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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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I've heard an entertaining fragment of an interview with a leader of a bit fringe far-right party in Poland. Him. I figured I'd share the translated transcript:

Politician: Did you know that the Polish state can even lose money on imposing taxes? We have a tonnage tax, which has generated negative revenues for the last few years, and this despite the fact that there were still some collection costs. So we have plenty of places in Poland where the system is working completely inefficiently and needs to be fixed.

Journalist: For you, everything is so simple; one snap of the fingers and everything is taken care of?

Politician: It's very common that someone says it can't be done, then a person comes along who doesn't know it can't be done, and does it.

Journalist: All politicians say that in the election campaign. What confidence do we have that if you co-govern, it will be different?

Politician: Because we are not like them.

Journalist: They all said that. I'm a little older than you, Mr. Leader.

Politician: PIS is the same as PO, and people see that we are not the same as them. We will really change that. People crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who will change it.

Journalist: Crazy, or lunatics?

Politician: Synonyms.

Journalist: Do you think people will give power in Poland to people who are crazy? People need stability, peace, order, harmony....

Politician: People want things to change at last, people are fed up with the 'PO-PIS', fed up with this [???] system

Journalist: Somehow we don't see this in the polls. If you combine the ratings of PIS and PO, it is almost how much? 50-60%.

Politician: 60% of men under 39 support us. Poles, young Poles want change at last. They don't want this 'PO-PIS', they don't want this system.

Journalist: Are you a party of males?

Politician: More men vote for us than women.

Journalist: Why is it the way you think it is like that?

Politician: There are many reasons; probably men are more.... hard to say.

Journalist: Right.

Politician: The reasons are certainly many

Journalist: Men are more... what?

Politician: No, because I figured that whatever I would say, they will start taking everything out of context for me again. This is just an interesting situation.

Journalist: Men are more.... intelligent than women?

Politician: Well no, that's exactly what I'm getting at, that whatever I say, they're going to start the same thing you've already begun right now.

Journalist: Or maybe you guys are not interested in the emancipation of women?

Politician: You know, at my business, for example, there are more women than men in managerial positions, so any accusations from this angle right here are completely untrue. It seems to me that young men can't find themselves in this kind of rhetoric that almost the entire political class, from PO to the Left, which shows that the main source of evil is this white male, people feel - men feel - discriminated against, they don't want such rhetoric.

Journalist: Yyyy.... white male, it sounds a little strange.

(I guess he's not Very Online? He considers it strange because almost every male is white in Poland.)

Politician: But that's the debate around the world, where it's the white, heterosexual male who is the source of all evil according to the left, which is clearly not true.

Journalist: But you won't do anything to attract more women to the Confederacy?

Politician: I'm trying my best, of course.

Journalist: For example, any ideas, for today?

Politician: Well, exactly. The point is that we don't divide people into genders. I'm talking to taxpayers, I'm talking to voters, women pay exactly the same taxes as men, they have the same problems running a business....

Journalist: And are women discriminated against in Poland today, or not?

Politician: I don't see any such discrimination.

Journalist: In terms of wages, in terms of positions, in terms of status?

Politician: Of course they are not discriminated against.

Journalist: There is total equality, are you satisfied with what is there?

Politician: I mean, equality is obviously not there. Men have a higher retirement age, men are drafted into the army...

Journalist: So it's men who are discriminated against?

Politician: Of course men are discriminated against by law, however men have no issue with this, they can be discriminated against in favor of women, this is due to our culture, ladies are let through the door first and this is completely normal.

(At this moment, someone in the chat wrote: "and it is precisely such Confederates, who make victims of themselves as men and Catholics despite having more rights and being less discriminated against xD"). Apparently some people still believe that women have less rights, somehow. Kinda mind-boggling.

Apparently some people still believe that women have less rights, somehow. Kinda mind-boggling.

Abortion is largely illegal in Poland, which may or may not mean that women have less rights than men in some ways depending on what you think about abortion.

I'm sure that abortion is largely illegal for both sexes in Poland.