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 -
You are conflating nonprofits, which are simply ordinary corporations structured in such a way that profits are not returned to the shareholders, and charitable organizations, which are a special subset of nonprofit corporations to whom donations are deductible from income for the purpose of income tax calculations. I agree that this is primarily a legislative distinction and not a constitutional one, though the unique status of religions as organizational entities complicates things.
This I strongly disagree with. "The press" (note not capitalized, as in the original) at the time of the Constitution did not refer to institutional media corporations and accordingly they should be given no special constitutional protection. This vernacular meaning did not really come into existence until the 20th century. "The press" referred to a type of technology, to emphasize that freedom of speech didn't apply only to oratory. It definitely did not mean a class of people or corporations.
Yes, it's likely my capitalization and description was a bit misleading on the press point. I wasn't rigorous enough because I felt it wasn't strictly relevant to my overall point, which was more about how "associations of people" and their money use being distinguished as different types is purely a legislative and societal artifact (unless it's corruption-adjacent or the like), and not a Constitutional or rights issue, with the caveat that yes, churches are a special case we often tip-toe around. Well, traditionally. Turns out most people haven't thought about why churches are traditionally tax-exempt at all, or if they have, it wasn't very thought-through (reddit, cough).
Also yes, typically when you say nonprofit people think 501(c)4, and that's what I was rolling with, but you're absolutely correct 501(c)3 and other variants exist. Thanks for bringing up the clarifications.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link