site banner
PaperclipPerfector  17d ago (text post)   32899 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

That's the wild part. Our entire election system is apparently governed by the honor system where nobody would ever lie so we never need to check. And then people have the gall to state that voter fraud is rare. If this were any other institution arguing about why they should never be audited or have any oversight what so ever, we'd all be calling bullshit.

That's the wild part. Our entire election system is apparently governed by the honor system

Yes, welcome to the party, this has been a GOP talking point since the Clinton administration.

My state’s online voter registration accepts many forms of identification, but doesn’t require any that would prove citizenship. You just have to affirm you are a citizen, and are informed it’s a crime to lie about it.

I don’t think they have some database to cross reference things like driver’s licenses with citizenship. If they did, I wouldn’t expect my permanent resident friends to have gotten called for jury duty, and yet they have.

If republicans ever wanted to fight fire with fire (probably the only way we ever get meaningful reform) what noncitizens would they need to import who could be counted on to vote red? Russians? Hungarians?

They didn't poll Russia, but among the 34 countries Pew did poll, only the Tunisians and Hungarians prefer Trump to Biden, at least when the only question is whether they "have confidence in ____ to do the right thing regarding world affairs".

Globally (at least in these countries, which are a somewhat diverse sampling), Biden had 43% confidence and Trump had 28%.

I feel like the interpretation of that could be a hell of a scissor statement. Democrats: "Everybody else everywhere in the world knows the right choices to make; why don't you?!?" Republicans: "Hundreds of countries are run the way you want, and for some reason you can't understand why everybody wants to live here instead!"

This includes a poll of various Euro countries on Trump/Harris. The countries preferring Trump to Harris are Slovenia, Slovakia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Hungary, Georgia, Serbia and - at 78 to 22 % - Russia.

Of course such polls have a limited value in telling how the citizens in those countries would vote if they actually were American citizens. Insofar as someone living in Finland is concerned, what exactly would there be for us to gain in Trump becoming a president over Harris? The two most important ways US politics affects Finland are trade and security, and in both cases Trump causes at least some level of danger of those things going south, i.e. there being tariffs and a trade war or an US withdrawal - partial or full - from NATO.

Sure, at least the latter one didn't happen during the first term, but both are actually things, i.e. a change in trade policy and withdrawal from Europe that many Trump supporters, including prominent ones, actually want Trump to do, so they still exist as possibilities. Putting America first is what Trump would be specifically elected to do! OTOH, if one actually lived in the US, the priorities would undergo at least some revision.

I rather suspect that for most of these countries the poll mainly indicates opinion on Russia/Ukraine conflict - there's a rather amusing poll from Czech Republic on how the voters of various Czech parties would vote, and while the most Harris-voting segments are TOP-09, a center-right party, and the Christian Democrats, the most pro-Trump party is KSČM - the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.

An easier solution would probably be to just prosecute noncitizen registered voters. Or, heck, just prosecute illegal immigrants. They're breaking the law, after all.

Requires voter ID. Which is racist and therefore going to be fought tooth and nail

Requires voter ID.

Why? You know who voted, you know who is a citizen (almost all the time - social security records are how the US usually verifies citizenship before granting a passport, so it's good enough for voting), and you know where they live (its on the voter roll).

Noncitizens voting under their real identities is the easiest type of voter fraud to catch and prosecute. Several red states and purple states with Republican governors have run the checks, and successfully caught and prosecuted the tiny number of noncitizens who voted. The most recent example is Texas, who referred 1930 suspected noncitizen voters for prosecution - that is 1930 suspected noncitizens who have ever voted in Texas, not 1930 noncitizens voting in any given election. 1930 votes is less than 0.02% of a typical Texas presidential election turnout (c. 11 million), so even if all 1930 really are noncitizens (some will be paperwork errors) and they all voted in the same election, it isn't enough to swing anything short of Bush v Gore II - The Electric Boogaloo.

The type of fraud that voter ID prevents is people voting, in person, in someone else's identity. That is a type of fraud that could be committed by noncitizens, but would normally be committed by citizens because they have more stake in US elections. It is also a type of fraud that doesn't happen in elections with no-excuse postal voting because committing the same type of fraud by post is a lot easier.

You're thinking like a democrat by assuming that republicans would want illegal aliens to vote. That they dont is pretty much the crux of the issue.

Trump is apparently very popular in Israel.

Ironic given Jewish voting preferences in America

The more orthodox the more they vote for Trump

It really depends on the Jews. Among the Russian-speaking American Jews the GOP is still more popular, since they or their parents still remember the USSR.

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