Comment by mikkergp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikkergp | Hacker News Reader

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I do think that people are so busy being mad about the "Democrats have moved too far left" meme that they haven't really thought about it. The problem being the definition of "too far left". But yeah, I think they've moved to the left because human rights are important.

It would be interesting to go back to Women's suffrage because I'm sure people were having the same discussion. Liberals have moved left while Republicans have stayed where they are. But of course, moving to the left on equal rights for women is not liberals moving too far to the left. It's society course correcting. You don't get to say "Well liberals got women's rights so we get ____" But too many Republicans are saying the equivalent of that (hell some Republicans do https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2021/10/22/a... say exactly that.)

Human rights can't be a partisan consideration. It can't be something we compromise over. We just have to evolve as a society, get over it and instead have substantive conversations about the policies that move the needle in people's lives.

What are human rights? To have an abortion? To own a gun? To have a say in what your children are taught? To get money from the government? It all depends on who you ask. Calling something a "human right" is a rhetorical device used to make disagreeing with your political position immoral and even heretical rather than just plain old wrong.

Despite whatabouting away from the women example, some of those can be classified as human rights, and what we currently have on some of those topics you could call a "reasonable rational compromise", even if I personally disagree, but right now Republicans are planning some interesting totalitarian anti-women, anti-privacy type stuff to tackle abortion.

Sometimes your opponent actually is taking an actual anti-human rights position. It's pretty common.

The pro-choice side would say the by banning abortions you are infringing the right of a woman to choose when to have a child. The pro-life side would contend that by enabling abortions you are infringing the right to life of an unborn human. Both positions are framed in terms of human rights and plenty of "reasonable rational" people argue vigorously for each one while viewing those who disagree with them as basically evil.

Framing the debate in terms of individuals' rights is intended to remove the topic from the realm of political discussion and shut down dissent. It also completely drowns out discussion of the societal effects of allowing/banning abortion, which is just as important as the effect on individuals. The same unproductive dynamic plays out in the debate over e.g. the right to free speech.

I want to add that I believe the way forward in this debate (and others) is to acknowledge that both rights are valid but neither are unlimited. The best compromise is to be found by sounding out the limits of each right. That is a political debate, not a quasi-religious one, and one that should be rekindled from time to time to update the compromise to match contemporary circumstances. In this regard, for either side in the abortion debate to enshrine their preferred right in the constitution would be a disaster.

The left doesn't equal human rights, it means more government intervention and currently it means using and abusing small portions of society under the guise of human rights and social justice as a false pretense to expand government control. Liberals have also not 'moved left', the democratic party has abandoned liberals in lieu of progressives, socialists and other people who believe in a more involved government instead of individual liberties in order to garner more votes and retain their districts.

> The left doesn't equal human rights, it means more government intervention

Really? Does "legalize abortion" mean more government intervention? Does "abolish the police" mean more government intervention?

It was actually "replace the police with herds of social (government) workers" and the governments ability to allow people to kill unborn kids in order to lessen government burden by eliminating under privileged classes.

Well, that certainly is a massive dollop of contempt.

How dare the left want to replace armed officers executing black people in the streets with therapists and social workers!

I'm pretty sure the point of my comment was the opposite of "left equals human rights".

"I think they've moved to the left because human rights are important."

If that's the part of my comment you're latching onto, and you're not disagreeing with the notion that Repbulicans don't believe in women's rights, than we're in a much worse place than I thought.

Your entire statement was ridiculous and pompous, but the only thing worth replying to was your incorrect belief that the left represents human rights. So no, I'm not going to sit here and bicker about an ann coulter quote who is known for decades as being purposefully inflammatory for the sake of having people with your point of view bookmark and share her stupid statements in order to prove a point.

Anne Coulter aside, there is a core point here and that is that historically, we've gotten it wrong and I think most of us can agree that looking back we had it wrong. Yes, that Anne Coulter quite is ridiculous but was likely more representative of opinions around the time of Women's suffrage. Is it not possible that we can collectively figure out where we continue to get it wrong?

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