That Harpers Open Letter

[_honorentheos]

.

Your problem appears to be an inability to distinguish facts from opinions.

Because I don't agree with you on something, I don't see the facts for what they are. Therefore, what's the point, right?

Nice, Schmo. Real nice.

[_honorentheos]

This is all well and good, but none of this can happen until everyone agrees to respect facts.

The above assumes everyone is ready for football; meanwhile, a third of the country is obsessing over the coming Quidditch match.

Ok, here's your first comment.

[_honorentheos]

I disagree. The argument isn't over facts but values. Swinging dicks in a dickathon over who is right is a never ending debate. Acknowledging that liberal values for safeguarding freedom of speech is something else is a different kind of shared space that still allows for differing views. Wanting everyone to agree so that everyone can then have freedom of speech is kinda missing the point.

And here's my reply.

[_Some Schmo]

Because I don't agree with you on something, I don't see the facts for what they are. Therefore, what's the point, right?

Nice, Schmo. Real nice.

Yeah, I'm seriously questioning your comprehension skills today. Or maybe I'm just not writing my point clearly enough, but I've run out of ways to say it.

[_honorentheos]

I disagree. The argument isn't over facts but values.

And I'm saying it's impossible without valuing facts. There's no good faith debate without a submission to the facts. Otherwise, lying is fair game and there's simply no point.

For instance, if someone enters a debate saying something like, there's no evidence man-induced climate change is real... that's just my opinion, and everyone's entitled to their opinion...

There's nothing to debate. The person's already fu-cked and has to do some baseline homework before he's worth a discussion.

And here is what I'm characterizing as you saying Nope. "It's impossible without valuing facts."

I believe arguing that your position demands people agree with you is hardly a mischaracterization of what you have been saying.

[_Some Schmo]

This is all well and good, but none of this can happen until everyone agrees to respect facts.

The above assumes everyone is ready for football; meanwhile, a third of the country is obsessing over the coming Quidditch match.

Ok, here's your first comment.

Good. Now... where do you see me saying, "Nope!"

[_EAllusion]

Again, we seem to all agree on the what that you are saying. You aren't defending the why. Your purity test is an assertion. You want to make a point that has substance? What exactly is it that Sangal said that makes him a Q soiling the P so you say the issue here is association with bad people? Otherwise, you are operating under a version of the Law of 22 Prairial.

I like how you keep using letters like it is a mystical incantation.

You want me to go down the list and point out all the examples of what I'm talking about? That seems annoyingly time-consuming given that any dispute I care about already takes this part for granted given how prominent the examples are. There's a whole conservation occurring where this part is a mutually understood premise. Did you read my opening comment and what it was commenting on? It was commenting on the position that you should not associate your name with such people and I was offering a reformed argument about contextual meaning.

It's not clear if you're not aware of the people on the list or if you are saying something like, "What's wrong with these [transphobic comments]. What happened to reasonable debate?!"

I don't know, and it's utterly beside the point for the my comments that already take it for granted that someone would understand who is on the list. My comments are on what that means. If you're all gonna be like, "prove to me Bari Weiss is a concern troll" or "what's wrong with what Jesse Signal said?" then nah, dude. My point already assumes you know that. What I find interesting is what it means to join a group of people who want to open up the public discourse to have fewer consequences for prejudiced comments or associations [maybe because they've faced some] in trying to articulate a principled defense of free speech.

Real leftists tend to see me as the enemy, and it is equal parts amusing and annoying that you enter the conversation as something like a radical centrist and start casting denunciations based on misreadings and lack of sufficient David Brookness.

[_honorentheos]

Look, it seems to me you are arguing there has to be some shared set of basic beliefs that you call facts that must be shared for good faith debate to occur. Yeah. Finding where people share common ground is often one of the first things one attempts to discover when debating someone with whom one disagrees. It's usually discovered through debate and inquiry.

[_Some Schmo]

I believe arguing that your position demands people agree with you is hardly a mischaracterization of what you have been saying.

Well, characterize it that way all you want. It's not what I was trying to convey, but take the message you want to hear rather than understand the one I'm actually trying to make. Believe what you want.

Now we have a real difference of opinion. Good.

[_subgenius]

Like you right now arguing values are meaningless until people share your beliefs?

No honor. Read what I said, please.

practice what you preach schmo, you're wrong on this one. And while that's not surprising given your usual KG level of emotional spittle for every single post, this one really really really applies to you.