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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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“This person’s comments are motivated by pure racial animus” is uncharitable. Were I to say that a Jewish poster who continually defends Israel is motivated by unadulterated racial hatred against Palestinians, and smeared him as an Arab-hater, clearly that would be rule-breaking and I would be banned. Yet there have actually been commenters who have cited the IQ of Jews as reason for why they deserve their illegal territorial conquest.

“Jews” have been a steady culture war issue this year because of Israel and the protests. And because of their over-representation in influential American positions of power, organized Jewish groups have been worthy of discussion for previous years and for years into the future. Since Twitter has become unmoderated it has been shown that normative American discourse includes discussion of the group power dynamics as well. So it is not even a dissident idea anymore.

“This person’s comments are motivated by pure racial animus” is uncharitable. Were I to say that a Jewish poster who continually defends Israel is motivated by unadulterated racial hatred against Palestinians, and smeared him as an Arab-hater, clearly that would be rule-breaking and I would be banned.

This is not accurate, and you know it's not accurate. "I'd be banned if the shoe were on the other foot!" is the favorite complaint of people who are never actually saying the equivalent thing but something entirely different.

Unless you kept doing this after being warned, you would not be banned. You would be warned to address the actual arguments being made and not the person, and not to uncharitably project motives onto them that they have not expressed.

Yet there have actually been commenters who have cited the IQ of Jews as reason for why they deserve their illegal territorial conquest.

I don't recall anyone saying this explicitly (though I don't doubt you read it that way), but even if someone did say that, there is no rule against making such arguments. People are allowed to make outrageous, specious, or offensive arguments (as defined by the reader) - you are allowed to take issue with them.

“Jews” have been a steady culture war issue this year because of Israel and the protests. And because of their over-representation in influential American positions of power, organized Jewish groups have been worthy of discussion for previous years and for years into the future.

Yes, and you're allowed to talk about Jews. As you do. Constantly.

To be clear I am criticizing your comment, not the person who you are responding to (I agree they deserve a warning; although blocking someone and then insulting them is IMO cowardice). Yours comes from a mod position and —

[doesn’t] address the actual arguments being made [and] uncharitably projects motives onto them that they have not expressed.

You are implying that I am motivated by “Jew hatred”. But I am not. I have made comments criticizing Islam and mainstream Christianity. Off the top of my head, I think a few months ago I posted about danger of Islam in the West, and some time ago about how bad the “HeGetsUs” campaign was for Christianity. I think I have also made comments about the “religion-ness” of secular progressive America.

I don't recall anyone saying this explicitly

Then I will quote:

Not all people, not all civilizations, not all tribes, are equal. This is a core conservative conceit, it’s also inherent to ideas like HBD that you yourself agree with. Human progress has always involved the conquest of some peoples by others. Punching down’, in other words, may be more moral than ‘punching up’. The many settlers of the Americas did what they did and so, perhaps, will the Israelis.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by “explicit”. Not that the comment deserves to be dinged, but it is an example of how “Jew-hater” does not turn into “Palestinian-hater” when inverted. Even though that comment (clarified in the thread context) implies it is okay to take others’ land if they are less intelligent or developed.

As you do. Constantly.

I don’t think I make many top posts on the topic anymore. The “Jewish billionaire group chat” I felt was of legitimate political and cultural interest. I mostly stick to replying when someone else makes a thread on some issue.

Hating Jews and also having a problem with Muslims and Christians who don't believe the way you think they should are not mutually exclusive.

If 2crafa were regularly starting threads about Palestinians and dropping references to how savage and barbaric they are even when the topic wasn't really about Palestinians, until it was a notable pattern that she really, really likes to talk about how Palestinians are bad, yes, I would conclude she hates Palestinians and has something of an anti-Palestinian agenda. (I mean, she probably doesn't like Palestinians very much, but she doesn't seem to be obsessed with them.)

You're allowed to have an obsession with Jews and feel like it's very important to talk about their "disproportionate power," how they negatively impact society (in your opinion), etc. Other people are allowed to take notice of this, and conclude that you don't like Jews even if you never type the words "I hate Jews."

The poster I responded to got modded because even if one concludes you hate Jews, it's not appropriate to just say "Hey, this guy is a Jew-hater, don't bother talking to him about Jews." But it's not inappropriate to notice when people have axes to grind.