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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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With Peanut, a lady in Texas presumably sent the complaint to a lady in New York who sent the city services to take the squirrel out back and shoot it. Clearly that's just a coincidence...right?

No, it's probably not a coincidence. Ignoring petty complaints, that's a Boys' Club thing. The Boys' Club decides it's not worth the time and ignore it. Sometimes the Boys Club decides to ignore the casting couch. Sometimes it decides to ignore women who complain about too many ice cubes. Sometimes The Boys Club isn't a Boys' Club at all and is instead a restaurants wait staff full of Non-Boys.

You guys talk about a decrease in state capacity. How's'a'bout the capacity to investigate and euthanize wild pets in an orderly and timely fashion? Didn't think of that one, did ya? I would have guessed that the NY Department of Environmental Conservation would just ignore complaints from out of state. It's what I would do. Where did you learn it was a lady from Texas sent a complaint? I just see "anonymous" complaints. Why not a neighbor?

If my neighbor in the next apartment kept weird wild life pets I'd probably ignore it. If they posted cute videos online I'd ignore it. If those pets did things like cause minor problems for my dog I'd be less inclined to ignore it. If that happened more than once I'd probably report it after speaking with them*. This seems possible. If you want to collect wild life without consideration of your neighbors, then live somewhere you can do that.

A lot of people seem fine critiquing this event. Not a lot of defenders. Biden hasn't denounced all garbage squirrels. Maybe he should though, because they are crafty assholes that empty bird feeders.

Why did that lady at the Harris rally scream about Palestine at a baby?

Young woman lost sight of herself and actions at a political event. Her political ally recognizes the malfeasance and polices her behavior. That's a learning experience for most.

A lot of people seem fine critiquing this event. Including one in the video. Not a lot of defenders. We can all make mistakes. Ping me if we see her again.

Like....is the Karen meme deserved and legitimate?

Probably. People's wills can be overbearing and annoying. I wanted to attribute a defense of 'Karen' as a social policing agent to a Freddie deBoer article, but all I can find at the moment is this regarding Covid.

Meanwhile we live among a Praetorian guard of busybodies who want everyone to know that the rest of us aren’t taking Covid seriously enough. These are people who are existentially similar to the “Karen,” 2020’s favorite archetype, except that they’re used to calling other people Karens. But they are precisely that figure of clueless white deference to authority that self-nominates as the world’s hall monitor. And while they want you to mask up and vaccinate and obey other rules, what’s much more important to them than regulating your behavior is that they let you know that you don’t feel the right way about Covid.

Which reads like a truncated version of Planet of Cops. Which is not a defense of Karen.

There's a some Defense of Karen thinking out there. This one is kinda one. as an important (if elevated) part of society. We have a need for Karen. Some business interests want to stop Karen, but they are powerless. Karen keeps the trains running on time. Except for the times where the train isn't on time and she inconveniences the line of people behind her by not shutting up about it. Then she makes me late.

I don't consider myself a woman-hater. Hell, once upon a time I considered myself a feminist. Is it just my imagination or has something in our national psyche gone and unleashed the worst aspects of womanhood upon the land?

Are you particularly sympathetic to gender critical view? Smarmy, scolding Karen might be annoying, but men do a violence and rape. I don't think making men an outgroup is necessary to denounce or police murder and rape. I'm not saying you can't or should not police Karen's gross excess. The culture even still allows and, sometimes, encourages this. If the conditions are right.

I have sympathy for the view that detests the feminization of society. Not all of it is bad. I'm glad not every dispute is concluded with a rock to the head. I would like to work towards something... healthier and more easily appreciated. I wouldn't make women your outgroup, though. Go find you a nice girl that doesn't like yelling at babies or killing squirrels. And there's always Sam Hyde's sage advice.

Go find you a nice girl that doesn't like yelling at babies or killing squirrels.

My wife and 2nd daughter were aghast that this happened.

I don't think I'm particularly sympathetic to a gender-critical view. I know a lot of women. I don't view women as out-group, that's maybe, sort of the problem? Because it seems the evidence is mounting that there may actually be an out-group, largely composed of some type of woman that can't be identified or encircled; something like Vance's cat-ladies but not quite. I think it's closer to something revealed as an epistemic preference to always automatically believe the worst, caused by the flattening of society vis-a-vis the Internet. Similar to how you can't tell if a terrible opinion is a naive adolescent or stoned octogenarian.

