So many people are okay with unconstitutional things as long as it supports their side and beliefs.
It is genuinely unsettling. Personally, I don’t care about the underlying thing the protests are about, the important aspect is that if you allow unconstitutional government action like this, eventually it will be used against you. A decade from now we have no idea what the political climate will be. If the precedent is allowed to be set, there’s a good chance the power will be used against your cause in the future.
> Personally, I don’t care about the underlying thing the protests are about, the important aspect is that if you allow unconstitutional government action like this, eventually it will be used against you.
Words won't protect you. Precedent won't protect you. Guns won't protect you. If you are in a society where others want you surveiled or dead or removed or heavily restricted, and you're outnumbered, it's already too late. As you say, for many people already "Constitutional" is just a weapon to be wielded when it suits them and ignored when it doesn't. But the reason why that's bad needs to be much more than "because this piece of paper says so," it needs to be "because these are things we all agree are important."
Yes, absolutely. And what's changed is that we now have a massive number of people (on both sides) who no longer agree that these things are important, or at least who think that other things are more important - so much more important that "these things" (constitutional protections) can be circumvented when they get in the way of the "more important things".
Constitutional protections are largely running on institutional inertia at the moment. That's good - the institutions were supposed to do that - but it won't last forever.
It's not that the sides no longer agree that these things are important. They do. The problem is they don't believe they agree that they're important. They believe the other side has abandoned the constitution, and they know that puts their own side at a disadvantage if they stay with it.
The two sides are so frightened of each other at this point that all assumptions of good faith are off the table. So, note for next version of the constitution: Make sure the first amendment establishes strict separation of speech and money.
Money vs speech is a good example, I think, of people not agreeing that these things are important or not. And that the "Constitution" part is not the important part.
How would you get a Constitution to separate money when there are so many well-funded pushes for exactly the opposite, resulting in the situation where the courts say money needs to be protected?
Before you can do that you need to get everyone on board with the dangers of money in politics, and then if you can do that, you've solved the problem because now your judges won't interpret "protection of speech" as "protection of buying political influence."
> How would you get a Constitution to separate money
Not that I put a lot of effort into this formulation, but how about something like
> A well-informed and reasonable public, being necessary to the security of a working democracy, the right of the people to free and quick access to public information must not be abridged, but protected.
And then back that up with a multi-layer prescriptive dictionary to minimize judicial reinterpretation. The terms "right of the people", "free and quick access", "public information" would defined in layer N, while the terms "right", "people", "free", "quick", "access", "public", and "information" would be defined in some layers N - M.
We've had some centuries now to get better at technical writing, language engineering, and lexicography, to say nothing of IT. We should use them.
When you're talking about undermining bodily autonomy are you talking about Republican states banning abortion or Democrat states compelling vaccination?
I've pondered this before. If a thief tells you that a all men deserve a right to own their own possessions and be secure in their ownership. Would you say he was wrong? Sure, he's a hypocrite but is it not true what the thief said?
just scare people enough and they will turn in their family members. Especially if you dress it up in being the right moral thing to do. we were so close during the lockdowns, one step away
I don't think that's what they're saying. I interpret that they believe the issues being faced during the pandemic hysteria weren't ones worthy of turning in family.
We weren't talking here about the pandemic OR turning in family so it's a confusing thing to bring up unless painting it as some sort of example of something where "government" should always come second?
This is a narrow framing. We were talking about "a society where others want you surveiled or dead or removed or heavily restricted" (emphasis mine). Bringing up recent events which exposed this side of society is not so off-topic.
Have you turned in your family members before? Just curious what it would take for you to do that? Jay walking or murder? I know in Quebec they had a curfew, and neighbours were ratting out neighbours.
I come from the position that lockdowns did more harm than good. The damage to the economy and personal freedom, and eroding trust in government.
You're asking me what crime would be enough for me but not answering my question of if there's one that's enough for you? Cause for sure, murder. Quite likely others. It scales with family distance too of course.
You're reaping the dividends of a much, much higher level of public education which I don't know when we'll see in a country as vast, federated, and new worldy as the U.S. :c
The reality is that guns will protect you because 1) the sheer count of citizens is substantially and necessarily higher than military, and 2) citizens themselves are a critical part of the spoils of war. Poll Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria for more information. Disarming is an essential predicate for coercion.
Chenoweth et al did a study of over 600 movements since 1900, and found those that used violence/force succeeded about 25% of the time, and those that did not succeeded in their goals about 50% of the time. The list is in Appendix A of:
Americans learn the wrong lessons: the War of Independence wasn't won on the battle fields, but in the years leading up to it in the change of thinking (Madison wrote a letter to Jefferson on this; Chenoweth discusses in the above book).
Can this be a case of Simpson’s paradox? A movement will not resort to violence if there are non-violent ways for it to meet their goals. Violence is used in desperation so it would make sense that movements on track to not succeed would resort to it.
> Can this be a case of Simpson’s paradox? A movement will not resort to violence if there are non-violent ways for it to meet their goals.
According to the research cited in the book, the more violence the movement does, the more its chances drop.
If there is a movement where the 'core' is non-violent, but there are some 'adjacent' groups that use it (even against the wishes of the core), the the odds of success drop.
The reasoning seems to be that most movements start small, and the main way to success is to get more and more people on your side (or at least not against you). The moment any kind of violence starts occurring you start turning people off.
The primary thing that keeps dictators in power is small number of allies, who help them control information (mostly the message "rebellion will be supressed"). Guns are only a tool, without the operators, they are useless.
In contrast, democracy is protected by transparency, not guns. Guns are required only to the point where there are people who suppress transparency with threat of violence, which is usually only organized crime or foreign state actors.
Additionally, I find it a bit concerning that people are ok with violating one principle or right on the basis that it’s fighting against another violation.
If we identify A, B, C, and D as potential rights, and you and I agree on rights A and B, but we disagree on the principles of C and D, then it’s ok that my side violates your rights A and B because if we can’t agree on all of them, then you deserve none.
It’s the kind of thing that ensures that compromise, understanding, and legislation won’t happen by way of conversation or respectful debate, but instead by name calling and force.
Its always staggering to think people forget we only have a two party system. You'd think that would keep both parties in check from abusing their powers considering at some point the party you went after and did suspect things in order to win a few elections? Well, they're going to be back in power and what do you think they're going to do? The same thing you did.
I feel like we're currently in this death spiral where its just a never ending war to get the other parties people out of power by any means necessary. While the entire time, its the people who have to suffer through it and pick sides.
It appears the centrist moderate has evaporated from American politics - which to me was the last group of voters who kept both sides honest. There is no compromise either, its just a scorched earth approach now where nobody wins.
>I feel like we're currently in this death spiral where its just a never ending war to get the other parties people out of power by any means necessary. While the entire time, its the people who have to suffer through it and pick sides.
I feel ostracized by both sides. It's maddening. Earlier today someone asked if PBS was left leaning. How low have we come that we watch something like PBS looking for "Left" or "Right" leaning views to confirm our bias and not just watching it to be informed.
PBS news hour is pretty moderate IMHO. But still won't stop people from seeing a story that makes them feel bad and labeling it left or right.
I think it only means "only two parties to buy." They agree whenever the money says to and disagree about real issues that are distractions from what the money wants.
The problem is not a lack of meeting in the middle on culture war issues. The problem is that no one is even allowed to oppose the money. Not really. And when they try to, they're not considered "centrist moderates," but "far right" or "far left."
In my experience on social media, this sort of thinking is typically classified as "both sidesing" (or an assertion of "false equivalence", etc etc etc), and is considered to be highly inappropriate.
And the people that say these things are often otherwise clearly intelligent, it is less common on HN perhaps, but certainly not uncommon.
I think the bigger knee jerk reaction is the need to assign everybody to one side or the other, to the point that nobody perceives any outgroup moderates; anytime they encounter someone with a moderately out-group opinion, they assume the rest of the opinions held by that person must be the most extreme implied by their leaning. Thus people become entrenched in their position as it appears that the out-group is becoming more extreme, ironically leading to a feedback loop that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of increasing polarization. Or at least, it creates the perception of increased polarization, which is what causes the problems.
I like to suggest that you should imagine the most absurd caricature of a member of the out-group that you can think of - whether that's a "leftist" or a "MAGA republican" - and then ask yourself how many people you actually know who fit that description. Are you creating a scarecrow that's an amalgam of all the viewpoints you oppose?
> whether that's a "leftist" or a "MAGA republican"
Funny enough, there are not symmetrical. MAGA republican is a rather specific extreme subgroup with own set of believes and symbols - red Maga hat. Moderate Republicans do not self identify as Maga.
Meanwhile, "leftist" is rather large group with no real definition. It includes people who are vaguely for social system or just democrats or just don't treat LGBT as enemies. It is roughly anyone left of right wing.
But, in a need to create symmetry, you write about these two as if they were the same. And that is exactly an issue with knee jerk centrists. They end up being damagingly and unfairly wrong in their assessments.
I don't think it's it's just a need, under certain topics many people are simply not able to do otherwise than assume... In these cases, the reality they perceive seems to be almost entirely driven by imagination, and any suggestion that the claims may(!) not actually true is simply rejected outright - if you take them at their word it is literally impossible.
Is the real split in this country between liberals and conservatives?
Or is about whether the political contest we observe is mostly genuine or mostly constructed?
Are we watching UFC or WWF?
UFC gives the impression of an authentic contest with real outcomes while WWF is generally understood and portrayed as a form of theater. People who identify in the liberal cluster tend to take the media narratives quite seriously, and despise people who show suspicion of popular media. They call them "conspiracy theorists" pejoratively.
The conservative cluster types are more widely ranging. Many have no objection to individual freedom and expression around things like abortion, drugs, or sexuality because they believe in individual freedom and responsibility: you can do what you like until it harms others AND it isn't my job to help you execute or recover from whatever silly thing you choose to undertake, I can do it if I choose.
This is likely the dominant conservative ideology, and yet it is virtually never portrayed in the media. What we see instead of a paternalistic Christianity presented as conservativism.
Perhaps that is why conservatives tend to distrust the media?
It seems to me that there may have been some sort of a strange, unrealized cultural change in Americans over the last few decades. I seem to recall that the abstract notion of freedom of speech/assembly/etc was considered a VERY big deal by all or at least most Americans. However, this seems to have morphed into people now holding most of their ideological beliefs at specific concrete, object level issue level.
Assuming there is some truth to this, the rise of the internet and a daily deluge of culture war content seems like it could easily explain the transformation.
