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Comment by excalibur | Hacker News Reader

These days objectivity is politically left. The right has fallen off a cliff and pulled the Overton window down with it.

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So Crime++, Prostitution++, Police--, Drugs++, Unlimited Immigration++, you get my point? I don't think "objectivity" is politically left.

These are not left-wing values. You're being incredibly reductive. Only a few nut jobs at the far left wing support some of these things, and even then, not all of them. Nobody is "for" crime.

Didn’t California effectively legalise shoplifting?

That seems objectively pro-crime.

By that logic, any reduction in punishment for a crime is "pro crime." On the contrary, reducing the maximum fine for speeding is not "pro speeding," and eliminating the death penalty for murder is not "pro murder."

Did it? If so, why does anyone pay for things in California shops? This idea is prima facie absurd.

They raised the monetary amount that would push a crime from a misdemeanor to a felony. They raised it from $400 to $950.

This was widely touted in conservative circles as practically legalizing shoplifting since prosecution is less likely for misdemeanors.

The raise moves California from the 2nd lowest threshold (New Jersey is $200) to the 10th lowest. The states with the highest thresholds, and therefore the most pro-shoplifting according to conservative logic, are:

  $2500 Texas and Wisconsin
  $2000 Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina
  $1500 Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland,
        Montana, Nebraska, Rhode Island and Utah

Your claim is very misleading. Those states have other laws and allow aggregating theft occurances below those thresholds mentioned.

So does California.

This kind of belief should make one stop and think about one's information diet.

I have you tagged as someone who claimed January 6th was overblown.

Maybe you shouldn't be lecturing anyone else about what qualifies as a crime.

Claiming the left is incapable of objectivity while also claiming that it stands for “prostitution”, “unlimited immigration”, and “crime” just highlights how detached from reality your worldview has become.

What?

This comment accidentally surfaces the shifting paradigm we're seeing these days: Not so much left versus right, but dismissive populist oversimplification versus policies that support a complicated, nuanced, and fragile world.

Maybe AI is "liberal" like Dick Cheney or Mitt Romney.

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