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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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Its a sad situation but nothing here seems unique or even too particularly culture war. Police have a bad tendency to trust the first calm person to talk to them, which is Digwa claiming that he got attacked first. They especially trust the calm person over the one who is clearly panicking or having some sort of unidentified issue. This is a problem that gets brought up in domestic abuse circles sometimes, that the abuser seems cool and collected when the cops get called in by a neighbor while the victim will often be emotionally frazzled and angry and look like they're a hostile aggressor.

So given this, the police approach the scene and find a calm guy who says he got attacked and another guy who is panicking and freaking out and is like almost every other situation you see a guy freaking out in, probably on drugs. Violence cases are rare, drug guy being crazy or having an overdose is common. They make the assumption this is like every other case. His wounds were in such a way that they weren't easily visible so even when he's saying he got stabbed, they assume it's the insane mutterings of a druggie high off whatever.

The solution is to check anyway but that doesn't necessarily help unless you constantly reinforce it, since the officers will eventually default back to ignoring it again. Heck one of the cops even acknowledged it, like "oh well I think we have to check anyway don't we?". They knew better but they were used to just ignoring it. They really didn't believe he was stabbed and defaulted to their base assumptions and base behaviors

Yes, two knives. Digwa was carrying two ceremonial knives that are permitted to him as a religious article, one of them being a kirpan, an 8 inch one, on a sheath over his waistband.

Now this is something I think is always ridiculous. Religious exemptions are a nonsense idea.

Either a rule is genuinely important to have and exceptions shouldn't be given out (because it's important!), or the rule isn't actually important and therefore shouldn't exist. Almost everything that has a religious exemption to it should just be gone! Why should you lose more freedoms than someone else just because you believe in a different sky man?

Its a sad situation but nothing here seems unique or even too particularly culture war

Quick sanity check: what is a "particularly culture war" situation. Was George Floyd one?

@magicalkittycat, hey bro, how come you answered pretty much every comment except this one?

I haven't answered lots of replies, there's way too many! Just doing a quick check there has been >40 replies to me in 9 hours. I have a busy life with work and my kids and this is just something I'm going to check and reply to casually if there's too many going on.

But sure I'll answer yours

Quick sanity check: what is a "particularly culture war" situation. Was George Floyd one?

I don't think it's much of a culture war situation because basically no one has been on the side of "police should just make up their mind based off the first person they talk to and police should ignore a stabbing victim's pleas by assuming they're just a druggie or hallucinating or whatever the police assumed there". I haven't seen anyone argue that it is good for police to do that.

For a culture war, certainly there must be a war element to it. Some sort of disagreement on if this behavior was responsible policing or something. But nope doesn't seem to be much, pretty much everyone left and right wing I know seems to agree, police should actually check instead of just assuming it's nonsense.

  • -11

I have a busy life with work and my kids

There it is, the Darwin tell:

It's in my queue, but I've gotten like 90 replies since yesterday and the long ones take a long time to do justice (and I do have a job and a family). At this point most comments aren't going to get a reply, realistically.

@ArjinFerman, just in case you were unaware, you are talking to one of Darwin's alts. (The last one was called @guesswho.)

There it is, the Darwin tell:

By this definition you are a Dean Alt.

It might shock you but not everyone here is a no-lifer who's primary hobby is arguing on the internet. You are kinda telling on yourself, go touch grass. Furthermore when you take a stance that is opposite to the Motte's consensus you tend to get a lot of shit. Not everyone is worth responding to and not getting to someone is not indicative to being an alt.

Just cuz you and MKC got into it in another thread doesn't mean you need to follow them to hear to start shit again.

EDIT: after reading this new thread you both need to get modded, holy shit.

  • -11

after reading this new thread you both need to get modded, holy shit

Yeah, no. You're in the wrong here.

In your other comment, you say:

You both need to cool jets.

... and then here, you say:

You are kinda telling on yourself, go touch grass.

You're reusing the exact antagonistic, insulting language magicalkittycat was using against FtttG, while simultaneously pretending to be some kind of enlightened neutral party going "hey guys, you both need to calm down".

You obviously don't want to calm things down, or get anyone to "cool their jets"; you're just shit-stirring. Like when you called the dead man a "retard".

If you sincerely want people to cool their jets, maybe don't deliberately be as antagonistic as possible.

Yeah, no. You're in the wrong here.

Apparently not. Maybe you should update your priors about what constitutes good behavior in this place and what is not. They were clearly both rage posting at each other personally, which is frowned upon.

I think its far clear you are pissed that I have a disagreeable opinion, that dares to disagree with you in another thread. As such you feel the need to follow me around and make low effort snipes.

I don't feel the need to shit-stir online, I can do it in person to a far more enjoyable degree. I express my honest 100% opinion. It is always weird to me that there exists a class of people who essentially assume any opinion not agreeing with their own is a troll. And then comes to a debate forum filled with heterodox thinkers.

Congrats, of course, on completely ignoring the point of my comment: if you were trying to calm things down, why did you deliberately use the exact same insulting phrases as mkc?

Apparently not.

Based on... literally nothing? That's not what "apparently" means.

Maybe you should update your priors about what constitutes good behavior in this place

No, thanks. I know that it's poor behaviour to call an innocent murdered man a "retard"; or to pretend to be cooling a conflict, while deliberately fanning the flames by insulting one party, using the exact words their opponent was using to try and piss them off.

I think its far clear you are pissed that I have a disagreeable opinion

Dude, I don't know or care what your object-level opinion is on this stuff. I remember that you called the dead guy a "retard", which I thought was extremely poor taste. But imagining that I'm following you around (in a thread in which I'm heavily active) is narcissistic and paranoid. Am I following you around now, for replying to a comment you posed directly to me?

I don't feel the need to shit-stir online, I can do it in person to a far more enjoyable degree

See, most people don't feel the need to shit-stir at all.

It is always weird to me that there exists a class of people who essentially assume any opinion not agreeing with their own is a troll

Yes, that does seem weird. Are you pretending I'm in that class of people? That would be pretty weird, seeing as (1) I don't know what your opinions are, and I really don't care if you disagree with me, and (2) I haven't called you a troll.

Obviously you know all this, and don't actually care. I don't know why you'd come to a forum of heterodox thinkers, and try to antagonise people by making shit up about them. What's the point?

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