IMO it's because everyone is in a panic about the other side. One side believes that the other side is "grooming and sterilizing children" while the other side believes that they are working to "replace democracy with fascism". In turn both sides get more extreme and work each other more into a frenzy as extremists on each side will in fact say outrageous shit. Abstract values like "free speech" get lost in the war.
Edit: even on here we have a comment openly calling for fascism (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35950813) and I'm sure others attacking the Christian roots of US society in comments here makes people on the other side who see that as the core of their value system feel equally threatened.
You have highlighted the core basis of Foucault's Boomarang: it doesn't matter the target of oppresive technologies and practices. Sooner or later, their scope will be turned on you.
Unfortunately, we are about 10 lines into that, and the election of 1 president and 1 key turn from the rest.
To emphasize this, if Facebook knows who practically everyone is in the US (indirectly or directly), then sure as fucking hell the government does. All it takes is one guy that wants to do the McCarthy "unAmerican" bullshit and has enough to do it and the US Government will know EXACTLY who to target.
> If the precedent is allowed to be set, there’s a good chance the power will be used against your cause in the future.
I've become deeply cynical about this argument. The Constitution is a weapon, used by the powerful against the powerless. I think it's pretty clear that in many cases the Supreme Court decides cases on purely ideological grounds, then goes back and creates post hoc justifications from precedent and the text.
Public opinion is useless here - it doesn't matter whether people are "OK" with something. What will you do, elect a new Supreme Court?
It is because my side is made up only of good virtuous people who really want to do what's best and only want the power to do good things, and the other side is full of evil horrible people that want to bring about oppression and sadness my favorite media outlet proved it.
Even with a constitutional convention, you still need 3/4 of the states (38 of them) to ratify anything, which I don't think is feasible today. Hell, I'm not even sure the delegates to a hypothetical constitutional convention could even agree enough on what to propose for ratification.
I don't think my political enemies need any kind of precedent to piss on my rights. If one doesn't exist before they take power, they'll happily establish it.
> abortion protesters have a habit of assassinating doctors that perform abortions
What’s the prevalence of this occurring? Wikipedia calls out 7 in the US [0] with the most recent in 2015. This this seems like profiling protesters as assassins is about as rational as profiling members of a certain religion as terrorists.
> What’s the prevalence of this occurring? Wikipedia calls out 7 in the US
Your very own link says 11:
> In the United States, violence directed towards abortion providers has killed at least eleven people
Also, perhaps not assassination but violence makes things look far worse than you handwaving it as a non-issue:
> there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, 13 wounded,100 butyric acid stink bomb attacks, 373 physical invasions, 41 bombings, 655 anthrax threats, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers. Between 1977 and 1990, 77 death threats were made, with 250 made between 1991 and 1999. Attempted murders in the U.S. included: in 1985 45% of clinics reported bomb threats, decreasing to 15% in 2000. One fifth of clinics in 2000 experienced some form of extreme activity.
> property crimes committed against abortion providers have included 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidents of trespassing, 1264 incidents of vandalism, and 100 attacks with butyric acid ("stink bombs").
Thanks for the correction, you’re right. I miscited the number in the 90s with the total number. 11 seems the most accurate for deaths of abortion healthcare workers.
> hand waving
Not at all. I think this is a serious issue and we should have zero murders. My point is that saying abortion protesters are assassins (or even violent) is not an accurate assumption based on the very low level of violence to protesters.
I think we should use language and logic accurately even if we disagree with the cause. It’s not right to lump all abortion protestors with the criminals who harm healthcare workers just like it’s not right to lump all BLM protestors with rioters who burn stuff down or all followers of Islam with terrorists. The rates of non-violent to violent are different among all three groups but all extremely low. I’ll defend all three groups even though I’m against the first, for the second, and ambivalent to the third.
But I don’t want to fall into the logical trap of getting sloppy with my generalizations because I want to stop a certain behavior.
What's interesting about this branch in the discussion is that assassinating anyone and firebombing anything are illegal criminal acts. The underlying reason should not matter to anyone. We already have laws to deal with this.
The problem surfaces when one ideological faction is in power and chooses not to apply the laws --or be lenient-- to people who happen to be on their side of ideological spectrum.
That's what drives a society into what is sometimes referred to as "banana republic" territory. Tolerating this behavior does not result in regulating society towards good outcomes. It's a feedback loop that gets more and more extreme with time. This is not how you build a society where people with different ideas can coexist in peace.
The abortion debate is tough, and agreement --or a middle ground-- may never be reached. However, criminal behavior from any faction in the spectrum of ideas on this topic should not be tolerated at all. It should be punished to the full extent of current law, regardless of who is in power and who might be committing the criminal acts. And, more importantly, those in power --and the media-- must publicly and clearly characterize all criminal acts for what they are.
In this case, the relevant fact is pro-abortion protestors have a habit of firebombing things.
> Twitter, alerted a federal law enforcement agency to pro-abortion protests and rallies in the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, according to documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request.
> In this case, the relevant fact is pro-abortion protestors have a habit of firebombing things.
Which is ridiculous, given that there have been two fire bombings claimed by pro-choice groups since 2010, one in NY and another in WI, vs. eighteen committed by anti-abortion groups. That, and the fact that anti-abortion violence is fairly common in the US, compared to pro-choice violence [0]
While not insignificant overall, they are a drop in the bucket compared to violence against pro-choice.
This is also a report on "vandalism", and I think we could all agree that aggravated battery and murder, are worse crimes, of which none has been committed by pro-choice groups.
It is not an unknown fact that right-wing and religious violence are a way bigger issue than any other form of domestic terrorism in the US. It has been like this for several decades now.
That's not what "state sponsored" means. (I mean, yes, technically the Vatican is a state. It's still ridiculous to label everything Catholic as "state sponsored".)
Which also seems like a reasonable reason for the FBI to get involved. The discussion tends to veer into "this is politically motivated" territory, when the law enforcement angle is more in the "preventing death and destruction" category.
> A decade from now we have no idea what the political climate will be.
When I was young, due to my family's business, I lived in multiple cultures outside of the US. I have personally experienced precisely the kind of political shift you mention in your post as a teenager, living in Argentina. I am referring to the military take-over.
Imagine a world where the police or military thugs can kick down your front door in the middle of the night and take some or all of your family, never to be seen again. Imagine a world where, rock and roll was declared illegal and you could be arrested, tortured or worse if found "guilty" --not by a jury, by a single thug-- of anything remotely associated with it. Or how about being in a bus going somewhere, the bus gets pulled over and they beat the shit out of a bunch of people, just because they can (and justify it in some form).
If you were known to not be in alignment with the prevailing ideology your life was worth nothing. Thousands died. Thousands disappeared.
I had the personal experience one evening of getting pulled over by a couple of police cars while just walking home with friends after going to the movies. They threw us (and I do mean threw us, violently) up against the wall, harassed the shit out of us, slapped a couple of us around, took whatever money we had and sent us on our way. We were LUCKY that it didn't go beyond that.
Americans are alarmingly ignorant of history outside their own borders. Our system of education is so one-sided, in an ideological sense, that kids leaving high school, and, in particular, college, become adults with truly distorted and troubling ideological programming.
You talk to ANY immigrant who came from anywhere where the ideologies promoted by our universities and mass media are the "law of the land" and you are far more likely to get a treatise on how horrific this is rather than enthusiastic support for it. This ideology has proven to be a generational disaster across the world and across time. And yet, we, collectively, have allowed this to happen.
> So many people are okay with unconstitutional things as long as it supports their side and beliefs.
This is a major point that, once again, isn't taught in schools. The consequences will not be favorable over the long term. The idea that you should protect the rights of those you do not agree with is so fundamentally unique that it is rare, very rare, around the world. The US, in that sense, was unique. I say "was" because, today, I believe this is history. The fact that university students will riot when someone their puppeteers do not agree with comes to give a presentation at their school is evidence enough of the intolerant society we have manage to "educate" ourselves into.
In this twisted world, the reality is that those espousing such things as tolerance, equity, freedoms, etc. actually, through their actions, actually do the opposite and represent the opposite: intolerance, non-equity, a desire and willingness to curtail freedoms, etc.
We have managed to create an entire generation of adults full of hatred and intolerance.
This is not a good outcome. This is the kind of thing that, in the chess game of a globally competitive world, your enemies absolutely rejoice about. While the US is busy polarizing its own population --alarmingly, through education-- actors around the world spend ever day placing one foot in front of the other. The result of this massive lack of foresight will not be pretty.
> It is genuinely unsettling.
Yes. I'll add, scary, disappointing, unproductive and dangerous. I do realize that a good percentage of the HN college-educated audience is in the grips of ideology that was pounded into their heads. It's Plato's Allegory of the Cave. All you can do is try to lead them out of the shadows. Yet, they have to be the ones open to viewing the world with their own eyes, rather than the shadows they were presented with.
I would highly recommend watching a series on Netflix:
"BREAK IT ALL: The History of Rock in Latin America"
One of the very interesting things about this series is that they actually explore the political shifts you hinted at in your comment. They, of course, cover this in the context of Rock, but also provide a generalized view. This kind of thing has happened in nearly every Latin American country. It is disturbing that Americans don't know this history well. If they did, many of the political actors and most of the militant academics in this country would be laughed off the stage. There is HISTORY to prove that these people are not only demented, they are actually dangerous to society.
> I do realize that a good percentage of the HN college-educated audience is in the grips of ideology that was pounded into their heads.
That stereotypes / strawpersons and dismisses everyone with a different perspective before they even speak (and yet complain about polarization). That's a good sign that you have no idea what they're talking about, not being exposed to other points of view.
The oppression you discuss has long existed in the US: There are groups of people in the US that have long suffered the same treatment you did with police, such as Black people; that's the source of the term 'black lives matter' - it's saying 'our lives actually matter like everyone else's; you can't just take them with impunity'. Now New York officials can summarily declare someone to have mental illness and involuntarily detain them - one person was murdered and much of the country praises the murderer. LGBTQ people are widely denied rights and are subject to lawless attacks and abuse, including by government. Dissenting and critical views are outlawed in many public arenas, such as schools, across large parts of the country.
It's that oppression that many people in colleges and elsewhere are working hard to change. You are actually on the same side, if you wouldn't let the reactionaries (who are simply anti-liberal) divide you - that's how they hold on to their oppressive power.
>> I do realize that a good percentage of the HN college-educated audience is in the grips of ideology that was pounded into their heads.
> So you pidgeon-hole and dismiss everyone who might have a different perspective before they even speak
Oh, no, you are wrong. They speak plenty. Just try posting even moderate perspectives here on HN and see what reactions you get. Facts are, well, facts.
