Godwin’s Law doesn’t apply, since we’re talking about what political or social positions automatically label them as a bad person.
Nazism is one of those I listed. Communism is another. Surely you can see the linkage between supporting genocidal totalitarian dictatorship on the one hand, and supporting Nazism on the other hand?
Then what was the point of the list? Was it meant merely as innuendo, or are you asserting that being pro-life is at all equivalent to being a Nazi?
Regards,
Shodan
Let’s stipulate that I find Communism to be based on premises I find evil myself - and I will also note that in practice communist governments haven’t tended to treat ethnic minorities particularly well.
That said, though, sometimes you can separate the evil from the misguided among a set of believers, particularly if there has been heavy indoctrination involved. So I don’t know how far we can go with this.
The point is that sometimes you can say that a person is horrible based on a single expressed view, and a few views fall into that category. Lemur didn’t say anything about any abortion opinions being on that list. I thought that was fairly obvious.
Because you talked about how labeling someone a bad person meant you didn’t have to engage them as a human being. But surely some political viewpoints really do label someone as a bad person. Nazism is one, and I listed a few others. I didn’t list being anti-abortion as one of those. Indeed it would be odd, since I’m against abortion myself. I just happen to also think making abortion against the law is a bad idea.
A pretty damn obvious point. Certain beliefs show that the holder of said belief is a horrible person. The absence from that list of anti-choice should indicate to the reader that the author does not view anti-choice beliefs as per se making the holder a horrible person.
Assuming the reader isn’t looking to be offended by the post, that is.
You know, it is possible to support a certain philosophy without supporting the people who claim to carry it out?
Yes, those are definitely the only two options. :rolleyes:
Feel free to make that point in this thread! 
Ah yes, but “communist” as a broad ideology does not necessarily involve support for a particular Communist government, whatever the Comintern tried to say in the past. Roman Catholicism, on the other hand, by its nature involves some degree of deference to the authority of the Pope and the Vatican authorities.
But at some point you have to look at actually existing Nazism, or actually existing slavery, or actually existing torture chambers, and draw some conclusions. At some point you have to just say that slavery is bad. Even though we could imagine a scenario where slavery might be humane, it turns out that slavery is invariably an invitation for slavemasters to abuse slaves. Even cases like in the Roman empire where some favored slaves were treated as members of the household doesn’t change the fact that most Roman slaves were agricultural laborers who were treated about as well as you might expect.
You’d be surprised at how undeferential some folks are at the local parish level. In many ways, and in many places, the Church is a free-for-all these days. People could give a hoot what the Vatican or even their local bishops say.
But I digress. 
My main point is this: I haven’t felt much like posting here lately, especially not in GD, which was what attracted me to the SDMB in the first place, and where I spent a lot of my time here for quite a while. At least one other intelligent poster has come in here to say she avoids it. Others have agreed that it’s hostile, unfriendly, and generally Not Fun. It seems more so in the years I’ve been so, and I guess I can blame GW for that, among other things. But geez, people, if you want to chase off people by using that kind of rhetoric, go ahead. Seems counter-productive to a good debate to me.
What makes you assume that everyone who posts in GD is looking for a good debate?
You do. Not everyone does. People can be misguided, deluded, and naive without being evil.
Not a good debate, a GREAT debate!
But to answer your question, I guess other than the name of the forum, I guess I shouldn’t assume it.
Trust me, I know, I married into a US RC family…
I think, more generally, social issues tend to be more polarizing. And part of the reason for that is the religious aspects involved. If, on the one hand, I am meant to respect those who hold that abortion rights should be restricted, and I try to in many cases, such a position is made harder when their rhetoric is to call me a murderer, and to say that I am damned to hell for my beliefs. Similarly, we have just seen 8 years of being told if we dared to oppose the President’s policies regarding foreign affairs, we supported terrorism.
It goes both ways. There are anti-choice people I view as bad, but I don’t think all anti-choice views are evil, just misguided. Other issues, some of which have been mentioned above, I am less charitable on. I could see myself dating an anti-choice person (not that I am offering anything there… ), but a racist, absolutely not. The hard one for me at the moment is gay marriage - I’ve tried to understand the viewpoint of those who oppose it, but cannot in the end. A friend of mine supports civil unions exactly identical to marriage, available to all, but not called marriage. I think he is wrong, but I am not willing to assuem that because of that view he is evil. The fact he can’t come up for a rational reason for it makes me think we’ll win him over soon… But those who think gay marriage should be banned because fags shouldn’t have rights, well, I’ll happily throw them onto my own personal scrapheap.
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.
Grey’s Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
In other words, it was a complete non sequitur, and had nothing to do with abortion.
I am against genocide, myself.
Regards,
Shodan
An excellent start! Keep up the good work!
Puts him one up on you, anyway.
Yes, it was a tangent. It wasn’t about abortion, it was about whether you can instantly dismiss someone because of their political/moral views.
Shodan, you used to not be such a whiner. What happened? Sure, the country has become less conservative. But that’s what happens when you have a “conservative” president who drives the country off a cliff. Deal with it.