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Are you essentially positing that the only relevant consideration to whether publishing information about someone is ethically defensible is whether or not the
by chipotle_coyote 11y ago
Are you essentially positing that the only relevant consideration to whether publishing information about someone is ethically defensible is whether or not the subject feels good about having that information revealed? It seems to me there is a material difference -- and a vast one at that -- between "I have done serious investigative work and wish to present evidence that Joe Foobar is a criminal kingpin who can be linked with drug-running and murders" and "I am publishing personal information about Joe Foobar because he said something mean about a group I identify with and I wish to screw with his life."
- mirimir 11y agoThe concept of "criminal kingpin" is entirely based on "a group I identify with". In this case, some nation or government or whatever. So, as I see it, there's arguably no fundamental distinction between your two examples. It's arguably all about power.
- toyg 11y agoDude, please. Laws are abstractions and relative and whatnot, but Really Bad People do exist and the public has a right to know. Otherwise, why have journalists or even laws at all?
- mirimir 11y agoHonestly, I don't have a clue. Who gets to decide? Some murderers are presidents, and others are on trial. There's really no point in arguing about it.
- atmosx 11y agoStart here: https://www.congress.gov/constitution-annotated/ https://www.congress.gov/constitution-annotated/
- andrepd 11y agoI'm not a citizen of the United States nor do I have particular sympathy for their constitution.
- na85 11y agoUgh, American Exceptionalism rears its ugly head yet again. Your constitution is not the epitome of justice or democratic ideals, and is in fact deeply flawed on a fundamental level.
- ktRolster 11y agoand is in fact deeply flawed on a fundamental level. I can accept that it has flaws, but on the fundamental level? It seems pretty solid at that level. The creators thought through the problems and difficulties of government more deeply than most.
- Tomte 11y agoIt's debatable whether this is a "fundamental" flaw, but the American Consitution is basically a set of procedural rules of the game. Civil rights are an afterthought. Most modern constitutions also need all the procedures, of course, but they put certain "inalienable rights" square in the middle of it all. The procedures are merely there to support those rights. Different times, different mindset.
- tedks 11y agoThe assumption of the time was that it was common-sense that the Constitution was a whitelist, not a blacklist. There was pushback against having an enumerated Bill of Rights because then there would be a whitelist of rights, and the Founders feared this would mean that they'd miss something and in the future their government would become oppressive. Hilariously ironic how things turned out instead.
- drumdance 11y agoNo it is not. There are many improvements that could be made to our system, but our reverence for the founding fathers makes that very difficult.
- hitekker 11y agoI personally give up once a person gets so defensive that they start excusing murderers. That a person will so quickly sacrifice their morals for their face on an internet forum, is disheartening.
- mirimir 11y agoAll too often, people confuse groupthink with morals. With a little dialog, I suspect that we could identify some accused murderers that you would excuse.
- yarou 11y agoAnd you're conflating moral absolutism with groupthink. Not everyone subscribes to moral relativism, as much as you might want them to. Groupthink would be to eschew one's morality entirely, and merely subscribe to some sort of prevailing opinion on morality. Which is ironically what you're asking the parent poster to do.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- erikpukinskis 11y agoBut myerbergs_army's stated rationale was not that Le Roux is fair game for doxxing because he's so bad, it was that he was fair game because his activities are newsworthy.