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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
User ID: 896


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					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 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So ordaining unrepentant sodomites. I agree SSPX isn't into that kind of thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You can't be excommunicated if you were never Catholic in the first place. If you are a baptized cradle Catholic who lapsed in young adulthood, you are probably excommunicated latae sententiae for apostasy. But if you are just a rando, the Church doesn't claim any authority over you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IQ tests for jobs are legal in the UK and widely used (the civil service is using them less than before because of disparate impact, with the predictable negative effects, but large private sector employers still use them fairly widely). Credential inflation has been less bad than in the US, but not much less bad. So although Griggs v Duke Power doesn't help, I don't think it is the main thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The general public, bless their hearts, think an ephebophile is a paedophile with a dictionary. I think an ephebophile is just a man with normal (straight or gay) male sexuality. In both cases, the word is not helpful.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say it is not seen as paedophilic, but widely seen as unwise for other reasons. "Society should discourage an 18year-old bf and a 16-year old gf from having penetrative sex" is just normie.


"The age of consent should be 18" is comfortably inside the Overton window.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes - the alternative for such groups to living in voluntary (real) poverty is parasitism, which notoriously doesn't scale. In Kiryas Jorel, food comes from the store, and is paid for with an EBT card. Haredim in both the US and Israel live off the government teat.


We cannot get society-wide fertility above replacement group by encouraging high-fertility parasitic subgroups for the same reason that cancer victims don't gain weight.


With Mormons succumbed (possibly due to an inability to keep men in the Church - fertility is calculated per woman and allegedly there is a problematic number of TBM spinsters for this reason), Modern Orthodoxy is the only culture that still has above-replacement fertility and a tech sector.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it's rather a scathing critique of a self important Parisian entre-soi:




Porquoi-pas tous les deux?


It's obviously both. Houellebecq is not an idiot, and good literary fiction works on multiple levels.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aren't the Palmarians basically a whacko cult with Catholic characteristics?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And it all originates with the dirty splitters of the People's Front for Judaea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Maybe it’s because he’s the equivalent of romantasy for dudes [1]




Or, in other words, why is so much allegedly highbrow literary fiction about otherwise unattractive English literature professors having sex with hot coeds?


The last third of Soumission is basically a male power fantasy about being a high-status trophy convert in the future Islamic regime.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Remember, the "it's the phones" thesis isn't that the problem is smartphones per se. It is the tech stack including:


    

  • Smartphones (so the thing is available everywhere including when you might otherwise be interacting in-person with friends)
    • 

  • Algorithmically curated social media (so the thing is both optimised for addictivity, and impossible to opt out of if your friends are on)
    • 

  • Streaming video (so the thing is more absorbing at IQ 100 than it would be if the internet was still textual)
    • 

  • Targetted advertising as the business model (with the incentives it creates to make things worse and not better)
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Actual excess deaths appear to be something in the ballpark of zero. This is probably why Nicholas "Dog Rape" Kristoff used anecdotes.




Given the inaccuracy of African demographic statistics, "something in the ballpark of zero" and "100,000 dead kids across the countries where USAID used to operate" are compatible. The numbers in the millions are not plausible given the lack of a visible macro-demographic effect.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As in so many cases, the fact that the Pope does not have the ambition to rule the US is part of why one might wish for him to do it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The phones are not agents.




No, but the people who write the code that runs on the phones are.


Tinder is designed to do specific things. Those things appear to be antisocial.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I have trouble taking the USAID crying seriously. If people really, truly cared about the pullback in aid they would do what they could to fill the gap.




Musk deliberately implemented the cuts in a way which made that almost impossible in the short term. None of the named individual victims identified by Kristof could have been saved by someone taking over funding - they all died because of the chaotic way in which USAID was shut down. If you remember Musk's bragging at the time, the point wasn't just to cut spending - it was to feed the agency into a woodchipper and create psychological distress in the staff. That had consequences, which were intended, and the people who did it are responsible for what they did. (Clearly the number of people who died specifically as a result of Musk's intentional cruelty is much lower than the big numbers being slung around, but Musk continues to insist that it is zero and threaten legal action against people who disagree). I will enjoy the schadenfreude if the screwworms get him. I will not enjoy the schadenfreude if (as is more likely) all they get is a bunch of normie Texas ranchers who voted for the Face-Eating Leopard Party.




The Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis et al have a standard of living most of us can only dream of. Are they sacrificing their luxuries to save these people they are crying about? No.




The Clinton Foundation is sufficiently notorious that one might suspect bad faith. It wasn't their own personal money, but Bill Clinton spent most of his time since leaving office fundraising and organising charitable work, either through the Clinton Foundation or through his partnership with George HW Bush. The most visible programme the Clinton foundation ran was providing AIDS drugs to kids in Africa - so the Clintons were doing precisely the thing you blithely assume they were not doing.


The Obama's and Pelosi's considerable charitable donations (hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in both cases) are also a matter of public record that I was able to find with 30 seconds googling. Obama focussed on US domestic poverty and providing scholarships for poor kids. (Like most ex-Presidents, Obama moves far more dollars by fundraising than he can donate himself - but that is just being effective in your charitable work). Paul Pelosi focussed on the usual arts and elite universities bougie philanthropy bullshit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The US is a small and radical outlier for having it




The US isn't an outlier - birthright citizenship is the default in the Americas.


