I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse.
These are labels. No one really knows what "hate" means anymore, but because people are emotional, they see the word, recall what they think of Trump, and think, "yeah, that's hateful!"
This is a problem for two reasons. First, while Fred is probably a smart, intellectually rigorous guy, many people aren't. Most people who shout "that's hateful" or "that's racist" don't actually have a repository of comprehensive thought behind it. This is partly why Trump won in the first place. People everywhere would say, "You support Trump! You're racist!" or "Trump has a position involving race! He's racist!" This is not an argument, but once you introduce this vitriolic adjective into the room, everyone worries about their ideas being placed into this odious category, and discussion becomes stifled. People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone.
The second reason is that using labels convinces no one who isn't already on your side. Fred knows this, and this post is targeted at those people. This is virtue signaling: taking a "brave stance" on a position that people already agree with you on. Some virtue signaling is necessary; leaders should speak out; but generally this type of lazy rhetoric, combined with the incentive of popularity over truth, divides us more than any policy.
I'm glad he's donating money, but he writes that he's "done keeping his mouth shut," and for that to be a courageous act he has to (like everyone else) do more than hurl labels.
I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse.
I totally disagree.
How else do you want to describe the contents (and spirit) of this executive order?
I think getting into mealy mouthed wiesel words and euphemisms for something that's clearly hateful and bigoted and racist helps no one.
Built into what you're proposing is the assumption that everyone agrees about what constitutes hate, bigotry and racism. Which is my point: this works when convincing people who already agree with you, but not in today's violently polarized political climate.
Today, if I read an article describing someone as racist, that gets me no closer to understanding them as a person, because I have no idea what the article means by that, or if the author can be trusted to wield that word.
I realize one feels uneasy making long-winded arguments about something that seems so obvious, but that it is necessary is just a consequence of diversity of thought. There are actually people who disagree with your characterization of this order as racist or bigoted who are also sincere and thoughtful.
You know that Obama de facto stopped - or at least severely limited - Iraqi immigration for 6 months in 2011. There was no outright ban, but the flow of Iraqis slowed significantly.
Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway, but the time window for the argument's viability has passed hours ago.
Now you will have to find out cases when Obama ordered government officers to ignore court order.
> Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents defied the orders of federal judges regarding Donald Trump’s travel bans on Sunday, according to members of Congress and attorneys who rallied protests around the country in support of detained refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.
But you feel like "Obama did it" is an apt corollary to the scale, scope and circumstances of this week's events? Because of an actual event, and the resulting review and re-examination of existing Iraqi refugees which caused a slowdown in the acceptance of new Iraqi refugees for several months, you know because of finite resources... and no explicit orders or stop immigration that equates close enough to Trump's EO? I mean there's just no way to discuss that rationally with someone who wants to make that comparison. It's intellectual laziness and textbook false equivalence. If Obama did nothing he would have been crucified for that by Republicans. And because Obama did the most benign thing possible he was likely crucified for that by Republicans. And because the thing he did had tangible consequences, but wasn't unreasonable, that's now justification for Trump's EO? Forget double dipping, some people are triple dipping.
But let's compare anyway. A review of existing refugees which caused the slower acceptance of new refugees in response to the discovered failure in the system.
VS
Trump picked some countries seemingly at random from a large pool of Muslim countries in order to fulfill a "campaign promise" regardless of actual need or circumstances. The countries he picked haven't been a hotbed of terrorism against the U.S. He selected no countries that he has business interests in, even if they have had citizens who've carried out attacks against the U.S. His executive order effected people with green cards and visa's people we've already researched and vetted, not just new immigration.
Yeah, they're the same event all right /s. So is your BS ignorance or dishonesty?
Obama: implemented quietly, no official ban, limited to one country
Trump: implemented through executive order, covers 7 dangerous countries.
Apart from style and scope, the effect was/is the same: stop certain groups of people from coming here for a period of time, until better checks are implemented.
Except for Iran, the countries he has picked ARE on the list of the most terrorist-ridden places in the world [1][2].
When your coworker is being disruptive and you ask HR to intervene, and when someone else wants to argue that other people in the company did something similar in other (different) situations, it is not whataboutism to point out that our disruptive coworker just punched a security guard.
> You know that Obama de facto stopped - or at least severely limited - Iraqi immigration for 6 months in 2011. There was no outright ban, but the flow of Iraqis slowed significantly.
The comparison barely pasts muster when you consider the circumstances.
First of all, Obama's 'ban' was based on an intelligence report that stated that terrorist had already gotten into the US through the immigration program, and wanted to know why that was the case. They limited, not banned, Iraqis to make sure that the new processes were working. Here, there was a clear and present cause and effect to show why these steps were taken.
Trump's ban is a straight outright ban, based on a list, granted, that was made by the previous administration, but unless I've missed the report/statement/briefing, that honestly doesn't have anything to do with a specific policy or situation, other than keep them out. Otherwise, why would long-standing US green card holders also have to warned not to leave the country for fear of not getting back into the US??
> Would you call it a hateful act as well?
I would call what Obama did sad, both for what he did and the reactions he received, but nobody ever thought he did it because he wanted an entire nation kept out of the country, let alone just a particular reason. (This is all hearsay, but considering what the man has previously stated publicly, lends some truth to this rumour, but apparently this is as legal as they could get to keep Muslims from the Middle East out of the country.)
US Green card holders are NOT affected by this.
This was either mis-communicated, or a mistake (that should have never been made).
I don't see it as anti-Muslim decision, 87% of the world's Muslim population are not affected. I see it as anti-terrorism decision, targeted at the top 7 most terrorist-ridden countries in the world [1].
Yes, it sucks for law-abiding citizens of these countries who would like to visit the US in the next 120 days.
But it is only temporary.
No, Trump's inner circle purposely decided to not exclude green card holders from the Executive Order even after the Homeland Security Secretary suggested they should do so (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/stephen-bannon-donald-...). They could have easily crafted a better policy, so I think it is naive to call this a mistake.
> Yes, it sucks for law-abiding citizens of these countries who would like to visit the US in the next 120 days. But it is only temporary.
This assumes that the other countries will comply with the administrations requests for information on the individuals, otherwise it will be extended indefinitely. Iran doesn't have a US embassy and they don't officially have relations with the US, you think they're going to suddenly start handing over information to the US? If anything, this gives them more reason to say, "See how the US is treating us like shit?" which further stirs up anti-US sentiment among them.
Also, yes, green card holders ARE affected by this. My wife won't be able to leave the country without fear of being denied entry upon her return despite her being a valid green card holder.
Another way to look at this is if you are from a country exporting large amounts of terrorists then nobody wants to play with you due to the whole guilt by association thing. Some modern examples are americans paying reparations for slaves, no american alive today had anything to do with that. I also remember walking through Nagasaki as an american, you talk about hate and I had nothing to do with the bomb.
So guilt by association is definitely real and is definitely used by various other groups and countries to enrich their lives.
As far as the green card goes, I know quite a few people over dramatizing the effects of Trumps legislation primarily due to their hatred for them. My wife is Mexican and has a green card. Just this past weekend she left the US for a short trip to MX, and is already back. Her parents, daily, drive to Mexico for their job and drive back to the US where they live. If your wife is finding it difficult to re-enter the country, then from my perspective at least, there may be other reasons.
Depends on where you were born. Mexican-Americans are less likely to be affected, because very few were born in these 7 countries (which are not close to Mexico). However, I'm Greek-American, and many of us are affected, because we or family members were born in one of these countries. Many Greek-Americans are in the U.S. precisely because we fled from the Middle East, as the Greek communities that used to exist in cities across the former Ottoman Empire, ranging from Alexandria to Damascus to Istanbul, were coming under attack and becoming untenable to maintain. If your Greek passport says place of birth "Damascus" on it, suddenly you now have problems, even if you have a green card, while previously this was never an issue. As a result, many Greek-Americans are not happy with this move, even those who are usually politically conservative.
Well, he slowed down the processing of new Iraqi refugees.
Trump immediately stopped the entry of all foreign nationals, including green card holders returning from vacations and people who already had vaild visas.
That's very different. You could argue that the Administration didn't intend for the order to apply to GC holders, but the fact that the implementation of an executive order was different from its intention proves that it was poorly thought out.
>How else do you want to describe the contents (and spirit) of this executive order?
You could apply the Occam's razor, and describe them by the reasoning given by the administration - as an attempt to limit terrorists entering the US by limiting access to people from countries known to produce terrorists.
You might ofcourse disagree with the usefulness and means of these executive orders, but it doesn't mean they are meant as hateful or racist.
You may have a point if this order is seen in isolation.
Put into context with the new administration and how they acted since the inauguration my application of Occam's razor would lead to the exact opposite conclusion of yours.
"People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone."
This is extremely superficial, arrogant, even offensive to people who voted for Trump. And that is the reason why Trump won IMO. Opposition couldnt understand (not even recognize) the legitimate and valid thoughtful reasons people had to vote for Trump.
I'm still struggling to understand where this obsession with explaining how Trump got people to vote for him comes from. The real killing blow was the low turnout for the Democrat candidate. Trump only had to beat Clinton and practically nobody (outside the most progressive parts of the US) voted for Clinton.
Trump may have swayed some undecided voters in his favours as a protest vote but all he had to do was rally the Republican voters and make Clinton look so bad the Democrat voters wouldn't want to get her elected.
The question isn't why Trump won, the question is why Clinton lost. In terms of absolute numbers, Clinton couldn't even match the numbers with which Obama was re-elected. She won the popular vote but the popular vote is not where you win the presidency and she knew that.
The voters who should have been Democrat voters didn't have faith in their candidate and I think they didn't even have faith in their party. Trump's election is not simply a weird victory of a Republican outsider, it's a massive defeat of the Democrat establishment.
I know a Trump voter who voted for him because of his Orlando speech where he was apparently the only candidate to state what actually happened: Islamists were killing gay people. Everyone else apparently didn't talk about either or both of those things.
A single young man with a sordid past and complicated relationship with the gay community claimed allegiance to Islamists immediately prior to massacring dozens of people at a gay-centric dance club.
According to Wikipedia, no credible evidence for the "self-hating, closeted gay" narrative has been found by the FBI.
The killer was upset about the US presence in Iraq/Syria and had been preparing the attack for some time, possibly helped by his wife (arrested and charged with helping him). Both were Muslims.
>Mateen's ex-wife, however, claimed that his father called him gay while in her presence. Speaking on her behalf, her current fiancé said that she, his family, and others believed he was gay, and that "the FBI asked her not to tell this to the American media"
Because conservative, old Muslim men never call anyone "gay", right? For wearing a trendy piece of clothing, for example?
My male friend has been called "gay" a few times because he likes Broadway shows.
You can believe in any hearsay you want, but at the end of the day, this was a US-hating, Muslim guy/couple, killing LGBT people (for whom many Muslims have special hatred, and like to throw them off the roofs).
My point is that we should be cautious about assuming that his motives were uncomplicated.
For what it's worth, the FBI also found no evidence linking him to ISIL.
We can't possibly know what he felt in his heart, but making policy decisions based on the assumption that we can is reckless and only serves to further smooth over any of hint of subtlety left in American public discourse.
So there's no evidence connecting him to Isil (which there generally isn't: Isil spread messages to sympathetic people telling them to do things - ask employees of one well known company who have an unlisted London office because someone wants to slit their throats). Recapping:
- The FBI has investigated and found no links that he was a patron of the club.
- He has, for a fact, murdered people in the name of Islam.
We can't know what he felt in his heart, but also we don't have any reason to believe his stated motives aren't his actual ones. It an uncomfortable fact, but a large percentage of Muslims say they believe in Sharia which holds some pretty awful beliefs about gay people (and women, and others).
All I'm saying is that it's impossible to know the extent to which those beliefs contributed to his actions. There are millions of people of all religions, including Islam, who aren't too keen on gay people. But the vast majority have never killed anyone.
Incidentally, his actual 'stated motives' were "[his] people... getting killed" in air strikes in general, and the death of Abu Waheeb in particular.
The tricky part about Clinton "not matching the numbers" of Obama's reelection is that she received more votes than he did. She received more votes than everyone who has ever ran for President with the exception of Obama in 2008.
Nobody is claiming that Trump's win is illegitimate due to the electoral vs. popular mismatch, but it's clear that something is seriously wrong when a candidate can win an election by several million votes and still lose the presidency. If I were a Democrat, I'd be even more annoyed that my party had won the popular vote four times in the 21st Century and only won the presidency twice.
I think the obvious answer is to increase the number of representatives in the House. Wyoming residents currently have 3x the influence in presidential elections as people from Texas, which is seriously askew given the relative power of the two.
