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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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We have a conclusion to the "Braveheart" saga, precipitated by a viral video of a Scottish girl defending herself by waving a knife and axe at a man filming her. This incident was discussed in multiple comment threads, with @ArjinFerman summarizing the discourse here.

Per the BBC reporting on the court case:

A man has been found guilty of making sexual remarks to a group of girls aged between 12 and 14 in Dundee before grabbing and pushing one of them to the ground.

The court heard that Belov had said "hello sexy, I'll show you a good time" to the girls while walking past them in the Lochee area of the city.

After one of the girls called him a creep, he had returned to confront the group and called his sister, who arrived shortly afterwards and assaulted one of the girls.

His sister has also been convicted, in what appears to be a complete legal victory for the Scottish girls.

Notch one more for the heuristic of naked tribalism.

Or not? The arguments basically went "I heard native Irish children are feral, she must have deserved it" and everyone who was correct and with both feet in reality wondering what sort of naked anti-white propaganda their opponents could have possibly been smoking.

But I guess tribalism is who/whom the whole way down. All the same, team "I dont think the quakka deserved it" keeps winning.

"I heard native Irish children are feral,

Scottish

A noble effort. But hopeless. The first thread already demonstrated that priors were set by who you hated most: (1) females; (2) young hoodlums who bullied you; (3) white people.

This thread will not shift any priors.

Then why are we here?

Is this meant to be a reference to left-wing/anti-native British media bias?

It's meant to be a reference to the specific post I linked to, that said if you think the "Braveheart" narrative is likely to be true, and remain unmoved by official government statements, it's because you hate brown people.

I do not appreciate your dishonesty. That is not what I said, and it is not what I implied.

  • -10

That is not what I said, and it is not what I implied.

That's the impression I got at the time. Reviewing it now, I stand behind my interpretation.

Going through it line-by-line:

A noble effort.

...to promote the official narrative that there was no sex crime occurring or at risk of occurring when she responded with an axe.

But hopeless. The first thread already demonstrated that priors were set by who you hated most:

Their belief in the narrative (true or false) depends on their personal biases.

(1) females; (2) young hoodlums who bullied you;

These people believe the girls were up to no good and fabricated the original assault. They believe that because they hate females and/or hoodlums, not any of the reporting.

(3) brown people.

These people believe the man was up to no good and committed the original assault. They believe that because they hate brown people, not any of the reporting.

This thread will not shift any priors.

...because (as above) priors are set by hate instead of information and argument.


It may not be what you meant to say, but I don't see a serious alternate reading of what you did say there.

10/10, best "Do as I say not as I do" jannie crashout yet. I always thought it'd be me, but I guess that's just how you are with everyone.

The difference is simple: I am not lying. And much as you like to characterize so much as a raised eyebrow from me as a "crashout," it's not so.

"You thought it'd be me" is projection. Despite your long history of trying to provoke me, I have been very even-handed and even generous with you. I used to try to point out that there was no need for your hostility, but that proved to be futile because you like hostility.

Had you a modicum of self-awareness, you would reconsider your engagement strategy and reevaluate your assumptions. I state this as an idle observation, not with any expectation or optimism.

I remember that post. That was basically the implication I took from what you said. It seemed to be condescendingly dismissive towards the people believing the take that ended up being vindicated, and psychologizing them as holding that take because they were mysognist, racist losers.

Rereading it now, the "females" part strikes me as less clear, and possibly a dig at the people thinking the girls were just terrible feral youth, but I think phrasing it as "females" made me interpret it as sarcasm directed at the right-coded people on the Braveheart side, because I didn't think you would use that kind of language sincerely.

There were a lot of hot takes flying around when that incident happened, and most of them seemed to me to be entirely tribal- people deciding on the narrative based on, as I said, who they hated most. I tend to be a "wait and see" type of person because the quantity and quality of detail was lacking, making it very much a "choose your own narrative" scissors incident.

I might still self-identity as a liberal, but anyone who's been around here for a while would know better than to casually ascribe the most bad faith "woke" perspective to me. So it still surprises (and annoys) me when that's what people do.

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You are lying.

You are not a mind reader and you're wrong. Given that I am calling @ArjinFermin a liar, you may believe it's open season to call "liar" but I can at least point to my post and say "the words you wrote are not the words I wrote." Generally calling people liar has a high burden of proof (Ie you must be able to demonstrate a provable lie. Charitably, @ArjinFerman might actually believe I meant what he claimed, but I do not believe this for reasons I explained in my other post). And indeed, another mod may disagree with my reasoning and tell me my own post was inappropriate - I admit having my words twisted and malinterpreted sometimes tests my equinamitiy.

If you jumped into a thread between other people to do this, I'd give you a ban, but I realize that would be inappropriate here, and I would not feel good about asking another mod to do it. Instead I will merely observe that this is the latest in your growing record of low effort antagonistic snarls, and warn you to stop doing this.

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"Dishonesty" would require that I know what you meant, and deliberately chose to portray your comment as saying something else. I have no idea what else you could have been saying, and given that I linked your post for everyone else to see and read for themselves, it would be a very strange way to try and mislead people.

I do not buy your lack of comprehension.

If you had questions about what I meant or wanted to know what I meant, you could have asked me directly. Instead you constructed an uncharitable and inaccurate interpretation of my words and asserted them as fact. You do this because you are not interested in truth seeking or understanding, but "getting" people you dislike (me, in this case). You like to claim people said or believe things that fit your conception of them, in which you can comfortably slot them as "Enemy who has bad opinions" because that does not require honesty, civility, or respect, which are not things you value.

To be absolutely clear and direct, I did not say, did not mean, and do not believe " if you think the "Braveheart" narrative is likely to be true, and remain unmoved by official government statements, it's because you hate brown people."

You will stop asserting this.

  • -17
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Needless to say, not one mention anywhere of the brother and sister being Bulgarian Gypsies.

The problem for Bulgarians (which is a lesser problem for Romanians, although still an issue for them) is that despite all the /r/Europe posting of blonde girls in traditional outfits, many of the natives are relatively dark haired and swarthy for ethnic Europeans, and so to the untrained (and not proficient ethnoguessr regular) North-Western European commoner eye, blur into a continuum with the Roma population (who themselves are after all only part Indian, many are much lighter skinned than the average actual Indian).

I have Spanish and Southern Italian friends who have faced actual ethnic abuse by random native drunks in eg Sweden and Denmark who assumed they were Arabs (and again, this has happened to two people I’ve encountered and discussed it with, so it cannot be all that rare). An (Ashkenazi) American Jewish guy I know (who is far more the Trotsky or Woody Allen phenotype than the Levantine Warrior one) was accosted by some people in a small town in East Germany where he was visiting for a wedding by people who assumed he was a migrant of some sort. People are not that good at differentiating races.

The problem for Bulgarians [...] is that [...] many of the natives [...] blur into a continuum with the Roma population [...]

I would argue that the actual problem is the racists HBD-proponents who decide to improve the local community life by abusing or attacking people based on their perceived ethnicity.

There is a lesser problem where people use appropriate heuristics based on perceived ethnicity, but this is small fries in comparison. If I were a Bulgarian, I would have a problem with people threatening me because they mistake me for a Roma. If they decide to check every banknote I pay with using UV light I could live with that.

An (Ashkenazi) American Jewish guy I know (who is far more the Trotsky or Woody Allen phenotype than the Levantine Warrior one) was accosted by some people in a small town in East Germany where he was visiting for a wedding by people who assumed he was a migrant of some sort. People are not that good at differentiating races.

Of course, the kind of Germans who would actively accost migrants will likely consider it a happy accident if they end up beating up a Jew instead. (Though more recently, I guess it is also possible that some on the far right admire Israel for what they did in Gaza.)

I would argue that the actual problem is the racists HBD-proponents

What is this about? Are people violently attacking ethnic minorities on the street HBD proponents? Because my understanding was that most racial violence was committed by genuine racists who have never heard of HBD, while the sort of nonviolent rational heuristics like UV light checks were the domain of the HBD proponents. This seems backwards to me.

It's just a boo light.

Most East Germans don’t think about Jews at all. If asked explicitly they may or may not express mildly antisemitic opinions, but it’s not the same as it is in corners of Poland (which also have no Jews) where some minor parties have whipped up a moderate amount of antisemitism in the last decade, although even there Jews are usually hated third or fourth after Ukrainians, Muslims/non European migrants and sometimes Germany.

Score one against the hypothesis that the male tilt of migration is why people hate it.

I think there was some funny evidence that in Poland women were as likely to be as anti immigration as men, which is untrue in Western Europe, so maybe not.

(who themselves are after all only part Indian, many are much lighter skinned than the average actual Indian)

It's sad that I need to keep pointing this out, but again it's not about skin-color it's about whether you present as belonging/being a member of the culture.

It's a bit more complicated than that in notAmerica. Your family can move away to the other side of the world, live there for generations, and your coethnics will still recognize you as one of their own, even if your culture doesn't bear much resemblance to theirs anymore.

Gypsies definitely present themselves a certain way, and that is key to being a gypsy.

(who themselves are after all only part Indian, many are much lighter skinned than the average actual Indian).

Still a bit of an assimilation horror story, innit?

Only the gypsies. The majority is absolutely Slavic - probably 70-sh percent of people have ivory skin. Just that gypsies and the turkish minority (also quite fairly skinned) are overrepresented in emigration. There aren't many people with hair on the back there.

This isn't a case where they'd need to make a split-second assessment based on the color of their skin. We're 9 months into the story, and it's publically available information.

Sure but it’s a reality of emigrant demographics that means that British people see a lot of Roma as Romanian or Bulgarian (who are themselves usually conflated) rather than a separate ethnic group. This makes a lot of Romanians and Bulgarians upset. Gypsies also is more used locally to refer to either Irish Travellers or longstanding local Romani gypsies whose ancestors arrived a century or more ago.

British people see a lot of Roma as Romanian or Bulgarian (who are themselves usually conflated) rather than a separate ethnic group.

Ok, but how? We get some Romanian Roma here in Finland and they’re very distinct looking from regular Romanians / people from Balkans.

This might be an example of the classic Little England attitude; they're all from foreign parts.

As somebody who considers myself a proficient amateur phrenologist and observer of weird ethnic divides. Giving the average man on the street in an area countries over from your particular diaspora shit for not instantly identifying and being invested is silly

Noted. Then again, the BBC does not even mention that these two are from Bulgaria at all.

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous, especially considering how he claimed provocation on that basis:

He claimed that they started to make "cheeky remarks" and one called him a "(expletive) migrant."