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Comment by rusk | Hacker News Reader

I've no doubt he was very much a hardliner in his day.

What I'm speculating about is what he would have thought today, after the last 10 years and the maturation of reddit, facebook and co. Provided he hadn't spent that entire time incarcerated of course!

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I don't think you should be speculating that he would endorse the repulsive views he spent his life struggling against, any more than you should be hurling a bunch of epithets at me. Please stop.

Epithets? What epithets? We’re having a fairly civilised discussion here. I’m about his age, and believed many of the things that he believed and I’ve seen my attitudes soften somewhat over the last few years. If anything, it is you trying to diminish my experience with your high handed rhetoric.

I was quoting from the excerpt I quoted above, not saying you were hurling epithets. I think that what you're doing is equally offensive.

I don't think you believed the things he believed for the same reason he did, in part because the quality of this conversation is so spectacularly different from any conversation I ever had with him.

That’s just snobbery.

You chose to commemorate my dead friend's birthday by speculating that, if he were still alive, he would have come to agree with your own odious and repugnant views, views he spent his life fighting against, offering nothing in the way of evidence. I deplore your conduct, and I do not think he ever would have done something similar. Dismissing my criticism as "snobbery" is in keeping with the rest of your vile calumny, but it is not a valid argument.

As someone that once considered themself a hardliner as well, I have found that the last ten years have had the very effect you’re addressing. The truth is there’s a lot of nuance in this topic and it’s beginning to look like a hardline stance resulted in destroying people counter to what Aaron wanted.

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