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 -
On December 3rd, the United States military will publicly livestream the execution by firing squad of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.
I’ve made my strong support of the death penalty — and specifically of public executions — abundantly clear over the years. (For a primer, you can listen to this episode of the now-defunct Motte-adjacent Bailey Podcast, my first and to date only podcast appearance.) My initial reaction to this news was jubilant: talk about getting what I voted for! While my preferred method of execution here would be hanging, a firing squad is certainly a step in the right direction in terms of de-medicalizing capital punishment and emphasizing its fundamentally violent and retributive nature.
My observation of the discourse around it has given me pause, though. The apoplectic relationship from the political left has been predictable, and was unfortunately always priced in; the reaction from some on the right, though, has been sobering. Professionally Christian commenters have lamented what they see as the barbarity and vulgarity of the live-streaming aspect. (“This makes us no better than Al Qaeda! We aren’t some third-world dictatorship! This isn’t Who We Are™️!”) Many have warned that this will generate photogenic martyrdom propaganda that will inspire and energize future jihadists. (We’re giving Hasan exactly the attention and validation he always wanted!”)
These arguments give me pause not because I agree with them, but because they highlight the way that this is a rubber-meets-the-road moment for my ideology. To what extent have I allowed myself to become so radicalized by hermetically-sealed online discourse, such that I imagine my beliefs to be far more popular than they are in reality? Is what I imagine to be a broadly common-sense perspective actually going to prove deeply unpopular and massively polarizing once implemented publicly? Scott Greer, generally a reliable barometer for where the normal Middle American opinion sits, thinks so.
Personally, I am concerned that the Trump administration will, yet again, find some way to botch the aesthetics of the occasion, reveling in low-class pandering and/or ostentatious cruelty. (There is also the possibility of visible corruption: perhaps viewers will need to pay for a bespoke streaming platform which will put revenue in the pockets of Trump, Trump’s family, or a consortium of Trump donors.) There is a part of me that wishes that the first public execution in America since 1937 should be postponed until it can be overseen by an administration that is less inherently polarizing than this one. To some extent, about a third of the country is fully committed to hating whatever Trump does, no matter what it is; perhaps under a future administration with a higher baseline level of public trust, this event could serve as an opportunity for genuinely restrained public discourse about capital punishment, rather than an opportunity for retrenchment of existing political fault lines. If done incorrectly, this event has the potential to set back the political hopes of death penalty maximalists such as myself for a generation or more.
I’m still planning on tuning in to watch this execution. As someone who discovered the snuff film parts of the internet at a relatively young age, I’m pretty thoroughly desensitized to images of death. (And frankly, having seen a number of videos of firing squad executions, they’re a lot more mild than you might think.) I hope that perhaps there will be some small number of individuals who might find it inspiring — and that there may be others who are in some way deterred, even marginally, from future criminality. The executioners need to strike a delicate balance during the proceedings: solemnity and restraint, acknowledging the humanity of the condemned while also not getting bogged down by mawkish faux-contrition about having to end his miserable wasted life. Keeping the proceedings focused primarily on the victims, including testimony by survivors such as this guy may help to quell any instinctive sympathy for the condemned that viewers could otherwise experience.
Still seems healthier than the extremely low testosterone botched execution of that satanist murderess recently.
Apparently it's legally impossible to whip out a sidearm and blow her head off, since you can only kill people in the exact way and time that a judge finds pleasing. Otherwise it's something like murder, so that woman has to be rushed off to hospital to save her from the death she was supposed to suffer.
So now the woman who should be dead is going to sue, fantastic.
They are constantly failing, delaying, having issues with executions.
There are many arguments about the purpose of capital punishment but I don't think anyone argued for a system where it exists nominally but in practical terms it's for providing lawyers and administrative personnel jobs. Nobody comes out and says that the real metric of success is how many delays and how much expense can be inflicted, as opposed to swift and efficient execution of serious criminals. But that's what the US system actually is. Purpose of the system is what it does and what it does is extract money and find excuses for it. In Pike and Hassan's case there was no doubt or useful justice-enhancing purpose for appeals.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996, lawyers and the legal system have just been sending little memos back and forth for 30 years rather than producing any actual justice. She attempted to kill someone in prison and also started litigation about her conditions being 'unequal' to male prisoners on death row. Hasan was convicted in 2013.
I suspect Trump's natural instinct is 'to hell with the lawyers, let's blow his head off' rather than careful procedurism, which does have its benefits. I made a post back in 2025 about how tariffs weren't that bad compared to careful, boring procedural sabotage, grifting and wrecking. The harms of tariffs are obvious and overt but aren't necessarily worse than the harms that the experts cause silently and slowly and in a boring, adult, professional manner. Of course there are also overt harms that are worse. But in general, there's something to be said for this stance.
The relevant law is a state statute defining the method of execution. Utah has used a firing squad in the recent past(Utah has a low crime rate and population and does not execute very many people), because the state government chose to define that as a legal method of execution. It's not about 'cruel and unusual' it's 'compliance with state law about carrying out the death penalty'.
Sure, it just seems bizarre that when they miss the vein and she's still alive 40 minutes later, they scramble around looking for lifesaving equipment to save the person they were trying to kill. I understand that they're obeying the law. The law is the issue.
I predict that for Pike there will be a huge investigation, all kinds of new rules will be introduced requiring people to get extensively trained about how to stick needles in people so they can hit veins. Maybe lifesaving equipment will have to be kept in the execution room. Even more procedural epicycles. Pike will sue. Others will sue. Another gazillion dollars to lawyers. The whole ethos here is weak.
Far more likely that they’ll change the law to allow nitrogen asphyxiation.
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