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 -
Suella Bravermans Tory conference speech caught my attention as it seems to more bluntly come out anti-immigration and she specifically says don’t be afraid of being called racists. Here is the key quote with a lot of other red meat in the speech.
'The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming.'
As far as I can tell Sunak did not slam immigration as much. He did have one-nanny state policy of banning cigarettes (which I sort of support) but was also very clear on gender ideology (a man is a man a women is a women parts). A politician would not have those two policies in America.
Back to Braverman there are a few things I find interesting. The specific phrase “hurricane” seems to have far more meaning to my long term views on Europe and immigration. Along with her using the term economic migrants. Africa’s population is the one place in the world with absolutely booming population. In the next 50 or so years the amount of people acting in their own best interest and economically migrating should absolutely boom. There will be a hurricane of migrants.
The issue for Europe and I do believe in HBD is the desire to economically migrate won’t disappear because the economic gaps between Europe and Africa won’t disappear. And while some of these people will end up being quite smart and successful there will be an addition of a large low hbd population.
The end result of this would be a South Africanization of Europe. If my view of this is correct and I do think demographics are destiny then I expect as time goes by and the negatives of mass immigration become more apparent that eventually Europe will fully adopt Bravermans views. The question is will they realize this before it’s too late. Europe already has their right wing political parties gaining support all thru Europe.
I do not see the same sort of risks for the US. South Americas population doesn’t have the same boom dynamics. And the US has shown an ability to partially integrate Hispanic communities into US society. The data I’ve seen in the past has the Hispanic community eventually reaching mean white criminality levels of the US but with far lower educational attainment. I believe we should reduce illegal immigration but I don’t see the same fears of immigration as I would have if I lived in Europe.
The other thing I find interesting is the rise of Indian voices in right wing voices. Sunak, Braverman, Ramaswamy. I have my theories on this - one is a fluke, two is a coincidence, 3 is a pattern.
Article includes video of the key quotes https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/suella-braverman-andrew-boff-home-secretary-labour-tories-b1111176.html
Completely unrelated and not worth it’s own post this caught my eye today as I have no idea what it means. El Chapo’s son bans any fentanyl in northern Mexico https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/el-chapos-sons-allegedly-ban-fentanyl-production-northern-mexico
Could be nothing. Could indicate a CIA/Sinaloa deal.
Edit: wouldn’t be surprised if people find the fentanyl stuff more interesting. It seems this was the catalyst.
https://insightcrime.org/news/extradition-fentanyl-prohibition-mexico-tries-counterdrug-reset/
That Indian (politicians) in the UK have gone anti-immigration doesn't shock me. As a group, they are wealthy, well-educated, law-abiding and immune to accusations of hating brown people. They're natural Tories. Of course, that doesn't mean they actually reduce legal or illegal immigration, they just talk stridently about it.
What I'm curious about is why so many of the native Tories (Boris Johnson, George Osborne, David Cameron) were so open-bordery. Aristocratic disdain for the native proles? Desire for cheaper servants? Regular cosmopolitan posturing?
Mass migration has never been higher than under Sunak in Britain. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/25/sunak-under-pressure-as-net-migration-to-uk-hits-record-606000
I think you need to consider your post. You are praising Indians rulers of UK as others have done so. Doesn't this show you share some of this mentality?
At best it is just Suela who is ineffectively pushing back. But considering talk in combination with opposite action has been commonly seen by the Torries for decades and even others behaving likewise to Sulla, why trust her.
Be more stingy with your praise for politicians until they have done enough to earn it.
It probably also has something to do with why they made gay marriage legal, enforce zero carbon agenda, promoted hate speech laws, and in fact expanded the authoritarian culturally left wing state quite a bit and enforced affirmative action in the party. And entrenching groups like hope not hate as activist organisations that are powerful within the state. Oh and the fact that Cameron selected members of the party based on being culturally left wing enough and excluded others for being right wing. Before that Blair also empowered NGOs.
It also has something to do with right wingers being gullible and willing to vote for them after doing these things. The Torries have been promising for decades to reduce migration. Cameron also said he would control it. If right wingers were more intolerant like leftists and more demanding and condemning and willing to abandon political parties promoting false promises and go to other right wing parties of a more genuine and right wing sort, then maybe politicians would be inlined to keep their promises so they can keep their chairs.
Alas, unlike the never satisfied even when winning leftist, many a right winger is easily satisfied by little when they are losing.
Unlike the people here who have been praising this while it has been happening and always seen moderation and based torries, or based Indian Torries, I would recommend to people who are interested in this phenomenon Peter Hitchen's books or articles about these events who called it as he saw it. Like the Cameron Delusion for example or abolition of Britain that focused on Blair. In all honesty I have read parts of the first and articles, speeches/debates from Hitchens, so you can get some of the content in that manner too.
Anyway, talk is cheap, only action on issues like migration matters. When it comes to politicians by the results you will judge them.
Exactly. My rule of thumb is that, when it comes to immigration, the most right-wing candidate who is electable will do roughly what the mainstream leftist says that they will do, while the electable mainstream leftist candidate does what they say they will do + additional pro-immigration policies.
Similarly for macroeconomic policy. For all the talk of austerity, the Cameron government practiced Keynesianism (spending rose rapidly until the UK economy was several years into recovery) just as the Labour party said they would do in the 2010 election. Public spending remained at higher proportions of GDP than during the Blair years: https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_spending_analysis .
Even Thatcher, elected on an inflation-fighting platform in 1979 and subsequently said by many to have brought inflation down too rapidly, only brought inflation down to about 5% by late 1982, which was exactly the figure that Labour promised in their 1979 manifesto:
http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1979/1979-labour-manifesto.shtml
That doesn't mean that Thatcher made no difference to UK inflation - it just meant that the difference was only to close the gap between the left's electoral promises and actual government policy.
Right wing voters face a Lewis Carroll-style situation, where they have to run very hard to stand still, or even move slowly to the left.
That is more that the UK followed USA monetary policy. Even after the fixed exchange rate system that was Bretton Woods ended, countries still didn't want their exchange rates to the dollar to change very much. It was the tightening by the Federal Reserve that forced the Bank of England's hand.
True to some extent, but the UK exchange rate with the dollar did vary a lot in this period:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=19Q2p
Exchange rates always vary alot for various reasons. The question is if they follow changes in USA monetary policy. And they do. It's easy to see in the graph.
Insofar as exchange rates are varying due to divergences between UK and US monetary policy, the Fed is not forcing the Bank of England's hand.
In theory they could just let the exchange rate vary, but in practice they don't. That was my point. It's no coincidence inflation fell world wide after 1982 when it fell in the USA. Just like there was worldwide deflation in 2008 when there was deflation in the USA.
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