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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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You're simultaneously missing my point and making it for me. They aren't presenting the other side because the other side isn't saying anything. They're doing the same thing you're doing where they're hoping people just assume that everything that ICE does is 100% justified, optics be damned. And if they think otherwise then it's just because they're brainwashed by activist propaganda. Both of those things could be completely true, but it doesn't matter.

When that story broke I watched the news report in the kind of bar where people sit and watch the news, with people who aren't exactly liberal, and they were all uneasy about the whole thing. That restaurant has a location about ten minutes away and everyone has eaten there (though I'm personally not a fan), and there's a very real anxiety that they could be enjoying dinner only to have it interrupted by Federal agents barging in because a dish washer doesn't have his papers.

I flesh this out more in another comment, but wave elections happen when a party ignores obvious warning signs and either denies that there's a problem or makes excuses for why things aren't quite going the way they like. Maybe you're right and maybe this isn't really a problem, but there's a long list of other things people don't like about this administration, and if your only response is that it isn't a problem, then don't be surprised if something catastrophic happens.

They aren't presenting the other side because the other side isn't saying anything.

On what grounds do you believe this to be true?

  • Did the presenters claim this?
  • Did the presenters claim this with evidence?
  • Did the presenters ask the other side to say anything?
  • Did the presenters acknowledge anything the other side said?
  • Did you do your due diligence to see if the presenter claiming this was lying?
  • Did you look for other sources other than your chosen presenters?
  • Did you ask for other sources that you were unable to find?
  • Did you ignore or dismiss other sources that have been provided, maintaining a totality by categorical exclusion of contrary evidence and speakers?

They aren't presenting the other side because the other side isn't saying anything.

The other side is constantly talking about the criminal records and unsavory behavior of the people they're deporting. That just doesn't make the news.

They're doing the same thing you're doing where they're hoping people just assume that everything that ICE does is 100% justified

I'm not assuming. I've had this conversation a bunch of times, and found the anti-ICE people to be about as well-justified in their claims as when certain people go off about the Holocaust.

You do realize this is right off the back on you taking professional activist press statements at 100% face value, right?

optics be damned.

This is the entire dispute. Optics is subjective. Optics is in the eye of the beholder. Optics is two movies seen on the same screen. Why do you take left-wing optics framing as an immutable fact of reality?

When that story broke I watched the news report in the kind of bar where people sit and watch the news, with people who aren't exactly liberal, and they were all uneasy about the whole thing.

Did Albert Einstein recite the "then they came for the" poem and everyone clapped?

and there's a very real anxiety that they could be enjoying dinner only to have it interrupted by Federal agents barging in because a dish washer doesn't have his papers.

A "very real anxiety", wow. How many times has that happened to people you know? Are you similarly invested in very real anxieties about pretty white girls being raped and killed by illegal gang members?

and if your only response is that it isn't a problem

My response, which you're missing and making for me, is that this is a problem entirely because of the "optics", which is a shorthand for "dedicated propaganda campaign". You are correct that the right does need to get better at that, but it would behoove you to notice the extent to which you're participating in said campaign.