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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7768 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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So best I can tell security at the recent dinner was somehow even worse than at the campaign event that nearly cost Trump his life. This sounds incredibly stupid but mainstream media reports of the security indicate it is so. And this is in a...storied location no less.

This is also not a situation where things have been calm for a while, we are at war and several attempts have been made, and people have died (ex: Kirk).

Some of this is probably due to security theater elements - security was never good, so it remains not good. You'd think we could make a bit of a change though?

Are all of our institutions really so rotten?

And perhaps more importantly - how many times can we get lucky and how will our civic norms survive when that luck runs out?

This guy was a caltech grad and he couldn't come up with a better plan than "run past a security checkpoint and hope there aren't more guards"? He didn't even get onto the floor of the ballroom itself. What happened to good old fashioned ANFO?

Thankfully the people interested in doing this kind of stuff are generally idiots but that doesn't save us from sufficiently motivated state actors should that become relevant.

I've clocked at least one smart person engaged in domestic terrorism in the U.S. in an intelligent way, and I suspect there are more they just don't get noticed, caught, or publicly emphasized. I'm sure the TLAs are aware, however.

Thankfully the people interested in doing this kind of stuff are generally idiots but that doesn't save us from sufficiently motivated state actors should that become relevant.

After 9/11 airport security was significantly tightened, train security was not. 13 year old me was utterly confused why we weren't facing dozens of train derailments a day because it seemed so easy, destructive, and effective.

Turned out the terrorists aren't interested in those things, they just want flashy. Trains arent flashy so apparently they are safe. Old: Security through obscurity. New: Security through boring.

Used to happen in British Palestine (Israel) I believe. The Stern Gang loved that sort of thing.

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