site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Or even "anti-a-fraction-of-anti-Trumpers"? I think Trump was a depressingly sub-par president, but I'm still able to appreciate that the right way to beat him is "nominate someone much better", not "insist that prostitute hush money is clearly a campaign expense and prosecute misreporting it".

I’m not even sure reporting an NDA as a legal expense is misreporting it…

I take and agree with your larger point

Also Hillary funded the Steele dossier and falsely reported it as legal expenses. I notice she wasn't prosecuted in criminal court for doing that.

I’m not even sure reporting an NDA as a legal expense is misreporting it…

It's ambiguous enough that I feel certain that had Trump declared it as a campaign expense, we'd see the exact same case with the prosecution making the claim that no, paying someone to keep quiet should not be recorded as a campaign expense.

Ambiguity should also be the death of the charge. Rule of lenity.

The problem is the prosecutor will argue that it was blindingly obvious that (insert bunch of opaque regulations) said Trump had to record it as a campaign expense and not a business expense. The defense will argue that no, (insert different bunch of opaque regulations) said he should have recorded it as a business expense and not a campaign expense. The jury, not being experts on the ins and outs of New York business accounting, will not be able to come to a conclusion on the merits, so it'll just be a matter of who they believe. The prosecution certainly won't admit to any ambiguity.