site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

She used a private email server to do government business a practice ubiquitous, but illegal, because it let's you sidestep FOIA requests. Look at the recent fury over Fauci doing the same. Hillary had the misfortune of having her sever hacked, unlike everyone else. But, the fortune of having all the emails deleted by a careless aide before they could be subpoenaed.

She used a private email server to do government business a practice ubiquitous

Not exactly. A lot of government officials use private email accounts to sidestep FOIA. Obama did it, Pence did it. Hillary set up a private email server, which is different and extremely rare. It's the difference between opening up a separate bank account, and opening a separate bank. If you use a private email account, at least all the network traffic, data storage, and encryption is being handled by Microsoft, or Google, or some team of engineers that has spent millions of man-hours solving the important technical problems. Hillary just had her own server, run by some IT guy she hired. Then she put classified documents on it. Imagine if she took taxpayer money and moved it from the Fed to the Bank of Hillary. It's an unlocked shed with a camera. Security, she probably has some. Did somebody take the money? Did she take the money? Nobody can say, because as soon as it turned into a scandal she deleted all the records, the FBI gave her subordinates plea deals in exchange for cooperating, and Comey absolved her of doing anything all that bad.

There was no reason for Hillary to set up her own private email server, unless: 1) She was doing horribly corrupt things on it 2) She was extremely willful and ignorant and insisted on doing something that everyone around her would have told her was a bad idea.

There was no reason for Hillary to set up her own private email server, unless: 1) She was doing horribly corrupt things on it 2) She was extremely willful and ignorant and insisted on doing something that everyone around her would have told her was a bad idea.

I actually think it's a worse double compounding of these two things;

She did it because the people around her knew she was doing horribly corrupt things and convinced her this was a really good idea so that she could avoid responsibility down the road.

Hillary had the misfortune of having her sever hacked

Most of the clueless boomers have the decency to just use gmail or something for their hidden emails -- for all their faults, Google does have a reasonably competent security team, unlike the pimply-faced local losers Hillary hired to stand up her private server. As I recall the only reason we have any of the emails is that they were a bit incompetent at deleting them, even.

The emails weren't merely deleted, her staffers destroyed electronics with hammers.