This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Raman was in 3rd place until after Election Day. She was 3rd place in mail-in ballots, she was 3rd place in in-person voting. Until magically she’s winning close to 40% in some of these ballot drops. Come on, that’s obviously evidence of fraud. That’s literally how it works, you make more ballots to change the outcome. The way California conducts elections is categorically different from the mathematical idea that ballots would be distributed randomly that you allude to.
What’s the alternative explanation? It’s legal for activists to go harvesting ballots after the election? Everything is the result of legal ballot harvesting? This is not in any meaningful sense a democratic system, this is just an elaborate charade over a one-party state. Maybe you get what you wanted. Trains that never get built and homeless shelters in the streets. The money is being siphoned off by a political machine that thinks of California as a paypig, although they will spend a little on you come election time to convince you that late-arriving ballots always break for a one-party state. The later the ballots arrive, the more they demand whatever outcome produces a one-party state.
That's not the idea I'm alluding to. That's a reductio ad absurdum of your position. If you find it reasonable, you're missing the point.
There's quite simply no reason to expect that every ballot drop is going to look the same.
Like many agendaposters, you are confusing my opinion of the object level issue (the fraudulence of the election) with my opinion on the meta level issue (who I'd rather win the election). It is, in fact, possible to dislike the result without throwing my toys across the room.
I can't help but notice that you didn't engage with any of my requests for clarification on the unclear claims you made. Did you actually mean something by them?
No, the point is that obviously late-breaking ballots are for Raman because they are being harvested. California has implemented mass legalized fraud. They print millions of ballots and then ballot harvesters are allowed to chase them. Those chased ballots are blessed by briefly touching the hand of a registered voter, who may not even be a citizen. Sometimes this blessing is not even needed. If a ballot is not postmarked or signed correctly, it goes into a pile to be cured.
This is the basic reality of the system California has set up. It’s good that you approve of it, although not necessary because you have not been consulted: were you to vote in a way contradicting the wishes of California’s political machines, they would simply harvest ballots until yours was obsoleted.
What’s your objection exactly? An irrelevant question about the post office? A truism about math? If someone at the post office wanted to forge ballot postmarks it would not take a vast conspiracy of the entirety of USPS. It only takes a couple of guys making small changes. That’s the entire point of California’s election system, they have created a process where the political machine has total authority.
Look, I’ve been polite, if you want to preen as if your opinion makes you a more mature person than me, you’ve picked the right forum in which I can’t respond in kind. I guess that’s your only consolation prize when you defend a system in which your opinion is not consulted and does not matter. They’ll rob your pocket book to build trains to nowhere for union jobs that donate back to the machine, they’ll burn your house down if it fills someone’s pension to leave your fire hydrants empty. And when you try to vote against it (if you ever do), you’ll accept the explanation that votes delivered at 4:00pm under a full moon in Aquarius always break for the fifth-place Democratic candidate at the exact rate he needs to win. You’re too mature to throw your toys across the room, right? So keep playing with them.
Please explain how ballots get harvested after election day, and the evidence for this in this case. Surely there's more evidence than "later drops favor a candidate that hurts the guy I heard was Based"? I don't think there's any way Pratt could lose that wouldn't result in you claiming fraud.
You can't cure a ballot with a late postmark.
I'm starting to think that you don't read my responses at all.
My objection is that conversation with you goes like this:
You: bold or vague claim X
Me: evidence against the claim, or clarification of what exactly you're saying
You: ignore this
You, some time later: why are you nitpicking irrelevant nonsense like claim X?
I've encountered this argument style many times. Usually, it indicates someone with a, let's say, fluid relationship to the truth. You lay out a gish gallop of claims, many of which are wrong or vague, and refuse to acknowledge or clarify until you get cornered, at which point you make objections to your claims seem like nitpicking. This doesn't look like truth seeking behavior.
Okay. Do you have any evidence, any at all, that the post office is falsifying postmarks? By the way, USPS isn't staffed by robots, but postmarks sure are applied by robots.
I would say seething about how I get what I deserve isn't very polite.
I have described it many times. Ballot harvesting is legal in California. This is how your elections are run.
I didn't ask you how ballots get harvested. I asked you how they get harvested after election day. You vaguely implied that California has no chain of custody for ballots (false) and refused to clarify what this meant. This is exactly the pattern of interactions I'm talking about. In your next response, you will presumably say that you never said California has no chain of custody for ballots.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link