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> I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support t
by gpm 3mo ago
> I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale
This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments.
But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model)
> A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others.
Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.
- scottyah 3mo agoBack in my day, the right wing was "conservative" and used to be the ones making the permitting processes to slow down "progress".
- gpm 3mo agoUsing regulations and permitting to improve safety, living conditions, and similar things to support people has always been left wing. Using regulations and permitting to discriminate against people who you don't like is a long standing right wing tactic, but isn't the nature of the complaint I quoted above.
- xhkkffbf 3mo agoReally? If someone passes a law that criminalizes the activity of migrants, they say they're doing it to improve safety and living conditions. But it seems like the current people in the left-wing tent hate restrictions on migrants and view such regulations as racist.
- int_19h 3mo agoHow did we get to the point where suggesting that you hear out what someone has to say for themselves get equated to "literally defending his choice"? I'm very far left myself, but I hate this tendency to equate any intellectual engagement with the right wing thought whatsoever with support. It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties that you catch simply by being in the same room or something.
- gpm 3mo ago[flagged]
- handedness 3mo agoIf it's intellectual engagement you want, how about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well It's far better to respect people's ability to reach their own conclusions about things. If someone sends me media and tells me in advance what I should think of it, it devalues my estimation of them more than it does of the media in question (which I try to keep an open mind about).
- gpm 3mo agoNo what I want is for people to not advocate for crimes against humanity like taking hundreds of thousands of people (in their own words) and ripping them away from their homes and sending them to a country that some of them have never even been to and won't speak that language in our have legal status in or so on. And barring that I would like other people to not direct people to the first group of people's propaganda and writings as if it was a valuable thing to read in itself and to suggest that you might agree with them. And barring that I would like people to not refer to the above as "intellectual engagement" and defend it on those terms when it is nothing of the sort because there is no engagement.
- tremon 3mo ago> It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties Rightist politics may not be, but rightist rhetoric surely is. Consider GW Bush' statement "if you're not with us, you're against us" (or the 2025 equivalent "either you support genocide, or you're an antisemite"): where is the room for intellectual engagement in statements such as these? Your suggested "intellectual engagement" with absolute positions such as these serves absolutely no other purpose than to lend them an air of legitimacy. There absolutely exist rationales that do not deserve to be "heard" or "considered". Or put another way: "Let's meet in the middle", says the unjust man. You take a step forward; the unjust man takes a step back. "Let's meet in the middle", says the unjust man.