Live data from Hacker News

Welcome, ACLU

medium.com

841–850 of 1001 posts

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand... it's illegal. They shouldn't be business owners if our social contract hurts their feelings. Commerce is a regulated activity.

You could make the exact same statement about Eric Garner: Eric Garner shouldn't be in the business of selling loose cigarettes, because our social contract prohibits that sort of activity. Commerce is a regulated activity, and Garner's death is an unfortunate but justifiable collateral damage of the police's clear duty to enforce the social contract.

As much as I disagree with the GP commenter, this doesn't make any sense at all. It's possible to think that Garner was breaking the law and that police use of excessive force (including a banned technique) was _unjustifiable_.

How on earth do you jump from "he was doing something illegal so the police had the right to enforce the law" to "the amount of force used was appropriate and unfortunately led to his death". You may have lost the thread of the conversation, but no one was talking about bakers being killed by inappropriate use of police force in the course of compelling them to serve gay weddings.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ACLU is by definition anti-government I'd rephrase that as "in favor of the rule of law". Governments break the law all the time and need some form of checks and balances to correct wrongdoing.

I think the ACLU goes beyond the rule of law, and sometimes will push the line on interpretations of the law to limit government power (which I think in a fine thing to be doing).

The L does stand for "liberty", so I think this is probably the entire point.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#843
post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a little glib, but this came up on Reddit from Twitter: > The left protest about Trump, but they're strangely silent about King Raedwald's invasion of Northumbria in AD 616[1] It's a bizarre way to argue in favor of being politically detached. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/5r6zw0/the_left...

I never supported Trump, but I can't find it in myself to join the opposition specifically because I don't understand them. When someone says "Why are you protesting Trump doing X, but not Obama doing X?" it's not a valid argument, and it's not a convincing argument, but that's not the point. If your answer is "well, when Obama did X he mitigated the negative effects by also doing Y, and did X in political climate wh…

I think it is a difficult question to answer if the difference between Obama and Trump seems about as arbitrary as choosing a sports team because it's based in your hometown.

Even though it is relatively new, I think moral foundations theory[1] is an excellent place to start in understanding how people assess moral choices that underlie political preferences. With imagination, try to understand how it is impossible to maximize the fulfilling all of these goals he describes simultaneously, and how the moral foundations inevitably come into conflict. Also, try to imagine how different people you know might prioritize one over the other.

For example, nearly everyone wants to claim that they are loyal to people they know well (people in their group) and nearly everyone wants to claim that they are just and would not harm people indiscriminately. Yet clearly people prioritize these two goals very differently. For some almost no inconvenience to others is too great in order to offset even the most minor risk, and for others almost no danger is great enough to justify the most minor inconvenience to strangers.

Hopefully, that sheds a little light on the idea that people have different fundamental goals.

Next, one might explore how effectively different policies achieve different goals. An example could be the topic of trade barriers. How will they affect total world economic production, or the economic production of individual countries relative to each other, the impact on total economic output within one's own country, and how that economic output will be distributed among different groups of people within the country.

And perhaps finally, how will people make their political arguments, given that the people who make political arguments are likely to at least have some intuition about what is likely to convince different types of people. For example, if you want a distribution of wealth favoring the top, then you'll likely talk about how a meritocratic system increases overall economic growth for everyone, rather than only just saying that you think they deserve it. And, if you want a more equal distribution of wealth you will probably talk about talent discovery from a larger pool of people, the value of social safety nets in encouraging entrepreneurship, or the inefficiency of workers who are made to struggle, rather than just saying that everyone deserves a moderate standard of living regardless of the talents they were born with.

Anyway, if you've never supported Trump, but don't see how his decisions have been different from Obama's it could just be that the overwhelming majority of people you know are negative about him, just as other people might never have supported Obama or Clinton because people around them complained about them often. Maybe one way to figure out what you would believe independent of peer pressure is to identify the different values politicians appeal to within a single party. Partly because people in Congress have very different constituents, it can be striking how much a people who seem unified within the same party are appeal to radically conflicting values.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#844
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's an option on the donation page where you can opt-in to the ACLU sharing your details with other charitable organizations. (the default is opt-out).

I verified via the wayback machine and the page is the same today as it was when I made my donation. I'm fairly certain I would not have checked that box. I make it a point to read checkboxes very carefully as companies are so prone to anti-patterns to get you to agree to share your info or join mailing lists.

Always possible you donated to another group around the same time...

