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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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I don't see how someone can be "resisting arrest" unless they're aware they are being arrested.

I don’t understand your thinking here. If a cop would stop you and tell you to get out of your car, do you think you could just floor it and flee because they didn’t say you are under arrest?

All I saw was a guy in a mask jumping out of an unmarked vehicle and running toward her …. In that situation it seems reasonable to fear for one's life.

That may be reasonable if someone is startled and wondering if brazilian street gangsters are carjacking them, but it is not what is happening in the video. She, her partner and the bystanders know exactly who the ICE officers are and she is smiling condescendingly and cracking jokes at them. There is neither panic nor fear, just smugness and derision. She is not fleeing out of panic, but because she is flippantly taking it as a game and not taking the situation serious.

There is neither panic nor fear, just smugness and derision.

Right, and then the other ICE employee started charging at her, and she feared for her life. I would be scared too if some guy dressed like a muslim terrorist started trying to drag me out of my car. For all she knew, these were just a group of Trump supporters pretending to be ICE.

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This is just an absurd inference (I think it’s trolling). There are clear as day other ICE agents there. Is she really afraid that some vigilante will snatch her when literally LEO is right there?

Whatever it is, it isn't trolling. Progressives in the area view ICE as Trump's personal thugs here to snatch dissidents, not LEO here to enforce laws.

That’s so untethered from reality

How? I absolutely view ICE as Trump's personal paramilitary force, similar to the sturmabteilung. Or at least, I think he hopes that's what they will evolve into. Deporting illegals is a great pretext for creating all the systems they will need to start targeting political dissidents and Trump's enemies. And the angrier the ICE agents are, the more ruthless they'll become. He needs a police force he knows is loyal, who will act without question when he needs them to establish martial law.

There is pretty much zero evidence that they are doing anything but getting rid of illegals.

There's plenty of evidence, just usually in the form of "breaking news story about a citizen being detained" or "someone arrested by ICE when their family says everything was in order" or "person deported for 20-year-old bad check that they'd already paid a fine for". You may not be seeing these stories, and wouldn't give them a thought if you did, but they're out there and all over the place.

And then you look into it and it turns out not to be true

well yeah except for that one white lady they domed, but hey. omellettes and eggs ya know.

I'd be happy with ICE if they were just going around rounding up illegals, but from what i see of them on the news it looks like a large part of their job is standing around in places that maximally pisses libs off, and i gotta say they are absolute machines at that part of the gig.

You seem to think ICE is going to where the libs are. In contrast, the libs are going to where the ICE are.

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That is what their media bubble is telling them and it is driving them to extreme levels of paranoia around the situation.

Watch the video again in 0.25x speed: She is grinning when she tries to drive away. I grant that this was a stressful/adrenaline situation, but not because she was scared but because this was an exciting adventure for her. She thought herself as a heroine in the coming Instagram story and was thrilled to try to escape.

Anyway, this is unimportant. But if you give her such a wide leeway in your theory of mind, I wonder why you don’t do that for the officer? You imagine she was scared shitless and in panic as a (in her mind) terrorist clad Trump thug stormed onto her, but your imagination stops short of the officer having an instinctive fight response when a (in his mind) crazy belligerent bitch hits him with her SUV?

I don't sympathize with the ICE employee because he is being paid to deal with whatever stress this job causes him. If he can't handle it without taking out his feelings on innocent people, he should just quit. It's a pointless job anyway, so nothing would be lost. I also can't imagine stepping in front of a running car, and my first instinct if said car were approaching me would be to jump out of the way, not draw my ccw. His actions make me think he actually wasn't in fear for his life, because shooting the driver didn't change anything about the momentum of the car.

I also can't imagine stepping in front of a running car

... What do you do at crosswalks?

Walking in front of cars that, while running, are currently stopped isn't actually dangerous in most situations, and most(?) everyone does it all the time. It was a mistake in this instance, obviously, but I hardly think it proves the officer doesn't believe getting run over is dangerous(? Is that really your argument?), just that he didn't think she'd suddenly accelerate.

His actions make me think he actually wasn't in fear for his life, because shooting the driver didn't change anything about the momentum of the car.

That is irrelevant. Let's say a bad guy has his gun pointed at you, and you pull out your own gun (this is called drawing from the drop). Is that likely to change anything about the bad guy? No (you are highly likely to get shot and die). Does that mean you weren't in fear of your own life? Obviously you still were.

Right, and then the other ICE employee started charging at her, and she feared for her life. I would be scared too if some guy dressed like a muslim terrorist started trying to drag me out of my car. For all she knew, these were just a group of Trump supporters pretending to be ICE.

Now you are inventing Jussie-Smollet like conspiracy theories to explain this woman's conduct. Just why? Its pretty simple what happened. A lady got in her car with the intent to disrupt ICE activity. She was so doing so. She then made a fatal error by accelerating her car and hitting a federal agent who was seemingly a bit trigger happy given his previous hostile experiences with vehicles hitting him.

There's no need to go into good/bad shoot, it was a meh shoot onto a person who created the situation with their intentional lawless activity.

It is exhausting that “sort by controversial” posts garner the most replies and I am not sure LiberalRetvrn is not trolling. So I want to say I agree with your take and both can be true: She sadly misjudged the situation and acted careless and the officer was trigger happy.

I've never claimed that she made a smart self-preserving decision by participating in civil disobedience against ICE. That's what makes her a hero in my opinion, she sacrificed herself (possibly unintentionally) to resist federal overreach and the police state. And I want her killer to be punished.

I dont think states should be able to opt out of immigration law because they make them feel bad anymore than I can opt out of tax law because I dont like coughing up 45% of my check to DC.

Unless you disagree with that notion there is no case for this being federal overreach or a police state action.

It creates asymmetry whereby red states are subject to blue immigration belief when blue is in power but blue states are not subject to red immigration belief when red is in power.

Its also insane entitlement by Democrats. Imagine any other form of law being basically declared null by some red states during a Democrat administration and just letting people riot around an EPA or IRS facility for months. We know what Merrick Garland would have done. Warrants, Arrests, Frogmarches. And not just on the rioters, we'd be talking about governors and AGs and police chiefs in federal custody.

I believe taxation is theft. The government should be funded through donations, and people should be free to earmark their donations for whatever purpose they see fit.

Great, when you get your new scheme implemented WRT tax and welfare and the like you can ping me to get my help with the paring back of immigration enforcement.

So you don’t believe there should be a government. Got it