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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31675 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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ICE Needs Better Uniforms

Everyone's in favor of immigration enforcement until the masked goons in unmarked SUVs show up. Are a lot of these complaints pretextual? Sure. But it is hard to deny that ICE looks unprofessional. Law enforcement must command respect, or failing that, fear. Why are they in camo pants? Are they hunting illegals from covered positions with tranquilizer darts like deer? Such attire projects weakness. Our officers must be dignified, projecting the full power and majesty of the federal government, the greatest instituion God ever gave man.

There is an idea in the water supply that cool uniforms are fascism. People are far too afraid of ever doing anything that the Nazis might also have done. Still, aesthetics that conjure images of 1930s Germany are to be avoided (that means you Greg). I propose looking back even further for inspiration. 1914 was the last time regular armies in battle uniform looked cool. This sort of style would both pay homage to the heritage that the DHS Twitter account seems to think it is protecting, and project an aura of seriousness and respect.

Because it's 2026, I have created a small album of AI-generated concept art. Feel free to offer your own suggestions.

I've made a similar suggestion before, but I would pattern-match to modern police uniforms to avoid any possibility of confusion or being called a LARPer/reenactor. Field agents apprehending illegals from unmarked cars can still wear hunting gear, but as soon as whistleblowing "concerned citizens" appear, a car in a police livery with a light bar and "DHS POLICE" across the doors should arrive with the officers wearing eight-point caps and midnight blue uniforms with badges to insist that this all looks like a violation of the federal law and we would like you to take a ride with us.

The operation in Minneapolis is a joint ICE/CBP operation. (I think the CBP element is part of the Border Patrol, but I might be wrong on this point). CBP have a cop-like blue working uniform that would be completely appropriate for this operation, although it is mostly used by CBP Field Operations. Border Patrol still use the green paramilitary-style uniforms that they used before integration into CBP, which are not ideal for urban policing but are a lot better than the grey cammo I am seeing on my TV screen.

If I was trying to make Minneapolis look like dispassionate law enforcement then I would put ICE and Border Patrol in matching uniforms similar to the CBP Field Ops uniform but with the appropriate agency badges. Call it the "urban operational duty" uniform to distinguish it from the existing green Border Patrol "rough duty" uniform that they wear when patrolling the actual border. But if, as I suspect given what MAGA Twitter wants to see, part of the point is to look like a paramilitary operation against the blue tribe, then the grey cammo makes better social media copy.

These details don't matter. ICE wearing a blue uniform isn't going to diminish the screeching and whistling by so much as tenth of a decibel.

The real problem is the masks. Very easy for the outrage publicity machine to churn out innumerable variations on "if they're legit, why are they masked? what are they hiding?" etc. online content.

But on the other hand, with my own two eyes I have read a post online about "here's a list of ICE agents that were doxxed, wouldn't it be just awful if people showed up at their home address to give these fascists what-for on account of their nazi actions, simply terrible, just sayin'!"

So I too would not like to have my face be easily identifiable off a photo snapped by a "concerned citizen observer" and shared around the mob of church invaders. Hence, masks.

But on the other hand, with my own two eyes I have read a post online about "here's a list of ICE agents that were doxxed, wouldn't it be just awful if people showed up at their home address to give these fascists what-for on account of their nazi actions, simply terrible, just sayin'!"

On the third hand, wouldn't it be kinda easy to arrest and lock up any "activists" who come up to disrupt/vandalize/attempt unspecified whatever on ICE agents home address? No longer protesting at that point.

Wearing masks as a safety measure (as opposed to cheap stromtrooper intimidation measure) signals a lack of confidence in state capacity to protect its agents. Federal agents acting like they are scared of Antifa is kinda Antifa's mission statement and raison d'etre.

It is still public perceptions game, not war, so it is preferable fight so that onlookers see you have skin in the game and win, not go full munchkin stacking defensive bonuses.

On the third hand, wouldn't it be kinda easy to arrest and lock up any "activists" who come up to disrupt/vandalize/attempt unspecified whatever on ICE agents home address? No longer protesting at that point.

