For similar reasons I’m against the centralization of Government data into one big database (so to speak) where they’ll be able to find almost anything about you in just a couple of clicks.
If this was a newsgroup, then what you propose could be accomplished through a killfile. Basically, one could add a rule that would hide a post if either the subject or body contained a certain phrase, and, optionally, could hide any replies to that post.
Without getting political (expecting downvotes), what comparable "terrible things" have happened under Trump that are at all similar to Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany?
The downvote button is the mind killer. Every time you push it, you forfeit a chance to examine a disagreement and change a life-- yours or theirs, who's to say? I prefer to assume we've all found our way here to be earnest, intellectually honest, 'truth-tracking cognitive systems', as one HN-front-page-linked article has put it.
It's easy to be steered into echo chambers and algorithmic news bubbles. Let's answer earnest questions with earnest answers. Leave the downvote button for things that break with the rules or good faith.
Sometimes when I feel a strong urge to downvote someone, I realize that in real life we would probably have a fantastic (may be a bit heated) conversation. So I don't.
How great would it be if we could just gather over a beer and chat.
In terms of things that have happened so far, the responses to your sibling post cover it pretty well. However, that was not was being referred to. GP's post refers to the feeling that such things could not happen in the United States.
There has, for a long time, been a sense that atrocities were not able to occur in the United States, due to some combination of individualism, enumerated rights, American exceptionalism, etc. Rising white nationalism and racism was a driving force in Trump's election. Since then, he has been a symbol for a darker sides of politics that people previously imagined to be absent in the US. It is not that terrible things on a similar magnitude to Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany have happened. It is that the US is not immune to those things happening.
(This is not meant to imply that family separation, rolling back of trans rights, and tacit approval of white supremacist violence are not terrible. They are deplorable actions, and I do not want to lessen their impact.)
They feel such things can't happen in the United States... and the example they give to contradict that is Trump? I merely ask how it is comparable to Nazi Germany. I still find it amusing merely asking my question rewards me with downvotes. I don't care about my own HN karma, but it's a shame to see comments in general getting downvoted for this. It's a ridiculous comparison.
I don't think it's the same or even near to nazi Germany, but if you listen to any in depth lectures on the raise of NSDAP, or development of political propaganda at the time, you'll find interesting parallels to the current times, like the use of a new form of mass communication media to further political agenda (radio, then - social networks now), or insistence of some people to "let them have power, they'll just discredit themselves, and the problem will solve itself by that way".
As to why people blame Trump for it, though he is definitely not the only one to blame, as POTUS I feel that he has a responsibility to bring people together, regardless if they voted for him or not, and instead he's doing the opposite.
What I mean is that I don't care about my own personal downvotes; I care a bit that Hacker News would downvote a comment because it calls out their kinda ridiculous political views, without even discussing it, as that means HN is going a bit downhill.
It's just a bit absurd, wherever you are on the political spectrum, to seriously think the US is at all similar to Nazi Germany now. You have to live in an echo chamber if you think Trump and Hitler are comparable. Stalin was was even very left wing, btw.
Also, you call other people's political views 'ridiculous' and then you wonder why they won't engage with that and instead downvote you? If you want a serious discussion, start with better kindling.
> You have to live in an echo chamber if you think Trump and Hitler are comparable.
Again, insulting the reader instead of offering some serious counterpoints which could spark a debate.
It's too ridiculous a topic to even seriously discuss though. The holocaust, invading Europe, the gestapo, gulags... It's not the same as the current US President. Like, do you seriously think there is merit in comparing Hitler to Trump? Do you think you would bother breaking down Hitler vs Obama?
The point isn't really what Trump has done, it's that leftists are suddenly discovering that it won't always be "their guy" with all that power, and that misusing that power against them is a real possibility.
Be very, very careful what excuses one makes when "your guy" is overreaching and expanding power.
Not sure if trolling, but look up family separation, Vietnamese deportation, the sales of national park lands, incitement to violence against journalists, the rise in hate crimes, etc
I don't care about the United States. Other than that, "needing to leave the country" (what I said) is very different from "illegally enter" (what you said), starting with the direction of travel.
The Holocaust has become a symbol of absolute evil, like the devil in a religion. We rightly understand that nothing contemporary could be comparable.
In the same way that we wouldn't believe that a child has been possessed. Maybe the child is sick, even if not possessed. The lack of evil possession is not an excuse to ignore the illness.
And there is a lot to be concerned about our culture. And yes there are parallels to some 20th century isms. But those things are bad because they are bad. Not because of some bogeyman from yesteryear.
But, Holocaust did not happened because devil or supernatural. It happened because humans. It was entirely and fully human affair. Some of people who were kids at the timead seen it are still alive. Nazism is not bogeyman from yesterday, it is living ideology, altrought not in power.
Alao, ISIS acts are contemporary and we might find they are comparable.
Oh I agree with you. Nazism is no more mystical than HIV or cancer. My point is more that society doesn't view it's in that way. WWII has become a big thing in the minds of people who had no direct involvement. It has assumed a cultural and political significance that is much more symbolic than how it was viewed in the past. And when something becomes symbolic it assumes a rhetorical and emotional power. You can talk about nazi evil and everyone knows what you mean, without really having any direct understanding of what it actually means in a practical sense.
And in a practical sense the key is always to consider the effect of bad actions on individual people. It is about human rights and dignity. And that is what nationalists want to destroy. They value the "nation" more highly than they value individual humans. That is what made Nazis bad. Everything else is just fact based symbolism that can be twisted to support any argument you want.
