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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24837 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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Another case of culture war cancellation dropped, this time somewhat more important than the usual cases.

The case of Nicolas Guillou, French judge at the ICC, cancelled by Marco Rubio personally.

If your French is not sufficient, here is Xitter summary.

Guillou's daily existence has been transformed into a Kafkaesque nightmare. He cannot: open or maintain accounts with Google, Amazon, Apple, or any US company; make hotel reservations (Expedia canceled his booking in France hours after he made it); conduct online commerce, since he can't know if the packaging is American; use any major credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex are all American); access normal banking services, even with non-American banks, as banks worldwide close sanctioned accounts; conduct virtually any financial transaction.

He describes it as being "economically banned across most of the planet," including in his own country, France, and where he works, the Netherlands.

That's the real shocking aspect of this: the Americans are:

  • punishing a European citizen
  • for doing his job in Europe
  • applying laws Europe officially supports
  • at an institution based in Europe
  • that Europe helped create and fund

Can it happen to you?

Not in this way, not even the most IRL important mottizen is worthy of Marco's personal attention.

If it happens, it will happen because AI analyzed your online activity and decided it crossed a threshold of dangerous nihilist extremism (and you could do about it just as much as Nicolas Guillou, this means nothing at all.)

Interestingly the US has committed to canceling these people in a very literal sense if the ICC actually captures a member of the US military or an ally. See the "Hague Invasion Act" for details.

So there's pros and cons for the current situation. Con: this guy can't easily book hotel rooms or use payment processors. "If you don't like it, just build your own global financial system" type of being canceled. Pro: Seal Team Six is not currently kicking down this guy's door and giving him the just wages of his actions. Which is possible if he somehow gets a US ally in a ICC cell.

The US and Israel are not signatories of the Rome Statute. We need to, in the strongest way possible, repudiate the imagined authority of the ICC. This is an attempt to imprison a democratically elected head of state. The ICC is a rogue organization and needs to be treated as such.

The US and Israel are not signatories of the Rome Statute. We need to, in the strongest way possible, repudiate the imagined authority of the ICC. This is an attempt to imprison a democratically elected head of state.

I agree and I would add that at a deeper level, this is a power grab. In some alternate timeline where the ICC becomes a respected international organization, how long would it take before pressure starts building within the organization to go after Donald Trump or any other Red-Tribe aligned American president? It's easy enough to cobble together an argument that Donald Trump is a war criminal, probably even easier than it is for Benjamin Netanyahu. If the ICC gained the power and legitimacy it seeks, it would not be long before that power was abused a la Letitia James to go after any leader the Blue Tribe does not like.

The ultimate result would be a sort of international anarcho-tyrrany.

The ICC needs, at a minimum, to be delegitimized, discredited, and humiliated.

The ICC needs, at a minimum, to be delegitimized, discredited, and humiliated.

Limiting its claims of jurisdiction to only its members and member territory, while requiring members to be sovereign states with defined boundaries recognized by the UN, might serve as an alternative.

Limiting its claims of jurisdiction to only its members and member territory, while requiring members to be sovereign states with defined boundaries recognized by the UN, might serve as an alternative.

I'm not optimistic . . . courts can always come up with BS arguments to expand their jurisdiction. In fact, I am pretty sure what you describe is how the ICC Treaty was supposed to work. And then a few years ago it accepted a creative argument that "Palestine" had standing as a state entity to join the treaty. From their it's just a short step to creatively argue that Israelis are committing war crimes in "Palestine."

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