A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

submitted by BobQuixote from harpers.org

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[–][deleted]  (8 children)

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    [–]BobQuixote[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

    The most I expected in the way of dissent was just griping about the references to Trump and "right-wing demagogues." The rest is basically the primary criticism of the right against the left.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

    Both parties fall under an old saying "the pot calling the kettle black" (Both parties are hypocritical). To "politic" is to say half truths as if they are not half of the picture and to promise more than half of what you will ever be able to deliver when elected. And everyone is up in arms about "fake news" when they let the elected people lie all day long. Yet, I was truly surprised to see now one dissenting...at all.

    [–]BobQuixote[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

    My best guess is that the Left tone turned people off, and they might have downvoted if they could just for that. But I have difficulty imagining anyone who signed up for this site actually disagreeing with the point of the letter. I was hoping to get some engagement along the lines of "Hey, we actually agree about something really important."

    But I agree about the state of our discourse.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

    I am in agreement with you. My double speak hypocritical comment is <But I agree about the state of discourse>. What do you want to say within the discourse you wish to have. I'm up to discourse upon this article's intent.

    [–]BobQuixote[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    Eh? I really can't tell whether that was criticism, which is bad either way.

    What do I want to say? What a wide-open question. I don't want to write a book, at least not all in one comment, but I'm fine with some back-and-forth.

    I generally approach policy as a libertarian and end up somewhere in the center. Every law needs to be justified, and every law should be at the lowest effective level.

    I get irritated by the pathos rhetoric of the Left broadly, and disagree often with their policy proposals, but I find significant agreement in the ethos elements that would lead me to support restrained versions of those policies.

    I can generally piss off people of any alignment. My engagement in online communities tends to be a game of political capital: a few tasty morsels that the echo chamber will agree with, then one strategic challenge, rinse and repeat. Although it has been a while since my communities have been small enough to care; lately that has just turned into how I play Reddit.

    Speaking of Reddit, I still have one foot in it. Saidit is sort of a backup plan, to be cultivated so migration would be seamless in case Reddit were to ban me. I saw it mentioned by the gender skeptics (am I remembering the term wrong?), and woah, what a strange assortment of refugees. But Saidit is also an interesting experiment, partly because radically open platforms I've tried before have been truly toxic (impressive that they got me to use that term).

    And you? What brought you here, and what would you say?

    [–]slushpilot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I generally approach policy as a libertarian and end up somewhere in the center.

    I like the way you phrase this. It's the only perspective that makes sense to me too.

    I can't even imagine it working in the other direction (approach policy as an authoritarian, but end up less authoritarian).

    [–]BobQuixote[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    That phrasing is the result of me cleaning the labels out of my closet. :-) Libertarian, conservative, classical liberal, radical centrist... They make people think I'm an ancap or a Republican, or just fail to communicate anything.

    Honestly I can't imagine it working any differently either. Maybe "every law needs to be justified" is a bit too obvious, to the point that the socialists and the nazis would agree.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I should have put <Double Speak> in quotes, because it was not criticism and I agree with your sentiments. I believe the Orwellian <double speak> (hypocrites) is the mechanism behind the open letter's intent <But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.>. EXAMPLE: OH, I think it was the nineties when the acronym <PC> talk became a cultural meme and part of everyday. Politically correct is double speak. The funniest part about the acronym is it was being used between individuals to represent how to get along...<better than before>, because no one will get offended. Yet, the use of the word political, as I stated above is about half of this or half of that. Hence, by my way of writing political is helping create the double speak.

    I too can piss off almost everyone from all those categorizing words <That phrasing is the result of me cleaning the labels out of my closet. :-) Libertarian, conservative, classical liberal, radical centrist...>. Depending on the person listening/reading my cultural ideas of governance. They will use one or more of the categorizing of human's minds words listed in your words quoted with <...etc> at the end. I will attempt to use them as you did...I am conservative in that I want to understand the change needed before action is chosen. So, the liberal changes needed don't go too fast and furious upon our population. Life provides many dualities or dyads of concepts that twirl around each other...conservative/liberal. They push and pull our realities around each other and the open letter tells us how deep our troubles go into our minds. Example: ephemeral things like invisible lines on earth with military bases protecting...invisible lines and invisible thoughts/words in our heads. Personally, I think all humans on Gaia are much more similar than any eyeball differentiations.

    Conservative anything is constriction and liberal anything is expansion and both are a classic polarity pushing away and pulling back. The absurdity within which these two words are over used in our culture helps create the situation we are within...conquered because divided. <Never waist the opportunity of a good tragedy> and other wonderfully crafted wolf in sheep's clothing comments are thought as good ideas to apply to life and its opportunities. Almost all the seven deadly sines can be <George Carlin> like reduced to one or two, because greed covers a few of the seven, gluttony is greed of food, lust is greed of sex. Double speak and the pyramidal structuring of authority in the Patriarchal Authoritarian (PA) system of organizing governments and culture creates this situation. I have laughed many times thinking about how psychology is handled by our culture. They say the it is the family and the individual's fault and never incorporate the fact our culture produced them and is as responsible as the family. Yet, the shame and stigma is left for the individual that walks into the psychologist office...to help themselves do what...conform? PA creates all the Abby Normals in our cultures. Hence, Abby Normal is the new Normal and we get what you see on all the screens monitoring our visual lives. How many people on our planet, by percentage are eating some pharmaceutical psycho active pill to feel better...while being a good conformer to the PA system of governance.

    All cultures during written history are PA no matter the -ism, -ocracy affixing suffix. We the people have been within PA since the dawn of written history, do any of us know how to think out of the box all of our ancestors came from and we are still in? My conservative bone is wanting us to discuss all these things slowly, within tolerance and with total equanimity...and no PC talk. In hopes of liberating our souls, minds and every day choices of a life lived. Shit, it cracks me up how anyone can get upset over the different connotations of libertas, liberal, liberate. It was all ok when we liberated the people on the other side of the invisible line that our military was <helping?>.

    ...create a great day...