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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If I understand correctly, your argument is that forced segregation and requiring blacks to sit in the back of the bus was actually just because without those measures, blacks are criminals who make cities unliveable?
If the case were about Corner Man, the legal principal would still be whether it is just to treat black people, criminal or otherwise, different than white people. Making Corner Man sit in the back of the bus and use different water fountains doesn't become defensible because Corner Man is a criminal (unless you're actually suggesting we can identify criminals as a class and segregate them).
You may believe that blacks should be treated differently based on your moral or social principals, or you may believe blacks are extra-prone to criminality and this justifies treating them as such, but that's not a legal principal that can be found under the Constitution.
Breaking it down into specific rules which are questioned on the basis of the justice of the particular rule changes the framing of the question from one that is fundamentally about results - "we care that we have cities that don't drive whites out through targeted robbery, rape and murder" to one about process and procedure - "the most important thing is that our procedures be found valid by a cabal of people - but those people aren't responsible for the results of the system as a whole". Yes, without a framework of many rules - none of which is individually necessary or sufficient - blacks wage a continual war of aggression against whites. Stopping that is more important than the details of the rules. Having to sit in the back of a bus is a small price to pay to live in society where order hasn't broken down entirely such that someone on the bus is smoking meth which is the end result of subjecting every particular rule to scrutiny and finding an exceptional case where that rule seems unjust.
I could say that this is just as much found in the Constitution as any of the things that the Regime has found in it in since FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court and Earl Warren decided to totally re-write American law but instead I'll be honest - I don't care at all if it's "a legal principle that can be found under the Constitution" because I have observed that my enemies don't care about that either and they don't care about having a functioning society either. Turning the legal system into a game of who can lie most convincingly about what is found in a document when it plainly isn't there has run its course - the incentives for playing such a game are nothing but bad.
You can, in fact, just criminalize someone on the bus smoking meth. And most places do.
Why criminal behavior goes unpunished has some racial influences, but extreme progressive ideologies that are theoretically race neutral have more to do with it than racial politics. So does general neglect of law and order in things poor people use(eg, public transportation, convenience stores).
Great, it's technically criminal.
Now lets see if the paper that the law is written on will enforce that prohibition.
Okay, then write down on a sheet of paper that old black women are forbidden from the front of the bus. Now let's see that piece of paper restore our ruined cities.
More options
Context Copy link
American authorities are generally reluctant to expend state resources enforcing the law in areas mostly used by poor people(such as public transit, section 8 housing, convenience stores, and payday lenders).
Solving this problem is more complex than ‘make the blacks sit in the back of the bus’, in large part because that doesn’t actually prevent anyone from smoking meth. If you can solve this problem(which a lot of countries have done), then you also don’t need to make black people sit in the back of the bus.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I admire the skillful tap dancing you are doing, but this is merely using a lot of circumlocution to avoid stating your premise explicitly. If you believe that forced segregation and unequal treatment is the only practical way to avoid "cities that don't drive whites out through targeted robbery, rape and murder," then you need to make that argument explicitly, you don't get to handwave in the direction of "results" and therefore claim that forced segregation and unequal treatment was justified based on what you perceive to be the downstream effects of not doing that.
Actually, no, it isn't, because that's an infinitely generalizable argument. "Stopping rape and murder is more important than the details of the rules." "Stopping terrorist attacks is more important than the details of the rules." "Stopping narcotics trafficking is more important than the details of the rules."
The details of the rules matter a great deal. They matter even when you think they will only be applied to your outgroup.
I think this is nonsense, but even if it's not, until you get your white nationalist revolution and get to impose your will by force of arms, you are arguing for a position that can only be defended and implemented through the laws in existence.
There's no "tap dancing" going on here. Segregation and "unequal treatment" (we have equal treatment now? you sure?) aren't "the only practical way to avoid" [ethnic cleansing and people getting pushed in front of subway trains by "serial random assaulters"] but they are a way of doing so - certainly one that produced demonstrably better results. You seem to be operating under a very strange impression that what matters is that the proper procedure must be followed with zero concern over whether the procedures produce good results. This is an outgrowth of the mindset implanted by operating in a society run on the ideology of the bureaucrat - no one can be faulted for anything as long as proper procedure was followed. Though this seems normal to many people today, it is actually quite insane.
Sure, all those things are true technically.
