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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   26468 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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Goddamnit, these people have no business discussing the laws of my country.

That is a new low. I mean, even our resident antisemites will rarely dismiss an argument outright for being made by a Jew. I mean, I am a Kraut and I still reserve the right to have opinions on every legal system between the US constitution and Sharia law.

Of course, denying that an Indian-origin American can be a "real" US citizen makes this extra charming. If you feel this way about random bloggers, I can only imagine how you felt about Trump appointing Kash Patel to head the FBI.

Maybe the "antisemites" should.

I can feel a very clear border when talking to many of my foreign co-workers. There are topics beyond discussion because all parties know there isn't one to to be had. It would in fact be an insult to even broach them. Yet here I sit, my entire culture now revolving around how to accommodate their viewpoints within the nation my ancestors made.

Looking at the big picture it's all futile. They get a say in your land, you get no say in theirs. Their customs are sacred, yours are at best arbitrary and certainly up for critique and debate. They have a just cause, you have guilt and sin. And if you want to keep the peace then that's the truth. This dynamic has been playing out wherever immigrants stake their claim in the west. At some point it's just stupid not to point out how this all goes.

They ultimately recognize their common cause as outsiders who are trying to keep their foot in the door. Keeping my ear full of how great their country is and how bad mine is yet somehow never stumble on the idea that they are here for a reason that might impugn that assessment. That maybe because their countries have one too many a person with exactly their type of temperament and opinion is the reason why they find themselves traveling thousands of miles to a country with, apparently, worse weather, worse food, dumber laws, worse religion and more racists.

Humility would go a long way, but no. The most common explanation I get when I point this out is that somewhere along the way those nasty Europeans did evil to them and theirs, so they now have to come here. Well... What great neighbors I have!

You do not have to imagine how I feel about Patel, I think you know quite well enough.

Amar isn't a random blogger, he's an eminent originalist constitutional scholar. I recall a blurb on the back of his book saying he was one of the five most cited living American legal scholars. He's a man who has devoted his life to the study of the American constitution.

This is the challenge facing the project of building a new American nationalism, you can't excise people like Amar without destroying much of what makes this country great.

I stand corrected.

This is the challenge facing the project of building a new American nationalism, you can't excise people like Amar without destroying much of what makes this country great.

Agreed.

He's a man who has devoted his life to the study of the American constitution.

The Constitution is dead. It has not protected me, it is not protecting me now, it will not protect me in the future. To the extent that power flows from it, it is because people with poor understanding allow themselves to be scammed by appeals to it.

This is the challenge facing the project of building a new American nationalism, you can't excise people like Amar without destroying much of what makes this country great.

I emphatically do not agree that racial descent is a workable frame for pulling together a nation out of the wreck, but that does not change the fact that most of the things that made this country great appear to be either dead or dying, and the appeals to a "creedal nation" were either useless to prevent this process or actively accelerated it. The basic fact is that we hate each other, and cannot find consensus on what the law is or how it should be enforced, and that is not a survivable situation long-term.

If there be a way to salvage something worthwhile from the wreck of America, it seems likely that it is going to involve more sacrifice than your arguments presume.

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