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 -
The problem is there's a million of these, where someone says ICE came in and arrested everyone even the American citizens who didn't do anything but ask the ICE agents some questions. And the stories often place front-and-center irrelevant details like the people detained not having a criminal record. But there's never any follow-up showing that all the relevant stuff is actually true. Instead this reporting is all simply repeating the claims of advocates. Which means that even someone like myself who is biased against law enforcement and believes they tend to be generally brutal starts to disbelieve the stories.
If that is indeed the case, then the administration needs to do a better job communicating that. By which I mean they need to make that information available to media either via press release or simply giving all the details when they ask. They can't just not comment or simply confirm that they executed a search warrant. Local news these days won't even hire copy editors; it may be a journalistic best practice to verify everything, but in today's media environment they aren't going to have a guy looking up criminal records, especially when these stories go out the same day. That being said, the stories I've seen around here never mention the criminal record or lack thereof, or anything about the victims for that matter. People aren't going to just assume that someone has a criminal record. If that's part of the story, you have to tell them.
Nobody who believes all those stories will listen, and any denials will just be taken as confirmation by them. There's no point in trying to satisfy those acting in bad faith.
https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/zero-criminal-record-nine-workers-detained-by-ice-boston-car-wash/UXQPWN3VUNAZHMYMBIK7K4MS6M/
Except you're doing the same thing you're accusing them of by assuming that all these people do, in fact, have criminal records and you're just being lied to about it. And the people who think otherwise are hopeless and won't believe you no matter what you tell them. This is the kind of mentality that I was talking about that causes elections to be lost. This conversation started by a comment I made where I listed the deportation policy as an example of a Trump policy that was at least somewhat unpopular and may be among the things that costs the Republicans votes. It was just one of a number of things, and we could be talking about any of them, really. I got comments from people who told me that this was exactly what they wanted him to do. Well, great, but you're not the only one voting. This particular discussion stems from a comment where someone tried to argue, in essence, that there were either no or very few normal, hardworking people who were being deported, and that they were all criminals. I don't think that that's true, but I'm ultimately not trying to litigate whether it's true or not. The important thing is that there is a perception that it's true, and it's not just a perception that's held among woke socialists who want open borders and wouldn't vote Republican if their lives depended on it; it's a perception that's also held among the kind of people who voted for Trump in 2024 but are uneasy with the conspicuous brutality with which ICE is carrying out it's business. I know some of these people. They exist. They decide elections. I beg your pardon if I'm wrong, but you're not one of those people. I doubt you're a few policy tweaks away from voting Democrat in the next election.
I fleshed this out a little in another comment, but the larger point I was trying to make was that wipeout elections tend to happen whenever the party in power ignores and makes excuses for obvious signs of trouble. Trump fans who all love Trump and all need Trump and think that everything Trump does is great and can't believe that anyone doesn't like Trump and that everyone is being unfair to Trump and the big bad media isn't given everyone the whole story, with which they'd understand how great Trump is aren't the people who are going to decide the next election. If that were the case, he would have won in 2020 and wouldn't be president now. Trump did not run away with the last election, even against a candidate as bad as Kamala Harris. When I rattle off a laundry list of things that are unpopular but that the Republican Party doesn't seem too concerned about addressing and the responses I get are that these things simply aren't problems you're making my point for me.
No, I believe they have no criminal records. It's just entirely irrelevant to whether they were proper targets of an immigration raid.
What conspicuous brutality? The Rodney King arrest, THAT was conspicuous brutality. The ICE arrests look like normal arrests.
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