Stopping rape and murder - more important than any societal rules because these are of the highest priority of men to stop and if you society does not stop them then you make an enemy of all capable men who will quietly step out of society which then make it impossible for your society to do anything as you lose all forms of cooperation.
Stopping terrorist attacks is more important than the details of the rules - plainly obviously true. Preventing military attacks on civilians is the most basic of government functions so it can have a prosperous society.
Stopping narcotics trafficking - this is only a problem that's downstream of about a zillion things that the current bizarre government we have does.
There are no laws in existence - there's only who / whom. That's not a reflection of the only possible state of affairs but it is a correct description of what we have now and I'm not going to pretend that it isn't.
Do you think we should reimpose racial segregation or not?
Yes.
Yes.
There is no "ethnic cleansing" happening in the United States. As for people getting pushed in front of subway trains, yes, we do have demonstrably better ways of preventing that than segregation: law enforcement.
In other words, all of those things are true.
Yes, we care about stopping rape and murder and terrorism and drug trafficking, but we also care how we stop those things, and just as we do not give the government infinite power to stop those things by any means necessary, we also do not endorse every solution that might, in theory, reduce or eliminate those things. What you're getting at is that black people commit more crimes (true) and what you're darkly hinting at is that we should segregate them or Do Something else to lower the black crime rate. Even accepting the first premise (higher black crime rate) it does not follow that a just solution is to to impose racial segregation or whatever else you have in mind.
That sounds like a catchy expression untethered to the legal reality in which you live.
Lets play dueling anecdotes.
My turn: black attacker, elderly asian victim, racial slurs used, charges dropped.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/SF-Bayview-attack-Second-suspect-surrenders-to-15098296.php
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9437615/Two-teenage-girls-accused-car-jacking-killing-Uber-Eats-driver-reach-plea-deal.html
Your turn: white attacker, elderly black victim, racial slurs used, charges dropped.
Did you read the actual articles or just go off the headlines?
In the first case Grayson (the person whose charges were dropped, but did not touch the victim) was the person videoing and the DA claims the victim expressed an interest in restorative justice for him and the charges were dropped, while the actual attacker WAS charged with robbery and elder abuse, his case is still pending. Charges were not dropped against the actual attacker. So this does not meet your own expressed criteria. Grayson was a racist asshole I would suggest but did not attack the victim. So we have black attacker, elderly asian victim, racial slurs used (though not by the attacker), charges not dropped (against the attacker).
**"According to the District Attorney's Office spokesman Alex Bastian, Grayson is not being charged for now and will instead be placed in a restorative justice program, at the victim's request.
Jonathan Amerson, 56, appeared in court Tuesday on charges of robbery and elderly abuse in connection with the attack on the unidentified 68-year-old man in front of a housing complex on Osceola Lane who was hauling large bags of recycled material."**
Charges were not dropped in the second case, as pointed out in the article and indeed the title(!). A Plea deal is not the same as charges being dropped. Indeed they both received the maximum sentences as noted below given they were juveniles.
**"A 15-year-old girl will be held in a youth detention facility until she turns 21 for a D.C. carjacking with another girl that left a Virginia man dead.
The girl received the maximum sentence in juvenile court Friday after pleading guilty last month to felony murder in the death of Mohammad Anwar, a Virginia man who was working as a delivery driver.
The second perpetrator, a 13-year-old girl, pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder. Under the maximum sentence, she also would be released once she turns 21. "**
So given the charges were NOT dropped in your examples we just have to find a single case where a white attacker, racially motivated attacked an old black man and then charged to establish equal treatment by YOUR own standard, no?
Timothy Caughman 66 was killed by James Jackson 28 in New York because:
"Jackson also stated that the killing was intended to start a race war in a manifesto written by him: "The racial World War starts today. This political terrorist attack is a formal declaration of a global total war on the Negro races."
To be fair we don't know if he used a racial slur at the time given no witnesses, but the motivation seems clear.
If I can suggest that the lesson here is to pick your examples so that they actually match your contention? Because here, if nowhere else someone is likely to actually check.
Just to point out I am not condoning the behavior in the articles here, but if you are going to use dueling anecdotes (and this is a good example of why we probably shouldn't), you should at least make sure you are well armed. Check and clean your pistols carefully, before you consider issuing the challenge.
Murdering a black man: life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Murder while black: receive the maximum sentences for a lesser crime that the prosecutors gave them the option of pleading guilty to. No possibility of prison time but a few years in "youth care".
