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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My understanding (see for example this old article) is that Texas has a public comment process that allows random unhinged people to have a disproportionate input into curriculum design.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Which is a very odd case because Sacoolas' husband was not a diplomat, so whether she enjoyed diplomatic-like immunity depended on the terms of a secret agreement between the US and the UK. She claimed immunity (with the support of the US authorities) in the immediate aftermath of the crash to get out of the UK, but the later legal proceedings were conducted on the basis that she didn't have immunity, but that the US were refusing to extradite her on public policy grounds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I believe he still counts as libertarian and most of the old libertarians have gone down the road to fascism to save liberty.




The Murray Rothbard/Hans-Herman Hoppe wing of US libertarianism was always fascist-adjacent, in the sense that they approved of white supremacy and disapproved of democracy. I don't think they went down any roads, I think they just found a receptive audience (beyond the old generation of Jim Crow dead-enders that were dying off on them) that didn't previously exist. Thiel isn't a fascist, but he came out against democracy in 2009, which is well before the Current Thing. The Cato/GMU wing of libertarianism is mostly NeverTrump.


So I don't think very many libertarians have changed their views on "fascists" - I just think the ones who were always open to collaboration with "fascists" have found a lot more "fascists" to collaborate with.


(Sneer quotes because the arguments about whether US-style white nationalism and opposition to democracy should properly be called fascism is irrelevant to the points been made here - we know what the thing Rothbard and Hoppe wanted to align with is and "fascism" is what a lot of people including @Opt-out call it)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Gueorgui Makharadze




The Georgian government waived Makharadze's immunity - which is within the rules. (The immunity belongs to the sending state, not the diplomat). But the US would not have had jurisdiction without Georgia's permission.


My understanding of first-world diplomatic culture is that most first-world countries would waive immunity if a diplomat committed a serious crime unrelated to their official duties. But it is also the case that no first world country would appoint the kind of person who commits serious crimes as a diplomat, so real-world cases are vanishingly rare. It is also worth noting that the US has a double standard on this specific point, and does not waive immunity when its diplomats commit vehicular manslaughter in foreign countries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Its not like a diplomat (or their child) can commit a homicide and the US will just ignore it and not prosecute.




The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says that the host country can't prosecute an accredited foreign diplomat, an accredited member of the administrative and technical staff of a foreign embassy (except an host-country resident employed locally) or the accredited family members of those groups - and this absolutely applies to crimes committed outside the embassy.


This immunity can be waived by the sending state, and most host countries would seek such a waiver if a foreign diplomat committed murder, but they probably wouldn't get it. The most cases are probably Yvonne Fletcher (a British cop shot out of the window of the Libyan embassy in London, causing us to suspend diplomatic relations and kick the Libyan diplomats out, but no attempt to arrest the shooter) and Jamal Kashoggi (a Saudi citizen and US green card holder butchered in the Saudi embassy in Ankara, leading to no official response).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But wouldn't dry technical cases be more likely to be procrastinated than hot-button cases?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's controversial because states get to make their own election rules with a very limited set of exceptions (in the case of Presidential elections, only the ones explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, including the date of polling day). So the question isn't "As a matter of policy, should late-arriving postal votes be counted?" It is "Does the Constitution (plus the regular law setting polling day for the Tuesday after Nov 1st) prohibit counting late-arriving postal votes?"


The policy case for counting late-arriving postal votes is that it prevents postal delays (which could be generated maliciously by USPS management or by the postal union) from affecting the result of an election. The policy case against is as you put it, but is weaker in the US context because the overnight count in American elections is explicitly preliminary - the time to formally certify elections is normally 2-3 weeks and the lame duck period is about 2 months in the case of further delays.


