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 -
Our military budgets are the lowest they’ve been in almost 40 years. About half of what we budget for federal spending on social security programs. While it’s obvious that the left hates Biden, mostly because he’s an old, doddering fool and not one of the cool, handsome presidents they’re accustomed to voting for, this seems like a strange angle of attack. Especially when Biden’s signature foreign affairs achievement is withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Actually, as someone who can understand leftist thinking and beliefs, this isn't the case. What they're objecting to is support for ethnic cleansing in Palestine. They say this extremely loudly and vehemently, and I don't see any reason not to take them at their word. You can blame Tiktok for letting Chinese mind-control algorithms turn them against Israel or whatever, but this is actually the principal objection - not that Biden isn't as sexy as Bill Clinton.
It's hardly clear that Trump would be materially better on this front.
At beast, the claim is that they need to torch Biden to prove, in general, that no D candidate can win without their support and hence no D candidate can have the policies to which they object.
He probably wouldn't, but that's actually an argument supporting the second claim - which I agree with. Voting for Biden because he would be indistinguishable from Trump in every way that they care about would just be a way to guarantee that the issues they care about are never addressed.
This is supposing that there are no other issues that they care about at all.
If two candidates are indistinguishable on some set of issues, the only way to decide for whom to vote would be to look at other issues.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link