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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21691 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.)

Sucks for the guy in question obviously.

That being said:

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

Lol, lmao even. Imagine replacing "Europe" with "Russia" and trying to use an otherwise identical argument to feign shock about the US sanctioning someone high up in the Russian military.

This is an obvious case of the ICC flying too close to the sun. Whether they like it or not, Israel is considered by the US to be a close ally. Making direct threats against them is obviously going to risk incurring the US's displeasure.

This is an obvious case of the ICC flying too close to the sun. Whether they like it or not, Israel is considered by the US to be a close ally.

As I said in another discussion recently on reddit: part of this is America's fault. They could have held to a line that non-signatory nations like Russia could never be punished by the ICC which would obviously also cover them and Israel.

Instead they decided to use it against Putin which probably emboldened this mission creep.

Instead they decided to use it against Putin

Can you tell me what exactly the US did that facilitated ICC activities against Putin?

He publicly came out in support of the action (while also maintaining the ICC's jurisdiction didn't apply to the US because ??)

As this situation is showing, the US president has some ability to make things difficult for the ICC. He could have held the line on the taboo and made it clear he didn't approve of the warrant. Instead he backed it.

He publicly came out in support of the action (while also maintaining the ICC's jurisdiction didn't apply to the US because ??)

By "he" do you mean Donald Trump? And what exactly did he say and when?

Oop, cut an earlier bit. Biden supported the Europeans trying Putin for war crimes, while admitting the US didn't recognize the court either.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.

“It’s not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.

So basically a warrant from an organization that neither the US nor Russia recognize and will never actually lead to Putin's arrest because it's a "strong point".

While no one might be suicidal enough to try to try US servicemen there are other more vulnerable US allies that could be the victims of said court, so a strong US line (as opposed to "it's okay if it makes a strong rhetorical point") may have given people second thoughts.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.

“It’s not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.

So basically a warrant from an organization that neither the US nor Russia recognize and will never actually lead to Putin's arrest because it's a "strong point".

I seems like a stretch to start from that and to reach this conclusion:

Instead they decided to use it against Putin which probably emboldened this mission creep.

And then this:

part of this is America's fault.

Although I agree it would have been better for Biden to emphasize that the ICC has no legitimacy, that one remark seems pretty minor.

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