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 -
Naive policy engineering again, American electoral reform edition:
Team Red claims to want "reinforced" elections, where the risk of people casting a vote who shouldn't be able to is minimized or eliminated. A common proposed mechanism is to use state IDs to validate that the holder has the right to vote in that state or federal election, and (I imagine) to enforce one-vote-per-person. They prefer the decision to be biased in favor of minimizing false positives at the cost of increased false negatives and possibly true positives.
Team Blue opposes this with rhetoric about wanting to maximize access to the electoral systems at all levels. They prefer to maximize true positives and minimize false negatives at the cost of false positives, the symmetric opposite of Red, as in all things.
Left unstated is the assumption, seemingly held in common by both Red and Blue, that people who have a hard time obtaining state IDs are likely to vote Blue.
A compromise solution seems to exist, and I don't understand why it's not being pursued: increase funding for voting accessibility programs, in exchange for tighter requirements for voting authorization. Have, literally, a list of people who were born in state, can't be accounted for as having left the state, and authorize a spend of $10k or whatever to find them and Get Them Registered No Matter The Cost.
One thought: spending on this is a continuous value, whereas a policy state IDs as a bearer authentication token are boolean. Fine, hold state IDs out as a carrot, and offer improvements in, I don't know, signature matching in mail-in ballots.
In summary, two symmetrical problems exist, there exist opportunities to progress towards solving both of them, no serious efforts are being taken. Why? Per the meme, are they just stupid?
Team Red wants fewer people to vote. Team Blue wants more people to vote.
A compromise solution that targets the nominal justification for their policy while preserving the balance of the thing they care about (that's why its a compromise) is uninteresting, so no serious efforts are being taken. It would be difficult to spin it as a bipartisan feel-good agreement, because both sides will have their share of internal critics complaining the other side got too much.
In my opinion, the Blue take is more honest in that the advertised benefits of their policy better represents the actual effects of their policy. They say they want more legally enfranchised people to vote, and this is basically what would happen in their preferred world. The Reds, on the other hand, are basically lying, because voter fraud is pretty much a non-issue. Voter fraud is trivial now and will continue to be trivial under their preferred policy; its the legally enfranchised people that matter. This doesn't make the Blues any less shrewd than the Reds, they just have the luxury of relative honesty in this matter due to the circumstances. But if you asked them about the proposed compromise, they would say you're wasting resources by defending against voting fraud that doesn't exist and then implementing social programs to repair the disenfranchisement that didn't need to happen, and they would be pretty much right.
I agree that the left has a more simplistic and perhaps even more coherent argument.
Children in public schooling are brought up with the idea that everyone should be able to vote easily. We're hammered with the sins of the past where ballot access was conditional at best and often outright discriminatory.
As I've gotten older, I continually wish that the bar was raised for voting. If you can't muster up $12 and a ride to the DMV in 4 years, you shouldn't be able to vote.
Likewise with illegal immigrants. I wouldn't call a bloc of 25 million potential voters "trivial". This isn't legal in every jurisdiction or context, but getting around it (especially without ID and even with ID) is trivial. I'd still consider that voter fraud lite.
"Every mentally competent adult citizen is entitled to vote" is a Schelling point because basically every proposal to "raise the bar" winds up being a veneer over "people I disagree with shouldn't vote" or "people I like should have privileged status".
Not true. In India, like the majority of the world, you need to show some kind of ID to vote, and things work just fine. This is a uniquely American (pointless) quibble.
The difference is, in the US, for a long time, you didn't need your ID in most places, and calls for ID's only came when a certain group of people began voting in far higher numbers.
Now, personally, I'd be fine w/ voter ID, as long as it was a national ID, given out for free, sent out as an update to your SS card.
Calls for voter ID’s came about in Obama’s first term, long after African American voter participation had become commonplace.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, that is why it's a uniquely American quibble: having a national ID at all is extremely normal elsewhere.
We have the REAL ID Act, federal standards for a state ID card as a proxy for a national ID. But I assume you mean free in cost and provided to citizens by default instead of forcing them to apply for one in addition to freedom to obtain?
Most countries force you to obtain a national ID and charge you for this service. What's more, they fine you if you don't obtain it on time.
More options
Context Copy link
State-level IDs being considered good enough opens up issues once the people of Kentucky decide that clearly the Oregon state apparatus is handing them out to the wrong sorts (those who vote democrat, of course). Contrast and compare the whole birth certificate comedy with Obama, where people kept insisting it must've been a fake long after that nonsense should have died down.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link