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Comment by Andre_Wanglin | Hacker News Reader

Ideas are expressed by people. Does every person deserve serious consideration?

To take an obvious example, I'm sure his friends thought he was a swell guy, but I don't think we need to revisit Hitler's ideas about the Jews. I don't think we need to give much serious thought to theories about moon landing hoaxes or theories about how the Earth is flat either, no matter how nice the people promulgating them may be. We are only given so much time on this Earth; I can think of better ways to spend it than seriously engaging with obvious claptrap.

Everyone I know (and know of) espouses obvious claptrap from time to time. If that is the sieve with which you denote undesirables to remove from your personal sphere, your circle either has a radius of 1 or you delude yourself about your detection abilities.

I don't think I've advocated shunning everyone who says something stupid once in a while.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Racists do not

What is a racist? Is this a fixed idea or does it change year to year and depend on the context? Shouldn't we be careful about writing off people based on fluctuating social mores? What about fascists, Marxists, communists, and anarchists? And, say, Trump supporters? Do they deserve basic human respect? Is there any reason not to dehumanize these groups too? Or others who fail our moral tests?

That is your opinion, and you are free to it.

However at this point "racists" organized and wound up controlling Congress, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. The people that you'd like to ignore are currently running the place. Ignoring them might not be the best idea...

It's pretty unlikely that any dyed-in-the-wool Republican is going to hear your rational argument and be so astonished at your doctrine that he changes his mind.

Actually it is surprisingly likely..IF you're willing to do the hard work of moral reframing to put it from their views and values. See https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/opinion/sunday/the-key-to... for more about that.

That said, few people of any political persuasion are able to engage in that exercise.

I don't think this kind of exercise is that difficult, and I get plenty of practice on HN talking to people who have very right-wing ideas about the economy. But come on; it's not a way of working miracles. You might persuade your uncle who loves Donald Trump to moderate a couple of positions; you aren't going to turn him away from the Republican Party.

This is the main reason that election campaigns have moved on and focus much more heavily on turning out their own supporters than persuading "undecided" voters, who are a statistical nullity.

Do think that Republicans are irrational? Are Democrats rational? What about Libertarians or Greens? Irrational or no?

Is that what's at issue here? I think very few people -- nearly none -- are actually open to being rationally persuaded to completely flip their political beliefs. People with completely different political commitments usually start from different axioms.

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