> something is seriously wrong when a candidate can win an election by several million votes and still lose the presidency
I'm not an American so the electoral college is completely alien to me but what you're saying is basically that you disagree with the entire point of having the electoral college.
Clinton lost in almost every state. The reason she won the popular vote (which, again, doesn't matter in the presidential election) is that she won in some of the states with the highest population, like California. Yes, this means she won more people over, but they still only represent a fraction of the demographics.
The electoral college has obvious flaws like swing states being the primary concern of candidates during much of their campaigns. But it's important to understand that without the electoral college there would be other problems, specifically the most populous states practically deciding the election.
So either way it's unfair: either it's unfair to a large portion of the overall population by putting states above people, or it's unfair to a large number of states by putting population above state rights.
It's really a question of what the US wants to be. Do you want to be an alliance of sovereign states united under a federal government, or do you want to be a singular nation with a central government that delegates to the individual states for bureaucratic reasons?
It seems a lot of Americans say they want the former but secretly think they have the latter. A weighted state-based system will always result in "undemocratic" results like the 2016 election, a direct vote will always be unfair to smaller states. You can't have it both ways.
In my opinion the electoral college should be abolished and the US elections (all of them) should be reformed in a way that no longer necessitates a two-party system but in practice state rights are an important issue to Americans.
The US motto may be "e pluribus unum" but that doesn't mean the political landscape can be treated as a homogeneous playing field.
Isn't the obvious answer to eliminate the electoral college? The president effects all citizens equally, so it makes the most sense that each citizen's vote should have equal weight in the presidential election. We don't need the electoral college to promote state's rights. States already get 2 senators regardless of population and get to make their own state laws (as long as they are constitutional).
The article [1] and video [2] below shed some light on the "how". The video is mentioned directly in the article. The text explains how highly sophisticated targeting was deployed by the Trump campaign, and how it differed from Clinton's campaign. Highly informative.
I'm talking here about the alt-right, e.g. Milo Yiannopoulos' crowd, who self-profess that this was partly why they voted for Trump. People for whom this election was largely cultural, and saw Trump as a "fuck you" to the safe-space, microaggression, language-policing left.
I know they have real concerns, like economic pain, threats to their way of life, and concerns about mass immigration—concerns which, by the way, I argued in the grandparent that the left counters with labels. "Your concerns aren't real; you're just xenophobic." But I think the cultural stuff was a big part of it.
I realize they don't represent all Trump supporters, and never said they did.
I hope (what I have come to term) 'the authoritarian left' realise that this is basically what the military might call 'blow-back'.
If you're going to stage a cultural revolution you should at least get that there will be some form of counter-revolution at some point. And if your revolution is concerned with things that don't concern the the rest of the populace (and in fact sounds like complete gibberish to them), best of luck with that fight...
Anecdotally, the people I know personally who voted for Trump did so because they "didn't like Hillary" which I translate as "just to fuck with everyone". They knew who they were "supposed" to vote for, and rejected that. They didn't once repeat any of Trumps proposed policies or justify their choice based on public positions. They were given a choice between two flavors of politicians, and picked the one they liked (or the the one they didn't, not like)
As a Midwesterner, I've found many unexpected Trump voters who had similar motivations. A lot of: "well, Hillary isn't going to change anything and things need to change". Not a lot of deep consideration as to what this 'change' will mean (beyond potential reinvestment in infrastructure and "jobs").
I actually think this may be quite a problem for President Trump down the line. These are friendly, community minded people who - generally speaking - overlooked (rather than covertly support, as everyone seems to project) Trump's more outlandish/discriminatory rhetoric. If he comes up short on the community reinvestment and gets mired in a bunch of unseemly scandals, the support of these people will drop off.
I'm actually worried it won't be a problem. For those Americans who don't obsess over policy, all Trump needs to do is make them happy in the week of, or month of the re-election and he'll have a decent chance. Combine this with the voters in each side who "robo vote" for their party (mostly to prevent the other party from winning) and it will again be a close race. Lastly, many of the policy changes can't be easily measured (or take much longer for the effects to be felt) which allows the party in power to convince voters to stick with them to allow time for the new policies to take effect.
Maybe - but I'm skeptical that he will largely be able to follow through with his promises. Many of the big issues we face aren't problems created by/solved by political leaders. For instance, we're not going to quickly turn around job loses in the US because we're fundamentally seeing a shift in the importance/balance of labor to capital. Low-skill manufacturing jobs are never coming back - and there isn't a ready pool of alternative ideas that previous presidents were just refusing to implement (or some nonsense). If a president could solve that problem it would already be done.
That said, what people think is true is - of course - whatever they can be convinced is true. Immigration really isn't/hasn't been a problem, so if the president can build an unnecessary wall and convince people that immigration isn't a problem anymore because of it then maybe we're boned.
Recall seeing statics (polls) that showed about the same amount of Hillary and Trump voters decided on policy issues. The most popular reason to vote in both camps was to make sure than the other candidate did not win.
for better or worse, we'll never know what negative/unpopular/bad things a President Clinton would have done
an election is a choice between 2 alternates though
didn't like X (maybe 'thought X would do bad things' is a better way to translate that), is a valid reason to vote for Y, and doesn't translate very well to "just to fuck with everyone"
---------
if you dislike Trump, the Democratic Party's failure to give the American people a better alternative to Trump than Clinton, deserves some portion of the blame
(and while we're on it, the medias failure to hold the democratic party accountable to produce better options than Trump deserve a good deal of the blame as well)
-----------
These things work in balance, Trump gets away with a lot of the stuff he gets away with, because people don't trust the alternatives,
people don't trust the alternatives, because those alternatives have proven themselves unworthy of trust
>This is extremely superficial, arrogant, even offensive to people who voted for Trump.
It's also what Trump supporters on this very site and elsewhere have stated to be their rationale. Trump was meant to be a "brick through the window of the establishment" thrown by angry, conservative, lower-middle class white voters driven to desperation by globalism and liberal cultural oppression, who wanted the existing system destroyed so that something more representative of their values could replace it. Various articles have been written about the phenomenon, so clearly it was a factor.
I knew a handful of people who simply didn't "like" Clinton, but also felt a need to "throw a wrench into the system." Some of whom I had pegged as relatively progressive.
I like it because it includes the implication that you're doing it to ingratiate yourself with people who are already your allies, and passing it off as bravery. That's more specific than insincere.
Even the term bravery can be contentious. For example some might call a multibillionaire taking a few hours from his Saturday to join a protest at SFO an act of bravery. Others might find it a nice thing to do, but ultimately insulting to conflate with bravery.
But this is HN after all, it's a relatively self selecting and privileged bubble. One man's bravery is another man's minor act of inconvenience.
It's funny, because if you express opposition to racism and someone accuses you of virtue signalling, they're basically saying "nobody believes that anti-racist stuff, you're just saying it to look good".
I'm not sure how illuminating that really is. I mean I'm sure that is what some people think when accusing others of virtue signalling, but I'm fairly certain others are basically saying "hey look, here's another privileged wealthy white tech guy who mostly lives in neighborhoods filled with similar people, and went to school with similar people, and runs entire companies filled with similar people, and is mostly friends with similar people, and benefits enormously from a system that affords him privilege while doing very little to confront those aspects of societal privilege, but yeah, look how totally not racist he is since he sent out a tweet saying racism is bad".
I also take issue with the idea that "expressing opposition to racism" really counts as "opposition". Talk is cheap, particularly if you're rich and privileged, and even more so if you're rich, privileged, and your talk is uncontroversial. Opposing racism requires every day actions, some of them difficult or uncomfortable, not self congratulatory tweets and blog posts. And especially not self congratulatory tweets and blog posts from CEOs or venture capitalists.
My point isn't that it's redundant, but that's it's an unproductive thing to say. If you want to insult someone, you might as well come out and use some curse words. Don't hide behind scientific language.
I was listening to a commentator a few days ago mention how frequently discussions of identity politics are diverted from practical economic issues associated with identity to the virtue of the participants in the conversation.
-----
Person A: I'm facing discrimination in my industry.
Person B: I don't see color. Racists are bad.
Person A: Too bad I don't work for you. How can I deal with what is happening?
Person B: There's going to be more of this with Trump. I hate Trump.
-----
I related to this dynamic a lot.
edit: it was an interview of Asad Haider (editor of viewpointmag.com) on the last Behind The News (Doug Henwood's show) episode.
> "virtue signaling" ... basically means "you are being insincere"
Superficially true, but the virtues people are basically forced to signal in order not to be economically ruined are, as they say, socially constructed.
The short version is, it's when someone acts in a "moral" fashion not because they truly believe it, but because they want others to see them as virtuous. Imagine someone attending a protest purely so that their friends can see them protesting, or donating to charity just so they can tell everyone that they donated.
One minor nitpick: in social media the criticism generally applies mostly to mere statements, especially statements of support or outrage over any given emotionally loaded issue.
Attending a protest or donating to charity is relatively risky and expensive in comparison to just feigning outrage, retweeting slogans or changing your avatar.
YouTube too. Just pick any Sargon of Akkad video at random, it's almost guaranteed to be about either "virtue signalling", "moral busybodies" (i.e. the people mostly engaging in virtue signalling) or "cultural Marxism".
It's the idea that people hold positions, or claim to hold such positions to signal (show off) how virtuous they are. For instance, say I don't have strong feelings about policy X. However, in my social circle policy X is seen as really bad. I then voice my disagreement with policy X, as a means of "signalling that I am virtuous". I would also potentially proclaim to hold strong disgust over those who agree with the policy, to distance myself from then.
"Virtue signaling" is just a modern term for an age old concept. Yesterday someone mentioned that he wanted to know the morbid people using this term (paraphrased).
It turns out that Jesus was one of those morbid people, criticizing the Pharisees and hypocrisy (preaching water and drinking wine).
Hypocrisy permeates business and politics, so while "virtue signaling" is perhaps overused, it is nonetheless a useful catch phrase. You can also use it against the right, if you wish.
Trump holding a rifle on stage is also virtue signaling.
It's a fine concept. I don't object to the concept at all. I've accused Trump of doing this sort of thing a lot, just not using those words.
What I object to is the specific phrase itself. Not because it's inherently bad, but because of how it's used. People use it as a way to dismiss and insult people without appearing dismissive and insulting. It's like if I say "you're suffering from a rectal-cranial inversion" rather than "you have your head up your ass."
If people want to call me insincere and disingenuous, I'd like them to have the courage to say it straight, not hide it behind scientific terms.
And "political correctness" as well. Nowadays the real political correctness and virtue signaling is on the side of those in power. "Prove that you're with us, or you'll be sent to reeducation camp with the others." The way they use these terms is Newspeak all over.
That's very interesting but irrelevant. People aren't using the term as a reference to game theory, they're using it as a cowardly way to say "You don't actually believe what you're saying."
When people are using this term, they are often implying that the ones signalling are trying to send false information to others. By signaling virtue they will be treated like a virtuous person even when they are immoral. The implication is that people virtue signalling are conscious that they don't believe what they say, but still say it for the sake of gain.
He is doing more than buying labels: he's giving 20k a month to the aclu, and apparently working on discontinuing Breitbart's access to his company's platform.
I've been working for a while now on having concrete, one to one conversations about race with strangers. Some key principles in this work are to call people in, not out, focus on personal experiences, and build out from shared values. It's hard. But I grew up in St Louis, which is a deeply, deeply racist town, where I was told from a young age that we lived in a colorblind society, and that I should stay away from the black parts of town of I valued my life.
Ignoring racism doesn't make it go away. Ignoring white nationalists, and giving them more acceptable labels doesn't make them go away, and doesn't make their hated any softer. These labels are still useful and relevant, and removing words useful for discussing the worst offenses, and providing a rock bottom which most people are happy to distance themselves from.
Or they don't believe they are being racist? Closing borders to some Muslim dominated countries while leaving them open to the largest Muslim countries in the world does give the impression that maybe it's not about being Muslim and it's more about nations.
I think the issue is more or less political, and it's twofold.
The first is that Donald Trump explicitly ran a primary campaign that at one time called for banning all Muslim travel to the United States. It is difficult for me to see how that promise is not rooted in some combination of bigotry and ignorance. For those who remember such promises Trump made, Trump will not automatically signal "compassion" and "tolerance", and I'm sure it's easy to morph an awfully crude executive order targeting countries already on a watch list into a policy that advocates "racism" and "bigotry".
The second is that the executive order was so poorly constructed, so hastily issued, and so overly sweeping, that it snagged people that shouldn't have been snagged (your green card holders and already-accepted refugees and whatnot) and threw immigration into chaos. Again, this only adds to the overall impression of "racism" for those who already have it.
From my perspective, my impression of this Trump executive order is more one of shoot-from-the-hip incompetence (that could've been avoided merely with more consultation with policy experts) and a fairly deaf political ear.
