "Pussy, huh?" were the last words he uttered on tape. That and with the case where Buzz Aldrin punched Bart Sibrel sure reminds me not to insult anyone on their courage lest they suddenly find it. Though I'm sure any modicum of de-escalation at any point would have gone a long way for the Goys.

I mean this is equally speculation on your part that the guy is just some libtard of the type you describe. I don’t have much else to say on this other than that I agree the bodycam footage would be good to see and I hope it comes out, though I’m not optimistic that it will. I do acknowledge that often bodycam footage shows quite a different story than what media reports, so if that’s the case here it’s in ICE’s interest to release it.

Your example seems to prove the opposite of what you're trying to. If one of the possible reactions to obvious fatal injury is angrily ranting as if you haven't just been shot, then that makes the ICE video guy's ranting less indicative of whether he's actually hurt, not a proof that he wasn't.

Possible, but so unlikely that it's existence proof consists of a single video that went viral precisely because the reaction was so disturbingly inhuman.

It's about a million times more likely that the man being arrested by ICE was just not actually being subjected to "break six ribs" levels of force. Injured rib is a great fake injury because there's no casts or visible proof except occasionally clutching your chest in pain, but if you bend a bit and don't clutch your chest in pain then probably no one will notice. But if the story were true, it would be national news because the overwhelmingly left-leaning media would be thrilled to finally have a perfect example of ICE brutality, and the man would be sueing for damages.

Given that none of those things happened or seem to be happening, I stand by my prediction that the activists are full of shit on top of being horrible people.

Possible, but so unlikely that it's existence proof consists of a single video that went viral precisely because the reaction was so disturbingly inhuman.

You mean you've seen a single video. Personally, while I don't have a habit of watching liveleak and such, I've heard of the general phenomenon of people in a high-adrenaline situation failing to notice pain.

Cool. Any thoughts on any of the Bayesian evidence arguments?

Frankly, your naked contempt for the people being detained overshadows your Bayesian arguments. Quote:

If you want to convince me that ICE are doing evil, muzzle these retards first.

So clearly the Bayesianism is not really what's behind your arguments.

The image of 2025's ICE in the public mind (whether false or not) is clearly that they're a) incompetent randos, therefore unused to exercising power efficiently; b) will deport you if they grab you. In those circumstances, why wouldn't a sane person Karen up a storm and hopefully gain the support of nearby Samaritans to fend off the racist state thugs? That's what works and is actually your best option if you are facing semi-legal semi-competent state thugs who want to ship you off somewhere you do not want to go, as Ukrainians can attest.

Frankly, your naked contempt for the people being detained overshadows your Bayesian arguments.

So, no response to any of them. Duly noted as a defacto admission that these claims are obviously fake.

The image of 2025's ICE in the public mind (whether false or not)

It does appear to be very false, and you're actively participating in the falsehood.

In those circumstances, why wouldn't a sane person Karen up a storm and hopefully gain the support of nearby Samaritans to fend off the racist state thugs? That's what works

No, this is the part that is completely insane. If you think incompetent, jackbooted thugs are just disappearing random people because we're descending into a fascist dystopia, then being ineffectually annoying at them is probably the dumbest fucking thing you can do. You'll accomplish nothing and get disappeared.

In the real world, no one is getting disappeared, no one is getting lawsuit-worthy injuries, they're just LARPing while mashing the ever-loving shit out of the defect button for a brief self-righteous high.

If this stuff is fine, then why on earth should right-wingers ever tolerate the law being enforced on them ever again?

Haha, JK, it's because if I acted like this towards feds coming to arrest a J6 grandma who just walked around in the building or a veteran who had a spent bullet casing in the trunk of his car I'd get one to eight in federal prison.

These people are not doing good. They are not heroes. They are actively making the world a worse place, and so are you by lying and dissembling to support them.

I actually don't act this way with authority figures. Even if their apprehension of me is unjust. Nor do most people I know.

Are we talking "traffic stop" unjust apprehension, or "barged into your home and put your face to the floor"?

Both. Because for better or worse, I have the intuitive sense that holding up the process is going to make things WORSE for me.

And I have at least one instance where being uber cooperative likely SAVED me from the worst that could happen - and I was absolutely guilty.

And I have at least one instance where being uber cooperative likely SAVED me from the worst that could happen - and I was absolutely guilty.

Alright. Tell us a story.