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Notes -
Apologies if someone has brought this up already, but new video of Pretty is out from days before he died.
https://apnews.com/article/minneapolis-ice-alex-pretti-videos-immigration-809506eb23f44a3e8f6e53b9fda7b700
He appears to be caught on video at least one other time engaging violently with the police while armed (for some definitions of violent) and is alleged by some sources to have been spitting at the cops.
This generates two thoughts for me:
Don't do crimes. Hell, don't be a career criminal doing multiple crimes. Don't engage in unethical and illegal protests. Don't attack the police, however well intentioned. Rarely - don't date people who commit serious and violent crimes.
I can think of a very small number of cases where this sort of thing didn't turn out to be true and while those are tragedies we have a large population with a large criminal underclass, if our ratio is a hundred million to one then we are doing okay.
These are simple rules - don't be a criminal asshole, even if you are convinced of your own virtue unless you can accept the consequences. And perhaps we shouldn't burn down our society for anti-social criminals.
As corollaries-
I am now essentially convinced you can dismiss most defenses of these individuals reflexively. This is probably not good intellectual hygiene but every single time (every one!) you see a lot of lies put forth without evidence that don't make sense and often contradict available information. People later acknowledge the error or follow-up. People still don't know the undisputed facts about Rittenhouse, or the issues with the Arbery narrative (as seen in this weeks thread).
Additionally I don't know how many of us here actually regularly interact with American black people but it's a core feature of my job and I have some in my extended family. They (and their woke allies) are absolutely convinced they are liable to be killed for no reason at all at any time by police. This includes the guy from the ghetto, this includes the well behaved upper class by birth Harvard educated chair of surgery who walks to and from work in a suit more expensive than most cars.
The beliefs many people have are just completely untethered from reality and unchallenged. If knowledge is a justified true belief then these people know nothing.
My social network is unsurprisingly riddled with healthcare professionals, as Pretti was. To fully describe what I see in most of them in full would likely get labeled as a straw man, so I won't, but most of the accusations seem to be trivially true for me - they think Trump is literally Hitler and that ICE is the Gestapo, they are seeking violence and finds it justified and at the same time don't seem to think what they are doing constitutes violence.
Perhaps most importantly - everyone seems to have big opinions and feelings about politics but at the same time has no quality information, consumed no quality analysis and doesn't know agreed upon facts, much less the ones that aren't agree upon. Nothing has ever been engaged with critically, analyzed, discussed, pushed back on.
This includes the highly intelligent and educated and the guy who pushes the food carts.
Feelings about ICE and Pretti and Good are mandatory. Informed opinions are absent.
In truth I am not sure why I wrote this, some if it is surely cover to point out that Pretti appears to be an idiot. Some of it is processing my feelings. I don't think much of what I'm saying is novel, but I can tell those who don't have the experience that as someone working in an environment with a lot of minorities and a lot of institutionalized wokeness...well people have been lobotomized.
Perhaps I'm hoping someone will say something that gives me hope, but even here our left leaning posters mostly seem to be blind soldiers for the cause.
Yesssss, one of us, one of us.
Pretti was the obnoxious child running up to much bigger kids, putting his finger 0.0000001mm away from their faces, and chanting "I'm not touching you" until the bigger kid punched him in the face. After which point, having accomplished precisely what he set out to do, Pretti cried that he was hit and demanded that the bigger kid be punished because technically he didn't deserve to be punched by the rules as he understands them1. And yes, technically we don't want to encourage children to punch other, smaller, more obnoxious children. But sometimes, as a parent, you have to play dumb. "I didn't see anything, just learn to get along."
We, as a nation, need to play dumb. Let however many of these adult children face consequences (even unfair ones) for the first time in their entire lives. I wasn't there, and neither were you. I didn't see anything. Now go learn to get along with ICE.
Devils Advocate:
Can't we apply this to other killings? Charlie Kirk was engaging in calls to coordinate state violence against his out group (ie running on political issues that would negatively effect the alphabet folks). He was destroying the fabric of our society for profit and fame. He technically is allowed to do that by the first amendment, but it is rules-lawyering. We as a nation should "just play dumb" when his outgroup coordinates violence directly against him in response, because influencers profiting on division and tribal polarization of our society is bad. Let the adult children face the consequences of their rhetoric.
No, because Kirk as you describe him is lot real - it’s a media lie.
Who you’re replying to is … I mean, almost verbatim what the video shows.
So one is real and one is fictional.
I think that should have meaning.
