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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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!).
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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?
[+] [-] _xhok|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] beat|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] humanrebar|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] cylinder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losteverything|9 years ago|reply
I have faith our process will "manage" this.
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.
[+] [-] strken|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] puranjay|9 years ago|reply
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"
[+] [-] logandavis|9 years ago|reply
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.
[0] https://voat.co/v/whatever/1603591
[+] [-] humanrebar|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure more fracturing of American political discourse would be a beneficial form of 'activism'.
[+] [-] 762236|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adam419|9 years ago|reply
When the hell did people forget that free speech also includes the speech you vehemently disagree with, justifiably or not?
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shaqbert|9 years ago|reply
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 ...
[+] [-] kalleboo|9 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] hueving|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kalleboo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] selllikesybok|9 years ago|reply
Even if others want to disagree with them.
[+] [-] 0xFFC|9 years ago|reply
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 .
[+] [-] pluma|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Clubber|9 years ago|reply
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.
http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-o...
[+] [-] unscaled|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] towit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|9 years ago|reply
There is a whole Wikipedia page for you to browse.[1]
Has Iran directly committed a terrorist act again the United States? No, unless you stretch that definition a bunch.
Has it supported/funded terrorism against other Western countries? Absolutely.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
[+] [-] analbeads|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] attaboyjon|9 years ago|reply
https://lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-tr...
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corford|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exodust|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] KKKKkkkk1|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jhoechtl|9 years ago|reply
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.
Come, see, go, leave no traces. Thank you!
[+] [-] philfrasty|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gonvaled|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Corristowolf|9 years ago|reply
"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."
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20170130005111/http://www.cnn.co...
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] jasonlingx|9 years ago|reply
Every nation gets the government it deserves.
[+] [-] perseusprime11|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanderjd|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masterponomo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hacknat|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] burkaman|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] attaboyjon|9 years ago|reply
https://lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-tr...
[+] [-] zzleeper|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gonvaled|9 years ago|reply
> 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.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12145481
[+] [-] grzm|9 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] analbeads|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lallysingh|9 years ago|reply
Please don't vent here. We have a chance on this forum for a meaningful discussion, but venting will ruin that.
[+] [-] gloverkcn|9 years ago|reply
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?
Thanks for reading
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
however not all actions asking for caution are hate related, let alone bigotry or such. You can portray them that way if you like but that is you.
lastly, why is this on HN?