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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28050 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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The Karen Sleeper Cell Has Activated

A woman in Kansas City attempted to set fire to a warehouse that was alleged to be an ICE facility of some sort. Or, maybe, it was planned to be an ICE facility in the future. Or something.

I suppose there's room to quibble over this being a technical act of terrorism, insurrection, or just normal arson. Despite my tongue-in-cheek title, I also don't think this is some sort of a flashpoint for semi-organized violence on the part of lefty activists. Probably, it's just one individual who took a leave of their senses and did something dumb, pointless, and illegal.

But it is worth speculating on, on the internet, the mental processes that led to this behavior. One product of the many, many, _many, comments on the Minnesota ICE shootings was the idea that a large part of what's going on is an extreme from of LARPing. Some of these protestors see themselves literally as the inheritors of the Civil Rights Movement, the American Revolution, and The Rebels from Star Wars all in one. They are of The One Right and True Cause and, therefore, all of their actions have inherent justification.

When that line of thinking gets to compound on itself for long enough, people start to burn things.

I've always been suspicious of the "radicalized online" idea. Aside from a few already very mentally odd individuals, I don't buy the idea that you can read enough schizo posts that, one day, you decide to up end your life and do something drastic. I think it's far more likely you just spend more and more time online and indoors engaging in fantasy conflicts.

But I do believe in radicalization as a concept more broadly. Cults and mass social movements exemplify this. At a lower stakes level, simply hanging out with a certain "scene" (think metalheads, goths, punks, whatever) can meaningfully change a person's behaviors and beliefs.

I wonder to what extent the various Minnesota-like organized protesting is now seriously breaking contain for lefties - many of them female - who would, otherwise, mostly vent their aggravation by doing their own kind of schizo posting on Facebook or elsewhere. If this is the case, then we're dealing with something a lot more like a cult or, more geopolitically relevant, something similar to how ISIS spread so quickly after their initial emergence. That does concern me.

If this is the case, then we're dealing with something a lot more like a cult or, more geopolitically relevant, something similar to how ISIS spread so quickly after their initial emergence. That does concern me.

I do not think the cult-label you apply to the ICE-protesters points to a useful set in thingspace.

Let us consider daesh for a minute. They were not a new ideological movement. Islamic fundamentalism was not new, their end goal of a state running on sharia law long established. What changed was merely the circumstances -- e.g. the government of Iraq was a lot less powerful than it had been previously, and the Jihadists took their chance.

For all their differences to daesh, the anti-ICE protests are not a new ideology either. It is simply Social Justice Progressivism. The only thing which has changed is the situation, and thus the tactics. The leftist idea that if the government comes to round up your neighbors, you do not stand idly on the sidewalk as the Germans did is not exactly new.

The likely result is that the federal government can not effectively enforce immigration policy without the support of the state and local authorities -- at least not without losing the support of the majority. You can find that concerning, but it is arguably not 'imminent civil war' level of concerning. For one thing, the protesters embrace non-violent tactics -- which is clever on their part, but happily also limits the number of casualties. For another, their tactics do not generalize to other areas -- Trump's tariffs are not in danger from being defeated on a local level, for one thing.

Irish-related news about ICE, there's an Irish guy in detention and complaining long and loudly about how he's being held in a concentration camp, etc. Turns out our friend has a bit of a criminal record back home, as he skipped off to the USA instead of facing drug charges in Ireland back in 2009. He overstayed (probably deliberately, you would have to imagine) a tourist visa and did what a lot of illegal Irish do: settle down in Boston, get a job, and establish a life.

Well, it's all caught up with him now. So ICE at least are not only persecuting brown people, they're persecuting white people too! 😁

Seamus Culleton, the Irish man who has spent months in a Texas immigration detention centre, failed to appear in court in Ireland in 2009 on drugs-related charges.

A bench warrant for his arrest was issued in April 2009, one month after he had moved to the United States.

Mr Culleton, 38, has been in custody in El Paso, Texas, almost 4,000km from his home in Boston, after he was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last September.

Originally from Glenmore in Co Kilkenny, he had previously been undocumented in the US, and was in the final stages of receiving his Green Card and had a valid work permit, according to his lawyer.

It has now emerged that Mr Culleton had been charged with the unlawful possession of drugs, possession for sale and supply, as well as obstruction in relation to an incident on 17 May 2008 in Glenmore.

After he failed to appear at a sitting of New Ross District Court to face the charges in April 2009, a judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest.