Try it. Go ahead. Create a throw-away account and comment on this thread with even a moderate view or maybe a slightly right-of-center view. No need to go to the extremes. Do that and then watch what happens. It will be educational.
> There are groups of people in the US that have long suffered the same treatment you did with police
Of course, and that's not even remotely acceptable. That does not mean that a moderate ideological perspective is wrong and one has to go full tilt militant in the other direction.
Do you even realize that probably somewhere around 90% of the people in the US (and likely almost any society), pretty much want the same things?
What are these things?
Without attempting to make an exhaustive list: Provide for their families, have a nice peaceful life, receive and offer tolerance, coexist with everyone else, live in a safe society rules by sensible laws, have a future, have opportunities, care for others in need, be socially tolerant and fiscally responsible, etc.
There's a very small minority (far less than 10%) of society who, well, fuck it up for everyone else by becoming militant at the extremes.
Take college professors.
In round numbers, there are about 300K in the US. That's 0.1% of the population. They have access to around twenty million students. That's about 7% of the US population. That is an incredible force multiplier. If that small group of people is ideologically militant --left, right, it does not matter-- you have the makings of a societal disaster. Just 0.1% of the population has --and tends to exercise-- incredible power with long-term consequences.
Most people are in some middle-of-the-road reasonable stance on most issues. That's the aspect of society that those intensely indoctrinated (on any side) cease to understand. Indoctrination makes people see the world only in extreme terms. Societies do not benefit from this at all.
In other words, your neighbor isn't a hateful, criminal, stupid, fire-breathing monster just because they voted Democrat or Republican. Thinking that way is tragically wrong and seriously misplaced.
> Dissenting and critical views are outlawed in many public arenas, such as schools, across large parts of the country.
Yes, exactly. And that is not acceptable, in any form, whether the ideology leans right or left.
The more you polarize societies the farther they are willing to go when they take power.
I sometimes see it in terms of Control System Theory.
This kind of polarization leads to unstable systems. Unstable systems produce violent oscillations, which typically result in failure.
While it is unlikely that society can approach something like a critically-damped system, that should be the (asymptotic) objective. This means balance, not radicalization. When over 90% of the people working at a social media platform (implementing the systems and rules) are ideologically uniform --faction does not matter-- the outcome will not be of benefit to society. That control system will peg to one limit and result in violent ever-increasing oscillations.
The solution to this problem starts with education. That 0.1% of society should not have the power to indoctrinate tens of millions of people over decades.
This is funny coming from somebody who said "The fact that university students will riot when someone their puppeteers do not agree with comes to give a presentation at their school" is funny. The number of disinvitations is in the tens per year, out of thousands of degree granting institutions and roughly zero riots.
No, I am not. This is real. The other thing that happens is brutally simple to understand: They just don't hold events featuring people with contrasting opinions. That's how you achieve "disinvitations is in the tens per year".
A parallel example having nothing to do with universities: The easiest way for a company to improve their numbers is to fire thousands of people. Their earnings per share metric will improve almost instantly. Yet, it doesn't mean they went out and got a bunch of new business...they manipulated the landscape to create a result.
I am not making shit up. You are ignoring reality and failing to engage in basic critical thinking. If you don't invite anyone from "the other side"...
"The students will riot but I cannot point to meaningful numbers of examples but trust me it's totally a liberal conspiracy" is not a focus on factual discourse.
> "The students will riot but I cannot point to meaningful numbers of examples but trust me it's totally a liberal conspiracy" is not a focus on factual discourse.
I'm sorry, why do you think you can make up shit I did not say and then use it in support of your claim?
> Conservatives speak at universities all the time.
I am not a Republican (Conservative) or Democrat (Liberal). I try very hard to observe reality from as neutral a perch as possible. I don't always succeed. Most topics of any importance cannot be reduced to single variables, which means they are nearly impossible to treat fairly in the context of these types of discussions. This is particularly true when some choose to resort to attacks rather than seeking to have a respectful conversation and conversation where everyone might learn something.
Saying that our universities are in the grips of leftist ideology isn't making shit up. It's verifiable reality. Has been so for a very long time. The same can be said of our mass media.
You might not like these objective observations. That does not mean they are not real. That also does not mean they are causing harm.
Simple rule: Universities must not identify with political parties, create ideological monocultures and promote/teach ideological extremes.
When this rule is violated, they become centers of hatred and indoctrination. That applies to ANY SIDE. Almost anyone familiar with US universities can rattle-off schools who lean left and right, and even rate them as hard-left and hard-right.
Either universities are centers for ideological warfare, we accept that and hope that balance is somehow magically produced by having equal portions of the population influenced by each side, or we do our best to reform systems in order to create balance.
I think graduating mentally and culturally balanced adults is vitally important. That is not what we do today. The system is solidly tilted in one direction.
One of the most interesting interviews out there on aspects of this subject is with Nial Ferguson, Historian, Oxford and Stanford lecturer (and more):
May I remind of you what President Barack Obama said when referring to the incident involving Condoleezza Rice:
"I don't think it's a secret that I disagree with many of the policies of Dr. Rice and the previous administration. But the notion that this community or this country would be better served by not hearing a former secretary of state or not hearing what she had to say — I believe that's misguided," Obama said. "I don't think that's how democracy works best, when we're not even willing to listen to each other."
"If you disagree with somebody, bring them in and ask them tough questions. Hold their feet to the fire, make them defend their positions. ... Don't be scared to take somebody on. Don't feel like you got to shut your ears off because you're too fragile and somebody might offend your sensibilities. Go at them if they're not making any sense."
He didn't say that because we don't have this problem at US universities. We do. It's very serious. And it was brave of him to take that position and highlight this is not good for society.
Without much effort you can find dozens of articles, from outfits like CNN, Washington Post, State Bar Associations and more discussing the problem in very real terms.
It's a matter of definition, but you are taking a conservative position, repeating conservative talking points, in a modern conservative style (aggression, lack of evidence, etc.).
While you laugh, watch the interview with Nial Ferguson and you might learn a thing or two. I don't want to guess as to why reality escapes your conclusions. Are you going to say that places like Berkeley are balanced? Yes, that's an extreme example, of course. Academia, in this country, is decidedly on the left. The people they graduate are deeply influenced by this.
Here, let's use another metric to get a sense of the ideological leanings of our STEM graduates.
> While the US is busy polarizing its own population --alarmingly, through education-- actors around the world spend ever day placing one foot in front of the other. The result of this massive lack of foresight will not be pretty.
This is how it's always been, it's not new. Just look at the 1960's in America. I'm also not even sure how much of it's the systems in question and how much is the people in question using extreme confirmation bias to polarize themselves, in some cases.
Much of this is the age of the people in question, IMO. Whether they're at college or diver deeper into some social media, youth (late teens and early twenties) is when radicalization happens, whether they're been taught be an institution or not. That leads me to believe that while institutions may be part of the problem, there's something larger that goes on at that age which many different competing interests capitalize on to their own benefit.
Edit: That said, while it's not new, it does appear to be cyclical, and I'm not going to argue against it seeming to have a resurgence.
> The idea that you have to take courses such as "Young Karl Marx" at a university in the US in order to graduate should be alarming to anyone who understands world history. I am not making this up. It happened to my son at a major US university
With a decade on this site, you have to know this kind of inflammatory and difficult-to-believe statement needs a citation.
I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I'm pretty close to university policies and "major" US universities in general have broad requirements that can generally be satisfied by a wide(-ish) selection of courses. I have to assume there were some specific constraints in your particular case that were omitted to make this argument seem stronger.
> What the fuck does that shit have to do with Computer Science in the first place?
Universities are not trade schools. If you expect a trade school, go to a trade school. If you expect education long many topics, with a focus on one, then go to a university. Worried that many places of business prefer university graduates to trade school graduates? Maybe there's a reason they prefer to hire from those pools. Maybe there's a bunch of small reasons that combine in the the status quo.
> The idea that you have to take courses such as "Young Karl Marx" at a university in the US in order to graduate should be alarming to anyone who understands world history.
To me, that's no more alarming than history courses in high school going into the motivations, both economical and and otherwise, which caused the U.S. civil war. There is a benefit to understanding alternative points of view, even if you don't share them. Some people, of course, will share them. I don't think that's a valid reason not to discuss those topics critically, it might make it an even better reason to discuss them, and where they worked and where they didn't.
> where you can spend a year becoming an expert in the Communist Manifesto and other related topics. Which society do you think will generate better outcomes?
Hopefully anyone that spent a year becoming an expert in communism would at least have learned that it's mostly failed, multiple times and in multiple places, and that pure communism is not something we can realistically assume would work?
Similarly to anyone in college that looks at capitalism closely will see that we don't have a system of pure capitalism, and that what makes our system work is less ideological view and more nuanced approach that uses capitalism and free markets where they work, buttresses that with regulation where there's incentives that are against the public interest, and sprinkles in socialism where it is the better fit.
Not letting people discuss this and instead insisting that that no, communism can't be given any mental space when to accurately describe the reality of the system we currently have requires knowing how it affected us throughout history strikes me as somewhat shortsighted.
> Not letting people discuss this and instead insisting that that no, communism can't be given any mental space when to accurately describe the reality of the system we currently have requires knowing how it affected us throughout history strikes me as somewhat shortsighted.
Kindly point out where I said that. You can't. Because I did not.
General education is invaluable and good for society. Indoctrination is worthless and detrimental to society.
Topics --all possible topics-- should be covered fairly. We should not be ignorant of society.
However, there is a time and a place for this. Our secondary schools do a horrible job of graduating well-educated young adults. The average US high school graduate comes out with no marketable skills and deep ignorance across a range of topics.
As I mentioned in my other post, I had the experience, as a kid, of living in multiple cultures. As my family travelled back and forth, I would come in and out of the US educational system. The contrast was, well, jarring. I received a classical education outside of the US and what I would call "minimum viable education" in the US public school system. I was reading Plato, Kant and Descartes, while my US counterparts were, well, fucking off.
Today, I have to supplement my kids' education by exposing them to such topics. For example, we recently devoted a whole month to discussing and exploring Descartes' Meditations.
This is stuff that should be covered in high school. Universities should be devoted to what the person wants to study and the professional field they have chosen. This is particularly true in a system where a year of university schooling costs between $30K and $50K.
There are at least two ways to look at this: One, we could graduate people a year earlier --and with far less debt-- if we focused on what matters. The other is to say: If I am going to pay $50K for a year in school, the courses I take outside of those directly related to my major should be my choice. If I do not want to take humanities and focus on another year of specialized engineering coursework, that should be my choice. It's my money.
