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 -
https://apple.news/APEuOPHP2TWqeUTR_h8QypA
So the Republican speaker of the house has decided to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden’s business dealings with hunter. I have serious doubts that this will go very far as democrats still control the senate. This looks like an attempt to stir up the base for re-election season.
I personally see this as a big distraction as we have a lot of very serious problems that need to be addressed. BRICs, Taiwan, Ukraine, inflation, and
I am convinced Biden is guilty of corruption so I like the impeachment. I do not believe it’s primarily about pumping up the base. The Dems are running on Trump being a criminal. Impeaching Biden helps with the moderates so they have him impeached as a criminal too. The average median voter who thinks about the election a week or two before the election will be bombarded with all the bad stuff Trump has done. Which ya some of it was bad and stupid and the files at Mar-Lago feels like a valid case to me. The point of impeaching Biden is to have it one the record the evidence he was taking bribes all over the world and at a decent probability forced Ukraine to fire a prosecutor to make his family money. He want get convicted in the Senate but for that median voter there will be a stack of bad things Trump did and a stack of bad things Biden did and the median voter will either have to choose a candidate on a different issue or stay home instead of voting for Biden.
I don’t make the rules and the GOP doesn’t either. The election the country wants is the guy who loses goes to jail. Perhaps, we have more important things but I’m not a member of the party that ran two impeachments.
Inflation would be easy to deal with. Last decade government spending averaged 21.5%. Since COVID it’s been around 24%. If we just returned to last decades spending my guess is inflation would fall back to last decades inflation and interest rates would fall back to last decades interest rates.
But I do disagree with those saying it’s all an optics show. The election will come down to in all likelihood getting 50k votes in the right places. Impeach we must.
The problem is that it isn't clear that the Republicans will have the votes for impeachment, and a failed impeachment attempt could be more detrimental than no attempt at all. With Trump's first impeachment, the evidence that he did what he did was conclusive; the only question was whether such behavior merited removal from office. With a Biden impeachment, the question is whether he did anything at all, and there are serious questions as to whether the Republicans have any real evidence. I'm reminded of the famous Lionel Hutz line: "We have plenty of hearsay and conjecture, those are... kinds of evidence". This is actually a true statement, but hearsay and conjecture aren't generally admissible in a court of law, and even with the relaxed standards of an impeachment hearing, it's still pretty shitty evidence. Let's look at the Burisma evidence:
-Hunter Biden, Joe's fuckup son, gets a seat on the Burisma board despite being unqualified
First, Hunter wasn't publicly known as a fuckup when he got that seat; his personal problems wouldn't become common knowledge until years later. And while Hunter didn't have any oil and gas experience, his resume wasn't horrible. Board seats aren't necessarily given to people within an industry; just look at Exxon Mobil's board. He was on the Amtrak board, owned a lobbying firm, worked as a consultant for MBNA, worked for the Department of Commerce, served on the board of the World Food Program, and co-founded a number of investment and venture capital firms. Not the greatest resume, but it's not like they picked him out of the gutter.
-He was selected because of his political connections
This is probably true, but it's still conjecture. Unless you can get former Burisma insiders to testify that this was the case or find documents to that effect, you're jumping to conclusions. Without this kind of evidence, you'd have to lay your foundation very carefully to have a 50/50 shot at being permitted to ask a jury to reach this conclusion in a real trial.
-Joe's ultimatum was the result of pressure from his son
Now you're not only past the point where any judge would let you ask a jury to draw that conclusion, but Joe can counter pretty easily. the prosecutor in question was notoriously corrupt, and had been the subject of calls for action for months from half of Europe. To suggest that the factor that tipped the scales toward Joe's involvement was motivation from his son being able to keep his cushy paycheck is a stretch. Biden's actions were public, and he would have needed the backing of the rest of the executive branch. You're going to have Obama administration officials up there outlining the entire process by which it was determined that this ultimatum should be made, and it's highly unlikely that any of them are going to testify that Hunter Biden had anything to do with it. Then you add in the fact that the Hunter's selection predated Shokin and the investigation predated Hunter and that the Obama Administration was supposedly concerned that Shokin was deliberately slow-walking the investigation to extract bribes and were frustrated to the point they considered launching their own investigation.
You're going to have weeks of this on TV, witness after witness who has direct knowledge of what really went on with the Shokin debacle while McCarthy is going to call who, exactly? Some of Hunter's old drinking buddies who say that he definitely gestured toward the fact that this whole international debacle was really about Hunter's salary? It won't convince the MTGs of the world, but it may convince a dozen or so guys from swing districts who are up for reelection and can't be seen as in the thrall of the MAGA wing of the party. I'm not saying this is how it plays out but it's damn risky. At least the Dems knew they could get an impeachment.
No, whether it was impeachable was also and remains a question.
Thank you for pushing back on this “consensus”.
The depth of corruption in Ukraine may result in two Presidents’ impeachments, both disputed by each side, and I dearly hope and pray it doesn’t end in WWIII.
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