[wredcoll]

So this is a fascinating example of left vs right thinking.

To those on the left, why you do things matter. Breaking a law that is widely regarded as unjust is considered to be a moral action as long as it helps people.

The difference is being able to understand that "defying the federal government" is neither an absolute moral good nor is it an evil. Why you're doing it is the more important reason.

[triceratops]

> Breaking a law that is widely regarded as unjust

That's not the "why" for so-called "sanctuary city" practices. The answer is more pragmatic: local law enforcement needs all local residents to cooperate with them to be able to do their jobs.

If undocumented people are afraid to report crimes or be a witness, that hinders investigations and prosecutions of more serious crimes.

[philipallstar]

That is not left or right issue. Why you do things matters to everyone.

What you're talking about, which the left can certainly be said to have been guilty of, is selective enforcement, where people who purport the right motivations (read: politics) are fine to do things that others are not.

[LinXitoW]

Well, no. It's the right, for example, that constantly saw the "spectre of pedophiles" everywhere, including a random pizzerias basement, but when it comes to Epstein Files and his friends, many of who are in office, they suddenly don't care. Leftists, are, at least as far as i can tell, very consistent in not liking child molesters.

There's a huge amount of rightists against ALL abortion, until they suddenly need one. I don't know of any leftists that are ever like "I think abortions should be legal except for that one person who I don't like".

[strictnein]

To follow your format, apparently the entire left is okay with releasing convicted sexual predators back into society, when legally they should have been deported.

Now, I don't think the left is actually in favor of that, but their policies cause this to happen.

There's plenty of folks on the right who want to see the "Epstein Files" released. There's also plenty of folks on the right who are against abortions and still end up having the kid even though it will cause difficulties for them. If you're unaware of this, you may want to broaden how you're exposed to opposing views a little more.

[raw_anon_1111]

And there are plenty on the right who call themselves “evangelical Christians” but constantly defend a theee time married adulterer who pays off prostitutes and brags about grabbing women against their wills…

The President of the uS literally admitted to being a sexual predator on tape.

[philipallstar]

> but when it comes to Epstein Files and his friends, many of who are in office, they suddenly don't care. Leftists, are, at least as far as i can tell, very consistent in not liking child molesters.

This is totally ahistorical. This was not too long ago a "far right conspiracy" as the right was genuinely concerned about it, and it's only that Trump is in the firing line for Epstein that the left has jumped on it as a cause. Which is the opposite of a principled stance.

[raw_anon_1111]

No city is “defying federal laws” by not cooperating with federal law enforcement to enforce federal laws. In fact, the Supremr Court has specifically said that enforcing immigration is the responsibility of the federal government.

https://www.cliniclegal.org/resources/removal-proceedings/pr...

[hamdingers]

This doesn't fully capture it, because the right is clearly fine with lawlessness.

The distinction is the left cares about why, as you said, while the right cares about who. If the Right People are breaking the law (Trump, ICE, the youth pastor), it's okay.

If every accusation is an admission, GP admits it plainly: "it's okay when your tribe does it?"

[BrenBarn]

I think another way to say this is that some people see laws as one layer in a stack of principles of varying degrees of generality, and believe that it makes sense to oppose a policy at more specific layer if it conflicts with a more basic principle at a deeper layer. Others see laws as just arbitrary dictates: you follow the law or you don't, and that's it, the law doesn't represent or instantiate any principles or ideals, it just is what it is.

I'm not sure the distinction here maps cleanly onto a left/right political axis though. People on the right also think that stuff like refusing to serve gay people or (at least in the past) standing in a schoolhouse door to block racial integration constitutes a form of legitimate resistance or protest against unjust laws. And there are certainly those on the right who believe that certain acts are okay (or more okay) when done by certain people (e.g., the homeless, oppressed racial/ethnic groups).

It does seem to just come down to different views of what principles are in that stack and what the priority ranking is. An obvious case is that many on the right would give certain tenets a central, foundational status on religious grounds, whereas it's increasingly the case on the left that religion isn't considered a legitimate basis for public policy. And in fact, the divide is even deeper, since many on the left consider that secular perspective itself central and foundational --- one side thinks certain things should be illegal because religion says so, while the other side considers it wrong for the law to even take account of what religion says.