Last I checked, there are no job postings out there (in tech fields) that list specific non-tech coursework as requirements. It is OK for people to study anything they want outside of their major --with an emphasis on "they"-- not forced. We are making people spend tens of thousands of dollars on stuff that, in most cases, has zero career value.
One might say: Not so, a general education has career value!
Correct. Then, do a good job of delivering as much of that during primary and secondary education. If general education at a university level has value --return on investment-- the MARKET will make that decisions and students will willingly CHOOSE and seek that coursework...because it will be of value to them. And, of course, they could also choose to take those courses any time after graduation as they see fit and as the realities of their career might demand. The market should decide everything outside of core major requirements, it should not be imposed in any way.
> Kindly point out where I said that. You can't. Because I did not.
I interpreted you as being upset that a class about Karl Marx being required, which I interpret as about communism, as being unacceptable. Am I wrong in that assumption? What's your complaint here?
> I was reading Plato, Kant and Descartes, while my US counterparts were, well, fucking off.
> Today, I have to supplement my kids' education by exposing them to such topics.
And you're unhappy about them being exposed to Marx? I'm not sure what your actual complaint is, since you think I didn't address it clearly earlier, but it sure sounds like you want the education system to expose students to only specific works, since you've given examples of what's okay (above) and what isn't (information about Karl Marx).
> Universities should be devoted to what the person wants to study and the professional field they have chosen.
That is not the sole purpose of universities, as much as you want it to be. There's a reason why there's a "general education" part of the curriculum. That's also the part of the curriculum you'll see both classes about Marx and about Descartes, unless you major deals with them specifically.
> There are at least two ways to look at this: One, we could graduate people a year earlier --and with far less debt-- if we focused on what matters. The other is to say: If I am going to pay $50K for a year in school, the courses I take outside of those directly related to my major should be my choice. If I do not want to take humanities and focus on another year of specialized engineering coursework, that should be my choice. It's my money.
There are plenty of schools that function exactly as you want. Trade schools. They teach you a specific trade. There are plenty that do computer science, as well.
Why are you trying to make universities trade schools? Universities are for continuing general education and choosing a focus. As much as you want them to be a trade school, that's not what they are.
> Last I checked, there are no job postings out there (in tech fields) that list specific non-tech coursework as requirements. It is OK for people to study anything they want outside of their major --with an emphasis on "they"-- not forced. We are making people spend tens of thousands of dollars on stuff that, in most cases, has zero career value.
No, but they list four year universities, with the understanding that means you've also gone through the general education portion of the school, and have not failed out of general math and English classes and should have a base level of competency. Those jobs that don't expect that may not require a university.
Knowing that someone is competent enough in the general fields a university requires to be able to communicate in text in long-form has value. It has value in explaining intricate details and concepts to others in a way they can understand, it allows for a base level of knowledge in how to categorize data into a form that may work for documentation. It allows for people to have thought about others that may not have similar life experiences so they can communicate with them more accurately rather than making base assumptions that may be very wrong due to complete inexperience with certain topics.
> . If general education at a university level has value --return on investment-- the MARKET will make that decisions and students will willingly CHOOSE and seek that coursework...because it will be of value to them.
The market very clearly wants college graduates, and college includes general education, so I'm pretty sure the market has spoken. I'm not sure what benefit it does you to completely ignore the evidence at hand because it goes against your view that this education is useless and nobody wants it. Businesses want it, or they would advertise for trade schools or some other equivalent. Students want it because businesses want it (and in some cases because they like the idea of learning more).
The entire market is clearly built around wanting exactly this thing you think has no value and isn't wanted by the market, so I'm very confused by your reasoning.
> I interpreted <snip> which I interpret as <snip> assumption
Right. Interpretation, layered upon interpretation, layered upon assumptions.
That's why people can't have conversations. They hear what they want and read what they want into what others are saying.
My problem isn't at all with a class about XYZ. It's about being FORCED to take a class that has nothing whatsoever to do with the field of study.
It's also about wasting people's time and adding tens of thousands of dollars in debt that will never be useful to them. If this XYZ is useful, by all means, make it available as a degree-enhancing class to be chosen freely and not as a condition for graduation.
If someone just wants to get a bachelors in three years and go to work, they should be able to do it.
This is where European education diverges from the US.
In Europe (and other parts of the world) kids exit high school having covered more material and ready for university. Next, once at Uni, they focus 100% on degree-relevant coursework. No English (language), History or almost anything that isn't relevant to the degree.
They are organized to receive a quality education before university. A bachelors degree in the US is four years, in Europe, typically three.
We make them waste a whole year to make-up for what our secondary schooling failed to deliver. No employer in the STEM fields values this at all.
In this country there's a severe failure to understand that our system of education is seriously broken. A high school graduate should be useful to society right out of school. We graduate ignorant young adults who are barely good enough to stack boxes at a warehouse or make coffee.
I was just in Singapore visiting a friend for couple of weeks. The level of education his 15 year old is receiving in state-run high school is nothing less than mind-blowing when compared to a 15 year old in the US. The system of education in this small country puts the US to absolute shame.
It's embarrassing, really, truly embarrassing.
We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend this isn't happening, or we can be honest in assessing how we have gone wrong and fix it.
Your trade-school vs. university argument is empty. Universities in throughout Europe manage to graduate Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Software Engineers, Biologists and myriad other STEM professionals in three years...because they cut out the bullshit and provide quality education before university.
American universities can be more competitive than European and even Asian ones. The stories of Singaporean uni students going to Stanford on an exchange and getting caught cheating are not rare. It’s a weird contradiction, where we have the worst and best schools at the same time.
I am not talking about competitiveness. I am talking about wasting a year with non-degree coursework and saddling students with tens of thousands of dollars of debt because of it. Coursework that no employer cares about one bit. Coursework that should be covered in high school, preparing young adults for the world --even if they don't go to college.
Are we sitting here pretending that all is well with our system of education? I would find that disturbing.
> I am talking about wasting a year with non-degree coursework and saddling students with tens of thousands of dollars of debt because of it.
I did my post-doc at EPFL, a 3 year university but almost all the CS students would stay in for at least 4 years (and get a 1 year masters). I took 5 years myself to do undergrad in the states, I don't think that one year was a deal breaker either way.
> Coursework that should be covered in high school, preparing young adults for the world --even if they don't go to college.
High schools can't really do that, unless they are structured more like universities. I got 2 years of physics and calculus out of college, and while I breezed by the first year of college math, physics killed me. Sending kids to college earlier if they are ready for it would be better than restructuring HS to teach at the college level.
> Are we sitting here pretending that all is well with our system of education? I would find that disturbing.
> High schools can't really do that, unless they are structured more like universities.
That's not true. There's a very large gap between graduating 18 year old's who are only good for box-stacking, making coffee or going to college (with a lot of help in all cases) and actually graduating people who can deliver value to an employer and is culturally ready for society.
Take critical thinking as an easy example. Or logic, philosophy, art, music, trades and other important areas that would benefit society if exposed during the K-12 period.
I say this both as a parent and an employer.
The average high school graduate is useless to me, in almost any capacity.
The average college graduate isn't very far from that. This isn't new, it has been discussed here on HN many times in the past. Small to medium companies don't have the time or resources to engage in education after education. This is where this concept of wasting a year of a student's time with coursework nobody cares about is very relevant.
As for my own kids, I made sure to heavily supplement their US high school education with learning that made them valuable upon graduation. A simple result from this was landing knowledge-based jobs making more than $35/hr right out of high school, when their peers where struggling with minimum wage work almost throughout their university experience.
As a result of that, my oldest had a solid financial footing when he was done with university. All of this was due to education prior to college, in this case, driven my my efforts and those of my wife. Schools could do this. It isn't difficult. And it sure isn't a matter of money, not today.
This kind of thing would materially change society and outcomes at all levels. It would increase opportunity at all layers of the population. There is no inherent reason for which lower income households could not have their children receive a solid, useful and marketable education in high school. We just suck at doing it.
My personal experience, from many decades ago and in systems of education outside and inside the US, was to walk away from high school with lots of marketable skills. I had no problems at all delivering value to any employers. I did not accumulate any student debt in university in the US because I had solid employment the entire time and was paid very well as I built on the foundation I got in high school.
Simple example, I had two years of technical drafting. One of my first jobs was doing exactly that. And then AutoCAD came out. Because I had a position drafting with pencil and paper I was given the opportunity to learn ACAD and a very nice raise. Things evolved from there. And, no I did not attend a trade school. We just had more opportunities to learn things in school than kids have today.
High schools don't have to become full-blown university level for this to become a reality. Furthermore, we tend to make the assumption that everyone is, or should be, college-bound. That's a mistake. Not everyone needs to waste time with Calculus, Physics and Chemistry. I say "waste time" because these topic areas are utterly without value for lots of professions. One could easily teach a "general science education" course and move on. One of my very favorite talks on the subject of fitting education to the student is by Sir Ken Robinson:
There weren't many students who took two years of calculus and physics in my high school, and even though it was a good high school (in the Seattle area), many students still didn't bother.
Perhaps you are advocating the dual trade/university tracks that German (and Swiss) schools promote? The problem is putting students into either or bucket after middle school.
> Right. Interpretation, layered upon interpretation, layered upon assumptions.
> That's why people can't have conversations.
That's the only way to have conversations. It's impossible to know the other's mind, or to understand everything that is meant when something is said, you have have to make assumptions. When it seems those assumptions are wrong, you ask for clarification, as I did. That's how to actually have a conversation.
> My problem isn't at all with a class about XYZ. It's about being FORCED to take a class that has nothing whatsoever to do with the field of study.
So, should they not take English classes either, for fields that's not related to their fields of study? Do you think the state of the average high school graduate is sufficient in English to not need further development in that field? Do you think that's different in the U.S. compared to Europe? (you've mentioned you think it's lacking in philosophy, but I think that's a less interesting question compared to English).
> Your trade-school vs. university argument is empty. Universities in throughout Europe manage to graduate Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Software Engineers, Biologists and myriad other STEM professionals in three years...because they cut out the bullshit and provide quality education before university.
Says you, completely anecdotally, without much to back it up rather than your own singular experience and the experience one one or more children, or at least that's all you've expressed here.
Are U.S. graduates less competitive or more competitive than those of Europe? Are they exactly equally as competitive? You're making a lot of claims without much verifiable info to back it up, and I'm not inclined to do your research for you when you're the one making an initial assertion against the status quo. If you feel that strongly about it, which is seems like you do, then you probably have some information you can provide to support your position.
> We make them waste a whole year to make-up for what our secondary schooling failed to deliver. No employer in the STEM fields values this at all.
