site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   31489 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

JD Vance basically won the debate. He was bogged down by being tied to Trump’s dumber ideas, but he won nonetheless by running rings around Walz. He clearly knew what he was talking about, too, with comments like the CBP one app.

Walz lied about project 2025, but that’s to be expected. Vance pinned him on after birth abortion but I wish he could’ve called him out on Amanda Thurman.

Overall I think lots of Americans would be much happier if it were a Walz-Vance élection. The moderators were clearly biased but less so than the Trump-Harris debate. And I think the most lasting moment from the debate will be Walz’s gaffe where he claimed to befriend school shooters.

People here keep saying Democrats “lied about Project 2025.” What are they actually saying about it? What has Trump said, other than “not knowing the guy?”

I think if you take Trump seriously but not literally, or just assume that he doesn’t have many plans to choose from, he’s probably going to end up picking a very Project-approved slate. Kind of like the Federalist Society list of justices. He’s never had any problem delegating before.

Yes, I have no trouble believing that project 2025 will be very influential in a Trump admin. ‘Trump’s project 2025’ is a lie- it literally isn’t from Trump, wasn’t commissioned by Trump, and the implication that Trump endorsed everything therein is false- but it’s not a whopper, more of a stretcher.

It’s the contents of project 2025 which are lies. Like no, it does not include building a national database of pregnant women to prosecute miscarriages as abortion. If it did democrats would be able to point to the section and paragraph number, and quote specific wording. Democrats are just making up awful sounding bullshit because nobody’s going to go read through 900 pages of legalese to fact check it.

This article is relevant: PROJECT 2025 WILL KILL YOUR DOG

Choice quotes:

Project 2025 is a plan by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, for how the next Republican administration ought to govern. You can read it at project2025.org/policy. They found a bunch of conservatives to propose reforms to different parts of the federal government. Like, they got Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Elections Commission, to write about how conservatives should reform the FEC, and Roger Severino, a former high-level official at Health & Human Services, to write about reforms to HHS. In some cases, there’s clear division in the conservative movement, so they got two writers to write cases pro- and con-, like where they got Veronique de Rugy, who hates the Export-Import Bank more than anyone alive, to write “The Case Against the Export-Import Bank” and Jennifer Hazleton to write “The Case For the Export Import-Bank.”

...

However, that leaves Democrats with a second problem: Project 2025 is mostly pretty technical. It’s a hit for conservative audiences, but you can’t put a quotation like:

Congress should: Modernize the definition of commodity (which is now largely a laundry list of agricultural commodities) and clarify the treatment of digital assets. (Project 2025, p833)

…in an attack ad. Voters don’t care. And lines like that appear to be 99% of Project 2025.

Meanwhile, even on its more controversial points, Project 2025 appears to have been written by eggheads with at least a little bit of an ear to the ground, politically speaking, because they are usually pretty careful to avoid suggesting policies that are actually unpopular. So how can the Democrats get attack ads out of a mixture of overly-technical and not-particularly-unpopular policies?

Oldest trick in the political book: they make crap up.

From the 2025 Mandate For Leadership Page 455 and 456:

Data Collection. The CDC’s abortion surveillance and maternity mortality reporting systems are woefully inadequate. CDC abortion data are reported by states on a voluntary basis, and California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not submit abortion data at all. Accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths are essential to timely, reliable public health and policy analysis.

Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion. In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion. Moreover, abortion should be clearly defined as only those procedures that intentionally end an unborn child’s life. Miscarriage management or standard ectopic pregnancy treatments should never be conflated with abortion.

Comparisons between live births and abortion should be tracked across various demographic indicators to assess whether certain populations are targeted by abortion providers and whether better prenatal physical, mental, and social care improves infant outcomes and decreases abortion rates, especially among those who are most vulnerable.

The Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 20239 would amend title XIX of the Social Security Act and Public Health Service Act to improve the CDC’s abortion reporting mechanisms by requiring states, as a condition of federal Medicaid payments for family planning services, to report streamlined variables in a timely manner.

