No personal swipes in HN comments, please.
Disingenuousness isn't a behavior—something somebody says or does—but a state that one has to infer from such behavior. I think what may have happened is that you made that inference, or it made itself, so rapidly as to not to notice that you were making it [1]. I say that because you used this very interesting phrase:
> so prima facie absurd
On a non-siloed [2] internet forum like HN, one commonly runs into views that are more divergent from one's own than is usual in real life or on the siloed internet. Once the distance between some other view and our own exceeds a certain limit, this other view strikes us as more than just wrong. It seems absurd, impossible that anyone could hold it sincerely. This is not a pleasant experience; it feels a bit like being assaulted, and there is an immediate impulse to push back with a force that goes beyond just counterargument. This is natural and we've all felt it, but it's the moment that the HN guidelines are asking all of us to interrupt. For thoughtful conversation, people need to hold steady until that initial reflex passes and there's a chance for a slower, more reflective response [3] to kick in. This is a skill that can be learned, and one can think of HN as an experiment in having a large group of strangers work on learning it together.
Most views that seem absurd to us are not absurd in any universal way, but are legitimately held by people who we just normally don't talk about these things with because they're not in our strongly-connected component [4]. HN is an experiment to see whether we can have thoughtful conversation between components. It's easy to do that within one's component, but hard outside it. The question is whether we can do it enough for a richer overall graph to develop, or whether turbulence will shatter what few edges we do have and cause the whole thing to break down and become disjoint.
1. I don't mean to pick on you personally; this applies to all of us.
2. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
3. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
4. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20886068 in this thread for an example.
You're saying the same thing, but with language that focuses on the argument rather than the person. Not only is the former what you really intended to criticize anyway, but it tends to make people respond better, because they don't feel personally attacked. That elevates discussion and is good for everyone.
To ascribe motive to what you consider the absurdity of the comparison (“disingenuous”) is, as dang described it, ad hominem.
The fact that I can draw this distinction without indicating any agreement or disagreement with your actual argument helps emphasize this point.
I think you could make a very interesting comment on the distinction between the red flag lists and the others without discussing the poster.
Synonyms: dishonest deceitful underhand underhanded duplicitous double-dealing two-faced...
You get the idea.
More importantly, disingenuousness is not a behavior. It isn't something a person says or does. You have to infer it from something they say or do. Internet users are far far too quick to make this leap, and it breaks the site guidelines to do that on HN.
This is not controversial.
The circumstances of the discussion are not comparable in any way to interviewing a mass murderer about his recent autobiography.
Notice I am not saying Madoff is in general is dishonest, only a specific action.
Really disliking an opinion is not proof that they've been dishonest.
Anyway, that’s a completely different argument. You assume the reason someone used such language was because they simply disagreed.
I am not saying it’s an accurate assessment, but an argument it’s self is evidence. Calling this absurd based only on the argument is fine if you have enough evidence as with say a modest proposal: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/30827_modestpr...
Now, if you disagree with that assessment fine, but don’t assume the assessment is always disingenuous. Someone may honestly believe the original statement is so far from a rational argument that it can’t be serious. They could simply be leavening their https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window.
Granted they might have simply been using abusive language because they have poor debating skills. Either way it’s a sign to stop a debate and go onto something more productive.
Let me be clear. This is not a situation where you would bring up dishonesty if you had proof, and there is no proof.
I agree with what you're saying about Bernie Madoff's autobiography itself, but strongly state that it is not analogous to this situation.
So if your 'what about' was a total tangent, I agree with your post. If you were trying to use it for an argument by analogy, I do not agree with that argument.
> You assume the reason someone used such language was because they simply disagreed.
More that they lack empathy! The comparison accused of being 'disingenuous' is not an inherently ridiculous one. All it takes is strongly valuing the second amendment to make that comparison. It's not in the same ballpark as a modest proposal. Anyone who honestly believes that the statement is far from a rational argument is not even trying to understand.
2-3mm restraining/protection order requests are made per year in the US (often as boilerplate in divorce filings). Many are bogus.
If you don't drop it he'll start to harass you, to goad you into stepping over a line that he can then use as an excuse to up the ante, as it were.
It's best to just move on and realize you can't actually speak like a normal human being on these boards.
OTOH, I value actual discourse over politeness. But dang decided that person didn't need to be on HN.
But thank you for the assumptions, I appreciate them.
It’s very hard on an online forum to know if two people engaging in a debate have a shared intention in their communication. I trust dang to have a holistic view of good and bad behavior on HN.
I upvoted your comment, because you implicitly raise a very popular, and I believe very dangerous point: That results justify taking away rights. Dangerous, because the 2nd amendment is not the only one that can be sacrificed for safety.
While there's a gray area where there can be disagreement as to whether it is sufficient justification, after a certain point, pragmatism must prevail. Using the 2nd amendment as example, lets say we allow guns and rifles. And grenades? RPGs? Tanks? Chemical weapons (nerve gas, not pepper spray)? Biological weapons (smallpox, not guard dogs)? The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a bioengineered plague, is a good guy with a bioengineered plague?
It should always be ignored. If the states want to ban people from having tanks and jet fighters, they can adopt a new amendment. There's already a process to account for these types of things.
Yes. Maybe not simply video but what about a deep-fake video designed to deceive people that is indistinguishable from a genuine video? At some point unique cases arise that require careful judgement. This is what the judicial system is for, to provide "judgement" on things which were not anticipated by the law.
Sometimes those unique cases were only once unique but become ubiquitous due to changes in technology, geography, climate, or society.
right to privacy is an example. There's talk about this all over the place but it was only evident that people had an expectation and desire to exercise this right after it started getting abused by technology and technology companies.
The bill of rights contains what it does because the founders had just had experience with many of those rights being curtailed.
Citation needed. There's a constant debate about what the "framers' intent" of any part of Bill of Rights actually were. You say it was to prevent government tyranny (presumably including a future tyrannical U.S. government). I say it was specifically to ensure access to a fighting force specifically to fight the British and foreign threats in order to establish a new government.
>"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights
>"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." - Elbridge Gerry, contributor to the Bill of Rights
>"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton
>"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tench Coxe, delegate to the Continental Congress
Now, let's go to Madison, the father of the Constitution and all that. He firmly opposed a professional (i.e. standing) army when he wrote the constitution. Tool of tyrants, yadda yadda. However, President Madison who exists 30 years in the future, comes out and says "I could never have believed so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force, if I not witnessed the scenes of this day." in response to 2 state militias getting demolished by the British Army.
IDK. They put the 2nd amendment in, and then immediately undermine the philosophical point of governance it's meant to make. Democracy is weird, government is hard, and coming up with 100% accurate statements about the unified sentiments of a group of dozens/hundreds of people from 250 years ago is impossible. I guess that's my point?
That doesn’t follow from this:
“Both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists opposed a standing army and saw it as a tool of oppressors.”
Either you support the 2nd amendment as a means of national defense or your support handing the tools of oppression to the government, per the founding fathers.
No, it became absurd because it's underlying purpose was abandoned and the governments in the US at all levels adopted professional armed internal and external security services, and thebwholet point of having an RKBA to support the viability of well-regulated militias was so that those militias would be what states and the federal government would rely on exclusively, beyond very minimal cadres, for armed security services.
The whole absurd mythology around the RKBA being to provide the ability for citizens to provide a reserve capacity to fight the professional Government forces in the event the government becomes tyrannical is a product of trying to rationalize the amendment once it's underlying premise has been abandoned.
> you can't carry an RPG or a machine gun or most kinds of arms that have been invented subsequently to it's introduction.
I'm not convinced there is a fundamental reason why bearing most modern heavy weapons within reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions is incompatible with public safety; clearly “carry everything everywhere” maximalism isn't, but then that's never been understood by the courts to be the scope of the RKBA even when it concerns whatever weapons the court felt were within it's coverage.
e.g. Free movement across the US was fine while it was on foot, horseback, or even train, but once commercial flight allowed for coast-to-coast movement in a couple of hours one can't apply the same rights.