I'm going to call complete bullshit on this. I hire in a STEM field, I care that someone has graduated college compared to a trade school, or just having past experience, because to me it signals a higher likelihood of a base level of ability to communicate and coordinate with others that college often requires (this does not mean I only hire those people, but it is a signal I care about). I do not think I'm an outlier.
> A high school graduate should be useful to society right out of school. We graduate ignorant young adults who are barely good enough to stack boxes at a warehouse or make coffee.
They should be. Usually they are. I have a bunch of friends from High School that never went to college. They are productive members of society, and don't just stack boxes at a warehouse, regardless of what you may think of people that don't go to college in the U.S. Perhaps you need to spend more time with these people, so you aren't so quick to denigrate them.
> I was just in Singapore visiting a friend for couple of weeks. The level of education his 15 year old is receiving in state-run high school is nothing less than mind-blowing when compared to a 15 year old in the US.
There have long been comparisons to methods of education, often between the Japanese and the U.S., which I think would be similar (or at least illustrates some of the problems with assuming one approach is better). One I'm aware of that compares and contrasts many aspects of education between the systems notes that while Japanese High School graduates have the education of a U.S. student a couple years into college, there are other problems with their approach.:
An ongoing issue is student creativity, flexibility, or individual expression. Critical thinking is not a concept that has been highly valued in Japan. Japanese students are regimented and geared toward perseverance and self-discipline. A saying that sums up this one-for-all belief is “the nail that sticks out gets hammered.” Thus, students are generally instructed to memorize the text on which they will be tested, resulting in high test scores that do not test students’ ability to use the data.[1]
How sure are you what you're advocating for is actually better, and doesn't just seem better on the few aspects you've been examining it on? What's a better for society, more uniformity in outcome and rote knowledge or more creativity? Are we selecting for one at the expense of the other when we change things? Do the changes actually benefit the system within which they would be afterwards? These are the things I think of when someone says we should make large changes to be more like a different society.
> In this country there's a severe failure to understand that our system of education is seriously broken.
I think there's a sever failure to understand our system of education at all, by both locals and foreigners. It seems to work in some respects, and fail in others. Before opting for a different set of trade-offs perhaps we should understand the ones we currently have. I don't have confidence you do, based on the conversation so far, so I'm hesitant to take your suggestions as something that would strictly be an improvement, and not just different in a way you assume would be better.
> We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend this isn't happening, or we can be honest in assessing how we have gone wrong and fix it.
The first step would be to actually look at the data and figure out what are the problems and what are the strengths. If you're unwilling or unable to see any strengths, perhaps you should look at the problem closer.
> Do you think the state of the average high school graduate is sufficient in English
It's horrible. This is precisely the kind of failure I am referring to.
Why are we assuming that everyone graduating high school must go to college? That is clearly no the case, by a massive margin. Not everyone should or wants to.
OK, from that basis, one where the majority of high school students do not move on to college: What should our high school education look like? What results should it deliver?
Well, they should have a solid commend of their own language, both spoken and written. Is that too much to ask? There should not be any need for an 18 year old to take English classes at the university level for any major that isn't directly in of this. English and Literature majors? Sure. Law? Not a lawyer, maybe. STEM? C'mon.
Another way to look at it is that we are causing serious issues of inequality and reduced opportunity because our high school education is so inadequate that the only way to become useful is to take another year of coursework at the college level. That, again, is a sign of failure. And the consequences to the non-college bound population are severe.
> Says you, completely anecdotally, without much to back it up rather than your own singular experience
Not sure what you are talking about. A bachelors in Europe takes three years and focuses on degree-related work. It is assumed that general education is what you got in high school. This isn't anecdotal or a singular experience, google it. Are there universities where it takes longer? Maybe, I haven't conducted a full survey. I just know that the idea is to graduate young adults from high school with a solid education and not have to engage in "repair work" at the university level if at all possible.
> I have a bunch of friends from High School that never went to college. They are productive members of society
Yeah? What do they do? Only list occupations they learned in high school or were able to walk into because they got a useful amount of training in that domain during high school.
> so quick to denigrate them
Our culture seems to now have the option to interpret the truth as denigration. Not a way to make things better at all.
> The first step would be to actually look at the data and figure out what are the problems and what are the strengths. If you're unwilling or unable to see any strengths, perhaps you should look at the problem closer.
You don't fix strengths. You fix failures. Go research college dropout rates and think of what happened in high school that did not allow so many students to excel in college.
I did. I said I made assumptions, and asked you to clarify.
> Our culture seems to now have the option to interpret the truth as denigration. Not a way to make things better at all.
Your words were "We graduate ignorant young adults who are barely good enough to stack boxes at a warehouse or make coffee." Of course you're going to just say "the truth hurts" when you're called on that and prevented with someone else's experience that contradicts that. Like every other point you make you're just pulling it out of the air and not supporting it by any means.
> Not sure what you are talking about. A bachelors in Europe takes three years and focuses on degree-related work.
So? Do people that graduate there have better or worse outcomes and careers when presented with similar situations? Assuming the degrees are equivalent from the U.S. to Europe is the same as assuming every degree from every college in the U.S. is equivalent, or every High School graduates students with equivalent ability.
Not only do I think that's completely unsupported in anything you've presented, I think it's very unlikely to be true.
> You don't fix strengths. You fix failures.
Do you think it's impossible to accidentally reduce or eliminate a strength on accident? I didn't think I was being obtuse, but I'll spell it out again: What if the thing you think is a weakness is actually a strength in other ways that you aren't considering, and by changing it you may make things worse rather than better? Europe is not the U.S. What works there may not work the same here, as much as you seem to think you can just plug it into place. Maybe it would though. Have you even considered these aspects, or is your actual interest so shallow that you're only interested in saying that it would be better and ignoring any of the deeper aspects of what you're proposing?
All that's really happening here is you making blanket assertions, me questioning them and asking for the bare minimum of actual thought and effort to support the in some evidenced way, and you making more assertions without evidence to try to support yourself. If you really truly believe what you're saying, don't you owe it to yourself to actually put a little effort into learning the actual details what you so vehemently assert? The questions I have, which you've been plainly unable to answer with any real data (or anything other than repeating yourself, really), are not hard, in my opinion. There what anyone that actually wanted a change and cared about the outcome would want to know.
I don't find scraping publicly accessible data nearly as bad as when they circle planes over protests and track people. Not just the marshals service, but FBI[1] and even the US Air Force[2], etc. A prime example of this was during the riots in Kenosha, WI in 2020, and the subsequent trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. A good deal of the footage they used in the trial was from the FBI surveillance plane[3], and they supplied low resolution footage, but had all persons involved clearly marked and tracked. What they actually have is much clearer than what they provided to the lawyers under subpoena. Combine that with cell phone data, and trackers they manually place on "suspects" and their cars[4].
"You" is a nebulous term during any mass action. If provocateurs[1] can unilaterally turn a legitimate protest into a "riot" in a way that materially changes the rules of engagment, i.e. if a single anonymous person among thousands can instantly change a constitutionally protected activity into a crime for everyone present, then having a legally defined distinction that is easily subvertible may not be a great idea.
Nevermind the fact that guilt-by-physical-proximity-to-a-criminal is a legally-dubious concept.
1. Embedded counter-protesters or undercover law enforcement
I don't think that's sufficient to revoke 1A rights. I think the people who do those bad things should get locked up in jail, and any remaining actual peaceful protesters should get to continue protesting.
In a group of 100 - if one person is violent, and the other 99 are peaceful would that be a protest or a riot? What is violence? Throwing an egg? Ice cream, rocks?
That would be a protest. There are crimes called assault and battery in the US that are for individuals acting violently, and they can be committed with a pretty wide variety of items.
There is also a crime called 'inciting a riot' that can get you in trouble for trying to turn a protest violent even if you didn't try to hurt anyone yourself.
What is violence is definitely an interesting question, but the decision-making process used by police keeping a protest peaceful, and the charges that can be applied afterwards when a protest goes wrong, have a lot of case law and precedent established.
> That would be a protest. There are crimes called assault and battery in the US that are for individuals acting violently, and they can be committed with a pretty wide variety of items
So if a building is burnt down, it could be an arson at a site of protest, rather than automatically becoming a riot?
Is it criminal for police to try and incite violence at an otherwise peaceful protest? If they are successful in provoking violence, can they then legally disperse everyone?
An individual act of arson not disrupting or a protest or turning it violent is possible, sure.
It's illegal for police to deliberately ruin a protest. The right to protest is ultimately defended by the US constitution's first amendment (free speech) and there are federal, state and local laws and policies that stem from that.
While I agree with some others here that the idea of the government watching public tweets is generally fine, I think the concern here is that there's various legal restrictions on how the government can conduct surveillance, and by using a willing private company to do the surveillance instead, they can avoid oversight and bypass some (most? all?) of those restrictions.
Another concern is the perverse incentives setup by private surveillance tech like this, where you very easily get into ShotSpotter situations where the ability to deliver perceived value to the government is more important that not fabricating evidence to ruin people's lives: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/its-time-police-stop-u...
I know Palantir will work with your data, but do they also offer any sources of data themselves? If so, this sounds more or less the same as that (or at least that part of their offerings).
I'm very ignorant of the legal context for this sort of thing, so I really don't know if it'd be trivial (legally) for the government to try to get this information themselves.
As an analogy, I think this is (ethically) similar to parallel construction. But rather than hide the illegal activity outright, you tunnel it through a private company. That way you get the same derived value as you would if you had broken the law to do it for yourself, but without the law breaking. I guess something like Room 641A is the best of both worlds.
Bulk, high-resolution activity tracing by the government should be illegal. There is no justification for employing warfare-grade surveillance as standard operational protocol for non-combatant citizens. There is no basis for collecting and examining such data in search of criminality.
Results are highly subject to political whimsy. The government is inadvertently creating a platform for turn-key intimidation and extortion. The individuals broadly identified and targeted are those who are least likely to be engaged in crime.
This is the wrong approach. It is time to force our leadership back to the drawing board to identify and develop more sound approaches.
They keep going back to the drawing board and coming up with 2 cases:
1. Bulk surveillance for pattern recognition
2. Breaking cryptography so they can go directly to the source/plaintext
Perhaps we need to figure out some other ways to make the population resistant to crime. For example reducing poverty and increasing opportunity often leads to reduced crime, why not spend billions on pursuing lasting changes on that front?
It's not exactly unusual that people consider too-detailed and/or large scale attention paid to technically public things "spying" or similar to it. E.g. if the government were to have agents follow members of a group anywhere and watching their homes, without breaking into private spaces, that'd probably be labeled as such too. Even though they are just collecting publicly visible information and report "Mr Smith is getting close to the court house. Mrs Smith spoke to the lawyer again." Social media just makes automating that a lot easier.
