5 ms·

The majority of people in the US who bother to care about human rights abuses and exploitation of vulnerable populations are "progressives".

duxup 4y ago
But what does that mean? Isn't that just people who care generally? And if they do what should they do differently?
- quacked 4y ago
  Did you read my first comment with intent to understand my point or just to nitpick me? I said pretty clearly: > If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime. If people care about human rights abuses, they need to seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge their regime. For instance: there are known sex traffickers inside the United States who are sent to prison for years when they're caught and then they get out. If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote. Another option is indefinite containment, but that's a large drain on resources and extremely difficult to operate without simply ending up with a prison system like the US has, which is low-status and overtly corrupt and underfunded (in the sense that the funding goes to profit rather than to the effective operations of the prisons). In short: the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them. This is obviously not the case in the US, and it's certainly not the case in outlying rural regions in Asia and Africa, where people are forced to scam under threat of punishment.
  - duxup 4y ago
    So invade other countries? Establish new governments that do what we like? That doesn't have a history of good outcomes for anyone.
    - quacked 4y ago
      > So invade other countries? Establish new governments that do what we like? You have described the history of every single western country, within which the majority of dominant-ethnicity citizens enjoy a physical safety and quality of life unprecedented in world history. Modern human rights campaigns and progressive philosophy spring mostly from western countries with ideologies downstream of the Enlightenment. (Note that I am not claiming that only Europeans ever developed sub-societies where human rights were respected, merely that out of the surviving capable violent states today, the western ones are the ones more focused on progressive ideals.) The Western countries were invented after violent conquer and rebellion against regional warlords by sub-factions within their own lands, and the rule of law and power of finance was allocated mostly to people who had ties to the most powerful warlords at the time of the founding of the countries. One example is England, which conquered Wales, Ireland, and Scotland through a military alliance of the internal (English) territories that recognized a seat of power based in London and an ethnic identity manufactured whole-cloth to encompass Danish, Angle, Saxon, and Scandinavian immigrants to the Isle. The "United Kingdom", once a brutally violent and despotic place, is now one of the number one immigration targets for people freeing lawless, economically depressed war-torn regions.
      - duxup 4y ago
        Every nation is a result of a series of events, revolts, etc... I don't see that as unique in any way to any type of nation nor does it change the history of attempting to make a nation into what some outsider would like it to be.
  - rendall 4y ago
    > If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote Interesting. Upstream you said that human rights was mostly a progressive issue, but this is a decidedly conservative, perhaps even regressive, approach. edit - later, I see that you refer to yourself as conservative > the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them I associate civilization with staunch defense of the humanity and dignity even of the worst of us. It might for me even be the primary defining characteristic of the term. We could publically behead those who "take advantage", but then, that would be uncivilized. Medieval and barbaric, actually. Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically. Use only the bare minimum violence necessary to maintain actual, real civilized society, constantly vigilant against its overuse
    - quacked 4y ago
      I tried to imply the meaningless of labels by using quotes around "progressives" in this phrase: > The majority of people in the US who bother to care about human rights abuses and exploitation of vulnerable populations are "progressives". What I am interested in is an effective approach, regardless if it's considered progressive, conservative, regressive, old-fashioned, etc. I am tired of watching the primary discourse over human rights in the US play out between uneducated "conservatives" who would establish a Christian fascist state in a week if left to their own devices and naive "progressives" who think that violent criminals just need "access to resources" in order to civilize themselves. > Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically. Sure, good luck with reintegrating a slaver into society with those they enslaved or a violent rapist into society with those they raped. I am not opposed to an atonement/reintegration cycle, but it needs far more rigorous severity than I've seen any "progressive" ever argue for.
rendall 4y ago
I think this is untrue, if you're contrasting to "conservatives"* Conservatives fear the effects of fast change and unintended consequences, but do still care about human rights and the exploitation of vulnerable populations. * The caveat here is that I do think there is a significant minority of people who call themselves conservative or progressive or whatever, who are not on the side of a better society, but are only for themselves.
- quacked 4y ago
  I have sympathy for the semantic point you're making, as I call myself "conservative", but match ideologies with very few people in the US that self-identify using the same word.
WalterBright 4y ago
That's simply not true. Libertarianism holds human rights above all else. The entire purpose of a libertarians government is guaranteeing peoples' rights.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Libertarianism holds human rights above all else. Libertarianism holds a very particular and highly contentious conception of human rights (which differs radically, but with some common elements, between different flavors of libertarianism) above everything else. So do several other ideologies, with different conceptions of human rights.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    What's highly contentious about rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Those are slogans, not substantive conceptions of rights, and the last of those a slogan that was used because the thing many then-contemporary liberals would have preferred and that reflects (but still does bot substantively specify) what they and most modern libertarians value most, property, was too contentious even at the level of a slogan.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Sure, they are short, that doesn't make them slogans. For example, you have the right to your life. That means you have a right to not be murdered by others or the state. How is that difficult to understand? > most modern libertarians value most That's an invention on your part. > property Yes, I know the original wording was "pursuit of property". Property rights have turned out to be a very fundamental right. Not being allowed to own anything has proved disastrous again and again and again.

