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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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Two different topics I am not qualified to talk about but am interested in hearing your opinions on:

  1. Apparently there is now a crime in Britain called a 'homophobic public offense.' Committing this crime will get you arrested. This has come to the wider world's attention because of a video of an autistic teenaged girl being dragged out of her home for telling one of the police officers she looked like her lesbian nana. I will speak plainly that I read the same evil on the face of the lesbian-nana-cop that sent the kulaks to the gulags and now have the impression Britain is pretty well not a free country. But it's a big country, anyone can cherrypick one terrible story out of millions (or billions, in the new case of that little girl in india who had been gangraped and then gangraped again in the hospital by the doctors), and I am not British so I can't speak to the probative value. Throwing it out there though https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12396427/Lesbian-nana-arrest-police-autistic-exclusive.html

NB This was a few days ago and the cops have since dropped the charges after public backlash. This time.

  1. A new audio sensation is sweeping the nation, a previously-nobody named Oliver Anthony has come out with an actually-good red tribe anthem called 'Rich Men North of Richmond.' Over the last week or so it's become ubiquitous in 'the RW blogosphere' - too many big names to list have independently drawn attention to it and Anthony is going to need some serious professional help to manage all of the invitations to appear on, well, everything. Give it a listen and see if it does anything for you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro

I'm not from the south, but I and most of the rest of non-southern righties decided a long time ago we would just appropriate it. Confederate flags in rural Michigan, etc. To me it has a kind of universality to it. Don't miss the line 'if you're 5 foot 3 and 300 pounds, tax dollars shouldn't pay for your bags of fudge rounds." Interested to hear your thoughts

The first topic reminds me of a ridiculous story from sixth grade. Someone told me this kid in my class had a gay cousin, and since I was gay I asked this kid if his cousin was gay. He got mad at me for implying that his cousin was gay, and then complained to my science teacher, who I was sure was a lesbian because she was a soccer coach and I saw her buying wine with women at the grocery store multiple times. My lesbian science teacher scolded me for asking this kid if his cousin was gay, even though I was just asking because I was gay and wanted a gay friend. (Granted I probably didn't ask with a very polite tone.) Either way, the kid I asked was more homophobic than I was, since he was offended that I'd imply his cousin was gay, whereas was just asking for a gay friend, and it ended with me getting scolded by a lesbian teacher for homophobia instead of the kid who was actually homophobic.... anyway I'm just relating this to try to illustrate how the "homophobic public offense" law is terrible and will lead only to ridiculous outcomes. Am I allowed to be homophobic as a homosexual? If not then I can only see this law being worse for me as a homosexual who interacts with homosexuals all the time and happens to do things that can probably be framed as homophobic if they need to be, compared with someone who knows no homosexuals and runs little risk of doing homophobic things unless a lesbian cop shows up at their door...

I like the song you are asking about. As a rich man north of Richmond I empathize with him and people like him more than most of the people in my class FWIW. Rich people lording their power over the poor is really bad and every time I see it I cringe. I thought about writing out a response to this piece in the NY Times but don't have much to add. The rich are increasingly divorced from the realities of the poor. All everyone with a college degree has been doing since 2008 is throwing poor white people under the bus, pointing at Trump voters as racist hicks while trying to differentiate themselves in increasingly extravagant ways. I think (hope) this has basically run its course, even the Barbie movie seems to be illustrating the horrors of "going high" while everyone else is struggling in the gutters.

Am I allowed to be homophobic as a homosexual?

The amount of times a straight person has accused me (a man who's had sex with three men, variously giving and receiving) of being insufficiently supportive of the gay community. It drives me nuts. It's always a straight white woman too.

Wait, like, at the same time?

It is confusing because between the options of “three guys at once” and “lifetime body count of 3” one can easily imagine someone saying that having a gay body count of 3 is not sufficient to be really gay

kinda funny because on one hand banging 3 dudes isnt gay enough to participate in the gay discourse but it also excludes you from claiming to be straight.