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Comment by brookst | Hacker News Reader

It’s of questionable taste to use someone’s death to advance your politics when the facts are known and can be fairly used as evidence that your tribe is right about something.

It’s in poor taste indeed to acknowledge that you don’t know the facts of a murder, and to still insist that the killing supports your politics.

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> use someone’s death to advance your politics

Are you shying away from discussing politics whenever there is a school shooting as well?

Sure. I object equally when someone says “we don’t know the facts, but assuming the killer was Islamic, this is further proof of how bad Islam is” (substitute Christian or whatever).

It is always poor taste to project one’s politics into the uncertainty around a tragedy and then turn around and use the imagined facts to argue politics.

I’m less opposed to using established, non-imaginary facts.

> I’m less opposed to using established, non-imaginary facts.

This to me sounds like you like to talk politics when a tragedy strikes, but only if the politics is on your side.

For example, SF decaying can be argued as an established, non-imaginary fact. It's easy to hide behind "facts", 'statistics", "science" to push your political point, thinking you are infallible. Even more so, a lot of people say "it's not even politics, it's basic science" - but these are all fallacies. In the end, almost everything can be traced back to politics.

I can't think of a stronger reason to start getting political, to start rallying for a change, than when brothers-in-arms, when innocents, are falling to the sword.

What change do you rally for when you don’t know if it was a targeted murder for personal motives or a stochastic result of a broken down political system?

Right.

“Just part & parcel of living in a _big city_.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3801018/Terror-atta...

Statistically, most crimes occur in big cities because that's where the people are.

My town of 80k, which feels perfectly safe 99% of the time, has had >2x the per capita murder rate of NYC, and has for years.

My town of 104k, which actually is perfectly safe 99% of the time, has less than 1/5th the per capita murder rate of NYC, and has for years.

I dare say my town is a great deal safer than your town. I wonder what the difference is.

you seem to be responding to the wrong post

This quote has been repeated for years and is completely misquoted as it literally splices together parts of the quote. The original quote was

"Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you got to support the security services."

https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/what-londons-mayor-really-s...

This is a quote that I'm sure you would agree with, as would anyone. Stop spreading this misinformation.

The truth hurts

It's in poor taste to establish yourself as an authority to someone else on the internet.

Do you think it would have been better to ask a few questions before resorting to shame as a tactic to change someone's behavior?

(See what I did there?)

I can see why people would think the second point is "poor taste" (although I'm not sure if I agree), but definitely don't see why the first would be "questionable".

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