You guys talk about a decrease in state capacity. How's'a'bout the capacity to investigate and euthanize wild pets in an orderly and timely fashion? Didn't think of that one, did ya?

Since we obliterated Posse Comatitus even the forestry guys have flash-bang grenades, heavy machine guns and tanks. The state capacity can be summarized as: We can ignore it or atomize it, which do you want?

Where did you learn it was a lady from Texas sent a complaint?

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/texas-woman-monica-keasler-reported-peanut-the-squirrel-to-dec-claims-surface/ar-AA1tuR8j

Example link. All alleged. Apparently she deleted her Interweb accounts so who knows. It would be very interesting to have the state-run agency that acted on the anonymous tip not leave us in the dark, but privacy for some if not for others, I guess. I would absolutely agree that a state receiving an anonymous tip from outside the state would ignore it, that is my prior. At the same time, who would know? That's kind of the point of anonymous tips. What leads people to think it was the woman in Texas is hearsay that she was bragging about it on Facebook. That doesn't really change the situation tough: a government department acted on an anonymous tip from...wherever...and took someone's unlicensed an unregistered pet (the pet was allegedly in the process of being registered). One can easily see how this is raw meat for Libertarian types, but Leftists would also be historically appalled by this + it's cute animals!!

Here's an interesting update regarding the alleged reporter of the mis-housed animal.

https://www.dexerto.com/tiktok/woman-speaks-out-after-being-wrongly-blamed-for-peanut-the-squirrels-death-2971538/

It would be interesting to know who the people are hounding this unaffiliated innocent, but I'd suspect the boy's club you mention are mostly happy to let their wives do the chiding.

And maybe that's all it is. Men know they can leave the small stuff to the ladies to clean up and the Internet simply opened the door to every level-one nudnik to run rampant.

My wife and 2nd daughter were aghast that this happened.

Cheers, then not all is lost. I wasn't trying to cast you into inceldom. Vaguely recognizing like shapes. Maybe that's uncharitable.

Jumbles, rumbles, and rambling:

Because it seems the evidence is mounting that there may actually be an out-group, largely composed of some type of woman that can't be identified or encircled; something like Vance's cat-ladies but not quite.

People make such identifications, but I agree it's difficult to land on any particular one. AWFL exists. I'm not sure it's accurate, because I don't know if white or liberal is necessary to yell-at-baby or badger an authority to Do The Right Thing. White women are the acceptable target of the day. There's a brand of white trash that's not really afraid to pull any lever, other than cops, to settle a grievance or perceived slight. Narcissists. The internet loves that one. Black women have a stereotype around around the kind of self-interested, righteous grievance balloon.

The lower class offender looks more like narcissism to me, whereas the higher class offender has more sophisticated (cultural, political) justifications for (what I consider) bad behavior. Perhaps that's the tie in to race. So, uh, are we just talking about intelligence? How are the Asian women doing out there compared to white women?

There's been an absolute increase in the number of jerks and a lot of jerk behavior gets covered in America by culture warring. Women more likely to utilize authority for little reason other than it's something to do-- or easily convinced it's The Right Thing to Do? Probably, yeah. Women more likely to yell at baby? Probably that too, but maybe because a man has more experience thinking of consequences when it comes to other people's kids. At least compared to pretty girls.

The prototypical Karen is the bored busybody. Karen adopts and uses the HOA as an extension of herself. Because. Type A Karen. If that is related to yelling at babies at a political event I'm not sure how. Maybe it boils down to 100 years ago the yell-at-baby girl would have had a husband drag her off before she could embarrass herself in front of the entire nation?

Don't get hysterical, darling. Protesting is uncouth.

And maybe that's all it is. Men know they can leave the small stuff to the ladies to clean up and the Internet simply opened the door to every level-one nudnik to run rampant.

A lower trust society, they say. If we want a more polite society we will need women to enforce it. Tying all this together feels like it is doing too much. But that could be my lack of imagination.

There's been an absolute increase in the number of jerks and a lot of jerk behavior gets covered in America by culture warring.

Hear! Hear!