> Even though they are just collecting publicly visible information and report "Mr Smith is getting close to the court house. Mrs Smith spoke to the lawyer again.
If this observation was made done from a public area or from a publicly visible vantage point, how would you're describing be any different from news coverage?
Basically every way? If the government was tracking everywhere you went via cameras, people would also call that spying. Are you arguing that when a spy follows someone in public and watches everything they do, that isn't spying?
While they don't track other people everywhere at once, the media does record what people say or do and you as an individual have little control concerning what's published about you and how and to what degree other will react. But this form of recording isn't generally called spying, even if the circumstances are disadvantageous or even dangerous to the subject being recorded. When it comes to the media, the general understanding is that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public area. I don't see why it would be different for government. In addition, the government needn't set up these cameras when it can simply request footage from third parties such as Nest and/or its end-users. The person "violating" your expectation to privacy in a public setting is your fellow private citizen whether for occupational or security-related reasons. The same is true for public posts on the Internet. There is nothing that forbids the government from copy and compiling information that's publicly available to all.
Context and scale matter. Drawing a picture of a dollar bill is not illegal, but forgery is. It's not illegal to call someone, or to ask them a question, or to follow someone. It IS illegal to stalk someone.
Who determines context in this case? On what basis?
I disagree that scale matters. A right doesn't disappear simply because multiple people exercise it in a way others find unpleasant. Either a liberty exists on its own merits to it doesn't.
> Drawing a picture of a dollar bill is not illegal, but forgery is
Forgery requires a mens rea; in particular there must be an intent to deceive or profit from deceit.
> It's not illegal to call someone, or to ask them a question, or to follow someone. It IS illegal to stalk someone.
In a number of cases, stalking statues have and do implicate rights. There isn't a consistent corpus of case law or statute to make a clear distinction between merely undesirable contact and stalking as such.
> Who determines context in this case? On what basis?
In general, you'll be sorely disappointed if you expect law to justify itself rigorously. That's not the point. The reason we use phrases like "beyond a reasonable doubt" is because that phrase should be interpreted personally by each juror. It is intentionally divorced from an objective standard.
> There isn't a consistent corpus of case law or statute to make a clear distinction between merely undesirable contact and stalking as such.
That's really not relevant to what I'm saying. Whether it's legal or not isn't really even relevant since I'm just trying to show you something that you think should obviously be illegal.
There are many other examples where scale changes the nature of the action. Sending a GET request is fine. DDOS is not. Sharing someone's address is fine. Putting their personal information everywhere is not. Doing something once may have much less or much more than 1% of the harm of doing it 100 times.
Can someone explain the legal theory that diffentiates using something like Dataminr to monitor tweets vs simply having an army of agents manually searching for them? I agree that it feels like the scale of the former makes it different, but is there a principled reason why that is the case?
The legal choices and mechanisms we have are based on built in assumptions about how easy and expensive something is, and this is especially true for monitoring of public spaces. The decision to say that stuff you say/do in public can be monitored without oversight was made when that would be fairly rare accidentally or require a lot of resources to deliberately use. If we suddenly find ourselves in a world where every single public moment can be recorded and surveilled, the risk to rights is much large for the same state interest. So with the balance shifted, the legal decision could shift.
The law (thankfully) is not some hard coded machine that follows cold logic ignoring all context. (Good) judges are able to look at changes in context and recognize that the underlying factors have shifted and so change rulings.
You are entitled to privacy even for certain public situations. Even if you can see through a window, the government can't go training telescopes inside your home without a warrant. It's an active battle for things like location data.
I don't know, but Congress passed legislation to prevent the digitization of gun records. So they have massive paper files and a small set of agents to match guns to crimes.
You would think with AI we could track all guns and bullets to crimes eventually.
My reasoning is the latter requires significant resources thus agencies would exercise discretion in what they monitor. With automated systems they can monitor larger swaths of people without much effort at all.
I think the contrast is supposed to be the difference between always monitoring people who post about protesting FOR X and/or protesting AGAINST X versus searching for posts of people who were near some incident related to some protesting or some crime. It is similar to the geo-fence search warrants that were recently discussed here.
tl;dr: I see it as the difference between using search tools to monitor for potential suspects vs search tools to implicate already identified suspects.
I'm struggling to understand the outrage here. It's quite possible I'm missing the point and am open to being educated, but what's being described here is essentially running data analysis tools on the public postings people are making on Twitter right?
Everything described in the anecdotes, unless I missed it, was basically someone going on Twitter, a global media platform designed to convey your postings to a mass audience, and then reading the things people wrote. Right?
I can think of a variety of things that could have been done after that which would be bad, oppressive things. But are they alleging that?
The headline here is "U.S. Marshals spied..."
Did they? Like if I post something WITH THE VISIBILITY SET TO PUBLIC VISIBLE BY EVERYONE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION EVEN NON-LOGGED IN PEOPLE and then someone reads it, then I can claim someone is spying on me?
That's true. It would be more appropriate if the headline was "U.S. Marshals stalked Abortion Protesters" or "U.S. Marshals are creeping Abortion Protesters out".
People don't communicate well. They use the word "spying", when "surveillance" would be more appropriate.
How would you feel if you found the past three weeks, there was someone parked outside your home, who followed you to work, and logged when and where you left?
I mean, it's all public information, right?
How would you feel if they did this, specifically because of your political beliefs?
I get the concept. But there's a pretty obvious difference between just sitting in my home and going to work and posting on a global media platform that is literally intended to reach every other living human as its core reason for existing.
The argument seems bizarre to me. A much better pre-technology analogy would be if I wrote lots of letters to the editor of a newspaper and people read them.
Maybe it would even be a little creepy if the government had an FBI agent in every small town that read letters to the editor and sent them to be filed by topic in Washington or something.
It doesn't really matter what label you put on it. The fact that you say it'd be a "little creepy" should start setting off alarm bells. Do we really want people with guns and the force of the state behind them doing creepy things to the populace, routinely?
Who cares whether it's "spying" or "surveillance"?
Here's the real issue, which this semantics argument is derailing. Several times, a shooting spree has occurred, and all the government agencies say, "Oh, yeah... We knew about them! Anyways, the mass shooter's community is very much under attack..."
Pretty hard to swallow when the federal agencies are spending time and resources holding a magnifying glass over political opponents (with a long, LONG track record of nonviolence).
1) I would at least have a chance of knowing about it, and could lodge a complaint with the relevant agency, or take them to court, if necessary. This may not work, but there's at least some level of recourse and accountability.
2) The chilling issue is that of mass surveillance. The kind of surveillance you describe is time- and resource-intensive, and doesn't scale. If agencies can collect and analyze data on a vast number of people with a few clicks of a mouse, that's a danger to everyone's freedom.
Unfortunately we ended up in a world where corporate spying/survelliance is out of sight and out of mind. Never mind the fact corporate spying has achieved something dictatorships of the past could only dream about in their wet dreams.
From the article, "the agency had cast such a broad surveillance net that large volumes of innocuous First Amendment-protected activity regularly got swept up as potential security threats."
This is funded by unlimited federal deficit spending. Let's reduce their budgets.
I was going through the white house proposed budget this weekend and there are more than a few call outs (10-20%) that seem superfluous or like they should be handled by private industries as they seem constrained to benefit those private businesses.
Government money also tends to raise all ships^H^H^H^H^Hprices, so many of the social welfare programs - tuition and home buying loans and assistance, for example - have had the effect of raising prices to the point that most people couldn’t afford them without that assistance. That seems like a good indicator that the program has lost its purpose and should be scrapped for a new idea. Getting rid of those would be immediately deflationary for several sectors (good, imho).
As someone on the hook for $116k in deficit, I’d be much happier to direct my tax dollars to eliminating debt and interest payments and reducing inflation than a great deal of what public money is being spent on.
> As someone on the hook for $116k in deficit, I’d be much happier to direct my tax dollars to eliminating debt and interest payments
Our tax returns have a field at the bottom where you can offer to do just that with your tax refund. I suspect it costs them more in ink than the value of any takers.
Always seemed like a “nonono, I didn’t mean to pay down the debt with my money!” kinda thing.
“Ontario opportunities fund
You can help reduce Ontario's debt by completing this area to donate some or all of your 2022 tax refund to the Ontario opportunities fund. Please see the provincial pages for details. ”
It’s not like money that was previously allocated for debt service could then be moved to something else. In AZ we can direct about $4k to specific organizations and receive a 1:1 tax credit. That impacts revenues, but not how much those programs would receive otherwise.
You can make tax-deductible donations to certain organizations. This results in them getting more funding than they otherwise would. Sure, redirections may not modify the budget of the US government programs directly, but it does have meaningful impact on the world.
If the tax return said: repay your portion of the debt and you’re off the hook for any future deficit spending or moneys collected to service national debt, I would be tempted to take that offer.
Unless there is default, there’s no reason for the government to not to keep accumulating debt.
Saying that the government is spending too much money is such a triviality. The facts are that there is no serious appetite in U.S. politics today to reduce law enforcement budgets[0], and that reducing the budget of the U.S. Marshals would be unlikely to stop them from using these tools (which they see as a less expensive way to accomplish their objectives).
If you want to stop this kind of surveillance, your best bet is to advocate that it be illegal, with accountability. You can also advocate for a reduced budget, but it's not going to get you very far. If anything, it would tend to lead to more use of this kind of tool.
[0]- There are some agitators on the fringes of both parties for specific reductions to parts of law enforcement that those agitators have a problem with. Whether correct or not, the fact is that these are two disjoint proposals from elements that have no interest in compromising with each other. Neither proposal covers the U.S. Marshals, and neither is going to amount to anything at the federal level.
> advocate that it be illegal, with accountability
I am interested in how that would work on an individual basis, as feds have to agree to be sued and lawsuits typically need to show specific harm. USSC doctrine of qualified immunity knee-caps accountability.
One can't, but one can make it illegal for the government to use any product that relies on any sort of social media "fire hose." There can be specific requirements that LEOs are only allowed to use the publicly available websites or apps to find posts on these platforms and can't use a contractor as a loophole.
The police are allowed to "surveil" protected speech, unless you want to ban them from reading the newspaper.
I really don't see the issue. This is information people knowingly release to the public, so the cops are not spying on anyone. A protest is a potential security threat, which is why the cops always show up. I see no evidence this information was abused to try to prevent people from expressing their opinions. What am I supposed to be upset about?
Also, as you very well know, the large majority of the Federal budget goes to social services like healthcare and social security. The entire DoJ budget is a drop in the ocean. Slashing federal budgets will do nothing to eliminate this sort of program but will result in Granny living on the street.
