With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.
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Notes -
Just hearing this month old banger:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA
Was there now proof that they were eating the pets of people that live in Ohio?
Stray cats and dogs are common bushmeat in Haiti. Haitians in Miami in the 80s were nicknamed “the cat eaters” for that very reason. Furthermore, the sacrifice of small animals for voodoo rituals, endemic to Haiti and very common, is well documented.
Why on earth is it strange to think that recent immigrants of little to no education would continue their cultural practices of their homeland until they are properly acculturated?
As far as I’m concerned the burden of proof is on the people saying it’s not happening.
That's not how burden of proof works, as it is impossible to prove something isn't happening.
It's possible to prove that no Haitians ate cats at any point between X and Y times; continuous video footage of all Haitians for the entire period would do it.
Hard, yes, but not impossible.
Nah, that still wouldn't work because you can't prove that you captured all Hatians.
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Strange how there hasn't been any evidence of it then that I can recall.
Nicknames from 4 decades ago are not evidence.
It can be fun to assert things with no proof, but we shouldn't delude ourselves that it's somehow the more correct approach
But why should we expect to find any proof? The nature of the act tends to leave little evidence, and that evidence is likely not on public display and is probably circumstantial and inconclusive. The people who are in the best position to find any evidence also have very little incentive to do so. Besides, I also believe Haitian immigrants in Ohio are continuing to practice other culinary traditions and habits they have brought with them, but I also have no proof they are not subsisting entirely on Big Macs. So there's that.
In a population in which 90%+ of adults or teenagers are carrying a device in their pockets at all times which enables them to film HD footage at 24 frames per second (at least) on a whim and then immediately share that footage with the entire world - if Haitians in Springfield are doing something untoward with cats or dogs, I would expect at least one video (even a blurry, out-of-focus video taken from a distance) showing that taking place.
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Who said I expected anyone to find proof? I don't. What I do expect is that IF people want to make a positive claim, they SHOULD be expected to provide proof for that claim. Or else why should I believe them?
I can assert all manner of things that don't leave behind evidence, and I'm certain you would not believe the vast majority of them based on this specious reasoning
No you shouldn't, but that goes beyond the scope of this thread to address.
Alright then, case closed I suppose!
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Common cultural practice over many years isn’t evidence of something?
If I told you that I saw a group of afghans in my town and one of them was wearing a burkha, you would automatically assume I’m lying for clout?
That’s very interesting.
It's more like, you heard tenth-hand that there are people wearing burkas in a town you've never visited, and there's somehow no photos of said burkas.
That's before we even get into questions about the base rate of burka wearing vs dog eating.
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Common cultural practice in the US? Nope. Citation needed.
It's common cultural practice for people to cut the hands off of thieves, that also doesn't happen in the US to the same degree it does elsewhere. Terrible line of reasoning that is. What's very interesting is your epistemic standards for believing something.
Multiple, unrelated people at different times all complaining about a well documented and common cultural practice by a foreign group that suddenly emerged in one area in very great numbers?
Yeah, a normal reaction to that is to think there’s probably at least a bit of validity to the claim.
Automatically discounting that as false is evidence of liberal brainworms or motivated reasoning. You think magic dirt is enough to transform the cultural practices of literal hordes of foreign peasants in an instant upon arrival?
How on earth can you believe that? It strikes me as intensely autistic.
Just wanted to register and confirm that when pressed by both netstack and myself, you were unable to provide any evidence at all of what you confidently proclaimed was a "well documented and common cultural practice" in the US. Is this the case?
It's one thing to have the belief that the burden of proof is not on you in order to make your statement. (I still disagree with that stance but it would be slightly more reasonable.) It's quite another to act and proclaim as if something is well-founded, tell others they are autistic or have brainworms for believing differently than you, and then silently slink back and retreat when you cannot provide evidence for it. What would you call that behaviour in your colourful language?
I'm still open if you'd like to provide evidence. We could then have a discussion about . Otherwise, I'll have a hard time believing that you agree with the mission statement of this place to move past shady thinking and be a serious voice to consider.
If you’ll notice my posting history it comes in little bursts. I basically never write very long entries. There’s a reason for it.
That’s because outside of this cute rarefied forum, I don’t have a silly little email job that allows me to get large amount of screen time and pop in here and write big theses with multiple citations. I have a real job in which I work insane hours and it that requires my full attention, and a family with young children.
So I found myself parked on the side of the road trying to find a source in an old x thread that would pass muster to make some random person believe that fresh off the boat immigrants from one of the most backwards countries on earth immediately change their entire way of life and diet the second they pop off the plane due to ‘magic culture’ and ‘magic laws’ which are basically unenforced. And that people in different countries eat different meat, including bushmeat. The absurdity of the situation sank in, and I resumed the important task I had at hand.
Even now at the ass crack of dawn as I write this on my phone, my daughter points to this as she climbs on me over and over again and exclaims “wow! That’s a lot of words!”.
