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 -
Normal prominent relatively milquetoast people like Jared Taylor can't even travel to Europe. Euros like Martin Sellner, who afaik has never even been convicted of anything, and who had the Austrian government pay his court costs after a lunatic jewish state prosecutor charged him with running a criminal organisation can't travel to either UK or US.
You want us to believe it's perfectly normal someone like that cretin Skullface who's as trashy and poor white with multiple criminal convictions as can be can just waltz over to Ukraine without any problems, and that he's lying when he's saying US government helped him go there?
It's assets all the way down.
99.9% of dissident rightists can travel freely, a few very high profile figures known to prosecutors like Sellner, Taylor, Spencer had visa restrictions imposed upon them in large part because they publicly announced they were travelling to attend rallies, conferences or other political gatherings (which obviously served as motivation for prosecutors or interior department staff to deny those travel requests). Why would there be travel restrictions on random white trash with nazi tattoos?
And this also betrays a misunderstanding of how this travel happens. The US doesn't impose exit restrictions except de-facto via the No-Fly Scheme, which very few dissident rightists have ever been put on (Fuentes was never on the official scheme, his restriction (now rescinded) was a corporate ban). What happened was that various Western European countries like the UK, Germany, Austria imposed visa restrictions on high-profile dissident right activists. Eastern European countries tend not to do this in part because they're largely under conservative governments, so the 'route' to Ukraine from the US (which typically involves flying to Poland or Hungary) is unaffected. Even in the event of a Schengen-wide ban (uncommon in these cases), flying from the US to Romania (outside the Schengen zone) and then travelling into Ukraine is feasible.
Yeah. I believe Fuentes' presence on a corporate list was due to bad behavior on a flight, it looks like over wearing a mask.
More options
Context Copy link
Fuentes is vastly more notorious and has a higher media profile than Taylor.
Given his behavior around january 6th- when he said things far more damning than Trump, it's almost certain the claims that feds have him by the short hairs are true.
Taylor was never prosecuted for anything, as far as I know.
I didn’t mean to say they were prosecuted, just that they’re regularly mentioned on lists of far right intellectuals and activists, and so prosecutors will be aware of them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link