4 ms·

You cannot possibly be serious. 1) The emails refer to two upcoming primaries, which occurred in close temporal and spatial proximity to each other. Literally

You cannot possibly be serious. 1) The emails refer to two upcoming primaries, which occurred in close temporal and spatial proximity to each other. Literally no other campaign in the nation is in two states. It is hard to imagine any other figure in the nation that that refers to other than Bernie Sanders. I didn't mention Bernie Sanders in my reply, so why did you think it was about Bernie and then attempt to deny it? I think you protest too much. 2) The email is clearly suggesting to use the question against Sanders. Your hypothetical suggestion is plainly unsupported by the facts. Let me just quote the objectionable e-mail: > It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist. That is clearly saying that knowledge that Sanders is an atheist would hurt him in KY and WVA (by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WVA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WVA). It is also implying that someone should directly ask him so he can't "skate by". 3) civil service jobs are not supposed to involve discrimination based on religious preferences and attempts to exploit bigotry by national political organizations is deeply unethical.

kbenson 10y ago
> 3) civil service jobs are not supposed to involve discrimination based on religious preferences and attempts to exploit bigotry by national political organizations is deeply unethical. Are you talking about political agents being unethical (to which I say, "duh"), or are we talking about what you previously stated, "conspiring to commit a civil rights violation, or exploit one" ? Those are very different things. People have a right to vote for a candidate as they see fit, based on all the information they have at their disposal. That's a core tenet of democracy. While I would prefer people not use religious views of candidates in most cases, there are cases where I would definitely like to know (for example, if the candidate believes the world will end within the year, I think that's probably the most relevant information in a presidential candidate you can know). While self serving, I can't see the action as purely negative, as it would be increasing true information to the public (as opposed to attack ads that insinuate unverified information).
- tanderson92 10y ago
  I would say that national political organizations conspiring to exploit bigotry at the ballot box (which you correctly note is allowed) is a civil rights violation. It's the actions of the formal organization to promote bigotry vs the actual voters themselves acting as they see fit.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    While I agree in this case it's probably bigotry they would be exploiting, how do we differentiate that from an informed view of how someone's thoughts on religion (or birth control, or the belief in evolution, or how to deal with Israeli/Palestinian relations, or trade agreements) might translate into other areas of office? If you think they don't matter, it's bigotry. If you think they do, such as inform as to the character of the person, the personality of the person, how they deal with conflict, etc, then it's not. How to we objectively differentiate between things that matter and things that don't?
    - tanderson92 10y ago
      You raise some good points. I'll grant that this is probably not an area where you would want to create legislation or prosecute the violations. I still contend they are violations: just ones we do not necessarily want to set an example of pursuing,
      - kbenson 10y ago
        I agree, and I think a good solution that works (or doesn't, as the public sees fit) is to expose the behavior, which is what we have here. We're having a discussion about it, and agree it's poor behavior, and if it's poor enough or deemed problematic enough, it may make headlines and hurt rather than help the people involved. Again, we have an instance of more (hopefully correct and verified) information being released so the public can do with it what they deem prudent. Thus, we have democracy in action (even when that action may be to choose inaction).
drostie 10y ago
Ugh. Internet arguments are the worst. 1. I did not say that you said that those emails were about Bernie; I said that those emails could be about Bernie, because it's something that I do regard as a live possibility. I was just being honest about how little content there is there; it could be about Bernie or not. (Also the "I didn't mention Bernie so why did you think it was about Bernie?" card is extremely lame; we're talking about a WikiLeaks leak and WikiLeaks in parallel with this leak has announced e.g. via Twitter that they interpret this as being about Bernie. Of course it's neither my nor your innovation to read the emails that way; we both received it.) Like, you say "the emails refer to two upcoming primaries." I am simply saying that this is too assertive for my tastes. It doesn't say anything about primaries; it says "KY" and "WVA" and those can be primaries, they also might not be. (I'm afraid I don't understand your "by the way" here -- you might be trying to point out the disambiguation link up-top, but of course acronyms may also refer to things that are not on Wikipedia. For example, Brad Marshall has a lot more emails from before this time mentioning the HVF; but have fun trying to find that on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVF .) So, I mean, there's a lot that we're reading into this thing to come to that conclusion. Getting fussy and treating it like it's not a conclusion is not a great idea. It might well be a correct conclusion. But it's a conclusion that we're presently coming to off of limited evidence, and you shouldn't be all like "you cannot possibly be serious!" when someone points out that the evidence is limited, when it is. 2. You have a messed up definition for "clearly" then. That's OK, it seems like a lot of things seem a little muddled in your worldview. For example, you're right that "that is clearly saying that knowledge that Sanders is an atheist would hurt him in KY and WVA," as long as we weaken the word "knowledge" to "belief" (because it would be easy to misread what you said as drive-by-asserting that Bernie is an atheist, whereas Bernie has disclaimed this a few times, even though he has repeatedly asserted that he's not very religious in any organized way). But it's not "clearly suggesting to use the question against Sanders." That's another conclusion. It might be right, but it's not like the email says "My Southern Baptist peeps would not vote for him if they knew the truth." In fact the whole case for this hinges on the word "skate" (you used, in quotes, "skate by", but that is not even what the email said). That word by itself is not clear. It is implicitly suggestive via a negative connotation. 3. I am not doubting that the bigotry exists and I am not stating that the DNC for sure acted ethically. However, we would need to know a lot more than this email to know if that were true. For example, you're treating this as a serious suggestion rather than some banter among friends. The email thread ends on an "AMEN!" which suggests that nobody in this thread considered it a starting block for some sort of conspiracy to actually ask Bernie the quetion to get him to be unelectable. In fact, that earlier thread about the "HVF" I mentioned, there was an official DNC denouncement of claims that the Bernie campaign was making; it came on the backs of a lot of back-and-forth in order to write a formal press release which is not present here... But one of the more interesting (and very hard to interpret) emails comes from Hillary's general counsel, Marc Elias, who was CCed on the question apparently independent of his work on her campaign. https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/5740 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/5740 . It seems they might, having known him personally, sent him some examples of what Bernie is saying and solicited his legal advice on whether they could meaningfully speak against Bernie, even though they're supposed to be formally unbiased. So it seems that on serious matters they approach it with sincerity and gravity, whereas the one you're calling a "conspiracy" might also just be a private sharing of personal bigotry, rather than an attempt to exploit it publicly. Again, I'm not saying that this is surely what happened. Maybe it was a serious suggestion, too. We're on HN, we're both more mature than that; we both know what uncertainties are, and I'd hope we both have a practical knowledge of Bayes' theorem. I am merely saying that you're very convicted based on a conclusion drawn from very little evidence. We may get more evidence, and better evidence, which vindicates you. But the evidence as we have it right now is relatively brittle, as such things go. You multiply the odds ratio by the probability that he would have sent that email if he was trying to conspire against Bernie (relatively high, but he'd probably have been more explicit about it and his listeners probably wouldn't have treated it with such a lack of seriousness) divided by the probability that he would have sent that email if he wasn't trying to conspire against Bernie (which is probably not a tiny negligible probability the way you're making it out to be).