If that were so, we would have to put Saudi on the ban list. Most of the 9/11 attackers were from Saudi. Saudi has produced some of the world's most notorious terrorists.
Do we suddenly think Saudi society has changed enough that no Saudis are prone to terrorism?
Neither American political party is interested in Saudi Arabia being on any kind of ban list for reasons of US geopolitics, and this has consistently been the case since before 9/11. Remember how difficult it was to get any kind of official confirmation Saudis were involved? Remember how they were one of the big donors to the Clinton Foundation? If not treating Saudi Arabia as a terrorist threat is proof of racism, then almost every US politician is racist (and probably most of the US press too).
So you're saying that the Obama administration set up their list of countries with terrorist activities based on the business interests of somebody who wasn't even running for office yet?
I never said what they're doing was similar. I was merely pointing out that the list of countries they're doing the new, non-similar, horrible things to, was inherited from the previous administration.
Hence your "nations without Trump hotels" comment seemed strange to me.
It's also not very relevant since there's bound to be a strong relation between being relatively stable and prosperous (to say nothing of free, mind) and having trump hotels. I'm no fan of him, but I also don't like "my side" using weak attacks.
The notion that refugees from these seven countries represent a particularly grave threat is nonsense, so we're left to speculate on the real motives. Forty years ago, Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust. Trump still owns properties all over the world. Since he hasn't released his taxes, we have no idea how much money he owes and to whom. It's not at all unreasonable to assume that his decisions will at the very least be affected by his substantial holdings.
Of course it's nonsense, and of course Trump's going to try to help (and avoid harming) his own fortune, and maybe this is even a case of that, it just happens that "discriminating against the same countries been bombing" doesn't require "discriminating against countries that contain Trump properties", so unless we get a leaked memo where he explicitly forbids doing anything to affect travel from those other countries, the conflict of interest case is pretty weak.
Meanwhile, I think the move is motivated by 1) actual interests of people in his cabinet and advisory group (notably Bannon), and 2) populist pandering for re-election. I think that's sufficient motivation. I think the ham-fisted implementation of the policy is either arrogance meeting incompetence or an attempt to anchor expectations so low that Republican elected officials can later happily get on board with him when he's merely being very awful instead of incomprehensibly awful, saying he's "learned". I hope it's the former.
Agreed. Words like "hate", "bigot", and "racist" have become little more than modern-day Newspeak. They are labels applied to people, not terms descriptive of them.
Personally, when I read words like bigot/racist/etc., I instantly associate it with myself and my demographic, as a label that names us, not as a descriptor. I know that I personally meet none of the classical definitions of those words, but I also recognize that, in modern parlance, I "am" those things.
This is a great way for one to stick their head in the sand and not have to fight the evil in the world. The Nazis weren't defeated by pussyfooting around, and the same applies this time around.
All nouns are labels. Labeling in an argument goes all the ways and there is no guarantee whatsoever the parties involved have the same recognition of the labels. That we even have enough common understanding to create a language is due to a special human ability to understand each other without precise language, thus labels. The problem is not using labels, but people who intentionally mess with said ability to understand and then plant the blame on labels.
Labels are extemely useful and important. You do not cede ground on framing. Even if all you can do is fight to a standstill, it is better than not fighting.
Calling Trump racist or a Nazi isn't effective. It's preaching to the choir. You don't convince his supporters, and you alienate the moderates that believe Trump is moderate like them.
This is deliberate. Trump deliberately made himself the motte-and-bailey candidate, so both moderates and extremists feel Trump is on their side. He's done that through double-messages and lying, so that the moderates came to believe that Trump was lying on his extreme proposals, and the extremists believed Trump was lying on his moderate proposals. Even his VP choice served that goal.
By calling Trump names, you're setting yourself up to be seen as unfairly strawmanning him, therefore reducing your credibility among the people you most want to convince. You're also setting yourself up to be seen as slyly using words as emotional hand-grenades ("nazi! bigot!") to shut down discourse, rather than actually believing these labels. Through that, you cede the moral high ground, not because you're manipulative, but because your target audience believes you are.
Hillary Clinton paid consultants millions to help her convince the public, and even that didn't work. Throwing around labels it hopeless. Regardless of whether you honestly believe those labels, they don't work anymore. Go on at your peril. I don't know what the solution is. Wider involvement in the political process, repeal of the Electoral College, and redistricting all seem like better ideas. And then, propose a positive vision, not just criticism of the other side.
Edit:
I'll be clearer: you're right. Do you want to be right, or do you want to win?
Regardless of how one feels about the order itself, the fact is, courts are ordering it temporarily suspended, and the Trump administration is ignoring court orders. Legislators are going to airports to see that travelers arriving in their district and being detained are allowed access to counsel, and they're not allowed to meet with the detainees.
This is a constitutional crisis. This is not about the right or wrong of the travel ban, not anymore. This is about the Executive branch simply ignoring the Judicial and Legislative branches, and ruling by decree. This is a breakdown of the rule of law.
Within the week, we will see judges order the arrest of Customs/TSA agents, and possibly Trump administration officials, for contempt of court. Will the US Marshals enforce those warrants? Or will they obey Trump's orders and stand down?
If the administration does not stand down, I expect to see elected legislators, and possibly judges, being arrested within the next few weeks. Are you okay with that?
Again, it's not about the right or wrong of the travel ban. It's about whether the president obeys the courts, as required by the Constitution.
It's a complex set of events, but America is overdue for some stronger checks on the executive branch.
I think it's also fair to say the executive branch has unique power in security affairs that the judicial branch can overstep its authority in.
I'm not supporting these actions, here. I might go either way on them, honestly, but it's hard for me to get too worked up about constitutional crises now given all the executive actions that have been largely accepted as normal over the last sixteen years or so.
A temporary restraining order in a non-emergency is not overstepping any authority. I see absolutely no reason why this is too important to go through due process.
There's a good point there, but I can also see the merit of letting the commander in chief get the benefit of the doubt, especially since we're not talking about U.S. citizens as far as I can tell.
No, but US citizens are affected. The US-born children of long-term non-citizen residents may lose a parent, for example, if that parent isn't let back in.
The other day, a lawyer friend of mine had to advise a client of his not to return home to visit his dying father. This client has lived in the US for 20 years, and runs a business employing six US citizens. But if he goes to visit his father, he may not be allowed back into the US. That father will die without seeing his eldest son because of this policy. But if this man has American-born children (I don't know if he does), he might be permanently separated from his children if he visits his dying father.
But I find myself VERY upset reading your comment as well as many other reactions to exe. order
How much more can I take? I see signs "whatever it takes to remove trump" that has so much negativity behind it. "Trump" is now a word like being "gay" was growing up.
This is quite unhealthy for me.
I compare it to second hand smoke before the surgeon generals report.
Where I live, we have 30,000 Somali immigrants (and some of their US-born citizen children). I'm starting to think of what we would have to do to hide Somalis in our house to protect them from arrest and deportation. And you think you're upset? Why on Earth should I ever have to consider hiding people in my house, here in America?
My wife and I were discussing similar scenarios over the weekend. She noted that as long as "we" can still have these discussions - as long as "we" still feel like we can have these discussions and do have these discussions (ie - we're not self-censoring or being censored by the govt) - then things are still working.
I understand your position - do your best to continue "keeping the faith" in our institutions, people, citizens, etc. Ultimately, know you're not alone - that there are many others out there feeling the same as you, and somehow we will right the wrongs against our country and Constitution as required and needed.
Something very very bad is happening to our institutions. Resistance will be unpleasant and scary. Stay strong, stay close to your support system, and keep your eye on the ball.
Make sure to check out the comment down the bottom where Fred Wilson says he'll talk to Disqus about killing Breitbart's account, as well as the related discussion.
As a non-American with less to lose, while I think the latest move by Trump is contemptible and stupid, a lot of the response to it seem counter-productive. People here (edit: on HN) and elsewhere are doubling down on hatred, both of Trump supporters and of Muslims, without any kind of thought for convincing the other side's decision-makers or wooing independents. That's a dangerous thing to do, especially when you've just lost an election.
Pardon my ignorance - I'm not American and haven't followed this news - but how is everyone conflating it with "muslims"?
I mean, my country has some 140M muslims (India), and my neighbors have some 330M muslims.
As a layman, I just read the order and I thought "oh, so it's all war torn countries...but what's Iran doing in there?" not "oh, it's all muslim countries"
Because Trump went to election on "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" [0, donaldjtrump.com]
The fact that it was implemented as a ban on citizens from the most prominent Muslim-majority countries (as seen by the eyes of the average American voter, who forgot about Saudi Arabia) could be interpreted as a way for Trump to say he kept his pledge while not being instantly impeached for not protecting the Constitution as is the job of the president
How are those the "most prominent Muslim majority countries?" They don't have he largest Muslim populations, etc. They're a list of the most unstable Muslim-majority countries.
Iran is not one of the most unstable Muslim-majority countries, and the ban on Iranians is creating lots of problems here. Iran's inclusion in the list is purely political.
Prominent in the eye of the electorate. Your typical American has no idea Indonesia is majority-Muslim. "Unstable" does match that since they show up in the news a lot. But countries not on the list such as Saudi Arabia have several confirmed islamic terrorists and yet aren't on the list.
This is a canard. Indonesia is the largest 'muslim country', but it's not who we anglo countries think of when that term is used. You're trying to support an order made on emotive grounds with non-emotive facts.
> They're a list of the most unstable Muslim-majority countries.
Iran is a lot more stable than Egypt at the moment. However, Egypt is the #2 destination for US military aid ($1.3B, next in line is Iraq with $300M); it's not like they're going to be on such a list.
Which is the exact question any sane person would be asking. He says he wants to ban all Muslims entering the country. He can't ban Saudi Arabia, UAE, India, Indonesia, etc. He bans entry from a list of Muslim countries with unrest, but smaller profile, and subsequently less (almost none) terrorist export.
I'm going to use a phrase I hate, because it's almost always misused.
After some Iraqis that got admitted into the US were found to have created an IED when they lived in Iraq, Obama added new "more stringent vetting" to Iraqi immigrants, and it added a month-long delay to new visa approvals for Iraqis. The administration at the time would not admit it was an immigration block, just a delay.
If this is actually a temporary stop to figure out better vetting, or just pointless posturing, or a more long-term block, nobody outside the White House knows for certain.
It's relevant because it means that all the people pointing to the choice of countries as proof that Trump is a racist, doesn't really care about national security, is driven by his own commercial interests, etc are talking nonsense - and most likely partisan nonsense at that, since the list comes from the previous administration's border policy. In particular, anyone who claims that only a racist would think those countries are high-risk and uses this to point fingers at Trump rather than Obama is on dubious ground because it's Obama's administration that decided people from those countries were high-risk. Also, bear in mind that this is ostensibly a temporary thing while they come up with a more suitable permanent policy.
There are, of course, reasons why the countries on that list were there in the first place too - mainly recent terrorist attacks in Europe by people from said countries. I imagine it's not quite the list Trump's administration would draw up (there's talk of adding Pakistan, which is an obvious omission), but given how much flack and dubious accusations they received for literally copying Obama's list it was probably politically unwise for them to create their own.
This is such a stupid talking point. It's like me setting up a bunch of gas canisters and then someone else coming in and burning those canisters, and then that person proclaiming "I didn't put the canisters there though."
The reason this is more HN-relevant than your average article on pure American politics is the top comment. Someone suggested to a well-known VC that he could do something about the fact that software he invests in powers the comments on Breitbart, and he said "on it". Something like 5% of Breitbart visits currently come through Disqus. Removing Disqus integration from Breitbart would be a remarkable use of tech industry tools for political activism.
Of course, the fourth Google hit for "Fred Wilson Disqus" is now a post on right-wing reddit clone Voat entitled "F*#%^t Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson who owns Disqus threatening to pull comments from Breitbart website" [0]. So that's a real thing, apparently.
As a thought experiment:
Imagine the owner of Google turned out to be a massive Trump supporter. Would it be acceptable to remove Hillary supporting websites during the run up to the election from search results as a political protest?
Actual fracturing wouldn't necessarily be in his interest, but I guess we can assume that's not the goal anyway. The goal would have to be silencing the social media presence of the right, a return to the status quo ante of public discourse.
who's fault is that? there's plenty of articles out there, pick one or read a few and synthesize. Or go straight to the source: reddit.com/r/altright (warning: contains explicit white nationalism/anti-semitism)
The right to free speech constrains only the government. As a private individual or corporation you remain free to censor anything within your power. If Disqus doesn't want to work with Breitbart, they have no obligation to continue working with Breitbart, whether that decision is based on politics or anything else.
