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 -
And another culture (and shooting) war event happening right now, event of more importance than the pathetic one in Montreal.
After a year (lightning speed for justice) events that happened during protest at ICE detention center in July 4, 2025 were resolved.
In rather unexpected way, by maximum possible prison sentences.
Ineffectiveness of your resistance is no longer an mitigating circumstance, and using Signal is highly aggravating one.
The judge openly said that the sentences are meant to "send a message".
As expected, Xitter celebrates while Bluesky mourns. We will see if this is one time occurance, or Trump's promise to crack down on Antifa was meant seriously.
What is the evidence that they were planning to do anything more aggressive than set off fireworks and make noise and vandalize stuff? The guy who shot at the police officer is obviously a dangerous criminal but what about the rest of them? Why couldn't they have all been planning to simply protest? The Wikipedia article says guns and body armor were recovered from the suspects (not clear if they all brought that with them to they protest or they found that at their homes) but how much are we allowed to read into that in Texas?
According to the final indictment and the jury verdict:
(1) "Setting off fireworks, making noise, and vandalizing stuff" still counts as "rioting" and "using and carrying an explosive to commit a felony". Eight of the nine defendants were convicted on those charges. (The ninth defendant is the one who just hid some papers.)
(2) The prosecutor is in possession of "several group chats on an encrypted messaging app" showing that four defendants definitely were explicitly planning to bring guns, even if others were not made aware of the true plan and thought that only fireworks would be used.
The prosecutor also alleges in-person coordination among the eight main defendants (again, not including the paper pusher) prior to the riot.
The material support for terrorism charges seems the least likely to survive, and even that more because of the costs of defending the use of the statute rather than losing in court. Humanitarian Law Project supported the law even in the face of much more speech-focused conduct, but it was so highly pre-enforcement that it probably should have gotten a punt on the merits. Here, with this level of coordination, it's likely to survive... if the feds want to keep supporting it. A Dem presidency reversing on that bit would be political, but it would be arguably reasonable allocation of resources if it's the only thing being seriously appealed.
There's a lot of commentary assuming that they were charged on the designated foreign terrorist group prong, and that would be subject to review based on how well-grounded (or liked) Trump's designation of antifa is, but there's a separate "predicate acts" version that doesn't require the designation, and it looks like that's the version used here.
The fireworks-as-explosives bit and destructive vandalism are pretty mainstream, and they're a pretty sizable part of the sentence. They're also such a sizable part of the sentence because of the terrorism enhancement.
I'm not a fan of prosecutors being able to bring up owned materials that were not used in the crime -- especially medical gear like tourniquets -- but it's pretty well-supported by the judiciary. From a pragmatic, rather than legal standard, the combination of bringing AR-15s, tourniquets, and body armor to a place you intended to throw lit fireworks at people is uncommon enough a behavior that it's a reasonable thing to take inference from.
The sentences seem high for the pure aiders-and-abetters, since they weren’t convicted on pretty much anything involving the shooting itself, but that’s easier to raise as a philosophical argument than as a legal one. The courts have pretty strictly constrained proportionality complaints and condoned inclusion of uncharged conduct, and it was only a pretty recent sentencing guideline change that prohibit (mostly) the use of acquitted conduct.
More options
Context Copy link
Okay! If I was going to what I thought was a protest and the leader guy says we're all bringing guns because he's not going to jail I'd be pretty alarmed that this was not going to be an ordinary protest. I have to conclude you're either very dumb or you want to support shooting at cops if not do some shooting at cops yourself. Then you go protest and this protest is kind of rioty and the leader guy actually shoots at police. Looks bad!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link