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 -
Just over half -- 52% -- think Trump should have been charged with a crime in this case, while 32% said he should not have been..
Also, see my response here.
Also, OP is talking about the general case here. If you want to write into the law a separate clause for 'political candidates currently running for office and also on trial cannot be issued gag orders', that's something we could discuss (I'm against), but it doesn't really answer the general question we're discussing here.
I don't think your response in that other post really says anything worthwhile with regards to this conversation. Whether January 6 was actually a serious, deadly insurrection or not is an extremely partisan issue and still a matter of active debate, so calling back to it isn't going to convince anyone who hasn't already accepted your premises. A plausible reading of the events of January 6 is that the federal government made the protests worse on purpose in order to have an excuse to crack down on right-wingers - in which case appealing to how terrible that event was is just an argument against your own position.
As regards to the general question, my position is that the prosecutions are largely spurious and politically motivated, due to far more egregious crimes being ignored or treated with absurd amounts of leniency (did you ever read Hunter Biden's proposed plea bargain? I mean holy shit), and we already have big norms and principles against partisan prosecution like this. The incredibly overbroad gag orders like this are just comically absurd on the face of it - I find it extremely hard to believe that you'd be ok with Texas launching investigations into Biden, Harris and any DNC spokespeople for corruptly profiting from the Ukraine war, arranging for important court dates to overlap with important campaign dates, and then issuing a gag order preventing them from speaking negatively about any potential witnesses that includes every single member of the Republican party. I'd support a more general principle that gag orders should not be applied to political candidates, but it beggars belief that you'd be ok with what's happening here if the political valence was flipped.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link