Why don't get is why there is so little discussion of systematic governance system shortcomings in the US.
Gerrymandering, a primary system empowering extreme positions, the role of money in politics, the extreme level of noise and lack of signal in the media, house and senate rules enabling obstructionism, lack of clarity in the constitution (e.g. senate being able to stall a supreme court judge for a year), etc.
As a general rule of thumb, money and power don't mix all that well ...
Those are certainly the most interesting discussions, but they both require great nuance (which the US political climate has long ago rejected) and great consensus (since the flaws are in the very constitution where the amendments are by design difficult to push through).
As a non-American, I've always thought the best path forward was to focus on states rights. Progressive states along the coasts could should the way forward, and the rest of the country would eventually catch up (imagine the EU if Sweden had to wait on countries like Poland and Italy to implement their desired policies?). But there's a massive medial focus on federal politics (the executive branch President in particular), and everyone wants to save everyone else in the nation from their perceived oppressions...
I flagged this, not because I have issues with the political stance, but because it adds absolutely nothing of substance to discuss. It's just a re-iteration that this administration is "hateful", "racist", "bigoted" and whatever else without anything compelling to convince anyone to change or even strengthen their views.
I see nothing useful that can come from wasting discussions on this. I'm already regretting spending the time I have in this comments section, it's a wasteland of blind posturing and inane flaming that I hope others avoid as well.
Same here. This is one of those topics where the Hacker News community has no particular insight, and the comments will surely be the same political cesspool as anywhere else (prove me wrong, please!).
Here's my take: I'm torn between agreeing that these stories don't really belong on HN and thinking that the comments here are the only ones I ever see that still don't immediately devolve into ugly name-calling. I wish I knew of a decent political forum, but I only know of echo-chambers on one side or the other and un-civil cesspools.
The politics conversations here aren't great, but they usually have some input from both sides and way less incivility than anywhere else I know of.
After a couple hours I have to concede the discussion here is more civil than the average. When I wrote my comment there was still a bunch of chaff but now it's been either downvoted, or the replies sparked a decent discussion.
It's because everyone is entitled to their opinion and they haven't necessarily done the work necessary to come to a nuanced understanding of the world.
Take a random visitor to HN and ask him or her what they think of the changes in Golang's garbage collector. Most wouldn't know what those changes have been, when they happened, or the outcome of those changes. Even the few that had a beginning of an understanding like me, would know that there are probably important details that are missing from understanding it so we keep our thoughts to ourselves. Then you'll get the like dozen or so guys that really understand it talk about it and the other 99.8% of us get to read and learn. What you think about the person in the Oval Office isn't something that you need academic or professional rigor to have a viewpoint on. It's part celebrity and mixed up with political ideology so people aren't usually shown that they don't actually understand what is going on. Plus, HN is popular in USA, Russia, Israel, Germany, Canada, Japan - each with their own viewpoints and lack of shared cultural understanding.
I do completely respect his decision , although I am 100% against his decision.
The only point I don't get is how Trump is not same Trump before election, He talked about banning Muslim (I was born in Muslim family , although I am not Muslim and I am atheist , I want to clear things out that I am not against ordinary people.), But he literally banned people from countries which have not participated in any terroristic act (Iran for example) whatsoever.
I don't get the hypocrisy!
He talked about Suadi Arabia (Iran is like France in comparison to Suadi Arabia, especially the new generation, which most of them are agnostic/atheist/nihilist , in comparison to Suadi Arabia which most of them have sympathy for ISIS, as far as I remember there was poll on the internet from one of the well-known firms, which claimed ~70% of people for Suadi Arabia do respect ISIS).
But guess what? Iran was, but Suadi Arabia wasn't.
People of America, Don't you get it? This is same old. I was literally in love with Bernie Sanders. But didn't you see how corrupted DNC rigged the primary against an outsider?
We all are slaves to this system. We in Iran are slaves of our brutal dictator supreme leader. You, people of America, slaves of your complex network of politicians and media networks and etc.
Actually, Trump campaign did have good points too (from an outsider perspective). He did want to distance himself from Suadi Arabia, or he did want to leave middle east. But I think that's not going to happen, because all of them was simple lie.
P.S. Pardon My English, I am working on it ;) , and I have 1 year to improve it more and more.
P.S. I was one of the "so-called" elite students which did have plan to immigrate to US in 2018. But I think I will go somewhere else .
FWIW the list isn't even Trump's, it was copied verbatim from the Obama administration's.
The excuse I often hear from Trump supporters is that the countries on the list are majority-Muslim countries where it's easy to get fake documents. Of course that still doesn't explain why the origin countries themselves aren't on the list.
I'm not an American but I find it incredibly weird that Iran is always seen as a "terrorist state" when actually the only terrorist organisations I could see as being tied to Iran are only concerned with Palestine and only directly pose a threat in Israel (i.e. they operate regionally). I guess the attitude towards Iran is an artefact of the West's close ties to Israel (especially for the US and Germany).
Off topic, but is it true that Iranian citizenship is difficult to get rid of when you try to become citizen of another country? I heard that one of the reason the ban on Iran was especially dire for green card holders and potentially even US citizens was that dual citizenship was basically the norm for people born in Iran.
To be honest , I am not law expert, I dont have very experience about citizenship laws in Iran, but as far as I know (You should consult an expert if you want to become sure) Iran's law written in a way you cannot get rid of your citizenship, even if you change your nationality, I think Iran government would consider you an Iranian. This law is ridiculous (I know). But I think the reason they wrote law in such way was not dictatorship or something like this , there was rationality (at least in their mind) behind such law.
p.s. I want to make you sure, the information I wrote in this comment maybe are wrong, so do not rely on them.
>But guess what? Iran was, but Suadi Arabia wasn't.
There are the stated reasons why the US government thinks a certain way and there are the real reasons. Saudi Arabia is a big one. I suspect the real reasons is we have oil deals with Saudi Arabia and Iran has oil deals with Russia. Also Iran nationalized US interests in the late 70s with the revolution. The US punished Cuba for the same thing for 50 years (plus the missile crisis). The US isn't altruistic like they want people to believe, the US works aggressively for their own best interests. If they can paint an altruistic face on it, they will.
The US is still can't let go of the cold war mentality, probably justified with Putin. Iran and Saudi Arabia fit into that mentality. Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two powers in the middle east: one is traditionally an ally, one is our adversary's ally.
It's a natural law of geopolitic that the victors of a major conflict split into at least minor adversaries. The victors are the only ones who can threaten each others power and security. We saw this play out after WWII.
Dan Carlin just released an episode where he explores this. I haven't gotten through it yet, but it's very good.
I do agree with you. But my biggest conclusion is Trump is super smart.
Trump is super smart to play an outsider role because he knows how desperately people looking for an outsider, but at the other hand DNC and Obama were stupid enough to not get it. He is an insider as much as Clinton. But he is way smarter than DNC, Clinton, Obama.
Well Obama was smart enough to act an outsider (the "change candidate" to get elected (and then also re-elected), but then also keep the status quo as an insider to keep the job. Hillary couldn't act an outsider to even get elected.
The government of Saudi Arabia doesn't officially sponsor any terrorist group (what royal family members do unofficially with their "own" money could be quite different :().
But that's not even the question. The question is which nationals are the most dangerous to US security, and here we're getting into pure populism.
Most of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, the rest of them from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon. Non of these country is on Trump's list.
The countries on the lists are either countries ravished by civil war (Syria, Libya, Yemen, and to a lesser extent Iraq and Sudan) or countries with US-hostile regimes that are already embargoed (Iran, Sudan and Assad-controlled Syria).
In short, the Trump administration chose the most dangerous-sounding names for American ears, picking governments that are either on bad terms with the US as it is, or simply too weak to complain. The direct economic damage will be negligible, while the people who supported Trump's idea of a temporary ban of Muslims (most of his voters) would be satisfied with his actions.
It's an effective populist measure, but it's a particularly nasty, considering that the US is closing itself to refugees from countries in civil war.
Trump did try to keep his word, but with lowest economic consequences. Keeping his base, active and hopeful, but at the other hand minimize economic pressure from such act.
About government of Suadi Arabia I think you are right, but the government of Iran is not active as a terrorist against US too. Unless your definition from terroist is Hezbollah, which as much as I hate them, they are not terrorist.
First of all, I was talking about people. The USA government (and as far as I can see trump banned based on nationality, not relation to government) did far worse to Iran and most of other countries. In scale, I don't need to provide a link for you. You can find it on the internet. If we want to go this path, (almost) every country in the world should ban the US. From assassinating their leader, changing their government, supporting dictators, and so much more.
Let me remember you, me and my generation is in this deep shit (Islamic Republic) because your government has overthrown an elected democratic government in ~1952.
BTW I don't believe Hezbollah is a terrorist. Because it is not, It does not blow people in Marathon, It does not blow people in a restaurant in France. Yes, they do defend themselves against Israel.
So as much as I hate , Hezbollah, they are not terrorist.
The US used to do many nasty things during the Cold War, in the name of blocking soviet influence, and the overthrow of the Mossadegh was just once. Then again, this was over 60 years ago. If we go by the same measure, Germany and Japan, both of which haven't fought a war for over 70 years, would be banned for life. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US is probably the most benign superpower in history. Yeah, it still went for war in Iraq, but really, countries with far less power have done worse things. We should criticize America when its due, but we should also keep things in proportion. Not everything bad in the world is America's fault.
As for Hezbollah, while I don't think it is primarily a terrorist organization, and they did have the right to fight back against the Israeli army while it was occupying South Lebanon, Hezbollah bombed several non-Israeli civilian targets, often for purely religious reasons (or how else you would describe an attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina?).
Besides, Israel has been out of Lebanese soil for over 15 years, aside from a brief, ill-conceived war (that was nevertheless a response to an unprovoked Hezbollah raid on Israeli soil). During much of that time, Hezbollah did very much the opposite of defending Lebanon, and went out of it's way to provoke Israel to attack Lebanon, knowing that that would gain them legitimacy. This includes targeting Israeli tourists in Bulgaria (I have hard time seeing how this can ever be seen as defensive).
Nowadays, they calmed down on the antisemitic terror front, and it seems like they're mainly occupied with helping Assad massacre his own people (and pretty effective at that). It's hard for me to see anything positive about this group.
As a Trump supporter that supports the ban, I would much rather we give Saudi Arabia and Israel the boot and ally with Iran and Syria instead. We're stuck with Israel but I have some small hope that the other sides may flip as our relationship with Russia improves. The cold war of the 21st century is looking more and more like US+Russia vs. China+EU, it will be interesting to say the least how that will affect our alliances in the middle east.
If you feel that the tone of this post overstates how bad Trump's order is, I suggest you read the article linked to in the original author's post. It goes into much more detail and gives you a better idea on why what Trump is doing is so bad -
For people outside the US, I believe it is perfectly fine to donate to ACLU, but do check if there is an equivalent organization in your country. For example in the UK there is Liberty (https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/). Threats to human rights are a global problem after all.
Come on, this isn't the place to drive recruitment for donations. The ACLU just received a huge chunk of change. There are plenty of worthwhile causes starved for funds that would love the bank balance of ACLU.
Fishing for open wallets while emotions are high and human rights trending.
Just an online take of the city street recruitment, like the Greenpeace people extending their hand for an unwanted handshake from 50 metres away. Cross the road to avoid, and there's another one on the other side.
Every post of mine on this subject gets downvoted, but here goes. There was a grad student that was detained for 30 hours over the weekend at JFK. The CBP tried to put her on a plane three times, and three times she was taken off the plane because her lawyers intervened. For the whole 30 hours, she was not allowed to see her lawyers. Ultimately they released her. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.
Arbitrary decisions by government bureaucrats is the name of the game in US immigration. That's how it has always been, and that's the way Americans like it. When you ask an American, they will tell you that a US visa is not a right, it's a privilege, and they'd like to make sure that you know that you have no rights all the way through.
Every post of mine on this subject gets downvoted, but here goes.
I suspect that for many people your username calls to mind the KKK, and this leads them to be more critical of your content than they otherwise would be. Sarcastic spellings that include extra K's are commonly associated with right-wing politics, sometimes as endorsement and sometimes as criticism: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-people-spell-America-as-Am....
As an European I - somehow - welcome this new sort of policy. It reads to me as "we concentrate primarily on ourselves". Which I think is a good attitude.
I hope this sort of thinking becomes more widespread. Sort of an anti-globalization movement.
We have and always will have globalization. In cyber-space. The open source community is an incredible example for how that works. But please concentrate globalisation to remain virtual instead of bazillion goods being transported all over the planet and contributing to pollution. This is also true for long-termn workforce movements.