Well, that depends, doesn't it? Innocent protesters unintentionally cross over when technically they shouldn't do so, evil stormtrooper ICE agents move robotically to drive back said innocent protesters:

Whipple is what we call this standing protest, the ominous structure across the street, and the social-justice-oriented Episcopal bishop for whom the building was named long before it was filled with Minnesotans snatched from the street. An SUV squeals out of the complex. “Oh!” says a woman next to me. “That was a happy Nazi!” Our boots scrape against the ice. A woman walks around with a box of disposable hand warmers before placing it next to a growing collection of other boxes — granola bars, water, almonds. All of us stare in the direction of a parking lot just past a chain-link fence, through which we can see many cars and the occasional agent. Sometimes a robot voice comes from that direction. “This is the federal protective service,” the voice will say. “Get off federal property and stop obstructing.” The man with the dog puts his hand to his ear performatively. “What’s that?” he says. “Hmmm?”

…There are three, then six, then 30 agents outside the federal building, across the street from the protesters, head to toe in black — vests, face shields, helmets, batons, tear-gas launchers, pepper-ball guns, sidearms. Protesters are supposed to stay off the street in front of the Whipple Building, but sometimes they step into the street. What you feel about what happens next will depend on what you believe to be the proper response to this violation of social order. The agents cross the street and keep walking, an undifferentiated mass of black except at their center, where Border Patrol boss Greg Bovino has chosen to draw attention to himself in a black scarf and long dark greatcoat.

…The agents come all at once with a kind of mechanical sameness. The jeers from this side grow louder: “TRAITOR! FUCK ICE!” They shove protesters onto a snow-covered patch of dry grass; others trip trying to back up. “FUCK YOU! SHAME ON YOU!” An agent forces a fallen protester back down and slips on the curb. Somewhere in the mêlée a photographer has a knee pressed into his back.

They's just drivin' out the hostile invaders, hoss:

The night I arrive in the city I hear that a man has been shot and make my way to the scene in North Minneapolis after dark, walking toward flashing police lights, stopping occasionally to turn away and let the burn of tear gas clear from my eyes. It is loud — helicopters, whistles, the pop of flash-bangs — and the crowd is young, though at least one woman pushes a walker toward the police tape. A man in Crocs and no coat has his arms crossed inside his hoodie; his sleeves hang limp. Another man lies facedown in the middle of the street; he looks dead, but I’m told he is just trying to create a barrier. Friends find one another and hug.

For a long while, neighbors, perhaps 50 of them, yell at the empty street, across the police tape, toward flashing cars in the distance. A line of agents approaches slowly, and the vibe shifts hard. There are nine of them, armed, in helmets and masks and boots and gloves. They stand silent and still behind the tape.

Later, ICE agents will come at us from two directions, surprising the crowd, taking back the sidewalk, rendering the air unbreathable. They will drop more flash-bangs and deploy a tear-gas canister in the direction of an SUV full of children on their way back from a basketball game; a 6-month-old in the car will, according to his mother, lose consciousness and be hospitalized.

…But it is this moment on the street that summons a pulse of adrenaline each time I call it back. These people aren’t settled in for a long stretch of action; there are no boxes of hand warmers. These are neighbors carrying phones and bike helmets, breathing warm clouds of air into the cold when they might otherwise be at home placing dinner plates in the dishwasher. When the agents walk toward us, when the void behind the police tape is replaced with a line of masked, armed men in vests, the crowd unleashes an extraordinary level of invective. It is a chorus of jeers that rises and falls with its own internal rhythm. A woman yells with her entire body, “GO BACK TO TEXAS MOTHERFUCKERS. WE HATE YOU. GO HOME. FUCKING GO BACK TO PRISON WHERE YOU FUCKING BELONG. NAZI. WE HATE YOU. TRAITOR! GET OUT!” The crowd rides this river of catharsis. A white woman in a beanie points as she yells, each statement crisp and cold: “ICE ATTACKS PREGNANT WOMEN.” A white man points both his middle fingers and releases a teeth-baring yell, and it seems as if he were drawing a current from the pavement straight out of his mouth. “YOU LITTLE BITCH,” yells a Black woman. Against the wail of distant whistles, the crowd passes from one character to another and comes together: “SHAME. SHAME. SHAME.”

The impulse to drive hostile invaders from your home lives in your body in a place too deep to name. I finally bought a gas mask. You should get one too.

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