Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 388 posts

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#281

Post by robonerd »

car_analogy wrote: post #263
lemonlime wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their reasoning in Roe is pretty detailed and they do not come anywhere close to saying that the right to privacy legalizes everything done in private. Have you read Roe v Wade? Let's look at fraud. Who do you think is arguing that fraud is illegal if done in private. Can you link me to any example anywhere on any medium? Which part of the article do you think is relevant here? I have read many books by actual consti…

> I'm not just insisting it's a strawman. It is a straw man. It wasn't a strawman (I do not claim anyone argued everything in private is legal), it was reductio as absurdum - taking the privacy argument to its logical limit. If a right to privacy makes abortion legal because it is private, why does this apply only to abortion? Actually, only to a subset of abortion, since "this right is not unqualified and must be co…

> Or do I misunderstand, and they derived this right from some other amendment or combination of amendments?

Yes, they derived it from the 14th Amendment's Due Process clause.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#282

Post by riskable »

MockObject wrote: post #256
riskable wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all: What a terribly-made PDF... It's so compressed I can't even read the text at the top. Secondly, it's just from an awful source: The Family Research Council (FRC) is designated as a hate group (for good reason!) by the Southern Poverty Law Center: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou... Even after all that it has yet another problem : It uses loaded terms like, "unborn children" t…

I thought the PDF had been linked as a source for the claim regarding abortion laws between countries.

The problem is the OP's claim of "legal extremism" is (apparently) founded in the Family Research Council's definition of "extreme" which is... Extreme. It'd be like a Confederate citing the reason for the Civil War as the North's "extreme" laws regarding slavery.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#283

Post by MockObject »

dane-pgp wrote: post #275
MockObject wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme positions are "a four-cell zygote should be protected from abortion", and "a baby being born may be aborted". Most citizens are in the middle ground.

Suppose that an omniscient moral Oracle decided to reveal that the correct point before which abortions should be allowed was indeed somewhere strictly between the two bookends you mention. (Let's say that a super-majority of the public are indeed somewhere in this "middle ground", and, in a secular democracy, that's as close to an omniscient moral Oracle as you might be able to find). Now suppose that you are asked…

Would that possibly be balanced by the chance that the Oracle could find in the opposite direction later, making us retrospectively guilty as well?

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#284

Post by MockObject »

riskable wrote: post #282
MockObject wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the PDF had been linked as a source for the claim regarding abortion laws between countries.

The problem is the OP's claim of "legal extremism" is (apparently) founded in the Family Research Council's definition of "extreme" which is... Extreme. It'd be like a Confederate citing the reason for the Civil War as the North's "extreme" laws regarding slavery.

That analogy would hold if the North's anti-slavery position were held by a tiny minority of countries, if I'm understanding your argument.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#285

Post by Jensson »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #141
Barrin92 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't school kids in the US been required to be vaccinated against numerous diseases for ages?

You always have the choice to homeschool your kids if you don't want to send them to school.

That would violate their human rights. Article 26 UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

> Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

I know USA hasn't ratified these so USA doesn't think this is a right, but most of the world do. It is fine to force people to get vaccinated, but it isn't fine to deny human rights to those who don't get vaccinated. The reason is obviously that they want to force everyone to get vaccinated, but they can't so instead they just deny human rights to those who don't get vaccinated. Why do it in such a roundabout way, when the constitution obviously didn't intend for the federation to make such laws?

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#286

Post by drewcoo »

happytoexplain wrote: post #244
drewcoo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Civility and decorum are what is missing today. That's what got us Joe Biden, who mostly has the same policies as Donald Trump, is a democrat who has always been a lot like a pretty conservative republican, but says nice things and only sniffs girls' hair instead of grabbing by the _____. Downvote for that if you like but the lesser of two appalling characters is still appalling. What's missing is a deeper understa…

How appalling does the representative of a political party have to be to be able to call them appalling and also espouse "a willingness to understand" in politics in the same breath without necessarily being hypocritical? That sounds sarcastic, but it's absolutely a real, pragmatic question (with no concrete answer, really).

That's intentionally equating completely different things just to manufacture "hypocrisy." Harm to others with political inclinations. But you knew that, right?

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#287

Post by ouid »

car_analogy wrote: post #270
ouid wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not contradict anything that I said. It's not harsh to refer to the argument as being worthless in this case. It might as well not exist. One can be well served by a belief system that justifies nothing, or a belief system that is full of contradictions, but listening to them rationalize it isn't going to help me understand any better than it helped them (which was not at all).

It doesn't contradict most of what you said, except this part: > their entire moral philosophy [..] is exclusively used to justify whatever they want Unless by "want" you mean "selfishly desire or selflessly believe is the morally right thing", and not the common use of only "selfish desire".

By want I mean want. I wasn't assigning moral judgments at this point because that would have been circular. I said "whatever they want" in order to distinguish it from an unqualified "whatever". The prosperity doctrine stuff was a motivated example, but not meant to be representative.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#288

Post by robonerd »

drewcoo wrote: post #286
happytoexplain wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How appalling does the representative of a political party have to be to be able to call them appalling and also espouse "a willingness to understand" in politics in the same breath without necessarily being hypocritical? That sounds sarcastic, but it's absolutely a real, pragmatic question (with no concrete answer, really).

That's intentionally equating completely different things just to manufacture "hypocrisy." Harm to others with political inclinations. But you knew that, right?

That answers little. What constitutes harm is subjective (and obviously political.) It varies greatly depending on who you ask and where you're at.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#289

Post by MockObject »

riskable wrote: post #190
alkaloid wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> the extremism from the abortion-supporting side Can you post some examples? I know the anti-choice crowd has a history of assassination, arson, bombings, death threats, kidnappings , harassment/stalking, and vandalism... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence Note that Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a "pro-choice violence" page and searching around I couldn't find much beyond some vandalism.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/10/abortion-ars...

https://www.axios.com/2022/05/18/supreme-court-abortion-roe-...

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#290

Post by panarky »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #178
timoth3y wrote: post #68

The answer to the question in the title is contained in the title. For a number of reasons, we seem to have reached the point where hyperbolic, emotional statements get attention and calm, rational discussion is ignored. A world where everyone is trying to position themselves as the persecuted, besieged voice of reason defending simple truth against irrational attractors, does not leave much room for common ground. I…

Here is Milton Friedman discussing a politically charged topic with Bernie Sanders in a very civil manner. (though Bernie doesn't speak much) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sElz_P6QsZo (ignore the inflammatory title and intro screen) Civility and decorum are what is missing today. And if it was taught in our schools today, and valued in society at large, maybe it we could still have debates like this.

Yes, "civility and decorum" are the solution to the refusal of an entire political party to accept the results of an election and their supporters violently storming the capitol.
Post reply on HN