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 -
Did you look at your article? One judge claimed 96 court order violations, without compling a list or presenting his source for the number. He then retracted that statement when the government followed his court order.
The article also provides evidence of the court system being used to limit the federal government's ability to follow its congressional mandate, but that is something that I think will need to be proven in a year or so when the SCOTUS takes a crack at some of these topics.
When the courts said to stop, they stopped. I don't like that this happened, but they did listen to the court order when the court said to stop.
Detaining a student for violating the terms of their visa. There ought to be more people detained for violating the terms of their visas.
Yeah, this happened under Obama a lot. Biden spread the problem around, sending migrants to non-profits with deplorable conditions. For example:
We receive far more people spuriously applying for asylum at the border than we can house safely. We should have far more safe, clean facilities where we can detain people when they cross the border while we evaluate their immigration cases. Hopefully we can agree on that.
You need to make an appointment ahead of time. Or do you think any congressman can show up at any Federal prison unannounced and be welcomed in?
I don't like that but I doubt that's official policy and I would like to see evidence that this happened before commenting further.
I assume that you saw this in a small video clip, devoid of context or other angles. I also hope you had confirmation it was ERO that did it, and it wasn't another police department or something. Lots of police departments have been accused of being ERO/ICE in the past year.
I don't like this, but some of these are just, "Politicians released inaccurate press briefings to try to make themselves look better," which you have to admit are not at all unique to this administration or department.
I don't know what to call Good and Pretti, but "terrorist" is not actually completely crazy given that they coordinated with a vast network of people on encrypted channels to share training, tactics, and then be deployed in coordinated roles designed to prevent Federal Law Enforcement from enforcing Federal Laws. By terrorizing/driving fear into the hearts of the law enforcement.
If they are arrested without winter clothing then that makes sense. There's no positive duty for them to provide winter coats to people. What do the local police do if they detain and then release someone who wasn't wearing a coat at the time?
I'll be honest I think we've neared the end of what we're going to get out of each other usefully in this discussion. These mostly seem to me like super weak excuses, for things that are mostly the direct result of an environment within immigration enforcement that is deliberately prioritizing deportations over basic human decency. I'm sure you don't see it that way but I have a hard time understanding why.
All I see is a subset of the right, including several very highly placed people in the administration, who have completely lost their minds about an issue that is not particularly different than the myriad of political issues that are constantly being discussed, and don't really care who they hurt in the process of solving it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link