The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which legitimizes the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa) and encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities.

Sure there isn't a literal "every state should have report every pregnant woman to the feds" merely "every state should have to report how every pregnancy ended to the feds." If you think the latter wouldn't be used to prosecute alleged violations of a federal abortion prohibition you're a fool.

What federal abortion ban? There won’t be one under Trump, although it’s not totally implausible he could try to standardize pregnancy related health reporting procedures.

That is the whopper- Trump doesn’t want to ban abortion on the federal level, the democrats are arguing that he wants to create this totalitarian system for enforcing a policy he doesn’t want.

Project 2025 already believes they don't need a further ban. The Comstock Act already arguably bans mailing drugs used for abortion. It even calls it out indirectly on Page 459:

Stop promoting or approving mail-order abortions in violation of long-standing federal laws that prohibit the mailing and interstate carriage of abortion drugs.

Trump wouldn't need to sign any further laws to effectively end abortion nation wide, in their view.

Back in the very recent past when the Comstock Act was enforced and the president did not fail his oath to uphold the laws of the country so blatantly, abortion happened all over the place. It does not prevent abortions from happening in states where abortion is legal. It would prevent organizations from using the mail to ship abortion drugs directly to the home of someone in a state where it is illegal.

The most recent Comstock Act conviction was a child-porn conviction in 2021. The Comstock Act remains in force today, unless repealed by Congress.

Project 2025 is only calling for a very narrow enforcement of the Comstock act, despite there being a stronger interpretation that would make medication abortions more difficult (though surgical abortions cannot be stopped through Comstock. Comstock does not restrict shipping gloves and forceps/). Project 2025 is only asking that the federal government enforce the federal law that would prevent mail-order abortion so that the states that have banned abortion can enforce their laws.

Lack of high-quality data on an important women's health procedure is another indication of how the patriarchy doesn't take women's issues seriously.

I'm not a mod but can we avoid in general solo ironic statements like this (and this )regardless of their humor factor, in such discussions? In the spirit of writing what you mean.

(I wrote the linked comment)

That's fair. The Democrats' repeated insistence on referring to "Trump's Project 2025" is so transparently ridiculous, It makes me want to post the Jesse Pinkman, "he can't keep getting away with it," GIF. It somehow causes me great despair that the Democrats found this phrase which sounds ominous, and for that reason alone will keep on saying it, despite the fact that anyone who stops to think about what they know about Trump would find it wildly implausible. It just seems so cynical to me.

That's what I was trying to express, but I agree that it's better to not fill the forum with sarcastic comments

I kind of unironically agree with what he said. Don't know if Controls was ironic or not, but I have seen pro-life women who often argue this way.

Maybe he wasn't being ironic. Typically "the patriarchy" isn't used around these parts unironically, but I may be misunderstanding.

Somewhat following hooser, I believe I can defend that term as it applies to the comment I was responding to.

What are they actually saying about it?

That it is Trump's plan for his second term. It is not Trump's plan, neither in the sense of Trump creating it nor Trump endorsing it.

But surely we can agree Trump's thinking has been influenced by his careful study of the 922-page publication from the Heritage Foundation describing Project 2025, and/or the back-and-forth discussions he engaged in with its authors on policy matters prior to its being released.

I... think this is satire?

I just find the whole Project 2025 association so absurd because I actually followed the Democrats' advice and "google[d] Project 2025", which led me to the discovery of the project's 922-page book. And to claim that Donald Trump, of all people, actually read this book, well... is there any person in America who could believe it? As Loquat says in his comment, people invent all kinds of fantastical stories about Trump, but the idea that he would read a book? You've got to be kidding.

Well, I don’t think trump’s thinking was influenced by it because I don’t think Trump has coherent thoughts on policy. The less catchy version would be that the people staffing a future Trump administration would be influenced by the agenda outlined in project 2025. I don’t think that’s far off from what’s being said, is it?

I've heard all manner of claims about Donald Trump, but I've never heard anyone accuse him of being the sort of man who'd carefully study a 922-page document on governance.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats