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Well, how about there was a time when I could propose there was such a time, and wouldn't have immediately been flooded with accusations that the old times were

by jerf 6y ago

Well, how about there was a time when I could propose there was such a time, and wouldn't have immediately been flooded with accusations that the old times were just full of racism and everyone proposing liberty were selfish people who didn't really want liberty. I think there was a time when there was a constituency that really did want liberty. But now all HN can see if someone says they "want liberty" is that they want liberty to do wrong things that must be stopped, and there is no other conceivable reason that someone may be resisting your efforts to control them.

majormajor 6y ago
> Well, how about there was a time when I could propose there was such a time, and wouldn't have immediately been flooded with accusations that the old times were just full of racism and everyone proposing liberty were selfish people who didn't really want liberty. So... when you accuse me of that, are you denying that there were racially motivated actions being taken that harmed significant populations? Because that's quite a claim! Most of my history education came from Bob Jones University "For Christian Schools" textbooks that were hardly trying to indoctrinate any sort of "white Americans are evil" mentality, but if you look at what happened, and who did what to what... it's hard to avoid. It's hard for me to square the claim that people in the past were BETTER about wanting "liberty for everyone" when I look at how they allowed their society to treat people of different races, sexual orientations, people who wanted abortions, etc... I would need more concrete counterexamples, not just generalizations of the past being claimed to be better. Were they any worse/more hypocritical/differently motivated than today? Probably not! I don't know that people change that much. But it's hard to say they were BETTER based on their actions. If there was a time when your claim that people in the olden days were better would go unchallenged, it's probably because the people being harmed in those days weren't very visible to the people you were talking to.
- jerf 6y ago
  "when you accuse me of that, are you denying that there were racially motivated actions being taken that harmed significant populations?" You see, we can't even have a meta-conversation about liberty without it immediately going to racism. I had actually considered saying that your prior message contained thinly-veiled threats to fire cancel culture at me, but I thought that went too far. Yet here you are, doing your level best to fire cancel culture at someone who isn't even advocating for liberty but merely discussing it, as a historical matter, a thing that used to exist in the past. Yes, people could once say "I'd like to be left alone" and not immediately have their claims translated into "I'd like to be racist". Itself an intrinsically racist belief that only white people want to be left alone and everybody else is happy with your attempt to dictate what they believe.

by jerf 6y ago

majormajor 6y ago

> Well, how about there was a time when I could propose there was such a time, and wouldn't have immediately been flooded with accusations that the old times were just full of racism and everyone proposing liberty were selfish people who didn't really want liberty. So... when you accuse me of that, are you denying that there were racially motivated actions being taken that harmed significant populations? Because that's quite a claim! Most of my history education came from Bob Jones University "For Christian Schools" textbooks that were hardly trying to indoctrinate any sort of "white Americans are evil" mentality, but if you look at what happened, and who did what to what... it's hard to avoid. It's hard for me to square the claim that people in the past were BETTER about wanting "liberty for everyone" when I look at how they allowed their society to treat people of different races, sexual orientations, people who wanted abortions, etc... I would need more concrete counterexamples, not just generalizations of the past being claimed to be better. Were they any worse/more hypocritical/differently motivated than today? Probably not! I don't know that people change that much. But it's hard to say they were BETTER based on their actions. If there was a time when your claim that people in the olden days were better would go unchallenged, it's probably because the people being harmed in those days weren't very visible to the people you were talking to.

jerf 6y ago
"when you accuse me of that, are you denying that there were racially motivated actions being taken that harmed significant populations?" You see, we can't even have a meta-conversation about liberty without it immediately going to racism. I had actually considered saying that your prior message contained thinly-veiled threats to fire cancel culture at me, but I thought that went too far. Yet here you are, doing your level best to fire cancel culture at someone who isn't even advocating for liberty but merely discussing it, as a historical matter, a thing that used to exist in the past. Yes, people could once say "I'd like to be left alone" and not immediately have their claims translated into "I'd like to be racist". Itself an intrinsically racist belief that only white people want to be left alone and everybody else is happy with your attempt to dictate what they believe.