kbenson 10y ago

> 3) civil service jobs are not supposed to involve discrimination based on religious preferences and attempts to exploit bigotry by national political organizations is deeply unethical. Are you talking about political agents being unethical (to which I say, "duh"), or are we talking about what you previously stated, "conspiring to commit a civil rights violation, or exploit one" ? Those are very different things. People have a right to vote for a candidate as they see fit, based on all the information they have at their disposal. That's a core tenet of democracy. While I would prefer people not use religious views of candidates in most cases, there are cases where I would definitely like to know (for example, if the candidate believes the world will end within the year, I think that's probably the most relevant information in a presidential candidate you can know). While self serving, I can't see the action as purely negative, as it would be increasing true information to the public (as opposed to attack ads that insinuate unverified information).

tanderson92 10y ago
I would say that national political organizations conspiring to exploit bigotry at the ballot box (which you correctly note is allowed) is a civil rights violation. It's the actions of the formal organization to promote bigotry vs the actual voters themselves acting as they see fit.
- kbenson 10y ago
  While I agree in this case it's probably bigotry they would be exploiting, how do we differentiate that from an informed view of how someone's thoughts on religion (or birth control, or the belief in evolution, or how to deal with Israeli/Palestinian relations, or trade agreements) might translate into other areas of office? If you think they don't matter, it's bigotry. If you think they do, such as inform as to the character of the person, the personality of the person, how they deal with conflict, etc, then it's not. How to we objectively differentiate between things that matter and things that don't?
  - tanderson92 10y ago
    You raise some good points. I'll grant that this is probably not an area where you would want to create legislation or prosecute the violations. I still contend they are violations: just ones we do not necessarily want to set an example of pursuing,
    - kbenson 10y ago
      I agree, and I think a good solution that works (or doesn't, as the public sees fit) is to expose the behavior, which is what we have here. We're having a discussion about it, and agree it's poor behavior, and if it's poor enough or deemed problematic enough, it may make headlines and hurt rather than help the people involved. Again, we have an instance of more (hopefully correct and verified) information being released so the public can do with it what they deem prudent. Thus, we have democracy in action (even when that action may be to choose inaction).