(Compare the UK case, where the overnight count, or next-day count if there are multiple local races, is official and there is no lame duck period - we couldn't count late-arriving postal votes without delaying the formation of the incoming government).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One candidate explanation I considered for the delay of Barbara is that the straw poll was 7-2 or 8-1 and the majority are trying to find some concession to make to Thomas/Alito to achieve a unanimous verdict.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah - I'm not a constitutional historian, but I think laws restricting the President's removal power were commonplace and generally accepted as constitutional (with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883 being the most important), and Humphrey's Executor happens when it does because FDR is the first President (since Johnson?) to violate one and double down when called out on it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does SCOTUS normally "save the best till last"? We have seen a flurry of opinions at the end of the term, and they appear to be in roughly increasing order of importance, with no sign of the 3-4 biggest cases, which I think are:


    

  • Barbara (Birthright Citizenship)
    • 

  • Slaughter (Will SCOTUS overturn Humphrey's Executor and ban Congress from creating executive-branch offices with just-cause removal protection)
    • 

  • Cook (In effect, can the President manufacture just cause to remove a Fed governor by indicting them for a serious crime they may or may not have committed)
    • 

  • Watson v RNC (Can states count postal votes postmarked before polling day but received after it)
    • 



The first three are all "Is this even the same Constitution?" level cases, and noisy idiots on both sides think that Watson is a "Do we still have a functioning democracy?" question, although in my view it is an unimportant technicality of election law. I would say the only cases of this importance which have been decided are Learning Resources (the tariffs) and Callais (race-based redistricting), both of which had strong practical reasons for the majority pushing a decision as fast as possible. Cook and Slaughter weren't even argued late in the term.


So the question I am asking is whether the justices are holding the biggest cases to drop together on the last day of the term out of some daft sense of drama (or more nefariously, to minimise the amount of public and press attention they get compared to dropping them separately), or is there some hitch delaying getting the opinions written. I can definitely imagine the cases being delayed because the justices are writing increasingly angry concurrences and dissents at each other, but it is also within the realms of possibility that there is still substantial haggling about getting to 5 votes. Barbara and Slaughter are both cases where a plurality opinion would embarrass the Court as well as being a practical headache.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think @quiet_NaN is saying that widespread gun ownership or widespread concealed carry of handguns is incompatible with a modern society - he is saying that the text of the 2nd amendment doesn't distinguish between "citizen grade weapons" like AR15s and "military grade weapons" like F35s, VX gas grenades, and nukes, and therefore taking it literally and seriously would allow nuclear-armed Branch Davidians and suchlike, and that that is not compatible with a modern society. I agree - I think that a government that is actually meaningfully restricted in its actions by fear of small groups of armed citizens is a failed state, and would perform like one.


See for example this subthread where pro-2nd amendment Motteposters argued that it protected a private right to own siege artillery and warships at the time of the founding.


At some point there is going to be litigation over whether the 2nd amendment permits private ownership of killer drones. The legal arguments will be about as edifying as the litigation over full-auto and scary-looking semi-auto rifles, but the results will matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Identify as bisexual. Then you can come out of hiding and any SJW/woke who attacks you is engaged in biphobia. You don't need to actually sleep with someone of your own sex to be bisexual nowadays.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In general you are correct, but in this specific case I remember the moral panic around historical connections to slavery around the time the Edward Colston statue was pulled down in Bristol, and nobody except the aforementioned right-wing trolls connected it to the moral panic about the return of African artifacts (including the Benin Bronzes) going on at roughly the same time.


My theory of Peak Woke is that the pro-establishment left eventually realised that being tarred and feathered by the anti-establishment right was a lot scarier than being called racist on social media by the anti-establishment left.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Nikke featured an artwork where the placement of a female's hand somewhat resembled the small penis gesture




My understanding is that this relates to a Korea-specific moral panic over penis length, rather than being applicable to gender politics more generally. The other key difference with Korea is that the sex (not gender) wars being actively fought on both sides is comfortably inside the Overton window.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There's people and people. In the UK, the pressure to repatriate the bronzes and the buzz around them came from the progressive crowd who I think were pretty surprised to learn the historical context (I personally didn't know until maybe 2021?) and the pressure to export seems to have dropped considerably. You're right it's not the same, and maybe I was muddying the waters, but I don't know that many torture porn cases so I was feeling out the area.




The pressure to return artifacts has declined because of Peak Woke, not because of the specific connection of the Benin Bronzes to slavery. The claim that the Bronzes belong in the British Museum as lawful trophies of a just war against slavery is mostly advanced as a piece of right-wing trolling, although I believe it unironically.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That falls into my second category of "teenagers who are above the age of consent but where the age gap is large enough to give curtain-twitchers the ick" - I agree with you that a lot of scolds will at least hint at it, and some will actually call you a "paedophile" straight up. But the British tabloids are careful not to throw around the "paedophile" word when the girl was 17 because it would be legally defamatory. If the girl was 15 essentially everyone would be calling you a paedophile, and would be happy to defend the allegation as straightforwardly true in front of a judge.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The people who wrote the Constitution had crushed Shay's Rebellion already and knew how to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion (and the violent crushing of these rebellions was broadly popular). As of 1789, the primary reason why the well-regulated militia was necessary to the security of a free state was because it could be used to do the crushing - avoiding the need for a (politically dangerous) standing army.