You actually can, subject to local regulations, and it is permitted in some States. An American can own a ballistic missile if they register it and store it safely. Even in the 1990s, buying a truckload of high explosives was cash and carry.
Most Americans are surprised to the extent this is true because, as a practical matter, it has never been evident in most of the country. Just because you legally can does not mean anyone exercises that right, outside of very rare outliers with money to burn.
The most effective ways of fighting a modern military are bombs (IEDs), air superiority, and nuclear deterrence.
This really isn't true. Look up Destructive Devices and the sale listings for tanks and jets.
i.e "the kind of explosives most non-experts in non-military settings are best served by are free to use for personal use (state law notwithstanding)"
I see it's already been addressed, but private citizens owned warships, cannon, artillery pieces, and even semi-automatic rifles at the time the second amendment was written.
Compare it to the 'do no harm' in medicine: say a doctor kills a healthy patient, so that his organs can save five others. At first, many lives are saved, but when this becomes widespread, how long until no-one dares come near a hospital? Or how likely is a patient to admit to having suicidal thoughts, if it results in police going through their private home, confiscating guns, or even committing them for their own good?
Absolutist, 'ideological' positions such as do no harm, and doctor/lawyer-patient/client confidentiality, are important guards against unwanted second-order effects.
Other provisions are less loosey-goosey. The first and second amendments are categorical prohibitions. You can’t establish a national religion even if you think the results will be tremendously beneficial. The taxation clause is similarly clear. We needed an amendment to create the income tax, even though it was necessary to a modern state.
I'll never understand how a significant amount of the population can entertain the idea that "gun rights" are central to liberty, or that unlimited liberty above long term survival of the species is somehow desirable.
The constitutionality of a law does not hinge on it's effectiveness.
I haven't formed an opinion as to whether red flag laws are constitutional or whether they are or are not similar to watch lists, but that's a terrible reason to suggest they are dissimilar.
No, it says exactly that.
It is very different than saying “If a law restricting a right is effective, it is Constitutional”, which is not the same as “to restrict a right, it must be effective” (one states a sufficient condition, the other a necessary one.) Nevertheless,being effective is a relevant differentiator between one proposed restriction and another that explains why they might be seen differently Constitutionally, as while a law which is effective at serving some government interest may be unconstitutional, one which is not is almost by definition is not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest.
But the comment I was replying to made a very different and I think highly indefensible argument: That the difference between red flag laws and no fly lists was the former was more effective.
It's pretty clearly the case that a process where the individual is not involved up front but retains the ability to challenge an unfavorable outcome can, for some things, be the process that is Constitutionally due. It's less clear exactly what the boundaries are for that, because the Constitution doesn't really explicit provide rules for determining what process is due for any particular action, leaving it in practice for courts to evolve standards.
well intentioned, ripe for abuse, unconstitutional, requires due process to remove.
Does this mean that you agree with them and are still willing to forego due process because of the purported benefits you list?
There hasn't been a test of the constitutionality of red flag laws with regards to red flag laws. However there is clearly a "compelling government interest" and it could be argued that it is the least restrictive in order achieve this goal.
Prison time is temporary, so in order to remove your incarceration all that is needed is the passage of time, and then you're free!
That's totally BS and everyone knows it. Nobody ever got back something that was taken by police without fighting an uphill legal battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saenz_v._Roe
> Justice Stevens, writing for the majority, found that although the "right to travel" was not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the concept was "firmly embedded in our jurisprudence."
As evidence of how these can be so easily abused, I present that time the government prevented an American citizen from entering the country to testify in a trial involving her mother against the Government about being on the No Fly list!: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131208/00164525497/witne... or https://papersplease.org/wp/2013/12/07/no-fly-trial-day-5-pa... or https://www.courthousenews.com/government-secrecy-vexes-judg...
This punts the question. What is imprisonment if not a restriction on free movement and association?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-5/a...
If you want one thing protected because it's a constitutional right, you sort of have to support all of them. You can't really pick and chiose with respect to their sanctity. I've found it to be a good position because it annoys both the left and the right on a regular basis. In reigns in both sides a little, and I think that's a good thing.