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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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Today in minor CW news: Naomi Biden’s Secret Service detail takes shots at carjackers thieves breaking in to a USSS vehicle. The vehicle in question was not occupied, so it wasn’t literal self-defense, but I am willing to assume it’s within protocol.

I’m bringing this up here to take predictions on the level and type of attention this will receive. My prediction is that the most vocal coverage will be conservative Twitter/substack trying to make this about Democrat hypocrisy with regards to crime. There’s just not enough material to make it personal about the Biden family. While I don’t doubt that spicy takes will exist, I’m wondering if they’ll make it to cable news.

Edit: immediately after posting, I see the next Twitter link is some guy with triple parentheses talking about how crime is so normal in DC. I swear I hadn’t seen that when I made my prediction.

My prediction is that the most vocal coverage will be conservative Twitter/substack trying to make this about Democrat hypocrisy with regards to crime.

Yes, I agree with this prediction. The most common take will be something along the lines of, "see Democrats believe that shooting people that steal from people that matter is good, they just think you don't matter". For my part, I agree that shooting thieves is good, but I expect that most of the soft-on-crime left will maintain ideological consistency and say that it's bad that the Secret Service would shoot at someone that wasn't even a threat to anyone.

Speaks to the leveling instinct even among the right. "They get to do things you can't!"

On the other hand it's the American right, which contains a lot of Jeffersonian liberalism built-in.

Speaks to the leveling instinct even among the right. "They get to do things you can't!"

The law and order side of the equation does have extra interest in the law being applied fairly, that is core part of the "order".

The law and order side of the equation does have extra interest in the law being applied fairly, that is core part of the "order".

The current idea of "order," perhaps, but there have been plenty of historical orders without any such fairness — over two millennia of Chinese history come to mind.

Huh, I'd never heard of that instinct before, but now that you mention it it does seem to describe leftist rhetoric pretty well. Where is this terminology from, and what other instincts have we discovered that majorly drive political course?