I think we need a term for 'taking public information and deriving nondisclosed information from it'. It isn't really spying, but it's more than just access.
It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, but I think a lot of the debate here is just people arguing the semantics of what's going on.
> I think we need a term for 'taking public information and deriving nondisclosed information from it'. It isn't really spying, but it's more than just access.
Sure, but I don't think that was done here. People were organizing protests by Twit. All the relevant information was made public because the protesters wanted people to show up.
I can imagine similar scenarios that would be a problem, but this seems about as benign as I can imagine.
The cost of adding irrelevant data to relevant data is minuscule. Trying to use a "Rod from God" that is the deficit spending limit to set a finishing nail will only destroy the entire city.
A lot of other more important things would get cut before the marshals felt the squeeze (c.f. other current events like what NYC does with the police and what they cut in order to have more cops)
That's correct. It's a longer term, monster cultural problem in the US.
We're spending plenty of money to have the nice things our society should have (eg universal guaranteed healthcare; better public transportation), and we're spending it wrong (eg paying way too much for healthcare) and or in many of the wrong places (eg the decades-long war on drugs and its consequences).
Nobody does inefficient government spending (and general spending, our consumers are fiscal idiots too) like the US. We spend more and get less for it than any affluent peer nation.
Then follow the law and penalize already illegal misuse or already illegal collection of data. Any administration that says it’s for civil rights cannot also be for mass surveillance.
I wonder how far you'd get issuing a CCPA deletion request against Dataminr? If your twitter account is linked to your public identity (and you live in CA), presumably you can require them to delete all your tweets from their system?
Dataminr and others have been selling this service to corporate and government customers for years. Activists should all be well aware of this and use protocols not easy for Dataminr to buy, scrape, or identify persons of interest.
Using another protocol is the easy part. Getting everyone else to use it is a problem. If they're organizing rallies they want to have the greatest reach possible.
There are plenty of secular arguments against abortion. I'm not sure why both sides are acting like this is an obvious question with an obvious answer. Abortion balances the life, health, and happiness of the mother against the life of the unborn fetus. IMO this is one of the most ethically challenging questions that we're still arguing about as a society.
>There are plenty of secular arguments against abortion.
There are plenty of secular arguments for flat earth. It's not about the number of arguments, but about their validity. There are no secular arguments that don't depend on logical fallacies or invalid assumptions.
>Abortion balances the life, health, and happiness of the mother against the life of the unborn fetus.
And similarly when talking about forcing someone to donate their blood, or part of liver for transplant we'd need to balance the rights of the forced donor and the rights of the prospective transplant receiver, right?
>IMO this is one of the most ethically challenging questions that we're still arguing about as a society.
It's not only not one of the challenging ones, it's not a serious question at all. Modern ethics is pretty clear on reproductive rights.
>There are plenty of secular arguments for flat earth. It's not about the number of arguments, but about their validity. There are no secular arguments that don't depend on logical fallacies or invalid assumptions.
This is a false equivalency. Flat earth is a matter of facts, not ethics. Further, you are taking the least charitable interpretation of my words. Of course I meant that there are plenty of _valid_ secular arguments.
>And similarly when talking about forcing someone to donate their blood, or part of liver for transplant we'd need to balance the rights of the forced donor and the rights of the prospective transplant receiver, right?
Yes, this is a common counter-argument. I first encountered this in A Defense of Abortion in the form of the "unconscious violinist". A more whimsical version can be found in Rick and Morty's second Interdimensional Cable. A common counter-counter-argument is that this situation differs from abortion in that the mother bears partial responsibility for the creation of the fetus, and thus owes it more than she would owe another random person. This is one of the reasons people get more outraged about restriction of abortion rights in cases of rape, as the mother had no volition and thus (by this logic) owes her fetus nothing more than she would owe a stranger.
Regardless, you may find that the right of the mother to bodily autonomy outweighs the right of the fetus to life, but not everyone will weigh the situation the same. We often agree as a society that one must help others if the cost to oneself is considerably lower than the value provided to others. For example, you are obligated (in an ethical sense) to provide water to a man dying of thirst as long as you have plenty. Or perhaps (more controversially), you are obligated to jump into a cold swimming pool to save a drowning child (if you can swim). Some argue that the temporary albeit serious inconvenience to the mother outweighs the life-long value to the unborn child in a similar manner.
>It's not only not one of the challenging ones, it's not a serious question at all. Modern ethics is pretty clear on reproductive rights.
The funny thing is that each side seems to think this, and that the other side is insane, naive, or misguided for disagreeing. FWIW, I am personally pro-choice, but I also think that if you cannot understand the other side's arguments, that is a weakness of your own mental model, not a sign that they are crazy or bad arguments.
I'm happy to talk more about this, as I think it is a genuinely interesting and challenging issue that remains unresolved, unlike many things that our society argues about. Another interesting unresolved issue is the ethics of punishment - I have come to believe that government punishment is generally unethical, but that's another post.
>Of course I meant that there are plenty of _valid_ secular arguments.
And I've responded there are none. And you've not been able to provide any.
>Regardless, you may find that the right of the mother to bodily autonomy outweighs the right of the fetus to life, but not everyone will weigh the situation the same.
Of course, in particular people who believe woman are not proper humans. And it just so happens that this is the view of Catholic Church.
>Some argue that the temporary albeit serious inconvenience to the mother
I don't think this line requires any comment.
>The funny thing is that each side seems to think this
Again, same as with any other fallacy, like flat earth.
>if you cannot understand the other side's arguments, that is a weakness of your own mental model
If you cannot understand flat earther's arguments, that's a weakness of your own mental model? :)
FWIW, I do understand those arguments. It's just that I also understand they are stupid and evil - because they flow from ideology which is stupid and evil.
>And I've responded there are none. And you've not been able to provide any.
>>Some argue that the temporary albeit serious inconvenience to the mother [is outweighed by] the life-long value to the unborn child in a similar manner.
>I don't think this line requires any comment.
This is one of the secular counter-arguments to abortion rights. My apology, I misstated the direction of the "outweighed" part. A very simple and principled restatement: life is more important than liberty. I am not sure why you have chosen not to comment on the key argument in my post. Perhaps the outcome is so obvious to you that you cannot imagine another rational being who would hold the opposite view.
>Again, same as with any other fallacy, like flat earth.
Again, this is not the same kind of argument. You really seem to like to pick on flat earth, maybe because it's an easy target. Why not at least pick an ethical debate instead of a factual one? There are plenty.
>If you cannot understand flat earther's arguments, that's a weakness of your own mental model? :)
I was very curious about flat earthers, sovereign citizens, anti-vaxxers, 5G phobics, and other similar "alternative truthers" because I in fact cannot understand their arguments. The more I look into them, the more I have come to believe they are mostly afraid and feel out of control, so they seek something that explains, even if it's insane. I would in fact like to be able to simulate their mental states more accurately, but I'm not sure how to get there without the mask becoming too heavy if you will.
>FWIW, I do understand those arguments. It's just that I also understand they are stupid and evil - because they flow from ideology which is stupid and evil.
I dunno about "evil". That word has way too strong of a connotation. I'd say the typical ideology associated with pro-life people is very paternalistic. They feel that they know better than you what choices you should make. I don't appreciate that dimension of their ideology at all, but I see the same traits in a number of different circles outside of the American religious right. For example, I hold the somewhat radical idea that suicide is an extension of a person's right to self determination, but many others seem to think that they have the right to force a suicidal person to stay here against their will.
As long as it's a level playing field. It shouldn't be less legal to protest at the home of a supreme court justice than to protest at the homes of abortion clinic staff members.
Albania has been officially atheist since 1967. But abortion was not legalized until 1995.
The idea that American “evangelical Christians” invented opposition to abortion is typical American ignorance and myopia. Various levels of opposition to abortion is the norm across the world—for pretty obvious reasons. The rights-based view of abortion is what’s actually unusual and unique to Christian and post-Christian societies.
Who are the loudest voices advocating for abortion bans, though? Of the legislators who write and vote for abortion ban bills, what is their reasoning and background? At least in the US, it sounds like the loudest of those voices are coming from a religious place, mostly from a Christian perspective. I'll grant you that it's certainly more than just "evangelical" Christians, but I consider that an irrelevant distinction. (Note that I'm not arguing that there are no non-Christians who are anti-abortion, just that they don't seem to be the ones pushing these laws through.)
Either way, I think if you're going to engage in some American-bashing, you should probably cite some sources to back up your claims.
>I'd be very surprised if there were zero atheists that were anti-abortion.
Well, sure, there were _some_, eg both Hitler and Stalin have delegalised abortion in their countries. But I'm not sure if that's the kind of moral oracle that todays christian fundamentalists would like to remember.
I am an agnostic. I oppose abortion because I saw some pictures of the mutilated bodies of its victims, and realized that what I was looking at was wrong.
Opinions on abortion among many christian groups have been pretty fluid in the past century[1].
> The rhetoric about abortion being the catalyst for the rise of the Religious Right, however, collapses under scrutiny. Evangelicals considered abortion a “Catholic issue” until the late 1970s. In 1968, the flagship evangelical magazine Christianity Today convened a conference with another evangelical organization, Christian Medical Society, to discuss the ethics of abortion. After several days of deliberations, twenty-six evangelical theologians issued a statement acknowledging that they could not agree on any one position, that the ambiguities of the issue allowed for many different approaches. “Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” The statement cited “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as possible justifications for abortion and allowed for instances when fetal life “may have to be abandoned to maintain full and secure family life.”
And this is a real eye-opener:
> Baptists, in particular, applauded the Roe decision as an appropriate articulation of the line of division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press wrote.
Why restrict your analysis to such a narrow scope? Abortion was illegal in every state in the US by 1910. It’s also still illegal in my home country, which is a Muslim country on the other side of the planet from the US. Opposition to abortion is longstanding across completely different cultures and religions. It’s not credible to say it’s something that arises from evangelical Christianity or a late 20th century political movement.
What you’re describing is instead an ideological schism within Protestant Christianity. Since Luther, Protestant Christianity had a strong natalist orientation. That’s why abortion was illegal in every US state by 1910. But during the 20th century, mainline protestantism adopted an anti-natalist view out of concerns about overpopulation and the welfare of the poor. That’s the genesis of the modern US abortion debate.
It’s not accurate to say that these patterns reflect views on abortion being “fluid.” Protestantism isn’t centralized—especially denominations like Baptists. Until the mid-20th century, pretty much all the denominations agreed abortion was wrong. Once the anti-natal movement got going, those denominations fractured and people sorted into different ones. For example, the Evangelical Presbyterian church split from what’s now the PCUSA in 1981. Both are “evangelical.” But we apply the “evangelical” label to one and not the other, based on their views on abortion and other issues.