The structure set up by the militia clauses in the Constitution was designed to maximise the centrally controlled military power of the Federal Government within the limits of "no standing army" and the practical impossibility of drilling and training a geographically dispersed militia from Washington DC.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is no steelman for sex with pre-pubescent children, but the current public understanding of "paedophilia" includes sex with physiologically mature teenagers who are below the local age of consent, and in some cases with teenagers who are above the age of consent but where the age gap is large enough to give curtain-twitchers the ick. The steelman for this expanded definition of "paedophilia" is that it is just normal human sexuality.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Regardless of my views on the underlying merits of what ICE are doing, good.


There is a widespread view, historically on the left and increasingly on the anti-establishment right as well, that participating in a political protest should be a mitigating factor for ordinary violent and property crimes committed by protestors, when it is actually an aggravating factor. (The situation is different if the only crimes committed by the protesters are public order crimes). Political violence (including deliberate property destruction) is more dangerous than random criminal violence, and ideally the punishments should be harsh enough to push the frequency down to zero.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When someone posts an account of rape dogs being used by a group the median Motteposter finds sympathetic, we get posts explaining why trained rape dogs are almost certainly physically impossible. (In this case, probably correctly). When someone posts an account of rape dogs being used by a group the median Motteposter finds unsympathetic, we now have two people trying to defend the plausibility of rape dogs.


And this is supposed to be a rationalist forum. If I posted on X saying that Pakistani gangs in Glasgow were feeding white virgins to the Loch Ness Monster, then I would expect right-wing Americans to believe me, because X is full of retards. But on this forum, I hope that people would manage to point out that there is no Loch Ness Monster, and possibly also that there are no virgins in Glasgow.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Most families have two cars, and if this sort of a thing was an attractive option you would see more two car families economising on the second car.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My gut feeling would be the obvious - that a rape dog in an organisation with a tradition of dog training is less absurd than a rape dog in an organisation which eschews dogs ownership for religious reasons.


That said, the point is that both are about as likely as the Motte endorsing AOC in the 2028 Presidential election.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Let's take a pause from the gender politics and think about the Canadian language politics. If Seth Hatfield is the perp's real name, then this is an Anglo-Canadian incel who wrote a manifesto in English (based on a quick skim of the citations, I don't think the author is familiar with Francophone culture) and travelled to Quebec to commit incel terrorism.


Will the Quebec elite be able to even pretend to be hurting while they smugly crow about how this proves the moral superiority of French-Canadian culture?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If the defense of the British establishment




It isn't a defence of the British establishment, it's an explanation for the passivity of the average middle-class Brit. Compare the public and political response to the grooming gangs to the equivalent response to the much lower number of second-generation Pakistani immigrants who blew themselves up on public transport around 2005 - that was a case where it could be you or your child.


The only possible defence of the British establishment is that it may have learned the lessons since the scandal first broke around 2010, one retirement at a time. Starmer, in particular, was one of the people involved in breaking the scandal (as Director of Public Prosecutions when the first batch of gang members were prosecuted) rather than in covering it up. Andy Burnham as metro mayor commissioned a metro-wide inquiry into grooming gangs on his turf (Rochdale and Oldham were the medium-sized ones, there were also some small ones) and was responsible for Greater Manchester being one of the only three police forces to consistently report ethnicity of criminal suspects, according to the 2025 audit carried out by Louise Casey.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


if there were 1,000 distinct 'grooming gangs' over the period exained, each one would need to rack up 250 victims to reach that figure




The Rotherham and Telford gangs both had well over 1,000 victims. If every grooming gang was that prolific, you get to 250,000 easily. But they weren't. The third largest gang was Oxford, with about 300 victims. Rochdale and Oldham were in the 100-300 range, and none of the other individual town-level gangs that got busted was over 100.


Like most criminal activity, this looks like a power-law type problem, not a Gaussian-type problem.