„...bazillion goods being transported all over the planet and contributing to pollution...“
This seems to be oversimplified. A massive global supply-chain might still produce less polution than carrying around lots of small quantities of goods locally from producer to endconsumer.
Utterly disgusting, to another European with a completely opposite view. People are more important than goods, services and capital. People should be able to travel and settle down wherever they choose.
The only bad effects of globalization are the ones deriving from the power that corporations and wealthy individuals have of gaming the tax system.
Obama was the one who implemented the visa ban for 7 islamic countries. Trump is just continuing the policy and added a LGBTQ clause. The left is blowing this out of proportion, just because it's Trump. They had no problem with airstrikes everyday that Obama was in office. I wish the press could be more objective. Every country has a right to deny access to people from other countries. Same with all the islamic middle eastern countries banning people from Israel. It's a political game, and every country has that right. For you to travel to another country, it's a privilege not a right.
"In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation."
I have seen this statement several times now. Obama did the same thing, and nobody complained.
It's not the same thing at all. Obama didn't block people who already have valid visas. Obama didn't block green card holders.
Why do you say it's the same? Do you consider those two things to be essentially the same, or are you ignorant of the actual substance of one or both of these actions, or what?
Green card holders are being exempted, that was shitshow disorganisation rather than policy.
This policy is still not the same though, no.
The previous administration only suspended Iraqi refugee processing for ~6 months.
The thing I'm mostly annoyed about is people claiming "only the new administration would pick this list of countries" when they inherited the list. I'd much rather we focused on how much worse things they're doing with the list instead.
It was policy. Then that policy was loosened. The loosening is rather vague and still leaves a lot of room for trouble, so it remains to be seen just what the practical effects are. Now they "will be allowed to board U.S. bound aircraft and will be assessed for exceptions at arrival ports of entry."
I totally agree that focusing on the list itself is silly. It's a good example of why Trump should have divested his business interests prior to taking office, to avoid this kind of questioning of his motives. But it certainly doesn't look like these countries were chosen in any way based on his business holdings.
And then they can issue another executive order that says the same thing for another 120 days... This looks like a textbook example of issuing a controversial and overreaching order, waiting for the push-back, saying "we will fix the issues on a case-by-case basis, trust us", and then waiting for the push-back to drop in intensity. In the end, we are still left with a controversial and overreaching order and the president can decide to not fix the issue as promised.
Obama barred access to the Visa Waiver Program for "High Risk" countries. This was not an outright ban on immigration, it just eliminated access to a "fast lane" for people who needed to visit the US for 90 days or less.
I have a lot of respect for the people who have been protesting the entire time. I have a great deal of suspicion of those who are suddenly speaking up.
Does SV care about human rights, or are they more concerned about their continued access to H1-B Visa holders?
> They had no problem with airstrikes everyday that Obama was in office.
Speaking as a person who had a very, very big problem with Obama bombing civilians in countries we're not even at war with, I'll point out that what Trump is already doing with respect to immigration does go far beyond what Obama did.
Under Obama, there was never any doubt that a green card holder would be permitted reentry as long as they followed the same restrictions that have been in place for decades (e.g. don't get convicted of a felony, don't stay away for more than six months at a time). That is no longer true.
The same applies to someone who holds dual citizenship with the U.K. and Iran. Under the new policy (which is admittedly in flux and is being actively tested in court), a British Iranian cannot enter. That was never an issue before.
It's true that many on "the left" / "the media" were going to freak out even if Trump did exactly the same thing as Obama. But this fact is distracting many honest and sincere conservatives from the more disturbing fact that Trump did not do the same thing as Obama, but in fact did way more in a very reckless manner. (Besides, if it was the same thing Obama did, it wouldn't have required an executive order.)
Stopping new applications from one country for six months is not the same thing as cutting off refugees from all countries who had already passed the process, out of the blue with no warning, stopping people at airports until judges stepped in. halting this process from one country is not the same as cutting off all immigrants from seven countries with no warning, including legal permanent residents who happened to be visiting home. The green card policy was only reversed after already disrupting lots of lives, and the details are all still very unclear and confusing.
Partisanship blinds both sides to the real issues. Many liberals freak out about everything Trump does. Many conservatives, who previously criticized Obama's executive orders, react to this by showing more concern about leftist hysteria regarding abuse of power than the actual extremely concerning abuse of power itself.
They are not simply banning new foreigners from entering the country (which alone would be bad enough, imho), but also many green card holders who were legal residents and now face an uncertain future.
Also, does "In addition, the United States should not admit those [...] who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation" apply to everyone? That would mean bad news for Mike Pence, among others
Exactly. The left is going to end up being extinct, and it has no clue why.
Obama oversees war for every day of his two terms, and we hear nothing, because, I guess, bombing people isn't hateful.
Trump takes office, continues the policies of Obama, and he's hateful. It's the left that is prejudice in assuming that those in the middle and the right can't see through this.
I see zero effort to change strategy or tactic, so we can all look forward to a second term of Trump.
The U.S. is clearly geographically stratified (and self stratifying), and the impact factor of certain regions is clearly larger than others with the electoral system.
I would take issue with the statement that "America" voted for Trump or his talking points. Priorities vary greatly; just look at local politics. For two extremes, California ballot measures (2016) have included things like legalizing marijuana and promoting bilingual school education; Kansas has ballot measures for things like right to hunt and fish (2016) or exemption from nationally mandated health care plans (2014).
I.E. When someone tells you "You must be free!", this is a psychological trap, because if you are not free to decide if you want to be free, then you can't really be free.
Oh boy, not this again. The majority of the electoral college voted for this. That's how both Trump, and Hillary campaigned. To maximize electoral votes. There is no way to predict how it would have turned out, if it was based on popular vote.
Yeah, the legally elected leader, according to the Constitution, is Donald Trump. That still doesn't mean the majority of Americans electing them. Parent was assigning the responsibility for his election to all American citizens, but it's kinda hard to blame the entire American public for supporting these opinions when only 25.4% of them actually cast a ballot for Trump, and even passivity is hard to blame when more people actively opposed Trump than supported him.
The only way to influence Trump's policy at this time is to be on his side. This may sound weird and very counter to prevailing thought but this may be the only way. Trump already knows he can't win the other side so he will continue to appease his base which will be more detrimental to all of us.
It depends on what you mean by "his side". If you mean the Republican party (which is not really "on his side"), then you're right, they are in the best position to fight him. And they will do so if they hear a groundswell from their constituents that "this is not us". I am cautiously optimistic that this may happen. The condemnation of a number of senators, and probably more importantly, a bunch of Christian organizations, is a good sign.
In the 1990's in Gwinnett County, GA, you could not enroll your child in school unless he/she had a Social Security number. Non-citizens (including illegal aliens) were exempt from this rule. I considered declaring my children non-citizens as a minor protest, but really didn't care to make an issue of it. Would today's hysterics classify that 1990's policy as hatred, bigotry, and racism agains the (then) largely white, legal citizens of the county? Or would it simply be selective enforcement of the law? The fact is, the executive branch always practices selective enforcement, and the range of emphasis on some policies can vary wildly from one administration to another, and seemingly arbitrary exceptions can be made. In my opinion, Trump is delivering the revised emphasis on immigration that he promised during the campaign, and so far is doing so entirely within the law. People are free to react as they will, but I do hope they learn to recognize selective enforcement in all its glory, as a concept separate and distinct from the over-emotional labels now being applied to it.
Nah. The barring of perminent residents from reentry is both illegal (evidenced by the fact that a circuit judge had no problem reversing the that portion of the executive order and the subsequent retreat the administration made on the particulars of that issue), a strong break from what has ever been done, by past administrations, something that goes beyond the rhetoric Trump illucidated on the campaign trail, racist though it was, and is, quite simply, un-American.
While I am pleased to see our justice system work vigorously to rollback what it can, the administration showed a strong disregard for the law with these orders. It is unclear yet whether the Deparment of Homeland Security is even complying fully with the stays (the TSA administrator for Dulles refused to meet with a Democratic congressional delegation that went to the airport to make sure the judge's ruling was even being followed).
The Department of Homeland Security's own press release was scary in its own right claiming that they were deciding "at the moment" to comply with the court's ruling.
It's important to remember how much our system relies on tradition to operate effectively. The law/government is not a perfectly reactive state machine. It assumes a certain level of good faith and judement from all the nodes, and the executive is a powerful node in the graph, it has the ability to clog up its edges and render a lot of the other nodes feckless.
I think a lot of what Trump has done has been horrifying, but I, like you have felt that it has been in line with what he campaigned on and legal. In this case I simply have to disagree. This is over the line.
> Trump is delivering the revised emphasis on immigration that he promised during the campaign, and so far is doing so entirely within the law.
I know, I think everyone knows this. I didn't vote for him because I was afraid he would follow through on his promises, not the opposite. I don't get why people keep bringing this up as an argument in favor of the order. The fact that you promised to do something does not mean it's a good thing to do.
Are you implying that asking for SSN was being racist against white people?
More likely than not, they just wanted everyone to have a SSN so they required it for kids. But non-residents cannot have SSNs (even if legally there), so they had to make an exemption for them.
In a way, you can argue the opposite. By making sure that kids have SSNs, they get access to credit and much more, while those without SSNs get stuck in a limbo.
No. I am asking those hysterical about recent events to tell me why one form of selective enforcement is accepted as a matter of course, while another is not. I am using this example to show that selective enforcement of laws is not automatically hatred/bigotry/racism, but may be a matter of different policy goals. BTW, aliens can get ITIN's which are similar to SSN's except they are used only for tax matters. That is another abuse of citizens, if you care to be rigorous. Citizens are required to obtain a number and to supply it as a condition of receiving a benefit. In effect, the dreaded "show me your papers" which is posited as an abuse of power if used against a suspected illegal alien standing on the street is an entry requirement for a born citizen to walk through the door of kindergarten--but not for any non-citizen.
I feel like in your book, having an ID is a bad thing. You would be surprised that this is a very American thing (and which surprised me a lot when I first learned it); no foreigner thinks like that (bar people that don't want to be found).
In fact, you would be surprised at the number of doors that close if you don't have ID or have that crappy ITIN. EG: while I was studying, my friend only had an ITIN on his first year, and it sucked really bad for him. No access to credit, no access to most rentals (because no credit check to run!), etc. Even stuff was more expensive, as I could get the 10% Target discount and he couldn't.
(I was lucky enough to had a SSN from when I worked with a sort-of-diplomatic G4 visa, and it was incredibly useful, and allowed me to get a good credit score, a nice apt close to campus, etc.)
I understand that you are annoyed by having to hand over information about your kids to the govt, and maybe the process of getting them a SSN is a chore. But believe me, both legal and illegal immigrants would love to have SSNs.
My point was about the selective enforcement of a requirement, not about the merits of government-issued ID. But it's fair to discuss all aspects of my comment. You are absolutely right that having a government-issued ID and providing it upon demand of government agencies aids the efficient operation of the government. It also is indispensable for efficient government tracking and control of individuals. You might even paraphrase all that as "it helps the trains run on time." Look up that phrase if you are interested in the difference between individual freedom and government efficiency/convenience. I was only annoyed by the more strict requirements for citizens vs non-citizens. Perhaps you missed one of my points (the show-us-your-papers thing) about how it is considered a violation of civil rights for the police to simply request your ID (your papers) without probably cause. How nice for illegal aliens. And to your point about how glad immigrants would be to have SSNs, I question that. The current largest dispute around voting rights is whether requiring a government-issued ID in order to vote is a violation of civil rights. The largest outcry against voter ID requirements comes from the black community and from illegal immigrant rights organizations. Now, why shouldn't they gladly show that ID in order to exercise the right to vote, just as I duly registered and identified my children to receive their rightful education? We are back to the issue of selective enforcement, and selective outrage over this or that brand or degree of selective enforcement. ID for white kids to go to kindergarten? That's good! ID for non-whites and illegals to vote? That's bad! Strict entry requirements for almost every country on Earth? That's good! A pause and reexamination of historically lax US entry requirements? That's bad!
Internal american politics, not of interest. Flagged. When we were discussing the terrorist attacks in France, they were being consistently flagged. I complained about [1] the anglo-centrism of HN and dang replied this:
> I'd caution against drawing general conclusions about HN from spot observations about what does/doesn't get flagged. People usually fall prey to cognitive biases when they do so, e.g. thinking that the community is against them somehow. We're all primed to feel that way; the feeling just hops to different things depending on our different identities.
> Occam suggests you needn't look for "Anglo bias" as an explanation for why a story gets flagged when the thread includes "We must get rid of Merkel and the refugees" followed by "What do you suggest, gas chambers?"
> (Not that there isn't inevitably going to be something like "anglo bias" on an English-language website. But FWIW the moderators here are acutely aware of, and grateful for, and interested in, the international aspects of the community—definitely including the German ones.)
