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

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

#301

Post by akvadrako »

jasonlotito wrote: post #186
dvt wrote: post #42

Almost every serious non-partisan legal scholar agrees that Roe v. Wade is on tenuous legal footing. It's purely a logical argument, and it doesn't follow very well from the Constitution. We have a very simple mechanism to rectify this: amend the Constitution. But that ship has long sailed, and the problem now is stare decisis †, which complicates things further. So there's a very real justification for keeping Roe i…

> Almost every serious non-partisan legal scholar agrees that Roe v. Wade is on tenuous legal footing. Citation needed. Also, would love to see how you are defining "serious non-partisan legal scholar." Seems like a whole bunch of adjectives you can use to disregard someone. As it stands, you can literally be talking about one person and be telling the truth depending on how you define those words.

Even Ruth Ginsburg stated the reasoning in Roe was incorrect.

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

#302

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

hintymad wrote: post #207
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…

> where hyperbolic, emotional statements get attention and calm, rational discussion is ignored. Rational and nuanced discussion requires patience, tolerance, energy, and a big heart to sometimes acknowledge that one is wrong. It's just so much easier to be angry, to be righteous, and to destroy the "enemies".

Rational and nuanced discussion requires all of those items from both sides. The problem is that as such it devolves to a prisoners dilemma, so it is impossible for one to be invested into the mutually beneficial tactic of rational and nuanced discussion without opening oneself to being exploited by someone using game theory.

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

#303

Post by robonerd »

lostcolony wrote: post #183
reedjosh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! Awesome reply. I'm pretty much anti-abortion myself, but draw the line at your point. So, I'm practically pro-choice. > it is the government's job to enforce Which is where I say we stop on the whole abortion thing. So, I'm an anti-abortion pro-choicer? Kinda weird I suppose. Falling between two camps isn't popular these days.

Maybe? A lot of the Christian people I know and like fall in between. Regardless of their personal views, they look at the idea of legislating morality as counter to the basis of their religion, and then also the moral fiber of the current GOP, and go "nope", and either abstain from voting, vote third party, or vote Democrat (potentially while holding their nose). I've yet to meet the hardliner who wants to ban abort…

> Christian people [...] look at the idea of legislating morality as counter to the basis of their religion

Isn't reforming pagan Rome essentially the foundational act of the Christian religion? Christ critiqued the system and was tortured to death for it. Followers of Christ continued to critiqued the system and many more were tortured to death for it. The strength of their conviction in the face of death inspired more followers, as did the evident injustice of the Roman system. Before long, they had enough mindshare to enact reform.

Keeping religion out of politics seems like an American value, not a Christian value.

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

#304

Post by ouid »

car_analogy wrote: post #296
ouid wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Want" is highly ambiguous. For example, a lawyer that believes everyone has a right to a competent legal defense may find a client personally abhorrent, but take their case anyway out of a sense of duty. It is highly misleading to describe this as the lawyer "doing whatever they want", even if that is technically true by some definition of "want", and even if the lawyer's rationalization of this is found to be inter…

I am aware that it is highly ambiguous, that is why I chose it. People who believe whatever they want are more of a problem than people who believe whatever. People who believe whatever they want can be manipulated by people who know what they want.

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

#305

Post by mrguyorama »

josephcsible wrote: post #300
mikece wrote: post #12

This blog post touches on a topic with far-reaching consequences that I think a lot of people are missing because they are focusing only on the question of abortion, and that is PRIVACY. In a nutshell, Roe makes abortion legal by guaranteeing the privacy of a woman to make that decision with her doctor. If Roe is overturned then it's this assumption of privacy which will have been vacated... and once it is I suspect…

Why would this argument not apply to any other crime that's committed in private?

What prior makes abortion a crime?

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

#306

Post by robonerd »

akvadrako wrote: post #301
jasonlotito wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost every serious non-partisan legal scholar agrees that Roe v. Wade is on tenuous legal footing. Citation needed. Also, would love to see how you are defining "serious non-partisan legal scholar." Seems like a whole bunch of adjectives you can use to disregard someone. As it stands, you can literally be talking about one person and be telling the truth depending on how you define those words.

Even Ruth Ginsburg stated the reasoning in Roe was incorrect.

Did she say the reasoning was wrong, or merely that it wasn't ideal? As far as I know, she took umbrage with Roe v Wade being physician focused rather than woman focused. In other words, that the provides for a physicians right to perform abortions more than it does a woman's right to receive abortions.

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

#307

Post by josephcsible »

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.

This argument works both ways: Believing that the FRC is a hate group just because the SPLC says so is like believing the Union is a hate group just because the Confederacy says so.

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

#308

Post by josephcsible »

mrguyorama wrote: post #305
josephcsible wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this argument not apply to any other crime that's committed in private?

What prior makes abortion a crime?

Let me rephrase: if the above argument were valid, then wouldn't it have to be the case that anything that can be done in private would have to be legal?

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

#309

Post by mcguire »

I'm afraid I find this argument to be specious.

Sure, Roe v. Wade might or might not be a great legal decision. However, if it is not, why are conservative state governments racing to introduce new laws to ban abortion, punish anyone who helps someone have an abortion, and ban forms of contraception. Further, why is no one discussing other, similar decisions? Sure, Griswold is part and parcel the argument over Roe v. Wade, and Loving is verboten while Clarence Thomas is on the court, but there have been many other decisions based on the "specious" right to privacy. Why are none of them being picked apart with the same sharp instruments as Roe?

The answer is that "it's a poor constitutional decision" is a red herring. "When does life begin" is even irrelevant. If you want to understand the people you disagree with (and, yes, I think that is a very good idea), and you disagree with American conservatives, you need to understand that they do not like the way society has changed since 1960---some much further back than that---and many are willing to do or say anything in order to roll back those changes. (And yes, I mean that. The American left has a lot of idiocy, but the vast majority of bad faith arguments, including that Christianity and conservatism are oppressed minorities, come from the right. (https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-07/Good_Faith...))

While you're discussing the legal niceties of Roe v. Wade, keep in mind that it, abortion, and sexuality in general are just the edge of the wedge; there are many other policies on the list that even you might be attached to.

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

#310

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

hintymad wrote: post #213

I was curious if people will get even madder if the US passes a law to enforce maximum number of weeks post-fertilization. There are only fewer than 10(?) countries, after all, that do not have such time limit. Most of the European countries do.

Yes. Pro-choice people have testified to Congress that there is a qualitative difference between 3” of vaginal depth. Stick a pair of scissors through the brain after the head is out of those 3”, then it’s murder. Stick them up to those 3” inches, then it’s an abortion.
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