site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

22 years is a lot.

One would hope, for the sake of the 'right wing', that these events force right wing activists to smarten up and push the 'right wing' base towards more radicalism, distrust and pessimism towards the state.

But I think in reality this will just be seen as a failed circus act. Which people will want to quickly forget so the memory won't spoil the next circus troop coming to town.

that these events force right wing activists to smarten up and push the 'right wing' base towards more radicalism, distrust and pessimism towards the state.

Do that and you're asking to be buried under the jail like these guys. The message is "comply, because if you don't none of the boxes (soap, ballot, jury, cartridge) will save you; they are all in your enemies' hands.

Of all the boxes, the last one still hasn't been tried.

What the American right should take from analyzing this rationally is that no amount of legal or illegal remedy will ever be enough, submit to the reality that good government as they conceive of it requires at minimum a coup, and start plotting effectively.

If the punishment for dissent is the same as insurrection, there is no downside to the latter. And the powers that be know this which is why they immediately started purging the military.

No wistful demonstrations, no standing back and standing by. If any goals are ever to be met, then clearly one needs to start stockpiling weapons, making close connections, weeding out informants, subverting the military and planning for a violent confrontation.

It's either that or run your community away to another country that will protect you. But clearly, as demonstrated here, you will not get what you want by peaceful protest, votes or judicial review. Dissent is terrorism.

You can't. The right knows this, too. State capacity today is large enough to make Stalin's ghost (or Honecker's) blush. Overthrowing the government of the United States by force of arms is impossible, and their ability to prevent subversion is unparalleled (largely because it's run by those who subverted it).

It's certainly difficult, but since the alternative is a slower but certain annihilation, you don't really have a choice.

I think you overestimate the strength of the regime because of your penchant for pessimism however. There are weaknesses.

There's two ways Red Tribe can go. One is annihilation via essentially forced assimiliation. The other is annihilation by annihilation. The best way they can resist is basically the Afghanistan way -- make areas ungovernable and uncontrollable until the government puts a concentration of force in that area. This leads to annihilation. The Afghans were able to hold out against the USs little pinky for 20 years. The Feds aren't going to get tired of trying to control the US, and they will have vastly more resources to do so. And Red doesn't have the culture to hold out, eating poorly, freezing, and screwing goats as their women defect to the winning side.

Do you really think that the US military is going to be capable of wiping out an actual "right wing taliban" in the heartland? US anti insurgency tactics are pathetically bad (how's Afghanistan doing? Iraq? Vietnam?) and they're going to be even less effective in the parts of the US where the most competent soldiers actually come from. How many Trump voters do you think are still in the military? At the same time, I don't think you realise how little resilience there is in domestic US infrastructure. The US military couldn't wipe out the Taliban after two decades of occupation, and you think they're going to be able to do the same back home when their infrastructure is substantially more vulnerable and the population they're wiping out is the single largest supplier of effective troops? An actual domestic insurgency, if it was justified by the Feds/deep state nakedly seizing power, would not actually be stoppable by the Feds in any way that matters.

they're going to be even less effective in the parts of the US where the most competent soldiers actually come from.

At best this is a trade. The military's logistical pipelines become an order of magnitude less complex, the terrain they're fighting in becomes less rugged and more familiar, and if they're eradicating freedom fighters they'll still have 50% of the population (bootlicking soy boys) out to rat on whoever shows up at a convenience store with a Gadsden flag patch.

Don't get me wrong, I think an armed resistance in the US would do better than many people think, but I think some of the optimism here is unwarranted.

The military's logistical pipelines become an order of magnitude less complex,

They also became far, FAR more vulnerable to monkeywrenching and sabotage. A decent portion of the insurgents and freedom fighters will actually just be in the military already, and a decent portion of them will be veterans as well. How much of the military is going to be wasted patrolling and securing electricity substations or any of the other countless pieces of infrastructure required to keep cities functioning? Think about how dramatic the purges of the military will have to be to make sure that nobody with any kind of power or responsibility has any ties to the broad swathes of the country they'll have to occupy.

if they're eradicating freedom fighters they'll still have 50% of the population (bootlicking soy boys) out to rat on whoever shows up at a convenience store with a Gadsden flag patch.

This only really makes sense if you believe that political affiliation is distributed in a perfect balance all through the country. In most of the areas that these insurgencies will be operating out of, that portion of the population will be vanishingly small (and it isn't like people in those areas are just going to forget about the small minority who had an I'M WITH HER sign on their lawn). The rural/urban divide in terms of political affiliation is incredibly meaningful in this kind of hypothetical scenario, and I don't think it paints a very good picture for the hypothetical Federal Occupation Force.

Don't get me wrong, I think an armed resistance in the US would do better than many people think, but I think some of the optimism here is unwarranted.

I'm not optimistic about it at all. A real armed resistance in the US would case immense amounts of suffering - one of the first tactics would doubtless be the total destruction of all infrastructure supplying major cities. Outside the direct military conflict, the flow-on consequences would be responsible for a lot of death and misery - economic disruption, supply chain disruption, water infrastructure destruction... Even worse, it isn't like this conflict would just cause the entire rest of the world to stop existing - Russia and China would doubtless do their best to make sure that the conflict is even worse and more destructive, not to mention mine the conflict for devastatingly effective propaganda. Footage of the US military going into small town America, stepping over dying fentanyl addicts and going door to door wiping out local prominent conservatives would probably be a big hit on foreign social media platforms.