site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Do you have any particular evidence that the SS is too…effeminate? It sounds like you’re reasoning backwards from the conclusion, here.

Well, the story their leader is going with for now is that they couldn't put agents on the roof because it was sloped. That's pretty effeminate.

This story is an obvious lie because they put agents on a different sloped roof. Who knows the real reason(although I'd go with laziness).

Do you consider the presence of a Melissa McCarthy lookalike in Trump's personal detail to be evidence? I can't imagine an institution with healthy masculinity allowing this slob to occupy any highly visible position.

I've seen her, and I've seen her failing to get her pistol back in her holster, apparently because of her muffin top. I've seen it in slo-mo while people mocked her.

I'm not confident she actually did a bad job, or that any of the criticism of her is deserved. I think the reports of a quota for female agents are extremely worrying, but I've seen no evidence, other than her shortness, that she's actually bad at her job. I don't see why her less than perfect beauty is relevant; either she can do the job or she can't, and most of the things I'm seeing her criticized for don't appear to be actual failures at doing the job.

What did she actually do wrong? She's pretty clearly not the one making the call on the snipers, nor is she the one making the call on getting Trump off the stage. Near as I can tell, she fucked up her holstering during an insane adrenaline dump, exacerbated by what is either some pudge or her concealed vest, or both. What's the actual complaint?

Isn't this the same broad who was literally cowering behind Trump and the other agents piled onto him instead of forming part of the scrum?

I honestly hadn't noticed that, and it's damning as hell.

Even then, it depends on whether she was even supposed to be jumping in. Close protection officers will have designated roles in the event of an attack. Some will be tasked with covering/moving the principal. Others will be tasked with looking for exits/shooters. It's hard to tell from that angle but she may be looking past the scrum, and be in charge of telling them which way to move. It's hard to do that from inside the scrum itself. And your sniper teams are probably going to be occupied with putting down the target.

Source: I've never been important enough to warrant close protection, but I have travelled extensively with people who have, so I have talked to them a fair bit. Not the Secret Service, but the idea remains similar. Not everyone is supposed to dive on the principal.

Without knowing what her specific task was, we have no way of judging if she was doing it well or not.

She appears to be in a defensive crouch, away from her VIP, with no weapon presented. She appears to be in the exact opposite of an aggressive posture. And again, I'm open to further evidence, but that picture looks real, real bad.

The gunman was what over a 100 yards away with a rifle on a roof, having her side arm out doesn't help. Again, it may be correct that she was not doing what she was supposed to, but there is an awful lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, when we have no idea what her role was supposed to be.

At that moment as well as the snipers there are at least 2 rifle armed officers just below/ to the sides of the podium, who run up while Trump is still being covered.

If her job was to direct the cover and tell them when to move, then she may well be exactly where she was supposed to be. If her job was to dive in front of Trump then she wasn't. But we don't know.

The gunman was what over a 100 yards away with a rifle on a roof, having her side arm out doesn't help.

If they were expecting an Iranian attack, they need to be assuming a team with layered offense, not a lone wolf. (and probably should be at least considering that regardless -- isn't this the whole point of the close protection part of the team?)

(I think the Iran think is some weird lie personally, but you never know I guess)

More comments

Obesity isn't just "less than perfect beauty", it's a reflection of actual physical vitality and fitness. Having fat women do this job is just an obviously stupid idea whether she personally screwed anything up this time or not. That we're at the point where people justify enlisting fat women in roles that should be done by fit men is an incredible indictment of the discourse. Even if the complaint was strictly aesthetic and somehow her appearance wasn't reflected in physical performance, I would still object to an elite security force being staffed by people that can't be bothered to look the part. This sort of degradation reflects a culture of tolerating sloppiness and not demanding high levels of performance.

Having fat women do this job is just an obviously stupid idea whether she personally screwed anything up this time or not.

Given the "meatshield" aspect of the job, I suppose a case could be made that this lady is not fat enough...

(j/k, i think)

I dunno, it doesn't take much flesh to start a rifle bullet tumbling or fragmenting. Don't they try to dump most of their kinetic energy in the first 12-18" these days?

I actually wonder how much spaced protection you'd need before the exiting fragments would be stopped by whatever lv2 jacket they surely have politicians wearing. Maybe the "box of truth" guys have already tested that

Not applicable if they get hit by a bullet designed to go straight through an elk's shoulder, obviously, but even the world's fattest person wouldn't stop that.

She's not nearly fat enough to shield the President other than from a narrow attack vector though -- I'm thinking a crew of 4-5 Lizzo lookalikes surrounding him as he speaks would make it very hard to snipe from any angle. (especially if twerking)

The headshot is still open, but as we see this is harder than it looks.

Show me evidence that the fitness standards have been lowered. Show me evidence that she would have failed the old standards. I'm ready to believe it, and condemn it, but I'm not going to presume it. And to be clear, I think it's entirely possible that they have been. It's just not obvious to me based on the video. Maybe that means I'm bad at estimating bodyguard performance, but in my defense, any lack of capability on the part of the bulletcatchers is completely overwhelmed by the part where a sniper was allowed to get seven shots off at the principle.

All US military, police, and firefighter physical fitness standards are lower for women than for men. That, if nothing else, is the lowering of the standards. They're supposed to be doing the same job so the standards should be the same, but women can't do the physical parts of the job as well because of biology. So, like so many other things in our society, the standards are lowered for women so that the outcomes are "equitable".

You can see the standards here and they are a joke.

If you don't think her physical appearance demonstrates a lack of serious physical standards, I really don't think I can convince you of this though. Contra the saying, you can pretty well judge a book by its cover when it comes to fitness.

Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that that agent can't do 26 situps in a minute or 1.5 miles in 16:34

Contra the saying, you can pretty well judge a book by its cover when it comes to fitness.

False.

That is what gymbros call a "strongfat" build. Seems to be most common in Polynesians. But you can tell that guy is strong despite also being a fatty.

The bulk of that man's muscle can be seen clearly enough under the layer of fat. Unless you were implying that he's weaker than he looks, your illustration isn't serving its purpose.