culture war roundup
Eupraxia
Of all words spoken, all things read / most true was that which went unsaid
1hr ago
People who are afraid will self deport.
Illegals aren't afraid of being caught by ICE, they're afraid of having to leave America. The only illegals who will actually leave on their own are either rich enough to avoid the dysfunction of their home countries (in which case, they're probably not illegal) or so dirt-poor that it makes no difference. For the average Jose, living in America is such a massive increase to quality of life that he'll pay his life savings to smugglers for the chance to escape his shithole of origin[1].
roystgnr
6hr ago
It seems that people are interpreting "someone on the right engaged in violence or violent rhetoric and Trump offered nothing but a full-throated, unequivocal condemnation" to mean "nothing-but-condemnation of the violence", in which case your request was a reasonable one, but it has been answered. But it seems to me that you meant "nothing but condemnation-of-the-violence", in which case your request might not be answered, but it was an unreasonable one.
Recently I brought up Obama as an example of a very high-profile Blue Triber who was neither cheering nor minimizing the murder of Charlie Kirk ... but should I have been criticizing him instead? He was quick to point out that he thought some of Kirk's ideas were wrong, and to bring up left-wing victims too; he definitely failed the "nothing but condemnation-of-the-violence" standard despite passing "nothing-but-condemnation of the violence".
So, which standard are we looking for here? If "The point wasn't whether he was technically correct when he implied that all sides engage in political violence." then we have no choice but to criticize Obama too!
For that matter, could you clarify what standard Trump was failing with his slippery slope argument? The slope was indeed slippery, including with regards to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in particular. The only "league" in those statements is the class of people whose statues were in jeopardy, and it turned out that he was correct that they were all in that same class. I mostly like your reasoning better, personally! The idea that the Founding Fathers should have been in a league of their own beyond anachronistic condemnation was defensible, until we discovered it was wrong. It's only the part where you get upset at him for being right in foresight where you were wrong despite hindsight that you went off the rails.
Some of these may be "stopped clock is correct twice a day" situations for Trump, but then just stick with the incorrect things to criticize instead! The trick to criticizing people for merely being "technically correct" is that you have to remember that our goal is to be morally correct in addition to being technically correct; you can't be morally correct instead. I get that it's infuriating to have to hold yourself to a higher standard than the President of the United States, but in a virtue and deontological sense that's the right thing to do for its own sake; and in a consequentialist sense, the worse the target of your argument is, the more important it is to not just throw mud at the wall to see what sticks.
ulyssessword
13hr ago
I remember Netstack's top level comment how the vibe shift even affected his parents.
And that wasn't about how great she is. It's about how great other people find her (and yes, how she brought the vibe shift). There were a couple real examples downthread from that, but the overall sentiment in that thread is still negative.
I think you're presenting a fringe opinion (on the motte, not in the States as a whole) as a consensus, or at least a major fraction. The threads I saw were overall negative on Harris, though some comments did contain more equivocation than I remembered.
ulyssessword
14hr ago
I distinctly remember posters here telling me how great she is.
I found it! Perhaps the only comment on the entire Motte that is unequivocably pro-Harris. Oh wait, I found one more, and a third that might count.
I suppose the plural is valid, but I expected a lot more than that when I skimmed through the entirety of those two threads.
I thought Klein had it mostly right there, and it reminds me of something Dean said on this site a while back, albeit about fictional characters. Do so-and-so feel like they want people like me in their lives? Not just tolerate me, not be civil or 'inclusive', but genuinely want people like me to be happy? Do they want me around?
It's a piece of advice that I would actually generalise to all people. Be the kind of person who is interested in other people. Be the kind of person who wants other people in his life. As this applies to gender, I'm reminded of Eneasz Brodski writing about the same - be the kind of man who genuinely likes women, and look for the kind of woman who genuinely likes men. That doesn't necessarily mean sexually or romantically (here I like Dean's examples of celibate or homosexual women who clearly care deeply about white men in their lives), but you need to like other people.
Obviously policy matters and this is not the one weird trick that will fix all the Democrats' problems, but insofar as attitude or culture can help, I would advise them to start by trying to like - to genuinely like and appreciate - the kind of people they want to vote for them. You cannot say, or even imply, "vote for me you pond scum". Start by training yourself to like them. It's possible. Openness and affection for people is something that can be practiced.
Does this rule apply to any other political cause?
Because we had a debate about a predawn raid where masked and unidentifiable men broke down someone's door and shot the guy in the head over some simple paperwork crimes -- complete with defiance of long-standing policy and only-by-the-text compliance with a warrant -- and people here defended it as all acceptable because He Broke The Law.
For some reason, the cherrypicked image of his ventilated skull wasn't a cause celebre nor a moment for deep retroflection on the costs of a cause; at most, it was reason Those Damned Republicans Should Want Police Reform (that won't apply here). Nor, for that matter, were the dozens of other examples going back decades, sometimes with far greater casualty counts, which, to skip the charcoal briquettes rant, did nothing to sate progressive efforts to The Cause.
Ah, well, nonetheless.
Perhaps there are clear examples of immigration enforcement that weren't cause celebres for the Left? The Nicer, Kinder, Cruelty Isn't The Point 2018 policies were not tolerated and accepted -- even when some of the outrage was based on photos dating to the previous Democratic admin, or entirely made up, it still became The Worst Thing Ever at the same time it didn't work, only for all of those problems to get shoved back in the box as soon as something was (D)ifferent in the Presidency.
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