drostie 10y ago

Ugh. Internet arguments are the worst. 1. I did not say that you said that those emails were about Bernie; I said that those emails could be about Bernie, because it's something that I do regard as a live possibility. I was just being honest about how little content there is there; it could be about Bernie or not. (Also the "I didn't mention Bernie so why did you think it was about Bernie?" card is extremely lame; we're talking about a WikiLeaks leak and WikiLeaks in parallel with this leak has announced e.g. via Twitter that they interpret this as being about Bernie. Of course it's neither my nor your innovation to read the emails that way; we both received it.) Like, you say "the emails refer to two upcoming primaries." I am simply saying that this is too assertive for my tastes. It doesn't say anything about primaries; it says "KY" and "WVA" and those can be primaries, they also might not be. (I'm afraid I don't understand your "by the way" here -- you might be trying to point out the disambiguation link up-top, but of course acronyms may also refer to things that are not on Wikipedia. For example, Brad Marshall has a lot more emails from before this time mentioning the HVF; but have fun trying to find that on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVF .) So, I mean, there's a lot that we're reading into this thing to come to that conclusion. Getting fussy and treating it like it's not a conclusion is not a great idea. It might well be a correct conclusion. But it's a conclusion that we're presently coming to off of limited evidence, and you shouldn't be all like "you cannot possibly be serious!" when someone points out that the evidence is limited, when it is. 2. You have a messed up definition for "clearly" then. That's OK, it seems like a lot of things seem a little muddled in your worldview. For example, you're right that "that is clearly saying that knowledge that Sanders is an atheist would hurt him in KY and WVA," as long as we weaken the word "knowledge" to "belief" (because it would be easy to misread what you said as drive-by-asserting that Bernie is an atheist, whereas Bernie has disclaimed this a few times, even though he has repeatedly asserted that he's not very religious in any organized way). But it's not "clearly suggesting to use the question against Sanders." That's another conclusion. It might be right, but it's not like the email says "My Southern Baptist peeps would not vote for him if they knew the truth." In fact the whole case for this hinges on the word "skate" (you used, in quotes, "skate by", but that is not even what the email said). That word by itself is not clear. It is implicitly suggestive via a negative connotation. 3. I am not doubting that the bigotry exists and I am not stating that the DNC for sure acted ethically. However, we would need to know a lot more than this email to know if that were true. For example, you're treating this as a serious suggestion rather than some banter among friends. The email thread ends on an "AMEN!" which suggests that nobody in this thread considered it a starting block for some sort of conspiracy to actually ask Bernie the quetion to get him to be unelectable. In fact, that earlier thread about the "HVF" I mentioned, there was an official DNC denouncement of claims that the Bernie campaign was making; it came on the backs of a lot of back-and-forth in order to write a formal press release which is not present here... But one of the more interesting (and very hard to interpret) emails comes from Hillary's general counsel, Marc Elias, who was CCed on the question apparently independent of his work on her campaign. https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/5740 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/5740 . It seems they might, having known him personally, sent him some examples of what Bernie is saying and solicited his legal advice on whether they could meaningfully speak against Bernie, even though they're supposed to be formally unbiased. So it seems that on serious matters they approach it with sincerity and gravity, whereas the one you're calling a "conspiracy" might also just be a private sharing of personal bigotry, rather than an attempt to exploit it publicly. Again, I'm not saying that this is surely what happened. Maybe it was a serious suggestion, too. We're on HN, we're both more mature than that; we both know what uncertainties are, and I'd hope we both have a practical knowledge of Bayes' theorem. I am merely saying that you're very convicted based on a conclusion drawn from very little evidence. We may get more evidence, and better evidence, which vindicates you. But the evidence as we have it right now is relatively brittle, as such things go. You multiply the odds ratio by the probability that he would have sent that email if he was trying to conspire against Bernie (relatively high, but he'd probably have been more explicit about it and his listeners probably wouldn't have treated it with such a lack of seriousness) divided by the probability that he would have sent that email if he wasn't trying to conspire against Bernie (which is probably not a tiny negligible probability the way you're making it out to be).