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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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Politically, I am an immigration restrictionist and fairly onboard with MAGA. I don’t see a contradiction in saving a migrant’s life in a tragic situation, and advocating that there be fewer such tragic situations, thousands of miles from home

That's because there isn't any. "I wish these people would not come to my country" is not the same as "I wish these people were dead".

Regardless, you did the right thing. Thanks for posting, as reminders to have a compassionate heart are always helpful in my view.

A problem with this idea is that this doesn't extend to a general responsibility to save all freezing homeless people. If it did, the reasons why it's unworkable would be obvious. And since it doesn't, it's imposing a responsibility to save the people in front of you which means that "out of sight, out of mind" is actually true and that poor people have more requirements to help the homeless (since they live in worse areas and have to use public transportation, so they run across more homeless).

Unless you're going to have a moral standard "everyone has to save X number of homeless. If you run across fewer than that, you need to save some extras outside your sight to reach X. If you run across more than that, you only need to save up to X of them."