Considering my media diet is pretty sparse (predominately here) and I know of Kirk/Crowder/Walsh from my MRA/Debate-Bro days, I find the insinuation that I am believing some sort of mainstream media lie pretty unbelievable. You are welcome to believe what you want of course.
If you want to do the effort of changing my belief, I am open to some evidence. My current stance is that he was a debate bro influencer who stirred tribal tensions and hate towards the outgroup for profit, while advocating for a return to traditional Christian conservative values. Should give you clear goal posts.
‘ I believe in Heaven and Hell - that should give you clear goal posts ‘
No thank you. You’re welcome to hold beliefs that are incorrect.
That's what I assumed, being asked to prove that something is a media lie is too much effort. It's much easier to sit on the couch and throw arguments in from the peanut gallery.
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If you can find a clip of Charlie Kirk spitting on a woke snowflake and then roundhouse kicking her car causing enough damage that it is no longer street legal, then I will agree with this take.
The urge to create this in Sora is strong...
This is what I am talking about. In the OPs metaphor, Kirk is analogous those middle-school mean girls who go spread rumors, sick the teachers on you, maliciously turn people against you. All without actually personally inflicting violence on you. Their motives are to get fame, popularity, social cred, friends, all very banal human things. Are you the sort of person that when someone fights back violently, for being bullied, you punish them because those mean girls weren't physically violent? Or are you the adult that "plays dumb" because those mean girls need to face the consequences of their social violence?
If you are the former, then a lot of people on the right complain about this zero-tolerance fighting problem and how it punishes people for standing up for themselves. If you are the later then the Kirk situations is just that scaled up with far deadlier consequences.
Even if this were true, "sticks and stones" is much more typical advice on dealing with meangirls than "it's OK if you want to shoot them in the neck"?
Probably because violence against mean girls has been so restricted that once something pops past the threshold it is insanely more violent than it should be. This is an argument that some earlier low level of violence probably would have prevented later lethal violence.
It is hilariously a very feminine argument that mean girls should just be ignored. You ever see the videos of female privilege to mouth off colliding with someone who doesn't recognize it? Maybe we really do live in a longhouse.
You are actually advocating for violence as a response to mean words?
Fascinating -- I do agree that men tend to be politer to each other because violence is always on the table -- but historically the accepted response to unacceptable speech is a challenge to violence, not skipping straight to the party.
If the dude had challenged Kirk to pistols at dawn in defence of his boygirl-friend's honour that would be fine with me -- but sneaking around to get yourself a sucker-punch opportunity is not in fact a masculine activity.
A challenge to violence is definitely the preferred approach but it is not always going to happen. Sometimes you just get punched. I'd argue that skipping straight to violence is because a challenge to violence is not legal and would be giving away the opportunity.
I'm openly unsure how to square this honor cultures being absolutely shit places to live.
As a government policy? Absolutely not. As a social reality? Yes with caveats.
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And the result of following that advice was letting the mean girls run everything.
And wokies are mean girls in power
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Kirk peacefully went and spoke with people in order to change their minds and promote his message.
You're equating that to someone interfering with federal officers while armed, multiple times, while shouting, "assault me."
It would be laughable if there were any humor in it.
There's humor in everything, you just need to look for it.
I am not claiming Kirk violently assaulted people, and I never have. There might be some sort of masculine honor in that at least. Instead, he advocated for the state to go inflict violence on people, he advocated for a return to laws and norms that would physically hurt his out group, he engaged in running political campaigns to do that. He knowingly kept the temperature of political discourse high and cultivated a following out of these efforts that provided him with a very very lavish lifestyle/worth. And he was effective in doing so. Apparently his out-group can predict the future better than you can, they felt this future violence, real or imagined. And they decided to act, to do something about it.
Act like a mean-girl, and maybe someone is going to violently attack you for it. Profit off of stirring tribal hate and division and maybe society should "Turn a blind eye" when some of that hate and violence finds you.
Isn’t this a generalized argument against any civil discourse? If that guy wins, my team loses, therefore pew pew. Should we all just go gangs of New York style and hit the streets with shillelaghs and cleavers instead?
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One was gunned down in completely cold blood whilst the other was deliberately trying to make an already hectic and confusing environment yet more stressful essentially entirely for the purpose of generating videos of bad activities by making them more likely.
"One was killed advocating and coordinating political action to remove the individual liberty and bodily autonomy of minorities while the other was executed in cold blood trying save a woman who was pepper sprayed and protect his neighbors from a violent authoritarian regime"
The inability to exercise some cognitive empathy or minimally some epistemic humility is a sign of being a tribal partisan.
