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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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You want your enemies to have power over you? Do you think this makes you stronger?

I don’t worship power, maybe because of my portion of old American heritage. Most of us have worshipped God, and this means understanding certain acts as beneath us. When George Washington was accused by the French of allowing the assassination of a negotiating party, it was a severe mark of disgrace that haunted him for the rest of his life and stained his reputation across Europe. This is my culture, and I think any foreign value system that worships power is a fundamentally anti-American influence that must be excised, just as much as any dangerous entanglement in foreign nations must be excised. I don’t know if you’re familiar with American culture so I will quote to you something from our first President and Founding Father:

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.

Real patriots — in the eyes of the Founding Fathers — don’t start unjust and unnecessary wars for a random foreign tribe 6000 miles away. This is just not what we do. That’s why none of the American security apparatus supported this war. That’s why Israel had to put pressure on Trump to start the war. That’s why the #1 authority on terrorism in the American security state, Joe Kent, resigned to speak to Americans on the dangerous and subversive influence of Israel on American soil. Allowing Iran to become a little stronger is a great punishment and deterrence against the foreign tribe bringing us to war, but even more importantly, it is something that future powers will read about when deciding whether to commit acts of aggression.

I don’t know if you’re trolling when you ask whether history informs the decision of modern nations to go to war. That’s the basic curricula at any war college. I also don’t know if you’re trolling when you say Iran was building nuclear weapons, because that’s not the assessment of American intelligence, which means you trust Israel more than America, which seems slightly treasonous to me and very strange. But perhaps you’re not an American, I don’t know. But if you’re not an American, why are you pretending to speak for our nation?

If you are Christian the most important thing in the world is getting right with God. Justice and peace are secondary to that ultimate goal

No, in this religion justice and peace are getting right with God; they are one and the same thing; we will be judged by how we treat strangers and neighbors and others. There is a long history of Christian Just War philosophy, and it all concurs that our act of war against Iran was unjustified. And the Just God may punish those who support it; He will certainly punish those who promote “no mercy” and “no quarter”.

I don’t worship power, maybe because of my portion of old American heritage.

You don't worship power so you just sit in the corner and let it happen? Watching? Melodramatically?

This is my culture, and I think any foreign value system that worships power is a fundamentally anti-American influence that must be excised,

Well, although I understand this as a threat against my interests -- I can't take it very credibly since you don't believe in using power.

Hypothetically, would you support allying with Iran and bombing Israel is it advanced American power and interests? If what you want is American power, then a destroyed Israel means that many tech and defense jobs come back to America. We can also poach high IQ Israeli AI developers. Or if the math shows that the best way to maximize American power is to arm both Iran and Israel to bomb each other to the abyss, so that we can poach their highest IQ talent, would you support this? (This may entail allowing Iran to turn Tel Aviv into Gaza). This is a very serious consideration for a person who loves the notion of maximizing power, as future wars will be decided by drones and AI; we can exploit Iran’s smart drone tech and Israel’s smart STEM talent by pitting them against each other.

This is a net-zero vision of strength where anyone else’s successes are a threat. This kind of model historically doesn’t work and is in fact antithetical to American success post-WWII. We remain powerful by maintaining a global system of wealth and strength in which other powers pay us the ultimate tribute of imitating us.

It’s in our interests to work with Israel because they support American power. It’s in our interests to work against Iran because they oppose American power.

Trump is already pursuing American power in the Middle East by recommitting it to a new vision of prosperity. The Abraham Accords are a far cry from Saudi Arabia funding its own proxy militias to counter Iran. (Remember that under Obama we actually funded the off-shoots of Al Qaeda out of esoteric imagined interests. — Another one of dozens of genuine Obama scandals that received no coverage or consideration until Trump was attacked for moves reversing it.)

The next step is getting Iran on board. This can be done either through regime change, or by simply overawing the current regime to the point that it cuts its losses and joins us. This would be in Iran’s interests too — as Osama Bin Laden once said, something something strong horse etc etc.

Let me get this straight. We are talking about a regime in the Middle East that has circumvented the entire American intelligence establishment to push our president to start a war. They used a senator who was trained with Mossad talking points, a religiously-radical loyalist stepson, and advisors who were hand-picked by their own Middle Eastern lobbyists. Because of our support for this Middle Eastern regime, passage through the Suez Canal has fallen to a fraction of what it once was, and now the Strait of Hormuz is closed. We have harmed the global economy while our allies in Europe and Asia are baffled at our decision-making. This Middle Eastern regime employed Jeffrey Epstein to mass-rape Americans to secure blackmail on important figures including former President Bill Clinton and current President Donald Trump. They sell our secrets to our greatest global adversary, China. They disrupt America’s ability to negotiate with Iran, and sought to destroy our important alliance with Qatar (a true friend who has pledged to invest 1 trillion dollars in America) by violating all semblance of international norms and launching an attack on a negotiating team. Meanwhile, important American technology and military jobs are siphoned off to this middle eastern nation state while they enjoy free college and medical care.

