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 -
New footage of ICE shooter
Forgive another high-level post but the body cam (or cell phone?) footage of the cop who shot has been released by AlphaNews and this may significantly change perceptions of what happened (to those willing to have perceptions changed):
https://x.com/alphanews/status/2009679932289626385?s=46
To my eyes it appears that:
The ICE agent is clearly hit by her car and goes down
The ICE agent was not standing in front of her car but walking from one side to another
The driver’s wife is not passively observing but actively shouting at the agents (this should undermine the idea that the driver and her wife were somehow neutral people accidentally caught up in everything)
Perhaps most importantly, but maybe most open to interpretation, it appears to me that the driver looks directly at the ICE agent before driving forward. From this bodycam angle, her face is clearly shown looking directly ahead where the officer is seconds before she moves her car forward.
I suppose a lot of new interpretations are possible, but to me this video footage clearly debunks several going interpretations I have seen proposed. At the very least, maybe reasonable people can agree that the cop did not shoot the driver in cold blood from the side window.
I would also not be surprised to see the idea spread that this new video is AI.
Edit: per corrections from others below, this is not bodycam but cell phone footage (my mistake as it’s clearly even labeled as such) and this explains why it tumbles at the end of the video. Thanks!
Given that the other videos showed the cars wheel were fully turned, I don't think she was deliberately trying to run him down. I think she was trying to recklessly and illegally trying to escape police detainment, and between the panic and bad driving and recklessness, may have clipped the officer with her car. This is downstream of her probably being misinformed that ICE had no ability to arrest her. As I understand it, ICE cannot serve arrest warrants for citizens, but if citizens are illegally obstructing ICE operations they ICE does have the power to arrest. So she and her GF thought they could smirk and harass and insult and obstruct and then drive off with no consequences.
I think the shooting is legally justified, but I wouldn't want that officer hired to be my local beat cop. He was more careless with his positioning and more trigger happy than he had to be.
I am inclined to agree with this characterization, though I think there are still many unknowns. The direction of the wheels is likely the clearest circumstantial indicator of her intent. It's where she wanted to "go." At the time of acceleration, her wheels were in the process of turning right, seemingly to escape the stop. In my view, this was to complete the K-turn motion that she began with her short reverse, and leave the scene. Simultaneously, the officer was crossing in front of the vehicle, to her left. If she wanted to ram the officer, you would expect her to begin turning left at some point to track the officer's movement, but there is no indication of this. Thus, I'm inclined to believe that she had minimal intent to harm, and any harm was accidental or hasty. There's even a moment earlier in the footage where the officer stands right in front of her car, and she opts not to drive into him. Hardly some Democrat wet-dream vigilante crime. She would have to be basically brain dead to try and harm an officer with passengers and a pet in the car, and even the most antisocial irrational people I know would never put their pets in harm's way. I blame the folks egging her on.
Whether or not the shooting was legal or justified based on the officer's perception, that's a different question. But I think this detail in particular exonerates Good from the charge of wanting to injure the officer.
Let’s pose a question. If she was on BlueSky and watching a twitter video of the incident of a different leftist driving with everything being the same except the officer doesn’t shoot. In this case the officer is hit and let’s say one of his lefts is mangled and eventually amputated?
My guess is she would think something like “the officer got what he deserved”. If she was on a jury of the driver charged with aggravated assault she probably wouldn’t convict.
While I don’t think tried to kill the officer — I also don’t think she had any concern if she did hurt the officer while evading arrest. In her mind the officer is subhuman and illegitimate so she doesn’t care much about what happens to them.
My gut says this is solidly in the category of didn’t try to kill but had zero concern about the officers safety. In many cases that ends up getting people killed.
I think engaging in hypotheticals like this is ultimately unproductive. You have taken a political attitude that Good may have held ("ICE bad") and generalized it to an attitude toward violence ("Therefore ICE agents are not deserving of, or at least need little consideration regarding, safety"). These two claims are, in fact, a grand canyon apart - not simply p therefore q. There is nothing to suggest Good was a longtime agitator or rallied behind violent acts.
I don't disagree that she was reckless, but I don't think we need to engage in broad speculation about why. I don't believe the reason behind that recklessness (or even the recklessness itself) really affects the moral calculus here.
Obviously a person state of mind you can never be 100% sure. But I think my description is a good educated guess. A person who tracks and harasses ICE likely has those views.
Also her wife was name calling ICE moments before so I think it would be a reasonable belief a same-sex couple has similar views (men often have different views than their wives so that would be less likely).
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
More options
Context Copy link