Turns out I'm not the only one less than sympathetic to the guy (he could have gone the legal route, and the fact that he knew he had criminal charges in Ireland meant that he wouldn't be eligible means he deliberately broke the law and kept right on breaking it and hoped that he could continue to lie and get away with it):

Alarm bells should have rung when Seamus Culleton said he was being held in a “modern day concentration camp”.

The ­Irishman was detained by US Immigration and Customs ­Enforcement (ICE) agents last ­September and sent to a ­facility in El Paso, Texas, while he fights ­deportation.

Speaking on Liveline last week, he reported that the toilets and showers there are filthy and the portion sizes of the meals served to detainees are more suitable for children.

Unpleasant, no doubt. You certainly wouldn’t be giving the place a five-star review on Tripadvisor.

Historians of the Nazi period, however, have tended to place the fact that the jacks could have done with a squirt of Toilet Duck at the lower end of the scale of offences in Auschwitz.

Nor were inmates offered a free flight home and $3,500 (€2,950) in cash to leave, which Culleton turned down. As a result, US authorities deny he is being detained at all, since he could leave at any time.

...In due course, it turned out that Culleton had other reasons for worrying about returning home.

Sleuths on social media dug up the inconvenient fact that, back in 2009, the Kilkenny native had failed to appear in court on various charges, including the unlawful possession of drugs for sale and supply.

A warrant was issued for his arrest. Now, it could be there is a perfectly innocent explanation for the drugs he allegedly had in his possession all those years ago. Had he chosen to go to court at the time, we might have heard it.

...All the same, Culleton has little cause for complaint. Had they known about the drugs charges at the time, he would not have been allowed into the US in the first place. Immigration desks at US airports are not famed for their happy-go-lucky attitude, after all.

He went to the US on a visa waiver programme, which allows tourists to stay for up to 90 days. No extensions are permitted, and work or study is forbidden. The rules are clear. By playing hide and seek with the authorities, Culleton got a generous portion of ­extra years in the States.

...Faced with a man who turned out to be a victim of nothing other than his own bad choices, we are apparently meant to wring our hands and rend our clothes and demand that ­Something Must Be Done.

Something is being done in ­Culleton’s case. He has received “due process”. An immigration judge last September said he must leave.

As Foreign Minister Helen McEntee told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday: “We can’t interfere in another country’s immigrations laws.”

Precisely. We deport people who are here illegally too (albeit nowhere near enough for many voters’ liking).

For Micheál Martin to use his visit to the White House on St Patrick’s Day to unfurl a “Free Seamus” banner — as many seemingly want the Taoiseach to do — would be the height of hypocrisy, not to mention a waste of a rare opportunity to raise matters of far greater urgency to the Irish people.

Illegal Irish immigrants are ­simply experiencing what Mexicans and others have experienced for years — something from which they had largely been spared because of the powerful voices in the States lobbying on Ireland’s behalf.

The real reason for the hue and cry over Culleton, of course, is that the latest deportations by ICE are ­happening under Trump.

Though one of Trump's ex (and embittered) officials seems to be trying to stir the pot:

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has said the Irish man who has been detained for months in the US will be released soon because “he’s white”.

...Scaramucci said on his podcast: “So, what is the elephant in the room? He’s white. He’s blanco de blanco, OK? And these [ICE] guys are on tape saying [to immigrants], ‘Well, I don’t like your accent’. These guys are on tape in their masks, aggressively going after brown and black people.

“Trust me — when this services to Donald Trump, he’s going to look at the guy and say, ‘This guy’s white! What the hell are you guys doing?’ And that’s the facts. Now, we can skirt around them and we can pretend that’s not happening, but it is happening.”

Scaramucci said “the Irish Government will likely make an appeal on his behalf, and it will likely be accepted” and Mr Culleton “will likely be released”.

...Meanwhile, an Irish-American att­orney has raised fears that ICE agents will target undocumented Irish at St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the US.

James P Cavanaugh, an attorney and county commissioner in Omaha, Neb­raska, said there was “considerable fear” last year in the US on the Mexican holiday, Cinco de Mayo.

Mr Cavanaugh, who works with individuals seeking to ascertain rights to overseas citizenships, said ICE agents have attended public events.

“Folks who have maybe not perfect documentation would be very, very leery to go out to St Patrick’s Day,” he said. “There will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, nationwide coming out, and it’ll be very interesting to see how that plays out.

...Brian O’Dwyer, the chairman emeritus and founder of the Emerald Isle Immigration Centre, said he has heard of cases of Irish immigrants being held in ICE detention centres for months.