Either stop being USA (and UK) -centric, or stop pretending that you are not.
Internal american politics, not of interest. Flagged.
If you think the submission is inappropriate for HN, flag and move on, as the guidelines ask.
Your criticism of HN being US-centric sounds like you believe it's deliberate and curated. For as much as it is so biased, I think it's an understandable consequence of something that falls out of the demographics of the members and their interests. A lot (not all, though likely a plurality) of the members are in the US. While the community isn't entirely tech and start-up focused, there is a large interest in these areas. A lot of interesting tech companies are US-based. Silicon Valley is in the US. Y Combinator, affiliated with HN, is in the SF Bay area. It makes sense that a lot of submissions would also be US-centric, and, unfortunately, what might get flagged.
I don't see a large number of members actively arguing that HN doesn't have a lot of US-focussed content.
Perhaps the submissions and which get flagged don't completely align with your own interests. And I can understand how that could be frustrating. That's not necessarily because of some cabal actively keeping things focussed on the US.
Personally, I think HN has too many political discussions regarding US politics, prompted by the recent US elections. And I'm doing what I can as a member to shape HN just as any other member can. And a lot of the political submissions are getting flagged. People are complaining about that as well. (Look just in this thread!) It's the nature of the demographics and interests of the members.
Edit to add: A lot of the HN submission and comment data is available via the HN APIs. I've often thought it would make an interesting study to dig into that data to confirm or disprove perceptions of bias like this (though, in this case, I'm sure there is an unsurprising, strong US-tilt to submissions). If you chose to do so, please share the results on HN. I know I'd be interested!
Thanks for replying, and for clarifying. HN is, as you are also admitting in a subtle way, anglo-centric. It does not really matter if that's a policy or an emergent property. The consequence is that you attribute more importance to issues related to your cultural area of influence.
Readers should be aware about this, and I would like this to be plainly obvious to everybody. I have never implied that this is HN policy, but it's a fact.
The reason why I insist is because HN usually pretends this not to be the case, and attributes to perception biases any mention of the problem. Even your post goes in this direction.
as you are also admitting in a subtle way, anglo-centric.
I don't think there was anything subtle about it. (I do think anglo-centric is the wrong word to use, unless you mean English-language, or England in particular.)
The consequence is that you attribute more importance to issues related to your cultural area of influence.
That's natural for anyone, to some extent. I'm sure you and I have different interests based on our, um, different interests.
HN usually pretends this not to be the case
This seems to be the crux of it for you. I'm sure there are a couple instances of people saying this, sheerly because of the number of comments that have been posted over the years. Can you come up with support for this statement?
attributes to perception biases any mention of the problem
You'll need to be specific here, because otherwise it's difficult to ascertain whether or not it's perception or not. And, honestly, to move the discussion forward, I don't know how useful anecdotal evidence by you or I is going to be able to do that. You blew past my comment regarding other political submissions flagged, and in the previous thread you reference above, didn't address another's comment that submissions related to the Orlando attacks were flagged as well.
Even your post goes in this direction.
Will you elaborate? I do think there's a lot to perception bias. I check myself for it often. I've gone through threads a number of times, assessing comments for bias one way or another, both to check my own bias and others, when they make comments such as yours.
It's not so much anglo-centrism as it is political bias. They flag terrorist attacks in France for the exact same reason that they flag any article that is even neutral on Trump: it goes against their narrative.
Just a quick request: let's not get lost on semantics here. It's a huge field of rabbit holes to get stuck in in usual populations, and discussions derail to garbage pretty quickly.
Please don't vent here. We have a chance on this forum for a meaningful discussion, but venting will ruin that.
We are having the wrong discussions. I hoped this community could be a place to have the better ones.
First, I didn't vote for Tump, and am not a fan. I also am not a fan of Clinton.
The brief versions of the points are as follows.
- The executive branch has aggregated too much power, and not enough people are talking about the amount of chaos one person can do to the country.
- Trump has gone to war with the media, and the media is fighting back by making everything "the worst thing ever". This is going to lead to crisis fatigue.
- The country, a significant portion of it, has wanted to break up the calcification that has formed in our government. Due to the machinations of our two party system, Trump was the only option to vote for that on election day.
Longer Form:
There has been a conversation in this country that the government has ceased listening to, or being concerned with the population at large. There was a study that hit the front page here at least once. There is also a feeling in a significant portion of the population that the country is going the wrong direction.
The duopoly that has strangled our elections needs to be broken up. Both parties have ways to try and nudge certain types of candidates through their primaries. Not for conspiratorial reasons, but to try and have the best chance to win the elections. In both parties there were dark horse candidates that broke through, gathering their strength from disenfranchised people who wanted something other than the status quo. If Sanders was president, the right would be losing their minds as bad or worse than the left is. They accused President Obama of being a socialist who wanted to make America the next "insert country that tried socialism and wound up with an autocrat". Sanders is a self proclaimed Democratic Socialist with the outspoken goal of pushing the country to the left.
Two parties cannot represent the spectrum of beliefs and preferences that exist within the country, and the things that the two parties agree on (spying, war, trade, giving a pass to wall street) has made the majority of the country feel that they have lost their voice.
On election day there were only two choices to pick from. The status quo, and Donald Trump. I know a lot of people who didn't like trump, but voted for him anyway. Trump was a rock they could throw at the government.
The best thing I can hope for from the Trump Presidency is that the republican party splits, and the Democrats follow suit.
Trump believes in bullying his way through things, and holding nothing back. He's going to use every power that congress has ceded to the executive office to get his way.
Trump is the first president in my lifetime who is systematically going through his campaign promises, and doing what he can to force them to fruition.
The executive office has far too much power, and needs to be brought into check. We are supposed to have 3 branches of government with checks and balances. The branch that's supposed to pass the laws has two house so that the people's representative's have the most power, as well as an internal check system.
Congress gave the executive office the ability to spy on Americans, if those Americans were communicating with foreign targets of interest.
President Bush signed an order making it okay to spy on all Americans. The excuse was it wasn't being looked at, or used for domestic issues.
President Obama signed in order allowing that data collected without cause or warrant to be passed to all of the other domestic agencies (FBI, DEA, IRS, etc.)
This is far too much power for a single person to have. These types of laws need to be discussed and voted upon by our representatives before being put into action. The president is not a King, his word is not law.
My opinion is that the media has a bone to pick with Trump, and is highlighting everything he does in the extreme negative. If a democrat had won the media leaning right would be doing the same. We no longer get any context with the our news. We get headlines and highlights, but never any backing information on how things got to that point. The media has been reduced to supporting one side or the other and as a result there is no longer any room to say "I was wrong", "They other side has a good idea", "Let's here the facts and opinions of experts and debate the issue".
My concern is our country is too entrenched in the us vs them mentality that the duopoly has caused. We will not be able to make adjustments to fix the issue and our nation will barrel into the same wall that so many nations throughout history have crashed into.
How can we break up the political parties to allow for more options during an election?
How can rein in the overreaching powers of the executive office?
How can we drive more intellectual debate that provides some context on the current issues into the news organizations?
[posting at the top level as responding to the dead post was not allowed]
[...]
Instead of reading second hand sources, why not ACTUALLY READ what Trump said in his own words, 17 hours ago, right here:
“America is a proud nation of immigrants and we will continue to show compassion to those fleeing oppression, but we will do so while protecting our own citizens and border. America has always been the land of the free and home of the brave. We will keep it free and keep it safe, as the media knows, but refuses to say. My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror. To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting. This is not about religion - this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order. We will again be issuing visas to all countries once we are sure we have reviewed and implemented the most secure policies over the next 90 days. I have tremendous feeling for the people involved in this horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria. My first priority will always be to protect and serve our country, but as President I will find ways to help all those who are suffering.”
I disagree with your unnecessarily vulgar phrasing (please don't do that), but vouched for your post because I think focussing on Trump's actual words can be a constructive way of establishing common ground. Presumably, you quote this because you think it shows that Trump is being intentionally misconstrued by the press. I agree --- many people are distorting what Trump actually says in a way that fits the narrative they want to create.
What you may not understand is that many people think it's best to ignore Trump's actual words because they are designed to mislead. Since they've already decided that Trump's actions are based on racism rather than an honest desire for national security, Trump's explanations are presumed in advance to be a cover story for this true goals.
This is essentially a stalemate, as nothing that Trump can say will serve to persuade those who are prejudiced against him. Where I think the media is being misleading is that they jump straight to this conclusion, rather than building a solid case that might convince those who do not already agree with them. They intentionally conflate their own interpretation of events as being Trump's stated goals.
With this in mind, I'd like to focus on what Trump is actually saying. If we take him at his word, is Trump's explanation here reasonable? Is the expressed intent unacceptable, or does it become unacceptable only if we assume the true meaning is contained in inaudible dogwhistles? How do we eliminate the "simple" explanation that Trump believes in what he's doing, and is doing it for the reasons he says he is?
people think it's best to ignore Trump's actual words because they are designed to mislead
Trump can say will serve to persuade those who are prejudiced against him.
nothing that Trump can say will serve to persuade those who are prejudiced against him.
Add to these the many conflicting statements Trump has made during the campaign. It's hard to figure out whether to trust that we understand what he means when he speaks, whether we are inclined to believe him or not. Even now, I've read comments from people who support Trump and those who don't expressing "Yes, it's a Muslim ban! Just like he said he'd do!" and "No, it's not a Muslim ban! Look at the Executive Order!"
I'm pretty unsophisticated. I'd like to be able to trust what people say, and that they say what they mean. With Trump I'm left very confused. I want to be able to trust what he says, so I can evaluate that against what actions he takes, and that it allows me to predict what he intends to do.
This is all independent of what's being added by the media.
If I'm left with not being able to trust what he says, where does that leave me? What's my rational response? Trust that his intent is good for American's as a whole (not just those who voted for him)? Given government in general, and the past actions of Trump himself and those he's chosen to govern with him, it's not clear that that's a rational choice.
1) Internal american politics: other political issues are promptly flagged, while UK and USA political issues fare better. I do not accept that.
2) Lots of citizens (and others) in the USA are up in arms about this, while the real suffering that the USA is causing around the world (read "killing innocent civilians") does not get noticed anymore. You seem to be outraged about this because it is a new policy which makes the USA look bad, but you do not seem to be outraged in the same way by long standing policies practiced by all US presidents which are actually having a worse impact in the world. Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize on his second day on office and did not even close Guantanamo ffs.
Sadly, it seems HN may be getting overrun by Trump apologists.
The HN community is pretty diverse, including both members who support Trump and those who don't. That diversity is important, because, among other things, I don't think any of us are accurately and wholly described by a single test, ideological or otherwise.
While you might very strongly disagree with members on a particular issue or issues, it's important to remain civil and respectful, even more so on contentious issues.
I called this out a few months ago, and got told by a moderator to not employ conspiracy theories.
Yet, week by week, I watch as brand new accounts show up on these types of posts to spout the same short-sighted, toxic talking points that always get vomited out by Trump supporters. They don't say anything related to technology, they always tend to comment on political posts. I've been watching a few accounts and there has been no change in behavior.
This is not a left vs right issue. A lot of these people forgo basic philosophical principles about knowledge, and seem to shun any use of logic and reason (part of the reason you will not get anywhere by engaging them, they simply don't care).
> Yet, week by week, I watch as brand new accounts show up on these types of posts to spout the same short-sighted, toxic talking points that always get vomited out by Trump supporters.
I have noticed this as well and did not mention until recently, thought I was overthinking it. Good to see some others noticing this.
You can do whatever you want about Trump, I simply had enough of reading about it on Hacker News. These articles are not of my interest, and I don't think so many of them belong in this site, so I flag them because I don't want to see any more of them here.
I am not speaking for the rest of people who flagged them, of course. Just for myself.
Complaining about it is part of dealing with it. If we can mount enough public pressure, maybe we can get this madman impeached before he does something irreversible.
The only way he's getting impeached is if he does something illegal. Taking into account how the spotlight is on him 24/7, I'm sure he won't do anything dumb that could get him impeached.
I like Pence much better than Trump, but nope, that's not going to happen.
There are good arguments that he already has. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Although technically speaking he needs to break the law to be impeached, in practice you just need a majority of the House to impeach, and two thirds of the Senate to convict. If Congress doesn't want to remove the President, it doesn't matter what laws he breaks. If Congress does want to remove him, then they'll find some legal excuse to justify it. There's no official oversight of the process, nobody to say "no, that crime didn't happen" or "that crime doesn't qualify for impeachment."
Yes, and labeling behavior as that concept is an appeal to ridicule. You are classifying something you disagree with as something designed to mess with your perception of reality rather than actually intellectually engaging it.