Very politely, I’ll recommend you do a google search. Specifically about cat eating as a cultural practice. If you do it “raw” you’ll be greeted by a tidal wave of screeds of legacy media screaming “hoax” at the top of their lungs you. There’s also a handful of reels & tiktoks from people, some Haitian, saying this is true.
But if you know a bit about search, and can pull articles from say ten years or older, you might be surprised at what you see. The thread on X that I was looking for but unable to find even included a bbc article about which cultures ate cats, but I’m certain the Haitian portion of it was scrubbed after the controversy. They tend to do that.
Anyways, I’ve wasted enough time on this. Good luck in your search to find out that not everywhere is like the USA, I guess.
A single link of evidence would have sufficed, and taken less time to write. It beggars belief that such a well documented and common cultural practice would be so difficult to find evidence for.
Since you keep playing the motte and Bailey game, I'll remind you that you asserted cat eating was going on as common practice IN THE USA. Even what you recommend that I look up to prove YOUR point does not actually prove the point you are trying to make!
You don't have to pretend that you're being polite when you snark to me implying I can't do a search, that I don't have a job and family as real and important and serious as yours, that I'm autistic or have brainstorms.
It is to clear to me, to you, and to anyone else reading this (god help them) that you are not being polite, I'm not being particularly polite, and we don't respect each other very much. Don't insult anyone's intelligence by pretending otherwise.
While I'm giving advice, (since that seems to be what we're doing here) I'd also recommend against engaging up until the point you realize you cannot and only then pulling out the 'I have better and more important things to do' card. You had the time to write everything leading up to this. You either play the card right away or admit that you simply don't want to engage in a battle that points out shortcomings in your thinking.
If you truly refuse to defend the things you say, then I suppose all I can say is good luck with your 'insane hours' and 'family'. May I meet you again elsewhere on this forum and obliterate you again in the marketplace of ideas.
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Look, demanding "cite?" can be an obnoxious form of argumentation and you are not required to provide one on demand. People here are very prone to (selectively) demanding links to evidence when they don't believe something, but that is the nature of this forum - you are supposed to proactively provide evidence, especially in proportion to the inflammatory nature of your claims.
But I'm not admonishing you here for failing to provide evidence. I'm admonishing you because your response to someone asking you for evidence was "Well, I do real work, not like you worthless paper-pushers, I'm too busy with my real and valuable life and family to care about what I write here."
And, you know, good for you. Spending time with your daughter is undoubtedly a better use of your time than arguing with Internet randos. But don't jump into an argument with inflammatory claims, and when challenged, play this "I'm too busy and I have a real life" card. That is really obnoxious.
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First, they aren’t unrelated. The Twitter trend has seen to that.
Second, it’s not well-documented. If it were, you could show rates of dog or cat consumption in Haiti rather than just asserting that they’re really high. Dog consumption appears highest in East Asia; I’d be willing to believe that Haiti has flown under the radar, but I have yet to see the evidence.
@cartman and I cannot tell where you got your prior that Haitians are total dog gourmets. If it’s because of voodoo, show me dog sacrifice numbers. If it’s because of an epithet tossed around in the 80s, tell me why you think it’s particularly accurate today. Surely you can do better than repeating “well documented!”
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Can you show me any of these people? Where are they? Where is their evidence? You keep saying things as if they're common knowledge that are not at all established. The only woman I have heard of in connection to these rumors recently flatly admitted she repeated them based on what her neighbour heard from someone else with no evidence.
Actually, the normal reaction is to ask for evidence of a baseless claim. I have some crypto to sell you if that's all it takes for you to believe something. My neighbour swears by this coin!!!!
Pets are the most protected class of animals in America. You really think, if there was an epidemic of foreigners devouring cats and dogs from the street, that there would be literally ZERO evidence of this? Rise in missing pets? No videos, incriminating pictures? Despite the droves of people who would be incentivized to catch such behaviour? Don't you think that if they WERE eating pets, they would also be eating other wild animals at much higher rates which WOULD be obvious? Do you have any hard evidence of any of that, other than your favourite unsubstantiated rumours? Please don't bring up the 2 or 3 supposed cases that have already been investigated and debunked, as we can both agree that would be a waste of both our times.
Automatically believing unsubstantiated rumours because they agree with your priors and political pundits is evidence of foolish reasoning and intellect regardless of your political leaning! I'll take brainworms over inability to reason any day!
Even Vance admitted the story was made up! Are you really going to defend his statement longer than he did?
In case you actually don't understand this (hard to believe but hey, you never know!): The dirt isn't magic. The laws and the culture are magic.
'Literal hordes of foreign peasants'. Okay there, calm down, seems like you're getting a bit excited.
Thanks for the diagnosis, I'll be sure to mention it to my doctor. The brainworms too, those sound serious.
Except us. Choice quote from the IUCN Red List assessment:
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