site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31389 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A woman in Minneapolis has been killed in an altercation with ICE. I don’t really trust any of the narratives being spun up. Here are two three angles:

Angle 1

Angle 2 [Twitter] [youtube]

Angle 3 (Emerged as I was writing this)

This is actually a fairly discussed type of shooting. Law enforcement confronts a person in a vehicle, the LEO positions himself in front of the vehicle, the person in the vehicle drives forward, and the cop shoots the person. Generally, courts have found that this is a legitimate shoot. The idea being that a car can be as deadly a weapon as anything.

Those who are less inclined to give deference to law enforcement argue that fleeing the police shouldn’t be a death sentence, and that usually in these situations the LEO has put himself in front of the vehicle.

I have a long history of discussing shooters in self-defense situations [1] [2] [3] and also one of being anti-LEO. However, I’m softer on the anti-LEO front in the sense that within the paradigm in which we exist, most people think the state should enforce laws, and that the state enforcing laws = violence.

The slippery slope for me: “Fleeing police shouldn’t be a death sentence”

“Resisting arrest shouldn’t be a death sentence”

“If you just resist hard enough, you should be able to get away with it”

People really try to divorce the violence from state action, but the state doesn’t exist without it.

This case is a bit tough for me. The shot seems clearly more justified than the Babbitt shot. It seems to me at least reasonable that the officer could have thought the woman was trying to run him over, but personally my feeling is that the woman was simply trying to flee, recklessly.

The real reason the case bothers me is that, in the course of my life, I have often dealt with police trying to block off or redirect traffic. In two such cases the police (in my opinion) did such a poor job of this that I ended up driving into some area where I was not supposed to be. In both interactions the police were very aggressive and angry with me (at least at first; I'd like to think my genuine befuddlement wins them over in the end). While the situation is not perfectly analogous, I can't shake the mild fear that one of the officers could have believed that I was driving recklessly or intentionally into the blocked-off area, and viewed my action as a "deadly threat."

Ultimately, I think the police need to be able to use force to enact the law and take a very dim view of any sort of right to flee, but I can't help but wonder if the cop who murdered Babbitt would have murdered me for being confused and in the wrong place in my car.

The shot seems clearly more justified than the Babbitt shot.

That one:

Despite multiple warnings not to proceed,[7] Babbitt attempted to climb through a shattered window beside a barricaded door into the Speaker's Lobby, at which point she was shot in the shoulder[8] by a United States Capitol Police (USCP) officer.

Now, granted, this might be a uncharitable summary, WP is unlikely to be very sympathetic to J6 rioters.

I think that the difference of Babbitt and Good was that it was apparent that the former was in the middle of a breaking and entering mission. She was not climbing through that window because she was panicking and trying to flee, she was clearly looking for trouble.

Sure, it would have been better if a squad of cops in riot gear were in that hallway so they could stop the rioters with less than lethal methods. Or if they had stopped them well outside any federal buildings, for that matter. And if you want to argue that someone intended for that fuckup to happen, I have little to argue against that.

But I thought if anyone would be sympathetic towards a stand your ground approach, it would be Republicans.

I will not argue that Good was innocent. She had likely violated traffic rules with the intent to frustrate ICE's objectives. But from the way she steered her car, as well as her demographic group, it seems very likely that what she was thinking was not "finally a chance to kill one of these Gestapo fucks" but rather "oh my god, they are arresting me, Trump will send me to an El Salvador megaprison, I am about to get disappeared".

Which is delusional when in fact she would have gotten away with a fine and community service, but it is not an intrinsically aggressive delusion -- unlike thinking that you are meant to stop the steal, for example.

I think that the difference of Babbitt and Good was that it was apparent that the former was in the middle of a breaking and entering mission.