>banning entire countries and their citizens is not racist
Because it's not in most cases (unless a particular race only comes from that set of banned countries). It's xenophobic. Please use the correct terms if you are going to level such strong accusations to such large numbers of people you don't seem to have any understanding of.
With respect to the word racist and its usage, I think we're in the midst of watching it expand its meaning. I'm not sure what to think about it, given that I both strive to use words carefully and precisely, while also understanding that language changes and attempts to control it can prove ultimately (frustratingly?) futile. I'd hate for that to be one more thing that gets in the way of effective communication, particularly on difficult issues like this.
After all, the point is ultimately to communicate: if we let strict adherence to a single definition of a word from getting in the way of understanding. Better to just ask what meaning is being used if necessary, while perhaps lamenting the loss in precision in silence.
Racist seems to be expanding and contracting. The whole "you can't be racist against white people" thing has been gaining traction lately. It's quickly becoming a word devoid of all meaning.
I flagged because it accomplishes nothing but open up yet another venue for people on both sides to argue and complain. It doesn't make any argument to change, or suggest solutions, or otherwise advocate civil discourse other than "Yeah, I agree!" or "Yeah, I disagree!"
The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. I think I've explained why I feel this is particularly a low-quality submission, and flagged accordingly.
I don't see how you can think that is selfish or petty, unless you think having yet another thread to just complain in is actually helping anyone.
Either way, I don't want to get into an argument here (obviously), so I'll pop out of this thread now and leave my flag behind. If people want to vouch it out, that's fine too.
Dark forces seem to be gathering? There's been plenty of political discussion on HN over the past couple of days. HN, a site which is explicitly not for extensive political discussion. A lot of members are flagging because they're exhausted by the number of political articles.
There is a very aggressive set of users that keep flagging politics here. At this point I don't know if they are Trump supporters, or if they just hate anything but tech on HN.
There have been plenty of political submissions on HN over the past couple of days. There's been plenty of political discussion on HN over the past couple of days. If people are starting to flag political submissions, it may be because there's a limit of how many political submissions there should be. There's a meaningful difference between "anything but tech" (which is a straw man, anyway, as there are plenty of other submissions that aren't tech yet aren't politics) and having so many political submissions and subsequent discussions that end up covering the same ground without any meaningful discourse.
I'm told I'm racist because I think blacks and whites are interchangeable, and because I don't care about one over the other.
I'm told I'm racist for thinking the opposite.
I'm told it's racist to discriminate on the basis of race.
I'm also told it's racist NOT to do so.
The closest principle I can find that predicts who is considered a racist is "republican = racist". Can you provide a clear definition of racism that you'll endorse, even if I can derive conclusions you dislike?
Believing black and white are interchangeable is a privilege of being white. NO black person is allowed to believe this. Society tells them so, every single day.
Stop, and chew on that for a while. Think about your black friends - do you think any of them believe blacks and whites are interchangeable? Do you think a cop pulling them over, or a person interviewing them for a job, always believes this? No matter how colorblind you may think you are personally, much of the rest of America is not. Equality is theory, not practice. If you step up and do something about it, you have to acknowledge that inequality is real, that black and white are not interchangeable. If you don't step up, you're denying reality.
The US is a racist society: "race" has no valid biological basis, but is a salient social category which impacts social and economic interactions in a wide variety of ways, producing inequalities of privilege and injustice.
Whether or not you have bigotry in your heart is beside the point—no one can know such things. When you spend all your energy trying to prove that you are untainted and innocent of racism, it seems like you are missing the point: in a pervasivly racist society, discriminatory behaviors creep in the subconscious of everyone, black/white/antiracist/whatever, and we have to consciously struggle with them. The question is really more about how you interact with broader society racism, not whether you are a naif.
"it seems like you are missing the point: in a pervasivly racist society, discriminatory behaviors creep in the subconscious of everyone, black/white/antiracist/whatever, and we have to consciously struggle with them."
?
I have recently argued against my own misunderstanding of someones explaination and find that embarrassing so I am actually listening.
If there's miscommunication due to semantics that's preventing people from reaching understanding on an important issue, the semantics are indeed important. There has to be some area of common understanding to make that happen, which includes agreed-upon semantics.
Racialism is is the idea that Homo sapiens can be divided into separate social categories or "races" based on a variety of relatively arbitrary society-specific markers: religion, kinship, skin color, and so on. The ideas of race is tied up with the idea of ancestry (and nation), but the biological link between genetic ancestry and racial identities is very ambiguous. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/22/a-lot...
Racism is the discriminatory or prejudicial treatment of people based on these socially-salient-but-mostly-arbitrary social categories. This is pretty basic stuff, really.
I was with you almost until the "willful ignorance". I also guess yummyfajitas was with you until the second paragraph as well.
My frustration is that your definition doesn't seem to be the one that one is jugded against but rather one that defines us all as racists because of the society we live in, because of our distant relatives etc.
Because of this there seems to be no way to defend against this. And since I am a "racist" it is only fair to dismiss all my opinions, right?
Again: I'm arguing in good faith. I don't like Trump but I am afraid the rethoric we see from Democrats and others are driving voters straight into his arms. I'm also fairly certain that it hurts this community when people go around accusing other long term contributors of willfull ignorance.
Do you honestly believe he did not know the meaning of racism? That he was not being deliberately ignorant (the definition of willful ignorance) about racism to make a rhetorical point? Come on now.
I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings by calling out the obvious. I apologize.
Just because some of the people you disagree with are muddleheaded doesn't mean that all of them are. And just because you see an imprecise description of a behavior doesn't mean that behavior does not exist.
"Racism" is a catch-all for the typical set of human behavior directed towards out-groups. This includes distrust, aggression, and in-group signaling. It doesn't matter what defines out-group: dress, gender, skin color, etc, but is generally something tied to identity, something easy to recognize and hard to change. Negative feelings get amplified and applied to all members of the group while positive feelings are suppressed.
In its most extreme form, this permission-to-otherness motivates genocide. Slightly farther down, slavery. Waaaay at the other end it manifests as nervousness around Koreans or something. This is just human nature. There are quite a few things in our nature we no longer casually tolerate in society and work to eliminate. Like ignorance or incest.
But on top of that, context matters. In a situation with heavy power asymmetry, both protagonists may harbor "racist" feelings, but the only attitude that matters to outcome is the attitude of the one with the power. If you feel you're being held to a higher standard, its probably because you are.
"Racism" as used, say, in the 50s, was shorthand for "institutional racism". The game had been rigged against minorities, most especially blacks, to the point that the law told them where to live and eat, who they could and could not marry, etc. This was enforced day to day by the actions of regular people employing regular, everyday racism directed downwards in a situation of power asymmetry.
Since then the institutional stuff has largely been dismantled or covered with tarps, and institutional "fixes" applied, often unevenly and stupidly, but that's also human nature.
The second half of your last sentence is the key to the issue, IMO. People calling things racist, and yet those who agree with the things being called racist seeing those name calling ignoring similar behavior weakens the concept of bigotry.
My favorite example of this is the legal system. The legal system is racist against blacks and Hispanics because it is harder on them. The legal system is also sexist against women because it is easier on them. When someone sees both of these views together, the entire concept of bigotry is called into question.
And it's becoming a self parody as well. People are now being called transphobic for being unwilling to have sex with a transsexual they aren't attracted to. A gay guy who is only attracted to people with a punishment is now a bigot... what? Yeah, that view isn't by any means common yet, but it has been appearing online for a while now.
I don't have time at the moment to give this the response it deserves, but this is quite an eye-opening comment. There are many who believe that globalism is discriminatory as well. I truly think there's an answer that is in line with the "gut feelings" of those of us who are abhorred by Trump's order and not by trends towards globalism, but as you note, it's difficult to articulate.
Racism is making decisions about a person's character based on information about their ethnic background. Usually these decisions negatively impact the subject of the racism, serving to position them as inferior to the decider's race.
Isn't it increasing argued that the dictionary definition of racism is only one possible definition? I've heard it stated many times that the newer excepted definition involves the traditional aspect of racism coupled with the component of power. That is to say that racism is prejudice plus power.
As an example, a minority in the US may be prejudiced or bigoted, but they cannot be racist since they lack the societal power that whites enjoy. Thus only whites can be racist.
Just to be clear, I'm not endorsing one definition over the other, I only meant to illustrate that even seemingly well defined words can have different meanings.
You're correct. I should have been more clear. My main point was that racial prejudice alone (#3 in the above link), minus the power component, wouldn't be enough to satisfy the requirements of racism under some definitions.
Good point, although I think it could be argued that there could be a political doctrine based on racism at say the local or regional level, that wouldn't be widespread enough at the societal level to qualify as racism under some definitions. For example you could live in a city or town that adopts discriminatory laws against whites, this would meet the political doctrine aspect, but it still wouldn't be widespread enough in American society to qualify as racism.
I'm not very smart though so you should keep that in mind, I could be totally off base here.
I know this is going to come off like a "smart ass" But, I really curious what people think. Can someone be a bigot towards racists? I've heard the argument that the left is intolerant of intolerance and there for hypocritical, which sort of on it's face sounds plausible but seems more like an alt-fact to me. But I can't put my finger of why.
It kind of reminds me of the time I was arguing with my brother and his response was "I don't believe in logic"
How do you deal with people that refuse to argue with logic and facts?
> How do you deal with people that refuse to argue with logic and facts?
This is a good point, and circles back to the original thought in this thread. When words are unclear, how can you discuss logic and facts? People don't have the patience (nor should they) to sit down and cooperatively define dozens of key terms each time they have a meaningful discussion about the direction of society, culture, and government.
Relabeling and redefining things to assert power (instead of reasoning with others) inhibits cooperative reason and is therefore, in my mind, irrational and harmful.
Why shouldn't people have the patience to define their language before having a discussion? Your last line seems to indicate that you think having unchanged definitions to words is a good thing.
My wife and I define things to each other frequently. We often are saying the same things but confusing each others meanings because of wording.
> Why shouldn't people have the patience to define their language before having a discussion?
Most people aren't practiced in keeping sets of definitions in mind that vary from context to context.
You're also opening the (aspirationally meaningful) conversation with somewhat involved semantic discussion and debate.
"Now that we've labored over the meanings of 'race', 'diversity', and 'equality' for fifteen minutes and invented three new terms to encompass the meanings of 'racism' that are relevant here, tell me how the latest executive order might end up exposing your family to more of racism-type-B."
The implications are overwhelming. To be a meaningful part of the debate would require a great deal, maybe even obsessive, of focus, time and research.
I used to love text because it felt unambiguous. I just realized a part of me fears speaking because I don't want to be misunderstood.
I would say these days anything along the lines of what you are asking is difficult to answer. The language concerning such topics have been so muddled with people's opinions of what words actually mean that no one fully understands what the other side is trying to say. Which only ends in personal attacks.