duxup 4y ago

But what does that mean? Isn't that just people who care generally? And if they do what should they do differently?

quacked 4y ago
Did you read my first comment with intent to understand my point or just to nitpick me? I said pretty clearly: > If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime. If people care about human rights abuses, they need to seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge their regime. For instance: there are known sex traffickers inside the United States who are sent to prison for years when they're caught and then they get out. If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote. Another option is indefinite containment, but that's a large drain on resources and extremely difficult to operate without simply ending up with a prison system like the US has, which is low-status and overtly corrupt and underfunded (in the sense that the funding goes to profit rather than to the effective operations of the prisons). In short: the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them. This is obviously not the case in the US, and it's certainly not the case in outlying rural regions in Asia and Africa, where people are forced to scam under threat of punishment.
- duxup 4y ago
  So invade other countries? Establish new governments that do what we like? That doesn't have a history of good outcomes for anyone.
  - quacked 4y ago
    > So invade other countries? Establish new governments that do what we like? You have described the history of every single western country, within which the majority of dominant-ethnicity citizens enjoy a physical safety and quality of life unprecedented in world history. Modern human rights campaigns and progressive philosophy spring mostly from western countries with ideologies downstream of the Enlightenment. (Note that I am not claiming that only Europeans ever developed sub-societies where human rights were respected, merely that out of the surviving capable violent states today, the western ones are the ones more focused on progressive ideals.) The Western countries were invented after violent conquer and rebellion against regional warlords by sub-factions within their own lands, and the rule of law and power of finance was allocated mostly to people who had ties to the most powerful warlords at the time of the founding of the countries. One example is England, which conquered Wales, Ireland, and Scotland through a military alliance of the internal (English) territories that recognized a seat of power based in London and an ethnic identity manufactured whole-cloth to encompass Danish, Angle, Saxon, and Scandinavian immigrants to the Isle. The "United Kingdom", once a brutally violent and despotic place, is now one of the number one immigration targets for people freeing lawless, economically depressed war-torn regions.
    - duxup 4y ago
      Every nation is a result of a series of events, revolts, etc... I don't see that as unique in any way to any type of nation nor does it change the history of attempting to make a nation into what some outsider would like it to be.
- rendall 4y ago
  > If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote Interesting. Upstream you said that human rights was mostly a progressive issue, but this is a decidedly conservative, perhaps even regressive, approach. edit - later, I see that you refer to yourself as conservative > the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them I associate civilization with staunch defense of the humanity and dignity even of the worst of us. It might for me even be the primary defining characteristic of the term. We could publically behead those who "take advantage", but then, that would be uncivilized. Medieval and barbaric, actually. Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically. Use only the bare minimum violence necessary to maintain actual, real civilized society, constantly vigilant against its overuse
  - quacked 4y ago
    I tried to imply the meaningless of labels by using quotes around "progressives" in this phrase: > The majority of people in the US who bother to care about human rights abuses and exploitation of vulnerable populations are "progressives". What I am interested in is an effective approach, regardless if it's considered progressive, conservative, regressive, old-fashioned, etc. I am tired of watching the primary discourse over human rights in the US play out between uneducated "conservatives" who would establish a Christian fascist state in a week if left to their own devices and naive "progressives" who think that violent criminals just need "access to resources" in order to civilize themselves. > Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically. Sure, good luck with reintegrating a slaver into society with those they enslaved or a violent rapist into society with those they raped. I am not opposed to an atonement/reintegration cycle, but it needs far more rigorous severity than I've seen any "progressive" ever argue for.

rendall 4y ago

I think this is untrue, if you're contrasting to "conservatives"* Conservatives fear the effects of fast change and unintended consequences, but do still care about human rights and the exploitation of vulnerable populations. * The caveat here is that I do think there is a significant minority of people who call themselves conservative or progressive or whatever, who are not on the side of a better society, but are only for themselves.

quacked 4y ago
I have sympathy for the semantic point you're making, as I call myself "conservative", but match ideologies with very few people in the US that self-identify using the same word.

WalterBright 4y ago

That's simply not true. Libertarianism holds human rights above all else. The entire purpose of a libertarians government is guaranteeing peoples' rights.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Libertarianism holds human rights above all else. Libertarianism holds a very particular and highly contentious conception of human rights (which differs radically, but with some common elements, between different flavors of libertarianism) above everything else. So do several other ideologies, with different conceptions of human rights.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  What's highly contentious about rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Those are slogans, not substantive conceptions of rights, and the last of those a slogan that was used because the thing many then-contemporary liberals would have preferred and that reflects (but still does bot substantively specify) what they and most modern libertarians value most, property, was too contentious even at the level of a slogan.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Sure, they are short, that doesn't make them slogans. For example, you have the right to your life. That means you have a right to not be murdered by others or the state. How is that difficult to understand? > most modern libertarians value most That's an invention on your part. > property Yes, I know the original wording was "pursuit of property". Property rights have turned out to be a very fundamental right. Not being allowed to own anything has proved disastrous again and again and again.