“It’s not unusual, five, six months. I’ve heard of people that have been kept in detention, who I know of, who agreed to be deported, and they still kept them in detention until they figured out a way to get them out of the country,” he said.

Mr O’Dwyer, a prominent advocate for immigration rights, knows of families who have been separated by deportations during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and said it has had a chilling effect on the undocumented Irish living in the US.

“They just get on a plane and go home,” he said. “They see the writing on the wall, and particularly they hear all these horrible stories about the detention, and they say, ‘I don’t want that to happen to myself or to my family. I have health problems. I certainly don’t think I could survive 30 days or 60 days in detention’.”

And you know what I say about that, as an Irish person? Good! If they're there illegally and breaking the law, go the legal route or get out. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, and if under Trump crackdowns are being impartial as to who is getting cracked down on, then that's the right way to do it. You can argue about how they're doing it, but not who they're doing it to, if 'blanco de blanco' get the same treatment.

He overstayed (probably deliberately, you would have to imagine) a tourist visa and did what a lot of illegal Irish do: settle down in Boston, get a job, and establish a life.

That bit was funny, I have to admit.

We were not sending our best there! 😁 Scooted off to Amerikay around age 21 to dodge drug and assault charges at home. Probably only a very small fish re: the drug dealing, but he didn't stick around for the court case. He broke the law so he should face the consequences. It may well be tough, he may well be a solid citizen in the USA, but if the authorities had known about his criminal charges back then, very very unlikely he would have been permitted to immigrate.

I remember the days when the mainstream media was whipping up interest in the supposedly important spectre of Islamist online radicalization. This was roughly between 2004 and 2015 or so. There were special reports, documentaries etc. Only later did I even come across the cool-headed observation that to the extent that Islamist radicalization even exists anywhere, it is largely happening offline.

To a fairly large degree most protesters are some form of LARPer at least in the sense that they don’t care enough about the cause at hand to risk any serious consequences.

The biggest factor is the bubbles. In the old days, radicalism was harder to create and maintain because you had to essentially remove the person you wanted to radicalize from sanity checks that happen from non-radicalized people around the person. This is why old religious cults often encouraged members to cut off old relationships and only cult members remained for social connections. You also want to make the person’s thought process as much as possible about the thing you’re radicalizing the person on. So with a religious cult, you’d see this radicalized person seeing almost everything through the lens of the religion in question.

The problem we have at the moment is that the tools to do this are in everyone’s pocket and available all the time. A person who is in a liberal social media bubble often has very few people online that are not liberals (the same is likely true of hard right conservatives as well). They often block anyone who disagrees, stop listening to media that doesn’t support their biases, and spend hours watching videos about conservatives saying or doing something that looks evil to them.

Personally I don’t think that if we lived in the media environment of 1986 you’d see much of a protest. Our problems, in context of other historical crises across the globe and through history simply are not that bad. We have stable currency, nearly full employment, and our biggest food problem is obesity. Most real radical moments come from serious sustained economic problems much more serious than our current situation. You’d need things to essentially be really really bad before people are ready to upend society. In an environment where you could not saturate yourself in a radicalization bubble, you don’t have enough problems to convince people to blow up society over politics.

The biggest factor is the bubbles. In the old days, radicalism was harder to create and maintain because you had to essentially remove the person you wanted to radicalize from sanity checks that happen from non-radicalized people around the person. This is why old religious cults often encouraged members to cut off old relationships and only cult members remained for social connections. You also want to make the person’s thought process as much as possible about the thing you’re radicalizing the person on. So with a religious cult, you’d see this radicalized person seeing almost everything through the lens of the religion in question.

The problem we have at the moment is that the tools to do this are in everyone’s pocket and available all the time. A person who is in a liberal social media bubble often has very few people online that are not liberals (the same is likely true of hard right conservatives as well). They often block anyone who disagrees, stop listening to media that doesn’t support their biases, and spend hours watching videos about conservatives saying or doing something that looks evil to them.

I feel like there's a full-length article to be written on this, at some point...

One of my takeaways from the last few years is that both sides of the American culture war bark a great deal but have very little bite.

At the start of 2021, surely several million Americans, if polled, would have told you that the Presidential election had just been stolen from them by a deep state cabal. What happened as a result? One almost entirely unarmed act of trespassing into the Capitol building. This even though many of those several million were already heavily armed and most of the rest could have easily become heavily armed if they had wanted to.