In light of this what I find frustrating is that so many of those on the left (especially those holding political office) are unwilling to turn against those institutions themselves on the same grounds, namely that the institutions are subverting and impeding more basic ideals of freedom and justice. Democratic politicians shouldn't be arguing about this or that Supreme Court decision or what this or that Senator did or didn't do; they should be arguing that the Supreme Court and the US Senate are undemocratic institutions and should be swept away entirely, along with a good bit of other governmental cruft, in the furtherance of the root goals of democracy and equality.

[raw_anon_1111]

Yes next up - look at all of those evil lawless people during the civil rights movement who dared stand up against Jim Crow laws

More recently, the difference between leaning on tech companies during an epidemic and a President leaning on companies to personally give him money.

[strictnein]

> "leaning on tech companies during an epidemic"

The government partnering with businesses to restrict speech is actually a really bad thing. Thankfully we've pulled back from that now. Trump being corrupt and a garbage human doesn't negate that fact.

[immibis]

I think it would be interesting to hear your take on this hypothetical situation: I have been cursed by the Devil himself, so that whenever I say "xyzzy" and then the name of a person and then "plugh", that person drops dead.

Should the government restrict my speech?

[strictnein]

The devil doesn't exist, nor does magic.

The law does speak on this though, already. If you run a gang, and you say out loud "Charlie is such a pain" and every time you say that phrase, the person you named is killed, you are also held liable for those killings.

[immibis]

So a restriction of speech.

[strictnein]

Yep, lots of ways that we restrict speech. Criminal speech is not protected. Business speech is also not protected. Telling Eastasia about our new spy plane is also not protected.

Saying stupid, abhorrent, wrong, etc things online is, thankfully, protected. If you don't think that it should be, just imagine the person you dislike politically the most being the one who decides what should be allowed and what shouldn't.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[dns_snek]

So you're murdering people and asking whether the government should stop you? Obviously? Not just by restricting your speech but by using lethal force if necessary.

[immibis]

So you agree that speech which causes deaths should be restricted?

[strictnein]

It's not speech. You have a gun that fires when you say a word. You having a setup that fires the gun when you say a word instead of pulling a trigger doesn't mean you are utilizing "speech" in any meaningful sense of the word, other than that the gun responds to a sound.

[dns_snek]

Yes, for some definition of "speech which causes deaths". This definition should include calls to violence but exclude, for example, vaccine skepticism.

[raw_anon_1111]

We have pulled back from that with Trump suing companies who have said things against him and then paying him off - see Paramount, Disney, Facebook, X, and Google.

Not to mention the new press corp policy that everything that press says about the Pentagon has to be approved by the government. It was a policy so abhorrent that Fox News even refused to sign.

He even threatened to take away ABCs broadcast license because someone criticized a dead racist podcaster.

Conservatives all over the US - especially in “the free state of Florida” - are firing public officials who criticize him.

(and every time I dare say that Kirk was a racist who said a good “patriot” should bail out the person who best Pelosi’s husband almost to death, I get flagged)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...

[strictnein]

I like how the first quote on that link was taken out of context. It let's me know that the rest of those likely are as well.

The statement he was making was that programs like Affirmative Action and DEI can lead a person to think those things, and he doesn't want to think those things.

Not a fan of his, but if he's such an evil person, one wouldn't have to resort to twisting his words.

[raw_anon_1111]

So what “context” makes this okay “ If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”?

What “context” makes it okay to call someone a “patriot” if they would be willing to pay to bond out the guy who beat Pelosi’s husband almost to death?

Did he also speak out against the unqualified people in the Trump administration like RFK Jr., and the entire DOGE effort? Where is the outrage about Trump appointing his own lawyer to be a DA who has never prosecuted a case because all of the qualified ones wouldn’t go after his enemies? Is it only “unfair” if a non White person (supposedly) gets a job they aren’t qualified for?

So he was “just saying what other people think”. He was actually a good caring Christian man that wouldn’t say a bad word about anyone…

Most of the time when “great men” die, their true believers quote what they said during their life. Not one of his supporters will quote his most famous speeches.