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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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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.