Now in 2026, several million Americans, if polled, would tell you that Trump is erecting a fascist regime and that ICE are stormtrooper goons who are being turned into Trump's personal army and are waging a racist war against brown people. What has happened so far as a result? One or two incompetent armed attacks on ICE. Zero successful ones, even though it would be easy for most Americans to buy weapons and it's probably not hard to figure out how to kill a few ICE agents.

Are

"radicalized online"

and

spend more and more time online and indoors engaging in fantasy conflicts.

That different? I'm in my own personal tragedy of this at the moment but on the right not the left. There is certainly some very culty thinking and attitudes. They develop their own vocabulary / lexicon and lots of random events are 'evidence' their lexicon is working to effect change in the world.

My phrasing was a little ambiguous. I believe you're correct.

The distinction I was trying to make was the idea that there ever were large amounts of people who, only because of online content, were then going out and performing radical actions in the real world.

Online "radicalization" leading to perpetual online schizo-ing is absolutely a mass level (ongoing) event.

Yes I think we agree.

How large is large?

I was skeptical of many of the 'radicalized online' narratives, but now that I've seen it up close I'm more sympathetic.

The cohort that engages in 'fantasy conflicts' online is certainly larger than the cohort that lives or LARPs this fantasy in meat spaces but there are positive reinforcement cycles between these two cohorts that perpetuate the behaviors.

I think the majority of those that move onto the 'up end your life and do something drastic' mode of this failure began in the 'fantasy conflicts' online phase.

In the instance I've personally experienced the fantasy conflicts online have been enough to up end your life and do something drastic. Though there is likely a comorbiditiy as I further suspect there often are in these cases.

Anecdotally, one (broadly) lefty woman I knew didn't believe me when I told her that Americans in fact do not have a constitutional right to obstruct government agents ("so what, they're just supposed to protest on the side? Are you sure?"). I think some people just don't really understand what's allowed and what isn't for reasons that I can only speculate about. We may find this Karen someday shocked to be clapped in irons for attempting to burn down the ICE fulfillment center.

Well, the last time broadly lefty US citizens felt compelled to obstruct government agents was a really long time ago, so she probably lacks any point of reference.

Apparently the lesson they took from civil disobedience was that intentionally breaking the law to force consequences shouldn't have the consequences. The whole point of this sort of protesting is to get arrested in such a manner that people think it's unjust, not fight the cops and try to flee.

Weren't a lot of the civil disobedience cases (or at least the high-profile ones) directly related to their goals, rather than interfering with federal officers? e.g. staging a sit-in at a restaurant counter, where they absolutely would (theoretically) purchase and eat a meal like anyone else should the proprietor serve them, rather than by (say) forming a cordon and blocking anyone from eating there.

Weren't a lot of the civil disobedience cases (or at least the high-profile ones) directly related to their goals, rather than interfering with federal officers? e.g. staging a sit-in at a restaurant counter, where they absolutely would (theoretically) purchase and eat a meal like anyone else should the proprietor serve them, rather than by (say) forming a cordon and blocking anyone from eating there.

I don't know, but I think the basic idea of civil disobedience is to publicly and openly violate a law which law you believe to be unjust.

So that if you block a highway as a form of protest, it's arguably not really civil disobedience. You aren't saying that there shouldn't be laws against blocking highways. Rather, you are just engaging in what I have called "Terrorism Lite." i.e. you are violating the law in order to in inconvenience and harm other people, but doing so short of direct violent attacks on human beings.

I think an important part of successful civil disobedience is that you have to appear sympathetic to onlookers. The fact that you're just trying to ride the bus and the cops insist on dragging you out in handcuffs makes them look deranged and you look like an innocent victim. If you're the one attacking the cops, you're the one who comes across as deranged.

Unfortunately, you can take a video and clip out the part where you acted deranged. Then make the cops punching back go viral to your bubble.

I think an important part of successful civil disobedience is that you have to appear sympathetic to onlookers.

Sadly, the same is true of terrorism. I mean, it realize on having sympathetic journalists, politicians, etc. to imply that the terrorists have a legitimate grievance, that they were responding to oppression, etc.

Civil Disobedience-era also frankly would get policed a lot harder if they just rocked up aimlessly like the current ICE interference squad is.

Because it didn't really have consequences last time. MLK Jr. spent maybe a few weeks in jail, total, right? Civil disobedience in the US wasn't like in South Africa where they actually imprisoned Mandela for a long time -- it was just a show.

As far as I know it was definitely not civil disobedience that Mandela was imprisoned for.