It seems clear to me that American power is being curtailed by this regime, and that — per your power-loving guiding philosophy — America is essentially obliged to enact regime change therein. If the United States Military reigns white phosphorus down on Haifa today and cluster munitions down on Tel Aviv tomorrow, then within a few weeks we would have secured free transit along the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz, opened up trade opportunities with Iran (a country 9x bigger than Israel), gained more allies across the Middle East, loosened a perfidious influence on our Body Politic, and returned essential defense work back to Americans.

I can’t conceive why you are not advocating for the USM to strike Israel, unless perhaps you do not really want America to be more powerful against her enemies, but instead favor Israel for some other reason.

We are talking about a regime in the Middle East

Israel is a democracy

that has circumvented the entire American intelligence establishment

Conspiracy

to push our president to start a war.

Conspiracy

They used a senator who was trained with Mossad talking points, a religiously-radical loyalist stepson, and advisors who were hand-picked by their own Middle Eastern lobbyists.

Conspiracy

This Middle Eastern regime employed Jeffrey Epstein to mass-rape Americans to secure blackmail on important figures including former President Bill Clinton and current President Donald Trump.

Conspiracy

Not even good conspiracies, totally unsubstantiated and debunked. If you think Israel has blackmail material of Donald Trump raping then I think you’ve lost the plot

I think you’ve given the game away. When it is convenient to argue that toppling Iran promotes American power, you put on that argument, but you don’t have a response to someone pointing out that toppling Israel also promotes American power — perhaps even more than toppling Iran, in light of the subversive influence of Israel on American decision-making. You resort to calling negative things about the Israeli regime “conspiracies”, including what our own head of terror-related intelligence says! Yet you apparently believe whatever a particular foreign Middle Eastern regime says about Iranian nukes. This does not read to me like loyalty. What loyal American trusts a Middle Eastern regime 5000 miles away over their own institutions and experts?

This is a kind of sophistry that really doesn’t merit much of a response because, among other issues:

  • It’s not true that the entire US intelligence apparatus is of one opinion on Iran and its nuclear aspirations (or that this conveniently backs your conspiracy)

  • Joe Kent making salacious accusations that Israel is behind everything is not credible

  • Trump has never shown himself to be dogwalked by these absurd plots and has been remarkably consistent on these issues across forty years

This isn’t a question of “loyalty” or whatever other fallacies you want to introduce. (Not that it’s even disloyal to believe Israeli intelligence reports — not that you’ve even shown this is in fact what has happened)

Your theory leaps over vast gulfs of supposition and proclaims them to be reasonable. Well I don’t believe that the Israelis have blackmail material of Donald Trump raping children, etc. etc., or that it takes a great mystery to explain why American foreign policymakers are opposed to Iran etc. etc.

Do you think we don’t have statements from the entire USIC apparatus?

From 2025:

The IC [[Intelligence Community]] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003

Our testimony offers the collective assessment of the 18 U.S. intelligence elements making up the U.S. Intelligence Community and draws on intelligence collection, information available to the IC from open-source and the private sector, and the expertise of our analysts.

And from 2026. As far as I can find, there is not even one single official dissention from the leadership of any of the 18 USIC agencies with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. They are unanimous, “of one opinion”. Again, I’m somewhat puzzled at how a patriotic American can ignore the intelligence assessment of the most powerful nation in the world, to trust the assessment of… Israel. Perhaps the least trustworthy country. A country with a history of feeding presidents false intelligence on WMDs. A country which has the strongest motive to lie to us about Iran. A foreign country, speaking a foreign tongue, waving a different flag, 6000 miles away. (Now if you were distrusting the USIC because you figured they were too war-hungry, then that would be understandable, at least). Regarding Joe Kent: he is the one person in America who would know the most about this as he oversaw all American intelligence on foreign terror threats, which would include possible Iranian attacks and WMD acquisition. And before that, he was the chief of staff for the DNI, which is the intermediary between the WH and the IC. Hard to think of anyone more trustworthy than Joe Kent.

You were very confident that the USIC was not “of one opinion” on Iranian nuclear ambitions. Will you update your views now that you’re aware the USIC was in agreement? Do you have a reason for believing Israel over America or shall I assume the worst?

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