There is no possible argument for the Charlie Kirk killing being in anything but cold blood with an abundance of forethought. Even if you are maximally pushing the 'he was doing harm through espousing his ideology', you have to acknowledge that it was a planned assassination from somebody who sat down and rationally thought through the plan. I don't think the Pretti killing was necessarily good or justified, but it was a spur of the moment decision from somebody in an inherently stressful and chaotic situation.
I'm not disputing the details of a premeditated assassination vs a spur of the moment decision.
I'm arguing the meta level lens of the metaphor around turning a blind eye to immature child-like behavior in adults when it has deadly consequences and how it applies to both sides evenly in ways that gore both sides sacred cows/martyrs.
But discourse about government isn’t child-like behavior. Go around kicking SUVs is child like behavior.
You seem to be making a category error.
I, at least in this thread, am not really discussing government behavior. Government is blunt instrument and this is a problem that requires a scalpel. I have no desire to put a loaded gun on the government's table for use in restricting speech.
Absolutely, Pretti/Anti-ICE movement acts like a child, deliberately attempting to toe the provocation line and claim injustice when they get punch back. WhiningCoil's argument is that we should should ignore it to teach the left a lesson. I think this idea can be applied to other behavior as well, that he might really hate. Like Kirk's mean-girl like behavior.
It is a meta-argument around people trying to abuse the rules-as-written but wanting to avoid the natural consequences of people recognizing that as defection and responding/punishing it.
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So Charlie Kirk is not entitled to his beliefs due to them potentially being against the absolute maximum freedoms for other people, or is simply not allowed to advocate for his beliefs in public if it may result in any modification of society that resembles that?
To be fair, Charlie Kirk said Biden was a "corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America." He was generally pretty decent to people and was willing to agree to disagree, but there's evidence of him occasionally making a controversial comment that would concern moderates and really piss the left off.
There are no direct calls for violence, but I'm pretty sure he made a few comments that kept the political temperature nice and high.
The point here is that we see extralegal justifications from both sides. I still think the Pretti shooting wasn't justified, but the extralegal justification for his shooting gets more arguable when a video of him behaving like a leftist agitator surfaces. People hate this type of person, especially here.
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He can advocate for what ever he wants. If his beliefs are around restricting the negative rights of others then he can also face the consequences of what happens when people don't want their rights restricted.
The government should not be in the business of restricting speech, but people are allowed to respond to coordination of violence with violence. To do otherwise is just letting the fantasy of rabbinically-inclined and wordcells to replace reality
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Yes, we are currently in a civil war. Both sides have internally consistent moral claims for exterminating the other. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can make more productive choices.
Obviously it's a matter of semantics, but I would say it's more of an intifada than a war. In the sense that one side is attempting to get its way by means of sustained and systematic lawbreaking, violence, and the like. If both sides go that route, then yeah, it's a war.
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The "one of us" post you link complains about the left using "lies" (your word for their exaggeration / selective reporting of facts). But then you go and say things like "we are in a civil war" which is so obviously not true. Maybe we're on the path towards one, but even that is super debatable (and regularly debated here).
I just want you to know that I can't take you seriously when you hypocritically call other people out for stupid-language-tactics and then do your own stupid-language-tactics. Again, I'm sure you have lots of justifications for this tactic (many of which are valid!), but as a tactic for achieving your goal of getting me on your side, your rhetoric is failing.
I might prove to be wrong (it happens, but rarely). I am not lying. I sincerely believe that from the very depths of my being. But radical truths often sound like inflammatory rhetoric, so I don't blame you.
I'm not claiming you are wrong or lying. I am claiming you are ineffective.
If you are correct, then a more effective communication style (i.e. more consistent/less inflammatory) will probably get you the results you want faster. At least with me and fellow mottizens if not the general public.
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Would you find it surprising to know that only 20% of Democrats believe Kirk's killing was justified? https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/justifying-murder/
Or that only 40% of Republicans believe Pretti's killing was justified? https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53972-what-americans-think-about-immigration-enforcement-and-the-death-of-alex-pretti
Not really; there's a lot of room for society-poisoning callousness outside of a strict justified, on both sides.
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Sounds like as a radical centrist my productive choice would the extermination of everyone that's a knuckle dragging ape who thinks we are in a civil war and can't get along.
Just looked out my window, I currently don't see a war going on. My left and right wing coworkers seem to get along just fine, as do my friends of various political persuasions. The only people who seem to think we are at war are the terminally online, mentally ill folks.
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