I believe they had more potent physical reprisals than the current ones. ICE isn't using dogs and water hoses

Long jail sentences, ruinous fines, and debanking are more potent physical reprisals than dogs and water hoses, even if the dogs and water hoses look worse in the moment. (Of course, debanking doesn't involve beating people up, but at some point in the chain, it still involves violence like all government actions do, and the financial system is still part of the physical world.)

At the end of the day, the protestors win by making the government's enforcement arm look bad, which forces their political goal. This is non-violent protest theory 101. Dogs and waterhoses are good for the protestors, a bunch of them going to jail for things like 'obstructing police proceedings' is not, because nobody pays attention to that outside of the activist core.

To say nothing of the fact that the KKK was most certainly a potent force, and they certainly did engage in bombings and other kinds of terrorism.

My opinion is that US schools do a really bad job of teaching the civil rights protests of the 1960s era. A lot of people unironically believe that Rosa Parks was just some random nice lady who was too tired to change seats on the bus that day, and that MLK Jr assembled a group of purely peaceful protestors who shamed the evil whites into doing the right thing. The reality is... a lot more complicated.

  • Southerners had been feeling profoundly divided about segregation for a long time
  • Rosa Parks was the chosen representative of the NAACP. She had a long career of activism, and carefully planned her protest to be as sympathetic as possible to the middle class whites of the area. There had been numerous failed attempts before her to do the same thing.
  • MLK Jr was arrested and went to jail, something which he fully expected and was prepared for. However, he urged his supporters to act tactically and strategically, not in random mob violence. He drew a clear divide between forceful activism like the Boston Tea Party, which had a clear purpose, and random individual action, which does not. Ironically, MLK Jr is probably just too intelligent for modern political activists to understand.

A lot of people unironically believe that Rosa Parks was just some random nice lady who was too tired to change seats on the bus that day

FWIW I didn't learn until well into adulthood that Rosa Parks was a setup. Which is kind of a shame, because it would have been interesting to learn that civil rights activists wanted to mount a legal challenge to bus segregation; that they found a sympathetic plaintiff; and they planned the whole incident.

I don't see that this would undermine the curriculum, but apparently the ideologues who put together our class materials wanted to deify Rosa Parks and the civil rights leadership to the maximum extent feasible.

Learning that a good chunk of the civil rights movement was basically one big astroturf pushed by New York financiers might have young, impressionable minds seriously questioning things like 'official narrative' or how easy it is to twist history.

Nevermind everything else that was happening around that time period.

And we can't have that, now, can we?

Furthermore they should teach that other countries have wide spread use of public transit and even wealthy people use it. Meanwhile in the US Rosa Parks made public transit a last resort option for those too poor to care about being stabbed.

The US is not unique in this regard, even among developed Western nations. There are parts of Dublin where public bus drivers simply won't stop because the risk of being assaulted by the (overwhelmingly white and native) underclass is too high.

Meanwhile in the US Rosa Parks made public transit a last resort option for those too poor to care about being stabbed.

Do you believe that the thing keeping people from being stabbed on public transit was that blacks had to give up their seats to whites when the bus was full?

It's kinda connected. The particular regulation isn't, but the practice that ultimately developed that having and enforcing a policy of removing disruptive people who are minority members would result in painful legal action whereas just letting shit happen wouldn't, was.

The desegregated subway was safe for years. Progressives didn't like it, but it was safe despite equal policing.

Which subway are you referring to?

The radical policy of putting criminals in jail without segregating the bus would have permitted Montgomery to have avoided the bus boycott entirely.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Seems like a remarkable coincidence, dontcha think? That the people being segregated just happened to have a murder rate that was 5-10 times higher than the majority population?

Saying 'they were segregationists' seems close to saying they were murderists.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Come to think of it, what was the point of separating blacks and whites? It's easy to think of Southern segregationists as moustache-twirling villains who wanted little beyond stigmatizing blacks and keeping them down, but perhaps there was an actual practical reason for this type of segregation?

More comments

Well, and yet none of the other countries with more broad-based usage of public transport physically segregate minority riders. If you want to argue that the US is unique because segregated seating became a civil rights issue and this resulted in an overcorrection preventing more justified action against minorities on public transport, then it seems as fair to say that "Rosa Parks made public transport a last resort option" as it is to go one step up the causal chain and say "segregation made public transport a last resort option".