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#845
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were Saudi Arabia and Egypt left off the list? That's where most of the 9/11 hijackers and planners hailed from. I think you're hearing echoes in your "sound mind."

I don't know, but the list of countries was inherited from the previous administration. Maybe somebody should ask Obama's DHS head?

Maybe the list doesn't have any reasoning but was picked to distract you into posting this comment.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#846
post #714
post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are literally zero constitutional issues raised by the nature of his relationship with Twitter.

How do people still not get this? The First Amendment is a limitation on the government of the United States. Period. It does not apply to other countries. It does not apply to private entities within the United States. It does not apply to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or any other social media.

> How do people still not get this? The First Amendment is a limitation on the government of the United States. Period. It does not apply to other countries. It does not apply to private entities within the United States. It does not apply to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or any other social media.

To be fair, most of the time I hear your complaint, the people complaining about the loss of free speech has nothing to do with the Constitution (though that isn't the case in this instance, of course). It's possible to oppose certain speech restrictions as damaging to a community you care about and to be upset when those restrictions arise. Not for constitutional reasons, but for reasons having to do with the health and ethical grounding of a community.

Though this is just my sample: It's of course possible that we are exposed to very different circles and that you're more often exposed to "Reddit can't ban this subreddit! It's unconstitutional!". If so, I'm sorry, that must blow

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#847
post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is no reasoning with people who don't use reason. Banning slavery causes a lot of problems. Where are all these slaves going to live? Where are they going to work? Where are the 40 acres and a mule going to come from? What if they want to return to Africa? Educate yourself before you ban obviously immoral practices. Downvotes are indeed required." This is why you lost btw.

Please comment civilly (this kind of misquotation is not) and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The parent comment called everyone pro-life uneducated and incapable of reason; I hardly see how mocking him for it in a way that demonstrates how asinine that line of thought is is out-of-line. Yes, this is how I would respond face-to-face if someone maligned half my country.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#848
post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are telling people to fight back against Trump's executive orders that threaten civil liberties. They are not anti-Trump, in that if Trump rescinded his problematic EOs, the ACLU would stop fighting him. The issue is not the man, it's the policy.

The issue is not the man, it's the policy. But how do you separate the man from his policies? That would be like trying to separate a man from his religious conviction. A mans policies reflect what he believes in.

The constitution asks us to separate religious conviction from public policy so I don't think it is that outlandish. The government is supposed to represent all people not just the politician's beliefs.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compelling a business, there's a big difference. The government can't order you, as an individual, to bake someone a cake; but if you're a business discrimination is prohibited. Engaging in commerce is a regulated activity per our Constitution.

actually that is exactly what the government did. The bakery didn't refuse to serve homosexuals. They did refused to bake a cake with say, two males at the top (paraphrasing the case). EDIT: looked it up, they didn't want to bake a cake with bert & ernie and a pro-gay-marriage slogan.

Ok, but that does not change the fact that the bakery in this situation was in fact discriminating. You don't have to refuse all service to be discriminating illegally.

A more sinister version of the same logic is the argument that states weren't discriminating against gay people by not letting them marry someone of the same sex because technically they could go find someone of the opposite sex and be granted a wedding license for a life of misery married to someone who they could literally never be attracted to instead of the person they were attracted to and loved. It's discrimination in either case.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU doesn't so much defend the Constitution as use it as a weapon. Neo-Nazis get denied a permit to march through a black neighborhood and the ACLU is there. Washington DC violates the second amendment for decades and the ACLU is silent.

ACLU is not in the business of protecting the Second Amendment, and they're upfront about it. NRA is not in the business of protecting the First Amendment, and they're upfront about it. Why do you have a different standard for ACLU compared to NRA? You're saying that you're unwilling to financially supporting them, not based on what they do, but based on what they do not. How does what they do not diminish the utilit…

ACLU is not in the business of protecting the Second Amendment, and they're upfront about it.

The ACLU claims to be in the business of protecting the constitution, not only the parts that people with left of center politics like.

They're liars.

NRA is not in the business of protecting the First Amendment, and they're upfront about it.

The NRA is a gun owner's lobbying organization. Their primary activity is the promotion of the second amendment but they have fought for the first amendment. The NRA Civil Defense Fund has taken up First Amendment cases too.

Why do you have a different standard for ACLU compared to NRA?

I don't. The ACLU lies.

You're saying that you're unwilling to financially supporting them, not based on what they do, but based on what they do not. How does what they do not diminish the utility of what they do?

Because the ACLU doesn't defend the Constitution, they have weaponized it.

Post reply on HN