site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Fine, it's not even that hard.

https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/048e5c98-b0fa-a961-a9af-d62ab817259c-C/all?section=transactions-over-time

You can see for yourself just how much money USAID, as well as the Department of State have given Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors.

And the image associated with the accusation is right here Is your claim that it's entirely a fiction? That it showing how money flows from RPA, which has taken upwards of 50m from USAID as documented on the government's own website, and then through Hopewell Fund, and ultimately ending up at Defending Democracy?

Don't like the screenshot? The accusation with a link to the full dataset. It's right here.

https://datarepublican.com/expose/?eins=831567380

And if you don't believe that, you can pull up Hopewell's 2023 Tax Return. Schedule I, Part 2, and there it is, $2m to Defending Democracy. It's a lot of donations, but they are sorted alphabetically.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473681860/202423179349304767/full

"Show you work" he says.... pffffft.

Listen, none of this was a fiction. It's just collated data from public tax returns. It's not even that hard to check yourself. Goto the IRS website or propublica. Actually the IRS was giving me problems with 404's and search results that hang, so you know...

None from USAID, per your link, and all of it went to refugee resettlement activities, which Kristol isn't involved in.

I think you are looking at "Trailing 12 Months". Try "All Fiscal Years" to get a better picture. FY2022 was a banger of a year too, with 20m coming in from USAID. Also, money is fungible.

Right, that's my point. This doesn't show the money to Kristol came from USAID.

Money is fungible

Hey, did you know money is fungible?

I mean there isn't even the fiction that these are monies in briefcases of envelopes. There isn't even a blockchain to distinguish where specific money paid then got paid back out to. They're just numbers on a computer somewhere. There is not even a concept of "The specific money USAID paid us for 'immigration' did not in a round about way goto Defending Democracy".