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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9932 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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A tiny note on the war

In the previous thread, I got some pushback for suggesting that not only did the US strike the Iranian school in Minab, killing 170 children or something like that, but perhaps it did so intentionally (or at least without remorse for the possible consequences of erroneous targeting). I admit that wasn't fully sincere. I realize that, even morals aside, there is no perceived military value in bombing children, at least not for the US (I do think Israelis may target children of IRGC officers out of their usual Bronze Age blood feud sentiment, Oct 7, Gaza and all, seen enough of their remarks to this effect; but then again they don't operate Tomahawks).

Well now the question on it having been an American strike appears settled. As for the intent – it's not so straightforward:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades.
The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of “lethality,” including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Around 200 employees who worked on the issue, including at that office, have been reduced by about 90 percent, according to two current and former officials and a person familiar with the effort. The team that handles civilian casualties at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has dropped from 10 to one.
Hegseth can’t close the offices because they are approved by Congress. But he has managed to make them nearly inoperable, according to the people, as the Pentagon investigates its responsibility in what could be the worst U.S.-led killing of civilians since 2003. Iranian state media said the strike killed about 170 children and 14 teachers.
“The fact that our secretary of Defense, that our Central Command commander, cannot actually tell us whether or not they dropped a bomb in this location, that is so unbelievably unacceptable,” said Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments until last year. “It just points even more to recklessness in this, in the entire planning and execution of this campaign, the fact that they don’t have any idea.”

Does it matter if there was no intent if the United States, as of now, also has a revealed preference to not bother with minimizing such risks, in favor of «lethality» and some zany Judeo-Christian nationalism courtesy the power-tripping macho TV host Pete Hegseth? I believe it does, but marginally; about as much as those girls matter to Lethal Pete. I rest my case.

More to the point. It's remarkable that there's so little discussion of contemporary historical events on here. I won't criticize anyone, be the change you want etc.; but what we are seeing is pretty astonishing from the culture war standpoint. Could someone like Pete be imaginable as the Secretary of War – no, Defense – in 2023? 2019, even? 2016? It looks as if the politically dominant culture of the United States changed overnight. Does everyone just like it too much to find the change worth commenting on?

I don't like it. People like Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and Donald Trump seem vile to me. And Trump never seemed vile to me until his second term, in fact I was one of those people who quite enjoyed how much he pissed off "the libs". And I'm still glad that the Trump movement stopped woke overreach. But I think that at this point the time has come to stop the Trump movement. It really seems to me to be a very seedy sort of movement full of twisted weirdoes, sadists, sociopaths, and almost comically corrupt people. And when I say this, I should probably mention that yes, I think the libs are corrupt too. But these Trump people are something else.

It's one thing to believe that Iran should be contained using violence or to want stronger border control. It's another to unabashedly revel in causing pain and to constantly indulge in vice signalling, as these people do.. They seem to be profoundly psychologically disturbed wannabe authoritarians. The "libs" are wrong about so many things, but they are right about these people's character. Unfortunately, as the libs tend to do, they cried wolf about so many things ("Putin has tapes of Trump getting peed on by a hooker!", blah blah blah...) that they fucked up their ability to message the things they actually were right about.

Anyway, after a lifetime of having never voted for either a Democrat or a Republican in a national election, I am seriously considering voting for the Democrats later this year and in 2028.

As for the war, it's kind of looking right now like it won't even liberate the anti-government Iranians. Every day that passes gives the Iranian government more time to track down and kill anyone whom they suspect of even having ever looked at a policeman funny. So what's the point? Nothing that I care about as a positive. Basically the result so far is to just, potentially, give the America-Israel partnership more breathing room to do whatever they want in the Middle East without pushback.

It's all performative though. Hating them is like hating a piñata. Much the same as cheering for them is. Their personas don't represent anything real.

For instance, Stephen Miller has been doing his aggressive anti-immigration schtick for over a decade. Through 2 administrations. Where is immigration in the US today? The same place it has been for the last decade.

Hegseth has been representing the tough guy nothing but business soldier in charge. Yet the US starts a war in the middle east at the behest of Israel that is of no discernable benefit to the US.

Trump, the guy who promised to cut down on immigration and not do any wars in the middle east has resided over all of this. And people still boo or cheer this on as if it where a WWE wrestling match.

It's just so overbearing. As if Trump bending the knee to the Heritage Foundation in his first term wasn't enough, he's been talking about how illegals can stay if they are working. ILLEGALS. Has this rhetoric changed the tune of the left at all regarding orange hitler? Not one bit.

And on the flipside, Obama killed plenty of innocent families. I don't think a department of million men could get anyone to care about dead middle easterners past a single news cycle regardless of who the president is. America really does not care.

What is anyone even cheering for or against? On the ground numbers show no relevant change in any relevant aspect. The American machine is chugging along as usual on its slow downward spiral. And getting anyone to care about that reality is like pulling teeth out of a donkey.

Literally my 3 favorite people. The guy who gets stuff down at deporting third world immigrants, the dude who suddenly got our military to win again, and the boss of it all.

I could not be happier with what those three are doing for my country.

What do you mean got our military to win again? We always had the power to do this. See Obama and Libya.

Miller is barely beating Obama's run rate at deporting immigrants. 500K a year instead of Obama's 400K. At this rate he'll be done in (checks notes) 20 years.

Whether it's his fault or he's just outmatched by the liberal barbed wire, he's certainly not "getting things done".

Saying no at the border doesn’t really count as deportation.

This has long been debunked. It counts turnaways at the border. Trump is deporting people who have been inside the country from the last administration. People don’t even show up to the border now

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