Re:Carbon dioxide now more than 50% higher than pre-industri...
by giantg2 on Monday June 06, 2022 @11:06AM
(#31641432)
Generally people call things rights even if they are technically privileges. People do that all the time with "right to drive" and others. Even rights can be taken away by the government. It seems that driving as it is treated now is consistent with other many rights when it comes to restrictions and removal of those rights/privileges. There's really no distinction necessary in the context of this discussion given that the function similarly.
"2) my claim was about the justification that people offer for their claimed rights, not the rights themselves."
The definition that you provided says nothing about justification being a part of something being extreme.
"Our collective decisions to keep driving today don't have the same effect on our psyches"
That's because driving is not extreme. It's considered a moderate position and people accept compromises on it. Even the people that say it's a right accept some level of restrictions such as traffic laws, at least from a standpoint of not wanting to be punished.
Simply wanting the freedom to move about by driving is not an extreme position.
I don't dispute that, but 1) you used the word "privilege" rather than "right" which really changes the tenor of the claim. "Driving is a privilege, not a right" implies that the "privilege" can be revoked while the (putative) right could not. And 2) my claim was about the justification that people offer for their claimed rights, not the rights themselves.
> Just because someone claims an improper reason, doesn't mean their conclusion is wrong
I didn't say it was. Just because someone is an extremist doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong. The problem with extremism is not that it always leads to wrong conclusions or even to bad outcomes. The problem is that it makes it a lot harder to correct errors.
This is particularly relevant in the case of climate change. When the Taliban chops people's heads off it produces an immediate visceral reaction in most people, which helps motivate them to act. Our collective decisions to keep driving today don't have the same effect on our psyches, even if a lot more people are going to end up dead in the future as a result.