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 -
https://www.newsweek.com/video-appears-to-show-new-ice-shooting-in-minneapolis-11411971
Ice shooting round 2 has kicked off. Numerous rumors already flying around but will be a bit before we have facts I imagine.
EDIT: I've been asked to add some relevant points, I'll say: this comment has links to various angles: https://www.themotte.org/post/3493/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/405295?context=8#context This comment mentions the "Sig misfire" angle that I've seen a bit: https://www.themotte.org/post/3493/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/405451?context=8#context
Walz has activatedthe national guard: https://x.com/MnDPS_DPS/status/2012614253090619619 The NBA postponed the Minnesota/Golden State game tonight.
Good luck to all rightists in the next years, trying to dodge the incoming 1000 years Unlimited Immigration Reich. The problem is that immigrationism is an extremely powerful ideology, because everytime you try to go against it you need to use force, and force make normies have the ick, and reinforce immigrationism. A lesson for all future societies, if we will ever have one (Demography is the most important thing ever and nothing else matters)
Not sure I follow the logic here, what about enforcing immigration laws necessitates a mass of poorly trained officers taking down and beating on a citizen, seemingly just for recording them, and then shooting him multiple times while he's on the floor?
Immigration is a not a dichotomy between "full immigrant open borders" and "government thugs just executing people on the streets", there's plenty of room inbetween. The incompetence and open abuse of ICE is a fixable issue and you should be mad at the Trump admin for creating a problem that doesn't need to happen and causing unnecessary PR problems. The public was on his side for a long while, it was his failures that lead to polling shifts against.
Federal authorities have been incredibly soft by any reasonable standards given the scope of demographic replacement.
We have individual rights in the United States, you don't respond to societal-wide problems by violating the rights of individuals for no reason in isolated incidents.
More options
Context Copy link
If you believe it to be important then isn't that all the more reason the Trump admin should maintain good PR and keep public opinion in support of ICE operations?
The media is a propaganda tool for the left; there will never be "good PR".
The only solution is deporting 40-50 million people over the next decade.
If you think the media is against you, then again that just makes it more important to not give over free wins for no reason. Americans all over, many independent and otherwise supportive of kicking out illegal immigrants, are going to see this video of a man being beaten, thrown to the ground and then shot multiple times and think twice of supporting your cause.
This isn't some RTS where you get to micro every local unit. One of the main criticisms against the protestors (and the reason for a growing absence of sympathy for them) is that they are intentionally engineering scenarios where violence and even fatalaties become a statistical inevitability. There is no way to avoid 'giving a free win' in that kind of rigged game, short of just packing up and leave.
That's true most of the time and something I've argued relentlessly before about various groups from Gamergate to the 2023 French protests to Jan 6th to BLM and now. You can't control every person, they're individuals not hiveminds and every group and movement has its share of dumb and violent people, yet alone third party trolls and exploiters.
Governments and law enforcement however are a bit of an exception. They're formal organizations with the ability to explicitly choose who joins their rank and an ability to actually kick out people who do wrong. In the same way, governments also have the ability to distinguish between proper protesting individuals and improper criminal individuals. Both in punishment (arresting and prosecuting actual criminals and not using lawfare against innocents) and in forgiveness (like Trump always could not have pardoned the cop beaters of Jan 6th).
Those are actual real choices that could be made without having to say "lol just use your hive mind to stop that stranger you don't know" like most discourse about informal groups tends to devolve into. Ability and responsibility go hand in hand. I can't reasonably control what my neighbor does in his own home so if he beats his wife, I'm not responsible. But a CEO of a company is responsible if an employee beats a customer and they don't get fired. The difference is, I can't do anything meaningful about the neighbor but the CEO has the ability to fire the aggressive worker.
More options
Context Copy link
The way it works is that ICE is held to difficult standards (and even when they meet them, are reported as not meeting them), the protestors are held to no standards at all, and any issues are definitionally the fault of ICE for being there. As long as that frame holds there's no win condition for ICE, and the frame is unbreakable.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link