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I'm sympathetic to this point of view, but then we have to be consistent with it. No TSA. No license plate scanners. No fare gates for trains. No locks on do
by RC_ITR 3y ago
I'm sympathetic to this point of view, but then we have to be consistent with it.
No TSA. No license plate scanners. No fare gates for trains. No locks on doors. No anti-shoplifting tags.
EDIT: Is there some Emerson convention in town? You can look at my comments for some of his other quotes (It's actually not very surprising to me that an Anglo abolitionist who also believed that Anglos were the 'best' race wasn't a big fan of consistency!)
- josephcsible 3y agoThe difference is that you own your car, but not those other things. Things you own should always do what you want, not try to enforce laws against you.
- RC_ITR 3y agoI was under the impression that 99.9% of people take their cars out on publicly owned roads when they drive. Am I mistaken?
- josephcsible 3y agoBut this would go in the cars, not in the roads, so that's irrelevant.
- RC_ITR 3y agoWell it wouldn't preclude your use of the car (you can still enter it and turn it on), you just can't drive it on public roads (Essentially the entire use-case of moving a vehicle). TSA is at the airport lobby and technically only precludes me from entering the airside of an airport, but its purpose is to prevent me from getting on a plane with a gun. I don't think point of implementation is a strong argument here.
- hammock 3y agoWouldn’t an closer equivalent be DUI checkpoints staffed by government-accountable law enforcement officers at the entrance to the road? Not an automaker forced to privately police you in your own vehicle
- TheCoelacanth 3y agoAnd the TSA rules apply to my suitcase, not to the plane. What's the difference?
- josephcsible 3y agoYour suitcase isn't required to have a built-in X-ray machine.
- tomohawk 3y agoA foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson Consistency is not a primary value. It's important, but it shouldn't be the only driver to do something.
- RC_ITR 3y ago[flagged]
- hammock 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y ago"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." Please don't do this here. You can make anyone look terrible by cherry-picking something garish, but it is not the curious conversation we want on HN. Moreover it gets trivially easier the further back in time you go. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RC_ITR 3y agoI wholeheartedly disagree. First of all, that quote was pulled to insult me - it's specifically a quote about individuals' minds, not ideas. That is in fact the one of the strongest criticisms of Emerson - he grounded idea-based discourse in commentary on the people who hold those ideas. I'd even go so far as to say 'English Traits' is the perfect example of that failure. Secondly, When a premise is supported only by a quote from an individual, it is completely acceptable to post a separate quote from that individual in response. Why should I believe Emerson about consistency when (hopefully) all of us here disagree with him about Norsemen? Maybe it would be flamebait if that was part of an argument, but his entire argument was "Emerson said this thing so it's true" and my argument was "Emerson also said this patently false thing." I know it feels bad to look at the whole gorey corpus of otherwise really cool historical figures, but encouraging people to believe anything they say without critical analysis is the true anti-curiosity stance. Thirdly, I agree it's easier to make people from the past look morally bad morally and that is precisely why we should not base our worldview on their quotes alone.
- tqwhite 3y agoRight! Right! Also, we can't require railings on stairs or prohibit electrical wiring from being attached to doorknobs as a trick, or stop people from driving on sidewalks. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds and this commenter exhibits the smallest of them all.
- throwawa14223 3y agoWe already have the third amendment.
- function_seven 3y ago> No TSA. Yes. > No license plate scanners. Yes. > No fare gates for trains. Sure. A lot of places will do the fare check on the train. > No locks on doors. Well, no mandated locks. I hope I'm able to leave my front door unlocked if I choose. It's my door. > No anti-shoplifting tags. Ok. Again, I don't see why these should be required by law. And mine: > No compliance surveillance built into my possessions. Yes.