If you think that's comparable, I don't know what to tell you.
I don't (though of course neither are the specifics of each crime as in one was a premeditated murder, the other was felony murder by juveniles while trying to steal a car) but that wasn't the claim you made. You said charges dropped. If you want to pivot to a different argument then feel free. But if your evidence does not support your specific claim then do better at writing your claims or picking your evidence.
Dueling anecdotes is a bad debating technique for a number of reasons, but if you are going to use it, you have to be very very tight on making sure your examples match your claims. Otherwise you will get bogged down in defending the specifics of each case. It can be rhetorically powerful but it is very difficult to use correctly. If you don't use it properly it hurts your argument because it looks like you are either over-claiming on what your evidence shows, or were just googling headlines that kind of matched your thesis. You should then expect to get called out on that. Or you can be aware of that in advance and construct better arguments, which leads to better engagement.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No. Also, you've been told to change your username. Do it. The only reason I am not banning you right now is so you don't whine that I did it in the middle of a thread where I was a participant, but the next time you post with this username, you will be.
Yes, this nic was apparently bad only after I called the mods out on tolerating ilovenonasianminorities69, but banning bigdickpepe1488. I missed it because your message was sent on thanksgiving. Sorry about that.
Noted that you are unable to find a single comparable case of prosecutors letting white criminals get away with the kind of thing they routinely let black criminals get away with. But we definitely have "equal treatment".
What you can note is that I'm not interested in playing bad faith games like "dueling anecdotes."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
We have racial segregation and it's ever more competitive as the legal system more and more reflects the progressive view that blacks are not subject to anything as mundane as "law".
Legal segregation would be an improvement over that system; do I think that's what should be imposed? Not necessarily - an Ottoman-style millet system would work as well as would Singaporean style legal environment - loads of workable options but they have to begin with the clear reality about the vastly different evolutionary backgrounds of the different species involved.
This does not match up with reality. The sheer volume of evidence that there's an entirely separate legal system for blacks where cops are sent out to arrest them when they make too much trouble but then they're let out vs the legal system for non-blacks where there are massive penalties for criminal conduct and downright glee on the part of prosecutors for getting to finally prosecute someone who isn't the usual was old enough to be described by Tom Wolfe in the 80s as the "hunt for the great white defendant". Almost every crime story you read about on the New York Post's twitter feed includes lines about how the latest perpetrator of a horrible crime had been "arrested 37 times before on felony charges". There are dozens of whites murdered by blacks every month with no spectacular media coverage and in fact, often times no charges filed in totally egregious cases like a firefighter defending a woman in a convenience store who gets executed by the attacking woman's boyfriend and wasn't charged - or the gas station robber in California who killed a clerk and wasn't charged because it was self defense when the clerk shot at him. Contrast that case to...
For this to be true, you would have to explain why so many blacks are in prison. You can't have it both ways and claim that the black incarceration rate demonstrates that blacks are more criminal but also they aren't subject to laws.
I'm not that familiar with the Singaporean legal environment, but do they actually assign people legally subordinate status based on their race? As for patterning our society after the Ottomans, I can think of many reasons besides my objections to your racialism why that seems like a terrible idea.
It does, actually. The argument you could credibly make is that law enforcement is often politically motivated and influenced by politicians, so in present times there is undue sensitivity about being perceived as racist, which results in minorities often being prosecuted less harshly. While this is true, it's certainly not some sort of carte blanche for black people to commit crimes (see above re: the high black criminal incarceration rate.) Moreover, we've discussed many times in this sub cases like San Francisco and Portland, where there are open air drug markets and homeless people basically allowed to do anything short of murder without prosecution. Most of those people are white.
There are many more whites murdered by whites and even more blacks murdered by blacks with no spectacular media coverage.
I don't know which specific cases you're referring and don't care, since almost inevitably when one digs into these one finds details that don't quite fit the picture the person offering them is trying to portray. But sure, there are are daily horrors committed by black people - granted. Scott wrote an article about this that is still valid.
It's not necessary to restrict the argument to specific cases though. We have statistics. While most murder is intraracial, blacks commit a disproportionate amount of it and they also commit a disproportionate amount of inter-racial murder. This isn't just Chinese people being smeared as robbers because the media is focusing on Chinese robbers in particular.
