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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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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.

-I don't think it's reasonable for Democrats to create a massive mess, and then to expect Republicans to have perfection in how they clean up the mess made by Democrats. And I think that should be one framing that conservatives use- "sometimes bad things will happen when Democrats create a mess and we have to clean it up for them".

-I think conservatives should use incidents like this to raise attention to the fact that the media, and the left (but I repeat myself a bit), comparatively give so little attention to the victims of illegal immigrants and recidivist criminals out on the streets from liberal policies. The people getting into incidents with ICE are much less "innocent" than the random victims of recidivist criminal nutjobs or illegal immigrants let out on the streets by liberal policies.

-Conservatives tend to get into the weeds about whether or not a shooting was "justified", instead of simply pointing out that almost all of the unwanted tragic incidents that relate to politics are mainly committed by the groups which are the chief recipients of liberal sympathies.

Every time the left gives a massive amount of attention to someone getting into a confrontation with ICE and it ends badly, conservatives should be asking why Iryna Zarutska et al didn't get the same level of concern for not seeking out any trouble whatsoever.

-Speaking as a former leftist, if conservatives really want to get the media to not be such overwhelming propaganda outlets for the left, then I think they absolutely must implement 2rafa's idea of jobs quotas by ideology.

The simple reality, and many studies back this up, is that liberals are more bigoted against conservatives, than conservatives are bigoted against liberals. And the level of liberal bigotry is at an all-time high.

-Especially when it comes to the media, it's easy to portray it as a free-speech right. If conservatives can almost never be admitted nor hired by colleges, nor hired for media jobs, then they are cut off from major sources of "speech" in their country. (And colleges often have received federal grants, making it even more egregious that these institutions are taking tax dollars from conservatives, while refusing to admit or hire them).

-I think the jobs quota needs to be portrayed as universal protection for every ideology. And to emphasize that free speech is completely protected, I think quotas should be proportional to the ideology of the audience.

So, if an institution deliberately wants to only cater to a universally left-wing audience, that's fine, then they can hire only leftists, if that is their desire. And conservative institutions would have the same freedom to hire only conservatives, if they want to cater exclusively to a conservative audience.

But I can guarantee that nearly every single media and academic institution in the western world has more conservative audience members (and taxpayer funders), than the number of conservatives the HR-liberals are willing to hire.

-Everyone would then clearly be free to engage in any speech they want. This is just about hiring practices in cases where there is a clear discrepancy in who is getting hired.

But any conservatives by now should see that it's obvious that "policy follows personnel". As institutions have hired more leftists, they have become more leftist in their policies & in their speech habits.

-I would suggest that ideological hiring quotas should also apply for government jobs, which skew massively leftist in practice. Voters deserve a government which matches how they vote!

-Hiring quotas by ideology in government jobs would accomplish a lot of major conservative goals at once: 1. Significantly lower the risk of civil war. 2. Massively expand conservative power. 3. Reduce liberal enthusiasm for spending and for government power in general (liberals will perhaps suddenly lose interest in having their taxes fund lots of conservatives in easy government jobs.).

-A major part of why government jobs have consistently skewed leftist is that government jobs tend to be concentrated in urban areas that lean left. So, government jobs not only tend to be functionally hostile to conservatives on ideological grounds, government jobs also tend to have a massive regional bias against conservative-leaning rural areas in particular.

-"Regionalism" is underdiscussed as a type of bias which badly harms some people. I think this is because "regionalism" mostly harms conservative-leaning groups. A lot of liberals have been very good at making a massive fuss about some types of bias which evidence suggests harms relatively few people (like racism), while ignoring the more common harmful biases which can get wielded against people based on where they live, what religion they practice, or how they vote.

Interesting, but in practice this would be super hard and cause major problems for some institutions.

How are you going to get a 50:50 split in the police or military? Do you really want aome of these organisations to reflect the voter base, rather than the base of people who want to work in that field?

My understanding is that the military is already fairly split by voting preferences among active-duty military, e.g. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08/31/as-trumps-popularity-slips-in-latest-military-times-poll-more-troops-say-theyll-vote-for-biden/.com

In general, in all nations, the military is a fantastic candidate for balanced ideology, since coups require the support of the military in 100% of cases (the support of the media is also essential).

But if the military is always split relative to the nation's voting preferences, then it's really hard to take over the military as a part of a coup of the government. It's a great way to protect democracy.

And regarding the police (and ICE), a great way to get the left to stop attacking law enforcement so much (and to hopefully improve community relations and improve the skewed perspective most leftists have about law enforcement), would be to get more leftists working in law enforcement. I'm sure there would be some negative effects, too, but there are some big major positives about ideological balance in law enforcement.

Do you really want aome of these organisations to reflect the voter base, rather than the base of people who want to work in that field?

This is a good question, and I think that ideological fairness should be assessed in the same way that things like gender fairness or racial fairness are often assessed: that as long as you can show that the workplace is not hostile, and that no minimally qualified candidates were rejected, then if there simply aren't enough qualified leftist/rightist candidates that applied, then it's fine if there is a resulting imbalance.

The reality is that a lot of media/academic/government workplaces are massively hostile to conservatives, and a lot of conservative talent is not being admitted nor hired.

And regarding the police (and ICE), a great way to get the left to stop attacking law enforcement so much (and to hopefully improve community relations and improve the skewed perspective most leftists have about law enforcement), would be to get more leftists working in law enforcement.

This has not worked out well for the UK.