I know there were discussions about selling national park lands, but I can't find any information on whether it actually happen? Do you have any links?
Family separation started under Obama and the rise in hate crimes is a false narrative. Violence has actually decreased over the past decade. Journalists are only covering specific cases because it pushes the idea that Trump=bad.
The vietnamese that got deported also committed crimes. He didn't deport everyone, which isn't really that bad.
Again, he hasn't really done much of anything and is mostly a lame duck president.
There is a rise of hate crimes committed by conservatives, a high profile example being the recent New Zealand killer who praised Trump in his manifesto. Also an increase in hate crimes against Muslims.
I can think of two high profile fake hate crimes, as you mention. But that number is dwarfed by the number of actual hate crimes, which continue daily.
I haven't heard about the violence against conservatives you mention... Can you point me at an example so I can learn more?
I follow 1-2 angry conservatives on Twitter just to get a peek into that bubble, and I get to hear about a few definite anti conservative hate crimes most weeks.
Thanks for the link. Some legitimate violence in there. I do think leftist have an unacceptable problem with threats of violence, and media organizations inckuding Twitter don't take them seriously enough.
Not particularly different than the right who also has a problem with violence and threats but I acknowledge there is a problem on both sides.
I'm not going to click on the Breitbart link. What is the list of murders committed by leftists equivalent to Tree of Life, Parkland, or Dylan Roof's massacre at the AME church in Charleston, say? Or Charlottesville? If we want to branch out from the U.S., how about Jo Cox in the UK or the Christchurch massacres in NZ?
"There is a problem on both sides" is a pretty bland way to absolve the guiltier party.
"They (who?) have a higher headcount so our violence is OK"
Conservatives call out and distance themselves from the far-right and violence. A few deranged lunatics on the fringes of society do not represent conservative views. By attempting to disenfranchise conservatives, as the media are constantly doing, then it's no accident that there are an increased number of incidents coming from the mentally unstable who are the most misrepresented.
The media are complicit in enabling and encouraging far-left violence, and are attempting to push the culture further and further to the left, even disenfranchising moderate liberals in the process who no longer want anything to do with them (who in turn get labeled "far-right Nazi's" for the non-conformance.)
Left/Right violence is still dwarfed by Islamist terror incidents. Christians are still the most persecuted peoples on Earth. There are indeed problems on both the political extremes that we should all be working to tackle together, but apparently, there's no such thing as going too far to the left, as the current democrat candidates are competing for the title of who can go furthest. (I think we know the outcome, but if you live in the bubble of a college campus or in SV, you might not have an accurate gauge on reality).
Don't pretend like separation didn't happen during previous administrations including Obama's. The Vietnamese situation is simply uncertainty and involves only folks with criminal records. No actual action has taken place. Trump admin walked back plans to sell Utah national park lands:
ICE detaining families, splitting kids from their parents (apparently with no idea who belongs to whom), with work done by minimum wage paid security folks - some of whom appear to see unfettered access to these kids as a bonus and molest them?
The 2 replies under your comment dispute this, but does it make it okay if "both sides" dit it? It's still fucking evil. Obama continued the policy of drone terrorism/murders, that's not okay either.
Man oh man, America "the shining beacon of freedom and democracy". "But what about the infants being torn away from their parents?" "Don't worry, the other side did it too, so we're not the bad guys here!"
When family separation was international news I tried to see what my country (Sweden) does. What I saw was basically that if a crime was serious enough that you put a person in temporary holding cells, any children under their charge is sent to an adult relative, friends, or so called family home if there is no other options. Sweden doesn't have orphanages and instead have a system which is more akin to temporary adoption where the child enter an existing family. The process for infants is identical.
For Sweden, the rules in regard to temporary holding is also very clear. If the crime has a serious enough potential punishment and the investigation risk getting interference, or there is a significant flight risk, then the person under investigation is put in holding for as long as any of the above qualify. If Sweden ever get the same situation as the US and the government wanted to prevent family separation, what they would have to do is either write a special exception and override existing laws or change the punishment down to a fine.
Personally I don't find the law evil. The US implementation could use some major redesign in order to prioritize the child needs over that of the parents, but children should never end up in jail because their parents broke the law. The solution to the US issue must thus be in fixing so that immigrants don't break the law when they want to apply for asylum/legal immigration. That is what we did during the refugee crisis.
According to the FactCheck article you linked, the law requires that families either be separated or released.
> In 2016, a court ruling limited how long children with their parents could be in family detention centers.
Obama released families. Trump has taken a stricter stance against immigration, which requires some unpleasant enforcement, but once again according to FactCheck, he did order that families be kept together as long as possible:
> On June 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Nielsen to keep families in custody together “during the pendency of any criminal improper entry or immigration proceedings involving their members” at least “to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations.”
Yes, because Trump doesn't really have the legal power to ignore the Flores settlement with an executive order, but the public pressure made it impossible for anyone to challenge the EO.
Out of curiousity, how would you suggest people trying to enter the United States with children should be handled, without just allowing them to enter freely?
It doesn't actually matter what has or has not happened under Trump. There is a sizable contingent of people on the left who believe the President of the USA is a criminal supported mainly by racists. I personally disagree but those beliefs open up too very easy prongs of attack to counter 'it can't happen here' arguments:
* They likely believe the situation went from everything being fine to everything being not fine at extreme speed in 2016
* They have just been subjected to 2 years of evidence of their political tribe's relative impotence removing a criminal from high office
Those beliefs should be a lot easier to push the idea that government capability is the threat, not the governments current intentions.