All of these countries are much poorer than the US and people who can afford to drive usually prefer that. There's precious few examples of places where driving is a realistic option and it isn't preferred to busses.

with more broad-based usage of public transport physically segregate minority riders

I'm pretty skeptical that the southern USA is the only society to segregate like that. Enough African states on functional Apartheid or superduper demographically-driven class systems in trains and whatnot.

Well, and yet none of the other countries with more broad-based usage of public transport physically segregate minority riders. If you want to argue that the US is unique because segregated seating became a civil rights issue and this resulted in an overcorrection preventing more justified action against minorities on public transport

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Though obviously it wasn't just segregated seating; it was segregated everything, voting rights, etc.

If you want to argue that the US is unique because segregated seating became a civil rights issue and this resulted in an overcorrection preventing more justified action against minorities on public transport, then it seems as fair to say that "Rosa Parks made public transport a last resort option" as it is to go one step up the causal chain and say "segregation made public transport a last resort option".

No, because that's attributing actions done by the civil rights activists (enshrining black people as a privileged group) to actions done by their opponents. It's basically the bully's "Look what you made me do".

I dunno about that take. I feel pretty confident that Montgomery, Alabama did not have great public transit in the 1940s. I also think history classes should stick to teaching history instead of opining on the quality of public transit in different countries in modern times.

It would be interesting to find some statistics on public transit use by race in Southern cities, year by year, from 1945 onward. Plus Chicago and DC for never-segregated controls.

I continued to enjoy Chicago public transportation well into the 2000s, and will probably visit and take my kids on it. There are just certain park and ride places not to park at, because your car will get stolen, but that's true in the Southwest too (which was never segregated).

My opinion is that US schools do a really bad job of teaching the civil rights protests

Is there any topic where current US schools do a good job of teaching?

It is certainly not basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

And even when the system really tries, the effects are not great. See one historical event that TPTB consider crucially important for everyone to know, event that is taught not only in schools from the earliest age, but also in popular media and entertainment.

Despite all this effort, the result is glass about half empty. Not encouraging sign about the system's capability.

I think the public education system does a fine job at catechizing the basics of Holocaustianity; it happened, it was the worst thing ever, and the most important thing in the world is making sure it never happens again. Expecting normies to remember a number or a date is... too much. They don't remember that about anything, not even the things they care about.

As a proud techie-identifying person, I've never bothered remembering constants. You can look those up.

US schools actually do do a very fine job of teaching, comparisons are just compiled on the basis of comparing scores between poor black kids in the inner cities and the kids of the Japanese elite so the education system can pitch a bigger fit about 'inadequate resources'.

This, plus selection bias. Outside of the nordics, there are plenty of working class Euro kids who just don't go to school after 8th - 10th grade. And for the year they do attend, it's just several hours of goofing off before they can continue to goof off in their neighborhoods.

The U.S. has all kinds of truancy and mandatory education laws that vary by state and level of enforcement.

If school attendance was actually totally optional all the way through, I believe that by 9th grade or so, the U.S. would have far and away the top median scores of all nations.

Is there any topic where current US schools do a good job of teaching?

Metric system. Kids in school know what 9mm are.

One of the problems with teaching US history - it is really hard to not turn the pupils into white supremacists or just flat out patriots. Do you guys have any idea how fucking awesome USA is before Vietnam or Clinton - depending on how generous you want to be.

But can they tell if 9mm is bigger or smaller than .40 S&W and by how much?

In the better Red Tribe schools, of course. In Blue Tribe schools, maybe but not because of anything they learned in schools (maybe videogames). In underclass schools, oh yes, definitely, it's of practical importance.

I think they do a decent job of teaching older history. It's just, they start at the back and work forwards, so they run out of time with the postwar 20th century stuff at the very end of the school year. Plus all the obvious culture war angles to it.

I think they do a decent job of teaching older history. It's just, they start at the back and work forwards, so they run out of time with the postwar 20th century stuff at the very end of the school year. Plus all the obvious culture war angles to it.

I wouldn't think so, based on my schooling. Even 20 years ago my textbooks were laden with pointless anecdotes about some random black woman who knitted some socks for Brits occupying New York in 1777. And other such things.

And it was highly teacher dependent. My Middle School teacher was a stodgy old WASP lady that fought to get out of the union and legitimately loved teaching American history in a mildly pro-American way (and if you are even neutral it comes off as wildly pro-America because the country did so many insanely awesome things for 2 centuries). My APUSH teacher lamented he could only use Howard Zinn as a supplement instead of a primary textbook and was openly disdainful of America's legacy, and taught accordingly.

All the way through high school (graduated in 1985) history classes stopped at 1945.

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