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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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Your own argument is nonsensical

They mandate that states cannot do something that restricts other people.

and

it also involves telling the states to refrain from doing something to other people

Are the same thing...

Both are telling the states not to do something. Both are by definition, an imposition: the action or process of imposing something or of being imposed. The Federal government is imposing laws that affect the states to deny them ability to govern how their populous wants to. It is one Tribe, "imposing" on the other.

Yes, they are the same thing (with respect to reds acting against blue states). So neither of them are impositions of reds on blues.

What FCFromSSC said was that gerrymandering by Democrats (Black-Majority districts) was an imposition of blues on reds--the other way around--and that the reds have stopped that from happening. It is not in turn an imposition for the reds to stop an imposition, or the concept would be meaningless.

I'm not clear on what your argument or point is or if you are just being nitpicky.

FCFromSSC's argument was explicitly that Blues impose on Reds: gerrymandering and Roe vs Wade. This imposition is Blue-tribe forcing Red-tribe to not outlaw abortion, and forcing them to create districts for Black-Majorities

My corollary is that Red-tribe also imposes on Blue-tribe. I gave examples of Red-tribe forcing Blue-tribe to not recognize homosexual marriage, forcing them to allow denial of service based on speech grounds, forcing them to fund religious schools, forcing them to outlaw mandatory union participation, and forcing them to "outlaw" racial spoils based admissions

Both sides are preventing each other from disallowing actions via laws and affirmatively forcing the other to take actions that they don't agree with. This is the same thing as the original argument. Your argument appeared to be that one is not the same as the other. But your justification was to ignore half of the examples of Blue-tribe imposing on Red-tribe to make some weird argument that imposing by forcing a positive action is not the same as forcing a negative action (prevention of laws from disallowing). Not only is that cherry picking and nitpicky but its also incorrect.

If you argument is that Red-tribe ended Blue-tribes impositions, well, Stonewall was clearly ending Red-tribes impositions as well. Both sides end each others' impositions and both sides impose. Like I said, really not understanding your argument, I'm trying to be charitable here.

How is Masterpiece Cakeshop an imposition? The rule is "You can't force someone to bake a gay cake". The "imposition" here is that Cakeshop can't be forced to do something. That blue tribe is not allowed to force red tribe to do what blue tribe wants. It's not reciprocal -- red tribe isn't forcing blue tribe to do anything. You can still buy gay cake, you can still protest Cakeshop. That is, by definition, not an imposition. Perhaps it's an inconvenience. But if you redefine imposition that way, then every use of power is zero-sum. It's akin to denying neutrality itself. There really can't even be a sense of "Law" in this world, because every possible rule is just dressed-up naked force. Freedom of Religion is an imposition, because I'm forcing you to not suppress religions you don't like. Freedom of Speech is an imposition, because I'm forcing you to not suppress speech you don't like. Framed this way freedom itself can even be an aggressive act: I'm forcing you to accept that which you do not want to accept. Goodbye Westphalia!

This is just the price of living in a pluralistic society. Not everybody has the same opinions about gay marriage. What's the counter-argument, that Cakeshop constitutes unacceptable discrimination and should be barred from the marketplace? But the Cakeshop position was basically a universal belief for the entirety of human history, and gay marriage only became law about ten years ago. Everybody must be forced to accept these rights that were just discovered, even at the expense of other traditional rights. Then there's really no such thing as human rights either, it's all just staring down the barrels of a gun. (And as cynical as we all might be about arbitrary human constructs, I think the existence of human rights is good and not a concept worth dismantling.)

Similar arguments could be made about many of your other suggested impositions, although at this time I leave working through each as an exercise to the reader.

Mate, no offense, but from my observations you are the definition of a partisan tribal warrior. Discussing anything with you is an exercise in intellectual mutual masturbation. The only exercise being left to the reader here is whether engaging with you is worth the effort.

I'm not that interested.

I guess that means I win

¯\_(ツ) _/¯

You and @Shakes are both too old to be reduced to "Nuh uh!" "Uh HUH!"

If you don't want to engage, don't engage.

? I didn’t even say anything.

More comments

FCFromSSC's argument was explicitly that Blues impose on Reds:...

My corollary is that Red-tribe also imposes on Blue-tribe.

But the examples are both in the same direction.

FCFromSSC said that blues are imposing on reds, with the implication that stopping them is not reds imposing on blues (because they're stopping them, and that doesn't count).

Your examples are also reds stopping blues, and therefore are also not reds imposing on blues.

You are trying to create a parallelism between "blues imposing on reds" and "reds imposing on blues", but you can't do that, because those are opposite directions and the examples are happening in the same direction.

Hmmm, I think I understand your point. But it is unclear to me how you arrive at this:

Your examples are also reds stopping blues

My examples are of Reds imposing on Blues. Unless you think Blue states wanting to recognize gay marriage is an imposition on Red states? DOMA is not stopping blues from imposing, it itself is imposing.

Could you clarify how those examples are of Red's stopping Blues from imposing on Reds?

My examples are of Reds imposing on Blues. Unless you think Blue states wanting to recognize gay marriage is an imposition on Red states?

DOMA did not prevent blue states from recognizing gay marriage. It prevented the Federal government from recognizing gay marriage. With respect to states it just allowed states not to recognize gay marriage. If a state wanted to recognize gay marriage anyway, it could.

I pointed out how that is an imposition here. The federal government explicitly defined marriage has heterosexual, it did not ban gay marriage de facto but it prohibited them from being federally recognized making it an explicitly second-class marriage. They are denying full federal legal effect to marriages that the state has validly officiated.

They are denying full federal legal effect

Denying Federal anything (unless "anything" means inaction towards the state) is not an imposition on the states.