> Abortion was illegal in every state in the US by 1910.
Let's be clear about what was illegal, because the radical definition, 'life begins at fertilization', is a recent innovation[1]:
> Abortion was not always a crime. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion of early pregnancy was legal under common law.[22] Abortions were illegal only after "quickening," the point at which a pregnant woman could feel the movements of the fetus (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). The common law's attitude toward pregnancy and abortion was based on an understanding of pregnancy and human development as a process rather than an absolute moment. Indeed, the term abortion referred only to the miscarriages of later pregnancies, after quickening.
This is not a consensus view by legal scholars. While a consensus view is that abortion of a quick fetus had clearly been seen as a “heinous crime” in common law, many argue that abortion in general has also been seen as unlawful, just not as serious of a crime as abortion of a quick child. Blackstone, for example, discusses an example where a doctor gives a women a potion the purpose of which is to induce abortion, but which results in killing the woman. Blackstone explains that this is common law murder, because it is done with malice aforethought, that is, abortion intent. In other circumstances, doctors giving people potions that kill them was not seen as murders.
I’m not talking about the common law. Due to medical advances in the 1800s, abortion was illegal at all stages of pregnancy in the US by 1910.
Also, “life begins at conception,” or at another very early stage, isn’t a Christian innovation. That’s the belief in Shia Islam. Certain Sunni schools also prohibit abortion at any stage. In Thailand, a Buddhist country, abortion was illegal at all stages of pregnancy until 2021.
Prohibitions against abortion, even at early stages, are common across the world’s belief systems. Perhaps the only thing you could call uncommon is the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the life of the mother. But that’s an uncommon view even within evangelical Christianity.
These are all great examples of the bandwagon fallacy, but if we're going off popular appeal then why don't we see the abortion debates put to rest once and for all by popular vote?
The answer of course is that abortion rights would win by a healthy margin[1] if the public had any say in the matter.
> Pro-choice sentiment is now the highest Gallup has measured since 1995 when it was 56% -- the only other time it has been at the current level or higher -- while the 39% identifying as "pro-life" is the lowest since 1996.
I’m responding to OP’s mischaracterization above that “abortion ban comes from a fringe theory forced by a single religion.” Abortion is banned in many different societies that practice many different religions.
>Also, “life begins at conception,” or at another very early stage, isn’t a Christian innovation. That’s the belief in Shia Islam.
This is a lie ("In Shia Islam, abortion is "forbidden after implantation of the fertilised ovum.", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_abortion). I guess it never occurred to you why even the Sharia countries are not as extreme on abortion as Christian ones.
>Certain Sunni schools also prohibit abortion at any stage.
Not praying as often as one should is considered immoral too. But "immorality" is not binary, and abortion tends to be quite low on the scale. Especially early abortion, which is specific to one particular branch of Christianity.
>Abortion “rights” arises from a belief system
The same one that got us other human rights, like freedom of speech. It's called humanism. It's different from religions by not being made up.
You have an inalienable right to express any view on flat earth in the US. But it doesn't matter if the state law is enforcing religious rules, like in the case of abortion ban.
Abortion bans aren’t “religious rules.” Abortion has been banned in officially atheist countries, like Stalinist Russia and communist Albania.
Conversely, the notion of a “right to abortion” or a “right to bodily autonomy” is for all practical purposes a religious view. It’s a belief about the nature of human society and the value of human life in its various stages.
I'm a strong proponent of the right to freedom of speech (and I'm pro-choice), but we have to be clear about the fact that these are derived from axioms, which are by definition maxims derived from subjective leaps of faith and not evidence-based objectivity.
I think that's Rayiner's point; you can't admonish people deriving philosophical views from the theistic beliefs and value systems they practice when the opposing side of those views are essentially derived from secular/atheistic beliefs and value systems. At some point in the chain of derived arguments and justifications, you arrive at an axiom whose only justification is "because I believe this should be so" or "because my in-group believes this should be so" or "because <authority figure> believes this should be so" — it's still a leap of faith.
"Humanism" is just another subjective belief system, and its adherents are no more immune to the forces of tribalism and faith-based reasoning as adherents of older belief systems.
> The same one that got us other human rights, like freedom of speech. It's called humanism. It's different from religions by not being made up.
Humanism is just as made up and non-falsifiable as any religion, and in some cases more so. If you autopsy a dead body, you won’t find either a soul nor any form of “human rights.”
At least religious traditions are often based on practical experience. For example, in Islam it’s considers a moral obligation to get married and have children. Leaving aside any supernatural basis for that moral dictate, it makes sense given that human societies have to raise a lot of kids simply to perpetuate themselves from generation to generation.
But what about the humanist idea that you have no such moral obligation, and that “child free” people are of equal value to society as people doing the labor of perpetuating society—because of some invisible “human dignity” and “right of self actualization.” That’s pulled straight out of thin air.
> But "immorality" is not binary, and abortion tends to be quite low on the scale.
Not true. Most muslim countries, for example, including the one I’m from, have more restrictive abortion laws than any U.S. state. India similarly has a quite restrictive abortion law (not one inherited from the British, but one of their own construction after an extensive process) from 1971 until its Supreme Court intervened in 2022.
To my knowledge, no major culture that isn’t formerly Christian has the western notion of an individual “right” to an abortion. Even in Asian countries that permit abortion, it’s viewed more in terms of a collective policy of reproductive control than an individual right. That fact is completely unsurprising: deciding when life begins is obviously a matter for the government. Only westerners are so pathologically individualistic as to think that social determination should be subject to overruling by individual morality.
America isn’t a “secular” nation. It’s a religiously pluralistic nation. That means that all of the various non-falsifiable moral ideologies, from Christianity to Islam to secular humanism, are on equal political footing. If more people prioritize the mother’s invisible, non-falsifiable “right to bodily autonomy” over the fetus’s invisible, non-falsifiable “right to life” then you can permit abortion. If the opposite is true, you can ban it.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …
The United States government, which is what we’re discussing is absolutely a secular body. The various religions or non-religions of the citizenry are irrelevant, constitutionally.
What the first amendment doesn’t do is exclude moral beliefs rooted in religion from being the basis of public policy. If the government can regulate conduct that kills living things, then it’s immaterial whether any particular legislation is rooted in the moral framework of Christianity or Islam or Feminism. In the American system, all moral frameworks, whether rooted in religion or not, are on equal footing. That’s distinct from secularism, as practiced by France and formerly Turkey, where religious philosophy is singled out and excluded from the public sphere.
> The first part just means that Congress cannot regulate established state churches
Err, no, that's a common misunderstanding.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from encouraging or promoting ("establishing") religion in any way.
It's there to forbid the creation of an official state religion (eg: the Church of England being created to replace the Catholic church back in the day).
Regardless of what the constitution says, it's a little naive to think that US law (especially state law in many jurisdictions) isn't heavily influenced by religion, mostly that of various Christian sects.
If you think any western country is actually secular then I have a bridge to sell you. christianity is woven into the very fabric of their culture.
visit a cemetary and see crosses. listen to language and hear references to "christening", christian names, "this book is the x bible", expletives referencing "jesus christ", christmas, easter, the abundance of churches over any other site of worship.
FWIW, the abortion protesters mentioned in the article were not anti-abortion, they were pro-choice protestors. This was after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Is "seems to" a legal term? That's a pretty wide open subjective gap there. One that "seems to" sound good, but is actually all inclusive depending on who's interpreting it.
Authoritarianism is the path of least resistance, no how-to manual required. Democracy requires constant care and course correction or it slowly trends towards authoritarianism. Unfortunately "constant care and course correction" equates to people getting out, voting, participating in their state and local governments, etc. Most people don't like to think about that stuff so they just leave it to others.
I'm sure there's some underlying universal principle related to entropy. You see the same with code bases. Unless you are diligent about caring for and correcting things, every large code base will eventually become a steaming pile of tech debt after a few decades.
Obviously not, but it is important to distinguish who is actually being targeted. Like, obviously? Leftist activism has long been the target of government surveillance and infiltration. It would seem that the true threat is more from the right, so why is the left/post-left/anarchist groups/civil rights activism the subject of greater scrutiny?
Semantics matter. I was just pointing out a fact for people just commenting who had not read the article and may have assumed the title was accurate, which it is not.
I have been opposed to all government surveillance programs and technologies, and would guess that I have been researching them longer than you have been alive (i assume you are young since you are so quick to jump to conclusions)
I agree with your assertion that there is a big difference here, in that anti-abortion protestors are far more likely to resort to domestic terrorism to get their way.
Pro-choice protestors don't have a history of bombing health clinics, that's something reserved for the people you claim "take peaceful action". History has something quite different to say: https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9827886/abortion-clinic-attack...
You're using the wrong metric. Pro abortion protestors broke a large number of windows. Anti abortion protestors shot a handful of people. The appropriate comparison is not number of incidents.
"My side bombs less" is also not a wonderful counterargument.
It would be preferable if the two sides could quietly engage in a melee battle somewhere away from bystanders. In the meantime, maybe we can avoid ideological battles on HN.
lol call it what you want. protest takes form in many ways whether it's a march in the street, a prayer in a park, or simply sitting at a diner counter.
and i agree that there is a big difference between anti abortion protesters and and pro choice people. one of them has a history of murdering doctors. murders generally attract the attention of law enforcement.
This conversation is not around murder, or data on murder, or pre-crime. It’s a very poor point. I struggle with how to incorporate partisanship into the dialogue. On one hand, it’s potentially useful for achieving reform. On the other, I expect that you’d be content to establish unfair policies that resulted in actual harm based on mere disagreement. The sense of justice is perverted. But sure, come on in and oppose surveillance and promote a broad definition of protest.
why should the rest of us accept your doublespeak? If you all get together on the sidewalk to chant and hold signs in opposition to something that's called protest.
Just because you call it sidewalk counseling doesn't mean we can't all see the yelling and verbal abuse and sporadic physical assault.
Pro-abortion protesters are not a thing. There are pro-choice protestors. There is long history of violence from anti-abortion movement including assaults and murders of clinic personnel & volunteers. Clinics have been physical damaged including being bombed.
It is genuinely unsettling. Personally, I don’t care about the underlying thing the protests are about, the important aspect is that if you allow unconstitutional government action like this, eventually it will be used against you. A decade from now we have no idea what the political climate will be. If the precedent is allowed to be set, there’s a good chance the power will be used against your cause in the future.