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 -
The current War of Northern Aggression "discourse" has brought to mind the top 100 first place greatest mistake in US state craft: not letting Burnen' Sherman just march back and forth for a couple years or finishing hardcore full reconstruction.
Every degenerate tendency in US Con. politics has originated directly from the South's special position as a rebellious territory that was allowed to maintain it's cultural legitimacy, or second order effect from it. Imagine the conservatives we could have in this country if the wellspring of the tendency was John Adams and the federalists; rather than Rutherford and the lost causers.
Wrapping up the entire holographic southern cultural package with opposition to Washington eg. the North, eg the technocratic, rich part of the country has led to a situation where Technocratic Tech-billionaire Technologists are shackled to the cultural traditions of south, either Cavalier hedonistic indulgence papered over with cheap aristocratic pretension lacking any of the actual cultural roots that european aristocrats have; or hill people proud ignorance and shiftless rebellion against anyone who might have gotten any of that big city 'lernin.
You can watch these tendencies poison Republican politics live all the time; it's why even though the Democratic party is jam packed full of passionless ossified corporate aphorism chat bots, when republicans have all three wings of the government they STILL can't get anything done. There is a deep state problem, but it's not the 'unelected bureaucrats' in washington, it's the decaying corpses of Jefferson Davis and Johnny Reb clinging on to conservatism's ankles and dragging it down into the mud.
Stop, your tyranny is showing.
First, the South was not a territory, the member states of the Confederacy were themselves independent states in their own right, and were not territories of anyone or anything. You can't seem to conceive of independent states voluntarily joining a union, and then deciding to withdraw from that very same union. I would suggest starting by forgetting what you think know and relearning from original sources, instead of projecting the 21st century backwards through time.
Second, the rebellious territories are all of these United States of America. Massachusetts was perhaps the MOST rebellious territory, the most specially positioned, not anywhere in the South. They were legitimately territories of Britain, and were legitimately rebellious.
Third, there was no reason for South Carolina or Georgia to agree to form a Union with Pennsylvania or Massachusetts without the very concessions they achieved, and when those concessions were ignored and trampled on, they voluntarily left the union they had voluntarily joined.
Fourth and finally, the biggest mistake of US statecraft was stopping at Berlin in 1945, instead of pushing to Moscow, but that was determined decades before because Roosevelt was a communist sympathizer whose administration was shot through with genuine communists and Soviet spies.
It sounds like you just hate the South and hate Southerners. Your contempt is clouding your judgment and betrays your calls to vengeance for what they are.
It genuinely astounds me that anyone thinks they could have actually done this. Sure, the Soviet Union had taken huge hits, but they still had a reservoir of experienced soldiers and a running wartime economy to supply them to at least adequately; certainly enough to put up a mighty struggle against any other invading armies. Apart from the British, maybe, the only other force the Americans could have mustered to fight besides them would have been the Germans, but at that point utilizing them would have been enough to turn everyone else, French and Italians included, to the Soviet side.
Even in America the country would have, in 1945, gone through several years of propaganda about how the Russian is Also Your Friend and Fights For Freedom, it's hard to see the country gearing up for several more years of war against them all of the sudden for no clear reason in sight at that point.
You can push the failure of statecraft further backward in time if you like. The premise is the same: if we fought on the side of the Soviets, we were fighting on the wrong side. After all, the Soviets and Nazis were allied for two years, from 1939-41.
Also, I was of the understanding that USSR was reliant on lend-lease for the materiel necessary to wage war, and that while they had the manpower, they didn't have the weaponry.
I can't imagine the Italians fighting on the side of the USSR to keep American out of Moscow. I'll have to take your word for it.
P.S. Patton seemed to think it could be done, and he knew more than you or I. Others disagreed, but if someone who was actually in charge of troops thought it could be done, and should be done, then I'm willing to entertain the possibility.
Shortly before Patton's untimely death in a traffic accident, he was going on about how the Jews he was assigned to 'liberate' were loathsome and subhuman, how he much preferred Nazis. That's why he got dismissed from commanding his army.
Either we trust Patton and drop the retrospective moral justification for the war in the garbage, or distrust him.
Patton had been fighting the Nazis for years and respected them as opponents.
Seeing Jews coming out of the camps in terrible shape triggered his disgust reflex.
An ideal person would have reflected on that. But he was an Army General, not some humanitarian leader.
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