It is one thing to try to deal with people who refuse to argue with facts; it's quite another to deal with people who refuse to accept that their can be different interpretations of the same facts by different people.
you make a lot of great points that call back to one central concept: the liberal idea of "racism" is multifaceted and constantly shifting to be more inclusive.
understanding what "racism" is requires you to keep up with the thought development that's ongoing, and frankly it's too much work for almost everyone to do so.
perhaps a different perspective will be useful, and i'm just making this up as i go, so bear with me.
imagine a utopian society in which 100% of people have complete equality of opportunity as well as ability to capitalize on opportunities. the society itself has no needs which are unmet, and vast resources which are disbursed equally. this means that the choice of what to do with one's destiny is limited only by their share of the society's resources. if there ever were any ethnicity, religions, or races, they've long since been forgotten, and all the members of this society are united in their affection for equality and humanism.
here, someone going for a facile point would ask what color do you imagine the people of this society to be (looking for a "gotcha", you're a racist), but that's not my purpose. instead, try to work your way backward from this theoretical society to the broad term of "racism" we have today. what needs to change?
for one, the actual situation of an arbitrary group of people needs to change, along with their mental outlook. let's say that this arbitrary group starts off with fewer opportunities than the rest, though their ability to capitalize on what opportunities they have is supposedly unchanged. their mental outlook is thus that of starting from behind, and they're not wrong.
because they've started from behind, the development of this group to reach their individual goals for life is slower. if the citizens of the rest of the society truly love equality in the fashion that they claim, then they must redistribute all of their resources en-masse, removing the disparity between the groups. unfortunately, in our thought experiment, a one-time transfer isn't enough, and each new generation the disadvantaged group will need to receive some resources from everyone else.
this spawns resentment among a portion of the egalitarian-minded population. we'll call this portion the conservatives. fed up with having less as a result of the group requiring their resources, they decide as a bloc to withhold their contribution despite still benefiting from the general climate of promoting equality themselves. predictably, the disadvantaged group begins to fall further behind, as they're not receiving as many resources as before. we now have the poor, the liberals, and the conservatives.
eventually, the withdrawal of resources by the conservatives begins to impact the poor more severely, and limits their ability to capitalize on opportunities as well as additionally hurting the resources that they start with. their sphere of potential paths to take in life shrinks expediently. education becomes more limited, many lose sight of egalitarian ideals, and a few turn to crime. the utopian society is no longer utopian at this point in our journey toward our reality.
let's fast forward a number of generations. the situation of the poor group has degraded considerably, and poverty has scarred the minds of its people. the egalitarian ideals of the past are still alive, in some people-- but to ignore the dilapidated condition of the poor group is impossible, and so calls to renew equality are aspirational. many have invented stories about why exactly it is that the poor are so unsightly, seem to be the only one committing crimes, and don't have the same resources as everyone else. these stories aren't fantastical, so much as they are filters of perception instantiated in specific incidents. many people treat the group differently as a result of the stories that are told, further reducing their opportunities. we can, at this point, generally say that these filters are equivalent to "racism".
so, let's say you're one of the old-school idealists, and you still think that, even though the challenges are greater than back in the day, equality is necessary and desirable. would you say that the group at the start of the thought experiment is interchangeable with the other groups? no, not anymore, though they were at the start-- and this is a sticking point for understanding the concept of racism in a more nuanced way.
are they NOT interchangeable? at the start of the thought experiment, they were in fact fully interchangeable, until we changed the variables. now, they need more resources to succeed. is it "racist" to discriminate on the basis of race? well, yes, if you believe in egalitarianism, you shouldn't be disqualifying someone because their starting conditions were different-- and if you really, REALLY are serious about egalitarianism, you'll give up some of your resources to them to help them catch up. the liberals would prefer it if everyone were in the REALLY serious camp, and tend to describe alternatives as "racist".
Your example doesn't match up with reality. In your example, one group arbitrarily starts out disadvantaged. In the real world, (let's say United States) there was no arbitrariness. White folk, in aggregate, set up a system to massively redistribute resources from black folk to white folk, causing horrifying suffering in the process. You can't just ignore this and start your scenario with the slate wiped clean.
You're on HN, so you're obviously capable of research, learning, etc. Why don't you go do your own research and try to understand instead of blindly listening to what you're told and then complaining of being confused?
Why would you assume I need to disprove the assertion that there's are disparate and inconsistent opinions? Of course there are! That's why they are opinions!
Also I'm not sure why you'd look to HN for clarity on any sort of social issue. That's not this community's expertise. That's why I'm saying go forth and learn.
Do you though? If you can't distinguish the difference between fear of the unknown and hatred, then you are fortunate enough to never have experienced hatred.
Since everyone likes to compare Trump and Hitler. Hitler hated the Jews, which resulted in genocide. I've talked to several people who support what he did with the ban and it has nothing to do with hating Muslims or immigrants and its all driven by fear (statistically irrational) of attacks like the ones in Germany.
I vote against allowing children to drive not because I hate them, but because I fear the thought of them driving on the same road as me. Do you see the difference?
The consequence of a child not being allowed to drive and not allowing human to enter a country where they maybe have lived for years are a bit different though.
> Since everyone likes to compare Trump and Hitler. Hitler hated the Jews, which resulted in genocide. I've talked to several people who support what he did with the ban and it has nothing to do with hating Muslims or immigrants and its all driven by fear (statistically irrational) of attacks like the ones in Germany.
And Hitler drove fear of the Jewish people taking over and kidnapping and killing christian children as his catalyst to power as well. There were negative traits ascribed to Jews, just as there are now of Muslims. Prior to implementing camps and genocide, Hitler stoked an environment of fear. Fear of the others.
Hell, hatred of blacks in the American Antebellum South, and the hatred that continues to this day, stemmed from white people's fear of blacks.
Fear inspires hatred. While they are not the same thing, they are related.
This works similarly to paradigms in science. Most of the time people don't actually define paradigms; it's implicit in the general experience of being a researcher. People similarly have a commonsense understanding of what hate, bigotry, and racism are. This works fine when everyone agrees, but once a field reaches a crisis, once you have a political climate so violently polarized, it stops working to appeal to people's basic intuitions. People no longer agree on the most basic things. You have to start calling out specifically what the other side is doing and why it's a bad idea.
Simply calling someone "hateful" is an emotional argument at this point, and hurting discourse.
No, everyone knows racism is obviously bad. What we're back to is having to prove that what the opponent is proposing actually constitutes racism.
One argument I hear is that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with the West's values, that immigrants from those countries don't integrate well, and that the dangerous ideas within Islam aren't limited to radical fundamentalists. Under this view, a temporary ban is not necessarily a bad idea, nor is it necessarily racist except in the literal sense.
I disagree with this — I think the perfectly reasonable people from those countries need to be shown compassion, not to be lumped in with their oppressors — but the discussion should be about that, not who can scream "racist" louder.
No, everyone knows racism is ostracised. Plenty people cherish it. And now that there is less stigma with racist president in charge, they come out of closets.
I agree. Labelling all people from entire countries as not eligible to enter your country is, by definition, racist.
I don't see how that is not clear. I thought it was clear. I thought people defending these executive orders think it's all fine and good to basically blacklist entire countries and every person on earth who is a citizen of those countries.
Trump’s chief spokesman Sean Spicer just explicitly stated that it's not about countries[1]:
>certain areas of the world produce people who seek to do us harm.
What's your definition of race? It's a hard thing to define since it doesn't objectively exist, but I think 'people from certain areas of the world' is pretty indistinguishable from what most people mean by race.
Regions are not not necessarily race either. It could easily be about culture and the associated value systems. For example during WW2 - even before the US joined it - america did reject refugees from europe because they might have been nazis. Nazis were just as caucasian as most americans, but they had a culture that was clearly seen not just as incompatible but as hostile.
To the "alt-right", fundamentalist christians, nationalists or simply less-informed conservatives someone from the middle east may appear to have a similarly fundamentally incompatible value-system as a nazi would have to an american in the 1930s or a commie during the cold war.
Race and Nationality are a proxy for religion and culture which is a proxy for value systems. And value systems are what people disagree with and vote against.
Is it really? For example, the region held by ISIL is indisputably an area of the world which produces people who seek to do us harm, for values of "us" that include America and Europe. Does that make discriminating against people who try and enter the country from there is racism?
I think Trump's an idiot, but here 'racism' is being used to describe moves taken against groups that aren't actually races: illegal immigrants and Muslims. So yes, the term has become meaningless through overuse.
What do you mean by "racist"? If you mean discriminating based on race, then of course, everybody is racist. Haven't you seen those videos of babies that cry the first time they encounter a face of a different color?
I cried as a baby the first time I was put in a group with other babies (most likely of the same color as me).
I think the word you're looking for is xenophobia. And while xenophobia certainly isn't any less of a problem, calling it racism makes it sound far more grandiose than it really is.
Racism is a political (and ideological) issue. Feminists define racism in terms of power dynamics. Supremacists use racism to attribute different qualities to different ethnic groups. Historically racism can be seen as the latent effects of slavery and racial segregation.
Xenophobia is just a mental bias that used to give humans an evolutionary advantage but is becoming increasingly counterproductive in a globalised society. It's a flaw in human thinking that leads us to irrational attitudes but that can be overcome with conscious effort and exposing ourselves to that which is foreign to us.
Conflating the two is one of the main reasons race is still such a hot topic in the US. The US is culturally and ethnically diverse, yes, but that diversity is not equally distributed. In rural white majority areas "blacks" and "Jews" and "orientals" are still as foreign as ever and calling these people racist because they are afraid or unsympathetic of something they only hear about in news reports and on TV is not only unfair but unproductive, no matter how reassuring it may feel to us educated cosmopolitans who are so very progressive and distant from that backwater mindset.
That is why Trump got elected. Republicans who were sick of being told they're racist and Democrats who were disillusioned with the choice of candidates. It didn't even take a record-breaking Republican turnout to get Trump elected, it just took enough Democrats being disinterested in supporting their own candidate.
But I digress. I don't even have any skin in the game -- I'm not even in the US.
"Racist" is no more than an insult at this point. They way it's commonly used it is now either tautological ("Well, yeah, everyone is racist"), an accusation of racial supremacism, or something in between.
"Xenophobe" is equally tautological but xenophobia is something you can actually address. If used as an accusation, at worst it accuses someone of hatred, at best it accuses them of an unintentional bias. It doesn't accuse people of being part of a system that maliciously ruins people's lives.
Racism, sexism and so on are pathologies. Calling someone a racist is no more productive than calling them a communist. They may agree with the label or not but it doesn't express the actual problem and its cause. Even worse, it implies an intentional choice. It's political.
Xenophobia is not political. It can give birth to politics: isolationism, for example, or discrimination. But it's not in itself political or politicised.
Of course if you just go around calling people "xenophobes" to avoid saying "racist" you're not making it any better, but xenophobia simply doesn't lend itself to being used as an accusation without making a point of painting yourself as infallible (which is ridiculous).
Xenophobia is an intense, irrational, pathological dislike or fear, and connotes something pathological. Bias (in this case, tribalism bias) is something that's a pretty well ingrained aspect of human psychology, and something everyone has. While a common usage of bias has the connotation of something unfair, it's also used in a stricter sense to indicate these inborn aspects of the human psyche. My original comment was intended to point out this distinction. I should have taken the time to be clearer.
As for racism, sexism, and so on, or the political aspects of these, or xenophobia, those are beyond what I was addressing in my first comment, and not a mess I'm interested in digging into right now.
Babies and kids recognize and point out differences in all things as they discover the world around them. Their reaction to a different looking person is not predictable - it could be bemusement, fear, or disinterest. This behavior is not conscientious discrimination - which in adult behavior is racism. Fair enough? That's my thought on it anyway.
Would you care to elaborate, because I don't understand. Usually people would like the society in general to have less bigotry, hatred, and racism. Do you think Trump will help us get there, and how?
Well first you need to establish that Trump are actually doing those things.
This is the primary issues once you actually dig into things he might just as well just be nationalist which means occupied with US citizens not world citizens.
From the perspective of a nationalist the extreme measures Trump have taken are simply to secure the country.
From the perspective of a globalist he is destroying the very foundation of the global society. None of those are wrong, they are just different perspectives equally valid.
If one wanted to assess the relative merits of the respective perspectives, one could consider whether the list of nations affected and unaffected corresponded with evidence of relative security risks, what the opinions of people tasked with securing the country were on its likely efficacy, and of course whether Trump's circle discussed the order with those responsible for executing it in order to ensure it was clear and enforceable or purposely kept the vaguely worded text of the order from them until they were required to implement it, with the inevitable result of confusion, a legal challenge and people whose right to enter the country changed in mid-flight. And timed the announcement for Holocaust Memorial Day.
Then one could also take into account many of his critics aren't remotely globalist and some of them have invested significant political effort into trying to destroy the very foundation of global organisations like the EU.
I think based on the above no reasonable person could conclude the argument his primary focus was security has as much merit as the argument his primary focus was to cause maximum chaos to upset liberals, enthuse the elements of his base most excited by anti-Muslim gesture politics and test the loyalties of his colleagues in Congress and border agencies.
It would be easier to see his actions as 'just nationalist' if even one of the countries whose citizens have been banned from entering the US wasn't a Muslim-majority country.
We are talking about people who went around, even here on HN, telling that half the American population were dumb racist haters because they either voted Trump or IIRC just because they respected the election.
These are labels. No one really knows what "hate" means anymore, but because people are emotional, they see the word, recall what they think of Trump, and think, "yeah, that's hateful!"
This is a problem for two reasons. First, while Fred is probably a smart, intellectually rigorous guy, many people aren't. Most people who shout "that's hateful" or "that's racist" don't actually have a repository of comprehensive thought behind it. This is partly why Trump won in the first place. People everywhere would say, "You support Trump! You're racist!" or "Trump has a position involving race! He's racist!" This is not an argument, but once you introduce this vitriolic adjective into the room, everyone worries about their ideas being placed into this odious category, and discussion becomes stifled. People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone.
The second reason is that using labels convinces no one who isn't already on your side. Fred knows this, and this post is targeted at those people. This is virtue signaling: taking a "brave stance" on a position that people already agree with you on. Some virtue signaling is necessary; leaders should speak out; but generally this type of lazy rhetoric, combined with the incentive of popularity over truth, divides us more than any policy.
I'm glad he's donating money, but he writes that he's "done keeping his mouth shut," and for that to be a courageous act he has to (like everyone else) do more than hurl labels.