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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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You are pro murder in my view if you don't care about killing babies that are sufficiently late term. There can be some very rare exceptions, but supporting it in general is a rightfully hated position.

I don't understand your analogy. How is killing "vile criminals" similar to killing developed babies?

Supporting third trimester abortions is not just not savvy but a position that people find morally abhorrent for valid reasons that are much more understandable than any claim of moral abhorrence towards execution of murderous criminals.

For the purpose of my argument, the radical pro life side ("abortions should always be tried as murder") corresponds to BLM radicals ("When we say 'defund the police', we mean abolishing it"). The moderates are the ones who dislike the death penalty or the 3rd trimester abortions, but don't really care too much about Dobbs or criminal justice otherwise. The point of view I am arguing is people who care strongly about criminal justice or abortion rights, and are fine with the death penalty or 3rd trimester abortions, but would lose popular support if they demanded that.

Third trimester abortion is an extreme position. Singerian viewpoint can even support infanticide. In my view, treating after birth bill or immediate abortion as equivalen of murder is also an extreme position. But certainly your position is far worse.

I can understand how "all abortion is murder" can be not savvy electorally. Although, calls of compromise it is very harmful to the right. It's part of the mechanism for why things are so far left, because leftists including leftists who captured influence in right wing circles, ask for more compromise, with the end result the right becoming more of the left.

So, for example as far as late term abortions go, there is nothing wrong with making supporting it a taboo, and even criminal prosecutions of legislators and those doing them. Outside of some few exception.

Not caring too much is so commonly offered by people here as a "moderate position" especially by liberals towards right wingers. It is not a moderate position to not care. It can even be the opposite. It also not sensible to paint valid positions as extreme.

The death penalty is not an extreme position. It might be an unfashionable position in certain countries today, but that doesn't make it an extreme position. I would give you that, it doesn't make you an extremist to oppose the death penalty, weakly. Frankly, I respect to an extend the argument of fear of getting it wrong, or fear of the state abusing its power.

But the animating feelings among those strongly opposing it in discourse I have seen is about this idea of inoccent, framed, or falsely accused, especially black murderers. And how an injustice is done to them.

I would say that the right and people in general need to support valid positions that go against the pieties and orthodoxies of the left and of its associated sacred cows. Ironically easy conformism is the road to the worst extremism and what is fashionable is not something to just compromise and allow others to define, but something that can be fought over and change.

(Another thing to consider is that among the left, the moderates generally refuse to be alienated by the radicals, with the moderates claiming that 'When people demand X, they obviously don't mean Y, but Z'. (X: "defund the police", Y: "abolishing the police", Z: "move some of the police budget to social services" or X: "From the river to the sea", Y: "destroy Israel", Z: "a two state solution").)

Moving the budget of the police to social services and defunding police somewhat has lead to increase of crime rates and is in fact an extreme position. The so called moderate left have promoted a very distorted picture of the world, and soft on crime and two tier justice policies. As always as narratives of that.

The moderate left are just extremists who are more moderate about their destructive agenda in my view. To a great extend, the moderate left doesn't exist, because what they want which is similiar to the BLM type agenda but not as far, is not moderate! To the extend something that can be considered moderate left exists, which is genuinely moderate, it must be a very small faction.

I think that we agree that there are some crimes which are similar to means states should use -- with sufficient procedural safeguards -- as punishment (theft, kidnapping). We likely also agree that there are some acts which are considered crimes when random citizens do them which would still be bad it we had the state do them (rape, torture). We seem to have different moral intuitions into which of the two camps the act of killing a person against their will should fall.

FWIW, I do not consider the death penalty with sufficient safe guards for sufficiently evil crimes to be a great moral failing of the US. I don't like it, but only to the point that I will write on the motte about it.

Fair.

I think that justice should strive to be color-blind. If there are more violent criminals in a minority, the way I would spin this is that this very likely means that the non-criminals in that minority are exposed to more crime than suburban Whites. If police is more reluctant to take action against Black men abusing their partners than against White men abusing theirs, then they are failing Black women, which is something the wokes should care about.

You can't address the problem of pro black bias, by making it all about how blacks suffer more. You reinforce the woke ideology when your opposition to it is about primarily how it hurts blacks more. It can be part of the things you mention that such murderers also harm blacks but you shouldn't adopt the morality that prioritizes blacks.