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 -
Very well. In that case there is a right to run for President that is participation-in-insurrection-restricted. The restriction doesn't mean there is no right to run for President.
Baude argues the original meaning of "insurrection" was as follows:
Insurrection is best understood as concerted, forcible resistance to the authority of government to execute the laws in at least some significant respect. The term “insurrection” connotes something more than mere ordinary lawbreaking. It suggests an affirmative contest with, and active resistance to, the authority of the government. It is in that sense more than just organized resistance to the laws—more than just a protest, even one involving civil disobedience. Rather, it is organized resistance to the government
So I don't think BLM rises to that level. There was disobedience to the government but no attempt to supplant or throw off the authority of the government.
CHAZ/CHOP on the other hand I think is at least debatable. You can certainly argue that they set up an area in which they refused to allow the authority of the United States to operate, and they used violence to attempt to protect their "borders". The fact that they changed their name from "Autonomous Zone' to "Organized Protest" maybe mitigates against the argument that they claimed to be outside of US authority, but I'm not sure that's enough. So yes, I'm inclined to think that CHAZ/CHOP would qualify as an insurrection or possibly even a rebellion. And yes, it is possible that some Democrats may have violated section 3 with their statements about it, but you'd have to point me at a specific person/statement for me to express a clear opinion here.
"The Resistance" to Trump did not feature any acts of group violence actively resisting his authority, so I'm going to say no to that one.
"People who called Trump illegitimate" arguably could have been considered to give aid or comfort to the rebellion against him if there had been one.
The guy who shot up the GOP baseball game I think was certainly an attempted assassin, but you can't tie Sanders to his actions. If there had been a group of gunmen, and their intent in attacking the game had been to either throw off the authority of the Congress or to install their own Congressmen, it would have been an insurrection. But even then, I don't believe Sanders did anything that would have qualified as giving aid or comfort to their efforts.
There of course is a big difference between age and insurrection restrictions. The first is an objective fact. You compare birthdate and the calendar. The second requires numerous legal determinations (eg what counts as an insurrection, did the person do enough to participate in the insurrection). They are clearly of a different kind and thus would almost certainly be treated differently from a legal perspective (ie the latter restriction would almost certainly be a due process issue if self executed).
This illustrates the whole problem. You say the BLM movement didn’t meet this standard. However their goal was systematic change. And there were little weeks of rioting including attacking government buildings (eg the White House, the courthouse in Portland). In some cases, the attacks went on for a long time (eg the attempts in Portland) and were clearly organized.
What is in your opinion the factual difference between those riots and the Jan 6 riot? Again, the former were longer, had more institutional and political support, were more damaging / deadly, and had a political aim. Jan 6 was disorganized, did involve some violence but as Carlson’s videos showed was in many instances by participants not violent (indeed they left Congress after their message was made and were asked to leave). No one brought weapons or even things to tie people up. No police was even killed! Indeed, it was such a bad “insurrection” that the military refused to deploy national guard to help the Capitol police because of “optics” until after everyone had left (National Guard of course was brought out for the ongoing BLM riots). If Jan 6 was an insurrection, then it is hard to argue BLM wasn’t one as well.
Then even if you somehow can distinguish Jan 6 with BLM, you still need to make the argument Trump participated or gave aid and comfort. Again, his statements to go and protest peacefully is core first amendment protected political speech. Saying that because a protest got out of hand (but in a significantly less deadly way then most protests that get out of hand) means the person who urged the protest is responsible for the actions of the protestors cuts deeply against the 1st amendment.
It is also funny. You are struggling with CHAZ / CHOP. Here, war lords were set up to roam with guns because they expressly stated the US government was not in power but you are claiming a protest that (1) was rowdy, (2) whose participants were subsequently let into the Capitol by the police (3) and who then went on a tour and left when finally asked was clearly an insurrection?
Also re resistance. How convenient. You can have bureaucrats systematically contravene the president’s authority in complete contradiction to the constitutional order (ie there was an organized, concentrated attempt to contest properly constituted government authority that stretched for years doing numerous illegal activities) but claim that isn’t rebellion or insurrection because it wasn’t “violent” yet a single one-off protest that wasn’t all that violent (eg didn’t even bring guns, no police were killed) was an insurrection? The former sure seems like rebellion more than the latter. Under your theory, if for example the executive officers just decided to ignore every action Trump ordered and instead decided Clinton was the president it wouldn’t be a rebellion provided violence wasn’t involved? Clearly that is a rebellion (ie violence cannot be a precondition). And therefore it seems fair to describe the resistance as an insurrection — at least relative to Jan 6.
Attempting to kill congressmen was an attempt to change political power. Sanders said the republicans are bad. Therefore the assassin was motivated to act by Sanders’ words. Therefore Sanders is disqualified.
Of course I don’t believe this. But it illustrates the need to separate political speech from giving aid or comfort. Can you find a single utterance by Trump supporting storming the Capitol? He famously said protest peacefully. So why the different standard?
Again, I wish Trump went away. He was a cuck in office the first time and will be one again in his second term assuming he wins. But this is a BS argument.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link