Bob Schaffer
1 min readJan 3, 2021

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I had a quick read of your essay but cannot take it seriously. There is just a certain neglect of detail, a lack of nuance. Actually, it is more than a lack of nuance it is simply wrong.

Things such as your conflation libertarians and conservatives. Your discussion of Kant seems convenient. Your depiction of conservative morality seems absurd and simply insulting.

There is no discussion of Burke, of the desire to preserve, of habit, or norms. You focus rather on the worst of today's conservatism, if you want to even call it that. In short you seem to offer a strawman here.

In the end the idea of libertarians becoming Social Democrats likewise seems silly. Both appeal to liberty but I would suggest they are working with two very different concepts of liberty. You started with a similar proposition with your reference to Jonathan Haidt, and his suggestion of different foundations.

In the end we we must work with these folks, these 70 million who hold different opinions and voted differently than us. And it is probably best that we apply the principle of charity to them as opposed to arriving at conclusions such as that they are incoherent hypocrits that behave like animals.

Your original framing was interesting, and your subtitle was provocative even if not possible. In the end though we are left with what you began with: How do we deal with people with different values? The solution cannot be to ignore them. That is in part how we got here.

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Bob Schaffer

Studied at Rutgers. Today work in the staffing industry in NYC. Have always had an interest in history and philosophy.