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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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Do you believe that Israel is the worst country in the world in terms of being oppressive, trampling on human rights, etc.?

I don't make any special claims on that front - there's probably some truly terrible microstate out there which is worse. The gulf monarchies are probably pretty nasty to their imported workers too - but I will say that Israel is the worst country in the world that is subsidised by my tax dollars and power structures in western countries. That ethnicity-exclusive death penalty law is particularly horrifying.

I don't make any special claims on that front - there's probably some truly terrible microstate out there which is worse. The gulf monarchies are probably pretty nasty to their imported workers too - but I will say that Israel is the worst country in the world that is subsidised by my tax dollars and power structures in western countries. That ethnicity-exclusive death penalty law is particularly horrifying.

Given that various UN agencies condemn Israel far more than any other country, is it fair to say that you have no opinion on whether the UN is biased against Israel?

That ethnicity-exclusive death penalty law is particularly horrifying.

Weird how that goes. All I feel when I think of that law is jealousy. Every serious nation-state should adopt it.

And isn't that law, as far as newspapers have informed me, geographically-exclusive rather than ethnicity-exclusive? Through it also accomplishes the latter through the happy accident of there being mostly a different ethnicity in Gaza, supposedly.

I don't quite see the point of the exclusivity, though, be it geographic or ethnic.