I am not disputing the 13/57 statistic, and if we were having a longer discussion about that, my views are less progressive and closer to the median Motte view. What I am disputing is that because a disproportionate number of blacks are criminals, we should treat them as criminals as a race and reimpose segregation or Bantustans or whatever.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Because they commit an absurd amount of crime - most of which is "unsolved", a good portion of which is unreported. The famous 13/57 understates it because that only counts solved murders and there are massive numbers of unsolved murders in places where every single unsolved murder is committed by a black person.
The rest of your post is progressive nonsense.
Scott is a conscious, aware liar and has never written an article that is "still valid" - much less one which fell to a very simple rebuttal in the comments.
He knows his argument is demolished here so he backs into "toxoplasmosa of rage - they pick bad cases on purpose because it's a better loyalty test" - which doesn't fit at all (which he almost certainly knows) because there are simply no cases where the progressive narrative fits. You can see every day blacks getting away with crimes, you simply never see that with whites. Turns out it's actually really easy to catch criminals but the justice system doesn't do it for blacks because we don't have "equal protection".
Most of your post is assertions without evidence. You just "know" this is how it is because it fits your worldview, and you carefully stick to your 13/57 talking points and avoid addressing any of the counterarguments I and others have made.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There ought to be a lag time in this. What does the racial breakdown of carceration look like since, say, May 2020?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Is there any evidence for this claim anywhere?
More options
Context Copy link
Is that in evidence? Notably the segregation laws in question would have allowed Rosa Parks to push you in front of a bus she could only sit in the back of. She would have been prosecuted for murder but that is still possible today.
It seems a just so story which can be matched by another just-so story where the act of segregation and legalized racism is what fueled animus towards whites, and so not having segregation would have been better.
Things like blacks pushing people in front of subway trains don't happen randomly or in a single step. It takes years of wearing down the barriers that used to be in place to keep behaviors like that in check - even lifting those barriers didn't immediately result in the things in this thread (any item in there is a thousand times worse than the dreaded racially assigned bus seating):
https://twitter.com/GodCloseMyEyes/status/1414619671056297984
First you attack the cultural confidence which is reinforced by things like bus seating, then people test the new limits to see what's actually permitted (as people do when the rules are uncertain) and when the new rules turn out to be "everything is permitted as long as you're attacking enemies of the Regime" then you get an orgy of violence.
Even asking the question of "did this specific change produce that specific result" is asking the wrong question. The motivation for that change was ostensibly because the old rule wasn't permitted in the legal framework. On a technical level that assertion is absurd - "oh that rule was there but no one knew it for 50 years" - but even that's not important; grant for a moment that this wasn't just a transparent power grab - did it produce good results? This wasn't an isolated change and it wasn't made as one or thought of as one - it was a cultural revolution to change the way of life of a lot of people. Was it a positive change? Was it such a positive change that it justifies the crimes detailed in one single town in that thread above? Why? Just to live more in line with what a document says when no one who signed that document would even have understood it to imply the rules imposed? Absurd.
The fact that it wasn't actually justified by holy document is just the cherry on top of the disingenuousness sundae.
None of this ranting repeat of what you wrote above changes the fact that you have yet to provide any actual evidence of your proposed causal process. Based on some recent discussion in the CW thread (I believe), it seems like a lot of the specific issue of "pushing people in front of trains" is schizophrenics going off their meds. Their behavior is not based on a logical reasoning process and therefore cannot be influenced by a cultural more that (allegedly) allows some people to get away with such behavior.
Yet somehow it happens now and didn't happen 10 years ago. "He was arrested 36 times for violent assaults and let go each time" has something to do with it as well as noticing that "deranged men" (euphemism used in one of the news reports by the only source willing to actually notice these things happening) are sane enough to shove smaller, less dangerous people in front of subway trains. Oh look, there is a logical reasoning process going on there related directly to cause, effect and consequences. Calling the person "schizophrenic" doesn't remove that and if it did then that's all the more reason to immediately execute those people as an uncontrollable danger to everyone around them.
Do you have a source for this claim? Or that it has to do with race, rather than "mental health" advocacy?
Establish your claims, don't just assert.
...what the fuck? How the hell is this a reasonable response? Most of these people are fine as long as they are on their meds. If you want a program to require them to take said medication (or remain in a mental hospital), fine. Executing them all is completely unreasonable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link