Sorry for late reply, but I totally did not mean the word "extreme" like you are talking about. I meant extreme as in, my expectations for a newspaper opinion section with the heft of the WSJ should contain wisdom and NOT be mostly a cheer-leader for one side of the political spectrum.
Re:We’re losing the information war
by griffinmmahon on Friday March 31, 2017 @10:36AM
(#14004202)
I basically do not take issue with your dissection of terms here.
However I have seen another bit of your logic elsewhere and strongly disagree with it: the idea that mislabelling (or even correctly labelling) something "does an injustice" or "is a disservice" or "would be offensive to" people who died in the past at the hands of someone/something. We only have an obligation to make the lives of current and future people better: people who have died because of hatred would surely appreciate us doing our best to combat hatred in the modern world.
I'm not sure I see where the disagreement is.
I agree that making life better for people today and in the future is what matters most. And I think an important step in doing that is to heed the lessons of history, which includes having sympathy for the suffering of those who've gone before.
Re:We’re losing the information war
by griffinmmahon on Friday March 31, 2017 @11:14AM
(#14004626)
Sure, we're agreeing. I just take issue with the idea that it is possible to do an injustice against the dead over word choice. I probably jumped too quick, though, and maybe shouldn't have commented. Sorry if any of this came off as combative!
Some proportionality would be good. “Extreme” when used in the context of political ideology implies some form of totalitarianism; i.e., Nazism, Fascism (extreme right), Stalinism, Maoism (extreme left).
The WSJ, from the little of it I read, tends to adopt generally classical liberal or libertarian positions; i.e, moderately right-leaning economically, moderately liberal on social issues, generally in favour of more liberty across the board, and thus opposed to authoritarianism.
There's a valid debate to be had about the merits of these positions, but to describe the WSJ as “extreme right” does an injustice to the many who've suffered and died – and who continue to do so to this day – due to genuinely extreme political ideologies.