3 ms·

So what? The poster was obviously referring to the executive so pretending like there was any ambiguity was ridiculous

mindslight 1y ago
It's either ambiguous or a logical fallacy - the original concern is about government overreach in general, so it cannot be dismissed by focusing on the executive when it's obviously not the executive acting. The commenter I responded to is an attorney who presumably just tried to cut out having to detail a longer argument based on the actual nuances that have been interpreted from the 4th amendment. Still, the argument bit off too much so in the interest of deeper analysis and rational discussion it seemed worth calling out.
- freejazz 1y ago
  It's a legal dispute. The role the "government" plays in a legal dispute is very clear. You're being obnoxiously pedantic.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    The topic's entire complaint is of people not liking a government action, arrived at by government policy. You made a comment that the "government is not involved". Reading your other comments in this thread, it seems as if your point is to brush aside people's concerns as if they are nonsensical. But that simplistic statement is obviously false, because we are talking about a government order. My comments only seem pedantic because I've had to tediously spell out the details in response to your argumentative wriggling instead of you just accepting that your simplistic statement was wrong.
    - freejazz 1y ago
      If you want to pretend to not understand the difference between the different branches of gov't that's fine. I'm sure there is a childrens' playground where you can have a similar level of nuanced discussion, as to your liking. > government order They aren't called "government orders" they are called "court orders". Give me a break with this nonsense alreayd.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        Do you have a constructive point you would like to make with this distinction? You keep coming back to this, making it a point to insult me, but then don't really go anywhere with it. This is Hacker News - we readily jump between levels of abstraction. I've acknowledged that the executive and judicial are separate branches are government, but my argument zooms out a level and treats them as both part of the larger government. Because when people feel their right to privacy is being violated by the government, it doesn't really depend on which branch is causing it! It seems to me you want to hold to the distinction between the two so perhaps you can paint the action under discussion as if it's the result of something that could not just be changed? But obviously this capability of the judiciary could be restrained by Congress, the same as actions by the executive.
        freejazz 1y ago
        The point is that the conversation was perfectly parsable and your repeated misunderstanding brings nothing to it. I made that point several posts ago but for some reason you keep responding to me and I do not understand why. > but my argument zooms out a level and treats them as both part of the larger government Okay? I'm not going to argue against your obtuse misunderstanding or recharacterization of the problem. No one was referring to the government that way, so pretending like they were "for the sake of argument" furthers nothing.
        mindslight 1y ago
        I'm not misunderstanding. I told you what the problem was three comments back - if the word "government" is only referring to the executive branch, then dismissing the concern is a logical fallacy - the desire to be free from unreasonable searches applies to the judiciary as well as the executive. You just ignored the point in favor of calling me names instead.
        freejazz 1y ago
        > the desire to be free from unreasonable searches applies to the judiciary as well as the executive. Discovery is not a search. There's no point to having this discussion when you keep pushing these obtuse misunderstandings of words that have particular meanings in these contexts. No less so when you insist you do understand that you are pushing different meanings of the words than what are being discussed.

It's either ambiguous or a logical fallacy - the original concern is about government overreach in general, so it cannot be dismissed by focusing on the executive when it's obviously not the executive acting. The commenter I responded to is an attorney who presumably just tried to cut out having to detail a longer argument based on the actual nuances that have been interpreted from the 4th amendment. Still, the argument bit off too much so in the interest of deeper analysis and rational discussion it seemed worth calling out.

freejazz 1y ago
It's a legal dispute. The role the "government" plays in a legal dispute is very clear. You're being obnoxiously pedantic.
- mindslight 1y ago
  The topic's entire complaint is of people not liking a government action, arrived at by government policy. You made a comment that the "government is not involved". Reading your other comments in this thread, it seems as if your point is to brush aside people's concerns as if they are nonsensical. But that simplistic statement is obviously false, because we are talking about a government order. My comments only seem pedantic because I've had to tediously spell out the details in response to your argumentative wriggling instead of you just accepting that your simplistic statement was wrong.
  - freejazz 1y ago
    If you want to pretend to not understand the difference between the different branches of gov't that's fine. I'm sure there is a childrens' playground where you can have a similar level of nuanced discussion, as to your liking. > government order They aren't called "government orders" they are called "court orders". Give me a break with this nonsense alreayd.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      Do you have a constructive point you would like to make with this distinction? You keep coming back to this, making it a point to insult me, but then don't really go anywhere with it. This is Hacker News - we readily jump between levels of abstraction. I've acknowledged that the executive and judicial are separate branches are government, but my argument zooms out a level and treats them as both part of the larger government. Because when people feel their right to privacy is being violated by the government, it doesn't really depend on which branch is causing it! It seems to me you want to hold to the distinction between the two so perhaps you can paint the action under discussion as if it's the result of something that could not just be changed? But obviously this capability of the judiciary could be restrained by Congress, the same as actions by the executive.
      - freejazz 1y ago
        The point is that the conversation was perfectly parsable and your repeated misunderstanding brings nothing to it. I made that point several posts ago but for some reason you keep responding to me and I do not understand why. > but my argument zooms out a level and treats them as both part of the larger government Okay? I'm not going to argue against your obtuse misunderstanding or recharacterization of the problem. No one was referring to the government that way, so pretending like they were "for the sake of argument" furthers nothing.
        mindslight 1y ago
        I'm not misunderstanding. I told you what the problem was three comments back - if the word "government" is only referring to the executive branch, then dismissing the concern is a logical fallacy - the desire to be free from unreasonable searches applies to the judiciary as well as the executive. You just ignored the point in favor of calling me names instead.
        freejazz 1y ago
        > the desire to be free from unreasonable searches applies to the judiciary as well as the executive. Discovery is not a search. There's no point to having this discussion when you keep pushing these obtuse misunderstandings of words that have particular meanings in these contexts. No less so when you insist you do understand that you are pushing different meanings of the words than what are being discussed.