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I think saying people cringe at Us v. Them justification is incorrect.
Depriving criminals of their rights is fundamentally an Us v Them justification, but I don't think pointing out that forcing someone to live in a tiny room for 30 years isn't very nice will garner much sympathy for Free the Murders. Because people feel that the division between The Law Abiding v. The Criminal is a valid one, and so much treatment that would be protested if applied to Us is acceptable when used on Them.
People cringe at the Us v Them justification for racism because many people don't accept race alone as a sufficient justification for different treatment, or find claims of racial superiority/inferiority to be invalid. It's not the type or structure of argument, it's the quality of the argument as presented.
I think most people will readily agree that species is sufficient and valid justification for how we treat an organism. So Racism Bad, Speciesism Good.
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Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
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