It's just that nobody wants to birth tourist into Peru.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Premier of Queensland 1968-87) was a national populist in that mold, and he was from Protestant (Danish) stock. But I agree that the Anglosphere was historically (but sadly no longer) mostly immune to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In the event of a truly accidental American the IRS never finds out. You’re an Italian businessman, you’ve never applied for a US passport, your parents travel insurance paid for your birth (or they skipped town and never paid), you travel to the US solely on your Italian passport if you ever do so and are welcomed as a foreigner. If Customs sees your ‘place of birth’ as the US, they won’t care, and in the very unlikely event they do, the businessman tells them his parents were diplomats or soldiers or UN. They will not ask for proof. The IRS isn’t going to track down hospital records in Philadelphia from 50 years ago to deduce that there might be an American somewhere in the world who didn’t pay taxes.




Boris Johnson got into trouble at JFK for travelling to the US on a British passport listing a US place of birth. (US citizens are legally required to arrive and depart the US on their US passports), and the IRS attempted to collect capital gains tax on the sale of his London home. (It isn't clear if he paid or not). And the tax treaty between the US and the UK requires banks to freak out if they see a British passport with a US place of birth as part of customer due diligence. So I don't think being an accidental American is as safe as that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Although MadMonzer is right here




What is the world coming to? Roberts decides a case when the option to punt is available, The_Nybbler agrees with me on the Motte, and Germany exit the World Cup early on penalties. If we are far enough off the old timeline, perhaps England have a chance to win the thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think Thomas is a partisan hack. He has a clear and intellectually coherent theory of what the Constitution in his head says, and rules accordingly. It's just that the Constitution that was agreed at Philadelphia, ratified by the States, and rededicated to the proposition that all men are created equal by the blood of the Union dead in which the Reconstruction Amendments are written, says something else.


Alito, on the other hand...


Goresuch, I am genuinely surprised by on this one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think Yglesian popularism necessarily involves tactical lying (although all politicians, populist, popularist or otherwise do a lot of it), and I don't think Yglesias personally is engaging in tactical lying about his political views. He definitely hasn't "come out in favour of tactical lying" in the sense of saying that elected Democrats should be saying more things that are not true. He is smart enough to know that enough things are true that you can make almost any argument by selectively emphasising true statements.


The essence of popularism is to talk about your popular policies and not about your unpopular policies. That can involve lying, but it can also involve ignoring awkward questions, whataboutism, agenda manipulation, and all the other not-technically-lying things that are staples of political communication.  And, of course, it mostly involves saying true things about your popular policies while using the other set of staples of political communication to get heard. Once you put it this way, it really is just common sense, but common sense which the internal politics of the Democratic Party makes controversial.


The thing Yglesias is mostly pushing back on when he talks about popularism is Ford and Hewlett Foundation funded advocacy groups making Demoratic candidates and electeds say unpopular far-left things as a flex in intra-left factional politics, which (unlike doing unpopular things which are either nonpartisan good ideas or advance a left-wing partisan agenda) is all cost and no benefit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The 1970's inflation was caused by central bank over-loosening.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Milei talks and acts like a libertarian. Markets are justifiably afraid of Trump, who is a populist and not a libertarian, and talks like Peron, acting like Peron.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The regulatory functions of the Fed (as opposed to the FOMC which sets short-term interest rates) are exactly the type of "executive" power that was at issue in Slaughter. If Congress can't delegate the power to regulate commerce to a removal-protected FTC, they can't delegate the power to regulate bank capital adequacy to a removal-protected Fed.


The FOMC seems more "executive" to me than whatever the US Institute for Peace is doing (which is explicitly not delegated any sovereign power by its founding statute), given that it relies on the power to print legal-tender money. And there is an Appeals Court judgement basically saying "given that we know Humphrey's Executor is dead, USIP counts as 'executive' and its board are removable"


But if all the Fed did was support the FOMC, I think the "The Bank of the United States is a founding-era precedent, so it must be constitutional" would be a reasonable argument


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yglesias explicitly does not support the "Palestinian Cause" (which he sees, in my view correctly, as the destruction of the Jewish State and the reversal of the displacement of Palestinians from what is now Israel proper). The activist left are river-to-the-sea Palestinian maximalists, and right now they are saying that this is their most important issue.


He also explicitly opposes, apparently sincerely, the standard leftist positions on public order, market-rate housing, and frankly almost every economic issue except climate where he has expressed an opinion.


The only area where Yglesias explicitly supports leftist goals and only disagrees on tactics is climate. On open borders, he is personally in favour (but acknowledges that this is not an electorally viable position for the Democrats, and favours compromise with the electorate) whereas it is the organised left which tends to hide the ball while de facto supporting open borders through non-enforcement. He probably also agrees with a bunch of unpopular left-wing views on issues around race and sex, but they are mostly issues where the left have won and are playing defence, and therefore the activist left find it hard to give a crap.


The current incarnation of the populist right is fundamentally single-issue on immigration, so from your perspective Yglesias and the far left agree on the things that matter. But that is a function of how you see the issues, not how they do.