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Comment by fzeroracer | Hacker News Reader

Keep in mind that Chris Rufo is known to call all of his opponents ideologues, has ties to to the Claremont Institute (known for dabbling a bit in white nationalism), frequently complained about his opponents 'virtue signalling' and talks about 'break[ing] up the homeless industrial complex'

He tends to be biased more towards criminalizing homelessness and institutionalizing them. I also noticed in this podcast he makes claims that are simply not backed up by evidence, specifically when he's talking about Canada and the safe injection sites.

This isn't to say that homelessness isn't a problem in Seattle, because it is. We're seeing similar issues happen to San Francisco as in Seattle due to rising rent and poor healthcare opportunities and there's unfortunately no easy solution.

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> has ties to to the Claremont Institute (known for dabbling a bit in white nationalism)

It's gotten to the point that I don't trust these vague-links-to-white-nationalism accusations at all. They so rarely have any substance to them that they make me more suspicious of the person accusing than the person being accused.

Ad hominem isn't a good look, nor an effective argument when it comes to policy. Too often I see dismissals based on indirect associations with the Koch brothers or unsubstantiated allegations of white nationalism. I don't see how ad hominem by progressives is any better than someone dismissing research data because of "links" to think tanks funded by George Soros, etc.

>I don't see how ad hominem by progressives is any better than someone dismissing research data because of "links" to think tanks funded by George Soros, etc.

Are you saying association with a partisan think tank is equally as damning as association with white nationalism?

It's an issue of morality. Being morally bankrupt should probably challenge somebody's credibility more than having stances on policy that some don't agree with.

Please read my comment closely. I said neither are "damning", because ad hominem shouldn't be considered a reason to "damn" ideas in an unrelated policy debate. Especially unsubstantiated allegations about a second or third degree connection.

I agree that ad hominem attacks are overwhelmingly used to evade the responsibility of substantive debate. The problem is that policy debates are not purely objective and in reality people weigh presented perspectives and evidence according to the perceived credibility of a given source. As a result, information that speaks to the soundness of a person's judgement has a place in policy debate as a means of drawing conclusions in the absence of indisputable facts.

We're all placing faith in something that determines what we call truth and what we call lies or ignorance.

I have more than substantiated my allegations and I would easily argue this goes beyond a second or third degree connection.

Moral bankruptcy isn't necessarily transitive.

How many degrees of separation from a white nationalist must one be in order to be moral?

I would argue that it is transitive but diminishes in proportion to the degrees of separation and depends upon both awareness and the nature of the association. For example, discounting somebody's moral standing for knowingly befriending a pedophile seems more reasonable than discounting their moral standing because their cousin unknowingly befriended a pedophile.

I think that says a lot more about you than anything else, considering we've seen a large surge in white nationalist activity over the past year. We should be very concerned, especially when they're becoming violent and lashing out at people like the Proud Boys.

We should beware white nationalism. It's real, and it's a problem. We should also beware playing six-degrees-of-white-nationalism. You could probably tar everyone with that brush, including Obama, me, and fzeroracer.

Can you expand on the white nationalism support of the Claremont Institute and the connection of Chris Rufo to it?

Not only did their previous president (until 2017) have ties to Steve Bannon (which should be throwing alarms right away) [1], he was a former Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute [2] which still had some recent issues due to members openly supporting white nationalism [3].

[1] http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/10/will-steve-bannon-help-b...

[2] https://www.claremont.org/page/fellowships/lincoln-fellowshi...

[3] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/23/trump-think-tank-r...

> he was a former Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute [2]

Who are you referring to here? It sounded like you were referring to either Bannon or Pack, but neither of them are on the list in your "[2]" link.

I was specifically referring to Rufo.

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