
Charles Krauthammer note to readers: “My fight is over” - abhisuri97
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-note-to-readers/2018/06/08/3512010c-6b24-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.975273cbd589
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sctb
Commenters: if you won't resist the temptation to rehash stale political
controversy out of respect for a human person, then please resist because it's
dreadfully tedious and obviously against the guidelines.

> _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless you have
> something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic
> tangents._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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cjensen
I'm far less progressive than most HN commenters. For me, his columns were
well-written and well-reasoned. I disagreed with half of them.

What I liked most is that he made me think.

~~~
robg
Sadly many folks have forgotten that the point of opinion writing is exactly
to make us think, whether we disagree with their conclusions or not.

~~~
ravenscrow
That has never been the point of an opinion piece. The point of an opinion
piece is to lie, cajole, trick, etc people into accepting your opinion or
viewpoint. That's why newspapers separate news from opinion. The point of the
opinion piece is opposite of getting people to think. The point of it is to
stop people from thinking. It's to get people on your side.

~~~
CWuestefeld
There are surely some people these days who approach things like this, and
they come from both political polarities. But as DanielBMarkham points out
nearby, it hasn't always been this way.

And even today, there are plenty of people who, I think, strive for finding
truth (e.g., Scott Alexander, Megan McArdle)

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francisofascii
My most remembered opinion piece by him was 'Raise the gas tax. A lot' Quite
the opposite to most conservative energy policies.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-
krauthammer-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-
raise-the-gas-tax-a-
lot/2015/01/08/5b4b407c-976f-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html)

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danschumann
After hearing the news, I found out he's actually been in a wheelchair since
college, when he broke his neck in a swimming pool, and he doesn't have much
use of his arms. His story is pretty courageous from that stand point.

~~~
slavik81
> he broke his neck in a swimming pool

This seems to be an understated danger. Whenever I hear about a young person
confined to a wheelchair, it seems as likely as not that their mistake was
diving headfirst into unexpectedly shallow water.

~~~
danschumann
My old college neighbor did the same thing, drunk at a 3rd friends wedding.
He's in a wheelchair now. One more thing a parent has to stress.

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DanielBMarkham
His work will be missed.

I regularly scan opinion columns from people all over the political spectrum.
I enjoy reading well-reasoned essays whether I agree with them or not.

Krauthammer always provided well-reasoned essays. Whatever the issue, if the
public got too far out ahead of it, either for or against, Charles was quick
with a "Harumpphh" and a clever one-liner to point out that we should be more
circumspect.

I stopped watching cable TV news years ago. Charles Krauthammer is one of a
few commentators that I missed watching on a regular basis. He was a grumpy
old uncle who had been around the block a time or two and was going to set me
clear on how to think about some issue. Most of the time I just ignored him,
but it was fun having him around anyway. The world will be a poorer place
without his work.

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bhouston
Hmm... it is unfortunate. I always remember him for pushing super hard for the
invasion of Iraq and thus partially responsible for the deaths of 100,000s at
least and also more than $T of funds used for that war:

"Time is running short. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. He is working
on nuclear weapons. And he has every incentive to pass them on to terrorists
who will use them against us."

From:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/04/19/w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/04/19/we-
cant-blow-it-
again/79cca890-0bea-4e2d-ba8b-3787989d87cf/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.79f457320126)

~~~
mychael
Democrats and Republicans alike pushed for it based on the intelligence
available at the time [0]. To call him partially responsible for 100,000s of
deaths is very unfair and not very classy considering he's dying soon.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War)

~~~
aero142
I hear this argument a lot, and I just can't agree with it. The biggest miss
was about chemical weapons, which even if true, would have been an entirely
inadequate justification for the war that followed. The nuclear argument was
never well supported and clearly looks fabricated in hindsight. To talk about
bad intelligence is to accept that invading a country to preemptively to
remove a dictator is a moral action, which is repeatedly demonstrated to be
the exact opposite when viewed as a whole.

The results of the Iraq war were foreseeable by those that pushed for it. I
can't accept that we should just politely not mention it because someone is
dying of cancer. This is a war and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
people. It's a big deal.

~~~
leereeves
> invading a country to preemptively to remove a dictator is a moral action

That is widely believed. For example, that's exactly what Obama and Hillary
did in Libya.

~~~
aero142
And the current disastrous result is just as predictable and evil as Iraq.
Maybe more-so because we have such a recent example of why it is such a bad
idea.

~~~
leereeves
Quite true. And yet there was immense pressure to do it, often from people who
were vocal opponents of the Iraq war (notably the French government).

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kbwt
OT: Is asking for money to opt out of tracking and personalized ads actually
GDPR-compliant?

~~~
Matticus_Rex
That's being debated in the privacy community as "consent-or-pay." The short
answer is that we don't actually know. There are arguments on each side, and I
tend to think (a) the plain reading of the law suggests no and (b) for a
number of reasons, regulators will probably decide to rule that it's okay, but
the reasoning that gets me there is pretty complicated.

~~~
jpfed
"Consent or pay" _sounds_ so hilariously wrongheaded on its face. I'm
imagining someone using that approach in literally any other aspect of their
lives and seeing how well it flies.

~~~
Matticus_Rex
Well, in most other aspects of our lives, incentivized consent is allowed (and
in fact it one of the foundations of contract theory). The GDPR has
effectively disallowed it, which is one of the provisions here that actually
reduces consumer autonomy rather than increasing it. The GDPR is going to make
the internet a more expensive place, whether you think it's a good thing
overall or not.

------
harikb
Recent turmoils in the US and the World in general, has me wonder about a
different aspect of this. For those who don't like the current state of
affairs in the world (Trump, Brexit, "populist" movements everywhere), it is
awful to leave from this world not knowing what will happen to your family and
friends. The scene from "The Matrix, not like this..." is what comes to my
mind.