I think the maximal charitable case for Babbitt (which is probably about as charitable as plenty of takes for Good, but far more charitable than I'm typically inclined to be) is "unarmed American veteran shot by the State while attempting to petition elected representatives about a political issue", which is AFAIK factually correct (if missing a bunch of context) in ways that really do make the government's J6 response sound pretty tyrannical.

That said, I'm more inclined to "tragic, if predictable, on all accounts" framing in both situations.

She was not climbing through that window because she was panicking and trying to flee, she was clearly looking for trouble.

So was Renee Good - the whole reason why she was there was to block ICE from performing their duties. It's not like she was randomly stopped on the way to a grocery store and it escalated - she specifically went there to engage ICE and impede them. That is very much "looking for trouble" and while it is sadly tolerated way too much in and by itself it is already a crime. Not a deadly threat yet, of course, but definitely looking for trouble is there.

The difference is whether there was an imminent deadly threat. A tiny woman breaking a window and trying to fit through it is hardly one - Byrd could have subdued Babbitt with his right hand tied behind his back (if he weren't a massive coward of course). There's no way ICE officer could have subdued an SUV driving towards him, unless he's Jack Reacher, who as we know is a fictional character.

But I thought if anyone would be sympathetic towards a stand your ground approach, it would be Republicans.

The counterpoint is that there were other armed officers nearby, and the only one who thought Babbit deserved a new hole was a known fuck-up retard who should have been off the force years ago. Guy was actually already famous for the "Capitol police officer left his gun on a urinal" story. He's actually in the news again as of a few days ago because his side gig is a government-subsidized daycare.

L.M.A.O.

The shot seems clearly more justified than the Babbitt shot.

I actually flipped my opinion on Babbitt some time last year. Shooting a protestor who's trying to destroy and get through a barricade after you warn them that you will shoot them if they persist is justified violence. The fact that everyone else before that SS agent folded and let the protestors through with no resistance, emboldening them, doesn't make his actions wrong.

Do you have a link to precisely what Babbit did? My impression was that she got shot as she came through a window, along with many others, unarmed and some distance from the officer who shot her. But I could be wrong. Was she trying to break through a barricade put in place to keep congressmen safe?

https://archive.org/details/nYiFQbNc65jwFYCWY?start=1994

She was climbing through a broken window in a locked door. The window was broken by other protestors after the three cops that were guarding the doors from the front chickened out and left.

I don't necessarily think Babbitt was a bad shoot, but I do think if the exact same sequence of events played out in Portland with an unarmed Blue triber that she would be literally a gigantic national martyr with multiple movies released of her life due to how shitty the optics were. End of the day I respect that you can draw a line in a place like the Capitol and say 'anybody who crosses this is shot', even if it's inconsistent with how the January 6 unlicensed tour group was otherwise treated, but the reaction to her killing from Democrats when, if the situation were reversed, there would be an endless howl, is silly.

While the situation is not perfectly analogous, I can't shake the mild fear that one of the officers could have believed that I was driving recklessly or intentionally into the blocked-off area, and viewed my action as a "deadly threat."

This is exactly why I think the other protestors bear moral blame for this woman's death, and ought to be legally disincentivized from behaving as they have been. A beat cop doing traffic control doesn't have any particular reason to worry about a driver accidentally going somewhere beyond the general high level of paranoia cops are taught to use.

Compare that to an ICE agent surrounded by protestors screaming the kind of insulting accusations that might morally justify vengeful violence against agents of the state. Physical attacks on ICE agents are already high, including numerous attempts to assassinate or perform mass killings of ICE agents.

This is obviously going to put them more on edge, raise the threshold for proper professionalism, and increase the likelihood of something unfortunate happening.

This is obviously going to put them more on edge, raise the threshold for proper professionalism, and increase the likelihood of something unfortunate happening.

Yeah, people need to listen to the audio around the events, it is STRESSFUL (even sitting at home). Raise the temperature, make the situation uncontrolled, make communication hard.....and communication is hard.

This also matters for securing the scene after the shooting.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats