This does not mean that attacking/defaming people is ok, just that “I don’t like this” or “this is insensitive” should never be brought up against the existence of a work of fiction.

Should any critiques be levelled at fictional works, then? If a work has a character that’s an insensitive racial stereotype, am I allowed to criticize the character, not for being an offensive stereotype, but for being one-dimensional and poorly written? If so, why, exactly?

“We can’t allow you to transition because you’re not old enough to make a decision that could cause irreparable damage that you might regret later, but have you considered killing yourself?” is the insane nightmare scenario that we’re headed to.

From the UK (recommendations for a proposed law), “Doctors can bring up AS [assisted suicide] before the patient has mentioned it, including under 18.” They sure as hell can’t do that for HRT. Call me crazy, but if you’re old enough for a doctor to suggest suicide, you’re old enough to trans your gender.

People will say they hate eugenics but then just argue for the same concept under a different term. Anyone who agrees with this should read Eugenics and Other Evils by G.K. Chesterton, where he criticizes and refutes the idea of giving the state authority of who can have kids when.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was “well timed” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “wait.” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never.” It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

My perspective on what rights are and how they work sometimes has people looking at me like I’m literally the devil. But it’s really not that crazy.

First off, rights aren’t absolute and have to be balanced against each other. Spend an hour or two following along with mundane SCOTUS cases and you’ll see all kinds of examples where two reasonable principles come in conflict with each other and it’s not immediately apparent which one should take precedence. I would actually argue that, if you want to treat principles as absolutes, you only get one, because any two concievable principles can (at least theoretically) come into conflict with each other. You can’t serve two masters.

Moreover, what rights actually are are a theory about maintaining order and keeping people satisfied and content. The theory goes that people were reasonably content in a “state of nature” and that if they become discontent in civilization, it must be because they’re lacking something that they would have naturally had. As a general rule, it works well enough - but viewing it this way means that you’re viewing rights as a means to an end, rather than an end of itself, which is a very important distinction. What that means is that if you’re in a situation where you have to choose between upholding rights and the end goal that rights are meant to achieve, then it makes sense to prioritize that end.

Again, something that makes people look at me like a demon (or call me a “tankie”), but like, there was a point in the Civil War where Abraham Lincoln suspended habeus corpus in response to the genuine, existential threat posed by the Confederacy, and it was probably necessary for him to do so, or at the very least he had good reason to think it was.

The well of discourse on this subject has been poisoned by politicians leveraging imaginary threats for self-interested purposes, and the fact that we in the first world are so used to basic security that we take it for granted. Certainly, there’s plenty of people who say, “The ends justify the means,” but who aren’t really following that principle, they just want to do illegal things for other reasons, like torture being motivated by cruelty, hatred, or revenge but justified on the pretense of extracting information to save lives.

However, just because people use imaginary/exaggerated threats like that, that’s no reason to think real existential threats don’t exist for anyone ever. And when you’re facing a legitimate existential threat, all bets are off, you should give it 100% and do whatever it takes to survive and win. If you’re not prepared to do that, you should give up the fight and walk away. Otherwise, how can you ask others to lay down their lives while you’re pulling your punches, just to feel good about yourself? A guilty conscience is a small price to pay.

Somehow, we’ve got all these people with martyr complexes who have got everything mixed up, that your job as a moral agent is about serving these abstract moral principles as an end to itself, rather than your job being to do the things that lead to the best outcomes and the principles being guidelines that generally, but not always, help you find that course of action. It at least makes sense if you believe following those principles will get you into heaven, but many people still act as though that was their chief concern even without believing in such an afterlife.

Eat plants: plants die

Eat animals: animals have to eat a bunch of plants first meaning way more plants die and also animals die

It’s definitely not. I distinctly remember a thread from a year ago about a young woman killing herself through euthanasia purely because of mental illness and a bunch of people on here supporting it.

Personally, I’d be “ok” with it, if it wasn’t such a slippery slope and if liberals and politicians could be trusted not to take it too far. Under capitalism, it’s inevitable that it’s going to be used as a solution for people who are seen as a “drain” on the system, and as an excuse to not provide accommodation and a higher standard of care.

It’s always justified by pointing to an extreme case like a terminally ill elderly person living in constant physical pain but then in practice it’s, “What do you mean doctors shouldn’t tell depressed teenagers to kill themselves? Are you saying that mental suffering isn’t real?” I’d rather it be banned entirely if that’s the endgame these sociopaths are after.

When you try to use only sticks and no carrots, people don’t do what you want, they just avoid the crazy guy waving a stick around at everybody.

The thing to understand about Christianity is that it was originally a reaction against the Roman empire and then got co-opted and integrated into it. As a result, ever since like the 4th century Christianity has been about basically the opposite of what Jesus talked about. It turns out all that stuff about turning the other cheek stops being relevant if the emperor has his soldiers paint crosses on their shields while they’re out conquering and enslaving the Gauls. Of course, you can keep all the mythological stuff, who cares, but anything relevant to politics or the material world mysteriously seemed to reverse once they entered the halls of power.

The carrot of being accepted into the empire was matched with the stick that if you didn’t go along with the imperial-approved form of Christianity you’d be burned at the stake as a heretic. Any sects still clinging to anti-imperial sentiment get hunted down and exterminated just like when they were being fed to lions, but it’s the Christians doing it to each other now, so you don’t even have to get your own hands dirty. This approach worked way better at suppressing dissent than just trying to ban Christianity altogether.

Of course, a lot has changed over the centuries. And originally it wasn’t perfect or anything either. But imo, it was when Rome Christianized that Christianity Romanized, and ever since its real values have had more to do with Rome than with Jesus. The meme’s, “moneyless, classless, stateless” ideal of heaven is a relic of the original teachings that gets shunted off to the purely mythological side, where it not only doesn’t matter, but also occupies a place in their brain that could have otherwise been sympathetic to making good things happen in the material world. That’s already resolved, there’s no need to worry about it, there’ll be pie in sky when you die.

Aunt Tifa vs anti-Fa (a longer way to run)

Not a yes or a no.

There is no “solidarity” to be had with people who kill or severely harm members of the working class. If you pull others down to get ahead, you are not my comrade.

Every time a person chooses that path, they create even more desperate situations for other working class people. The people who join the military to “escape poverty” force others into poverty in the process, and they force them into situations worse than poverty. How many people became mujahideen because all they had to put food on the table was a gun? And how many people are growing up not only in poverty, but also as orphans, because of the troops’ actions?

This is complete insanity. If we can excuse the actions of the troops, then we can excuse the actions of anyone. Maybe Jeffery Epstein just did the things he did because of how he was raised, or because of his brain chemistry, or because of this or because of that. Regardless, he still needs to be condemned and failure to condemn him is a disservice to his victims, and alienates people who could actually be valuable allies.

Everyone understands this when it comes to other “professions” like the ones I mentioned, that pull others down to get ahead. But when it comes to troops, troop worship is so ingrained, the propaganda so deep, that even when people consciously reject it, they still want to justify and make excuses for them. Rationally speaking, if you accept that we should condemn those other professions, and you accept that troops are just as bad if not worse, then you should condemn them in just as strong terms.

The same is true of selling crack but I’ll criticize that too.

Nobody forced them to sign up.

The big issue I have with your statements, and those of the OP are that they are extremist.

Of course they’re “extremist.” Putting the lives of Afghans and Iraqis on the same level as Americans is an extreme position. That’s just the world we live in. But just because it’s “extreme” relative to generally accepted discourse in the West doesn’t make it any less correct.

Not every cop has shot an innocent person. But people still have no problem saying All Cops Are Bastards. Because even those who aren’t directly involved support and cover for those who do. Likewise, not a single troop at Abu Ghraib blew the whistle on what was happening there. If you’re fine with ACAB, you should also be fine with ATAB, and the only reason I can see why someone wouldn’t is that they value the cops’ victims more than those of the troops.

You spend your whole life doing exercises and hauling supplies, but you massacre one village and suddenly everyone hates you.

Replace every instance of “joining the military” with “becoming a police officer,” or “selling crack,” or “scamming the elderly,” or “scabbing on striking workers.” Do the same arguments apply? Yes or no.