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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I haven't heard of him personally, do you have any recommendations for a podcast appearance of his? I'd be interested in learning more!
I do think Graff addresses a lot of these arguments. It is extremely unlikely that Nixon knew about the break-in plan or approved it in advance, though not impossible given that we don't actually no who gave the final go-ahead.
The "missing tape" gets a lot of attention in the book, and I'm not really convinced either way. Given the stuff that did come out on the other tapes, it seems odd to think that there was one 18 minute conversation worth erasing.
What's your position on the various other Nixonian controversies? One of the problems that Nixon had, in my mind, was the variety of other scandals hiding just under the surface of Watergate and the plumbers. The Milk Price Fixing, the Chennault affair, the Ellsburg break-in. The bombing of Cambodia was considered as a separate grounds for impeachment, but pulled to try to unite Republicans around Watergate.
So for example, he was hesitant to come clean and cut Hunt et al loose because he didn't want Hunt blabbing about the Ellsburg imbroglio, etc.
Reminiscent of today: Nixon might not have done what he was accused of, but he did a whole hell of a lot else.
Then again, he was a uniquely effective president in the 20th century. Arguably the most important president after FDR, despite having only one term and change before being disabled by Watergate.
The thing that bugs me about Nixon is one of the things he often gets a ton of credit for, a rapprochement with China, we can see with retrospect totally screwed us over. Why didn't we actually resolve the Taiwan issue? Because Nixon wasn't actually negotiating from a position of strength. He wanted the electoral glory of a deal.
And now, like 50 years later, we are really, really regretting not figuring out the Taiwan issue back when we actually had leverage (a seat at the UN security council is a big deal)
More options
Context Copy link
I think the podcast was this one:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/06/podcast-everything-you-know-about-watergate-is-wrong-part-1.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/07/podcast-everything-you-know-about-watergate-is-wrong-part-2.php
Shepard covers this in chapter 11 of his book, available on libgen, if you are interested.
From reading Caro's LBJ series, Flynn's book on FDR, skimming Lasky's "It didn't start at Watergate", reading an establishment history of the FBI, etc, it seems like there was a much higher-level of criminality and dirty tricks in politics from FDR onward than what the American people were aware of. The FBI performing break-ins, for instance, was something they had been doing for a long-time. I remember talking to a Trump-hater about how he stank of corruption due to all his dealings with foreigners -- she had simply no idea of that this kind of stuff is par for the course for any modern elite, see the Clinton Foundation, or Bush dealings with the Saudi's, etc. I suspect that Nixon, like Trump, was actually more law-abiding than average because he knew he was in less of a position to work the system in his favor. That is why Nixon did not just simply destroy the tapes early on (and he did not destroy them because he thought he was innocent and thought there was nothing incriminating on them).
This is an interesting case because under classical international law a 'neutral' country forfeits its rights of sovereignty if it cannot prevent one of the fighting powers from using it as a base of operations. USA was fully justified in entering Cambodia to get the Vietcong. However, it certainly makes me queasy to use bombing to get the Vietcong, a method of warfare with a very high rate of collateral damage, especially when that collateral damage is on peasants in a country that wanted to stay out of the war. I'm not sure what I would have done if I was President in that situation. Maybe just build a big concrete wall from the sea all the way to the Mekong at the 17th parallel?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link