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Comment by richardfeynman | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Right, because over the course of the past 400 years, those institutions have always worked everywhere and no one's ever been at the margins of the justice system, been arrested arbitrarily or ignored by the police, had to languish in jail without a charge, been denied access to competent attorneys, a fair and speedy trial, or been subject to institutional biases and unwarranted imprisonment. Certainly that would never happens in a territory where it has happened routinely for 70+ years.

You phrase your argument in a sarcastic way, because if you clearly stated what you mean your argument would appear ridiculous.

Take the sarcasm out of your position and this is essentially what you're saying: "Yes, I reject the past 400 years of progress in jurisprudence because it's not always perfect, and I would prefer for us to return to medieval times."

No, that's what has been identified within the past 400 years as a straw man. You aren't even acknowledging the possibility of miscarriages of justice, let alone the possibility that it can be an institutional pattern. You should probably reflect on that and the impact it has on your argument, particularly in light of how it's been observed in the Israeli justice system.

Look, I also find sarcasm extremely annoying, it's an anathema to meaningful discussion.

However... your non-sarcastic interpretation is clearly in bad faith, and ratchets up the hostility even further.

Why post this jeering reply?

He's advocating for a return to medieval methods of justice, and trying to cloak that advocacy with sarcasm. If that's not worth derision (the kind of derision where you simply point out what one is saying), what then is worth derision?

I fail to see how that conclusion is even possible. He's not advocating for anything, he's just taking the opportunity to dunk on Israel.

His actual cloaked argument, insofar as it exists, is that Israel does not uphold these standards you value. You clearly disagree, and of course the sarcasm is unproductive, but he's not advocating barbarity (but levying an accusation of it).

I agree with you that if all he did was attack the Israeli court system, we could have a reasonable discussion. However, he was not dunking on Israel, he was dunking on the enlightenment and western values of jurisprudence, for example the right to a fair trial and the concept of presumed innocence. In any event, his comment was flagged and is now deleted, so apparently the mods agreed with me.

As a heads up, flagging is rarely done by mods, and overwhelmingly done by normal users with sufficient karma to do so, so it probably wasn't Dan or Scott. For example, the comment header for the comment I am currently replying to looks as follows:

Reply on news.ycombinator.com