Time to Take a Stand • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#181

Post by generalledger » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #53

djrogers wrote: post #8

> In doing so, we should not demonize Trump voters—most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban. We need their eventual support in resisting actions like these, and we will not get it if we further isolate them. This is very important people - calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist homophobe, a moron, and not deserving of the franchise is not going to help anything. I didn't vo…

This is very important people - calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist homophobe Maybe they are not racist homophobes, but they voted a racist homophobe and his cabal into power. They knew that his was one of the expected outcomes. Voting is powerful and you are (co-)responsible for the outcome. If you don't want racist executive orders, don't vote for a racist. Simple as that.

The point is that, to the voters, there were many unsavory characteristics of each candidate. And from a strategy perspective, it is a mistake to treat the people you need to appeal to as if they personally embody the most unsavory characteristics.

If Trump supporters want to appeal to the left, they shouldn't assume all Hillary supporters are liars, in favor of obstruction of justice, and want to go to war with Russia. Likewise, if you want to appeal to Trump supporters, which is what you'll have to do to get their votes in the next election, you're not going to get very far by calling them racists, homophobes, etc.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#182

Post by nolepointer » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

65827 wrote: post #124

He's not a legitimate president any more. This is illegal. Anyone enforcing these illegal orders will be considered criminal as well.

Just because you don't like it doesn't make it illegal. The Immigration and Nationality Act gives him this power.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#183

Post by myblake » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

Scirra_Tom wrote: post #135

djrogers wrote: post #8

> In doing so, we should not demonize Trump voters—most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban. We need their eventual support in resisting actions like these, and we will not get it if we further isolate them. This is very important people - calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist homophobe, a moron, and not deserving of the franchise is not going to help anything. I didn't vo…

> most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban Source? June 2016, 48% of Republican votes strongly support a ban on Muslims entering the U.S: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6ecRKMebsPAFHon1HVC86QbFYTg...

That means 52% of Republicans don't strongly support it, and Trump was elected by a mix of Republicans, independents and even Some Democrats.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#184

Post by rfrank » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

woofyman wrote: post #144

rfrank wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticize them all you want, but keep in mind your goal. Do you care about changing their minds, political/social polarization in the US, etc? If so, criticizing them would be a very stupid thing to do. Especially considering the GOP is the strongest its been from a local to national level since the 1920s.

You can't change a closed mind. Trump can say the sky is green and his followers will agree.

Then just skip to violence and stop wasting time? You can absolutely change closed minds, and I don't think most of those people's minds are as closed as you perceive them to be.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#185

Post by SamReidHughes » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

facetube wrote: post #51

SamReidHughes wrote: post #6

Is targeting religious groups in refugee admittance actually a bad thing? How would this guy feel about favoring Jewish refugees in the 1930's?

I don't think the United States is in a supply-limited triage situation right now, though. What's effectively been done is to cut off all non-Christians in certain countries – by issuing a blanket prohibition based upon a highly-religious-correlated country of origin, then an eventual exception for the religion that the president likes. This arrangement isn't prioritization, it's a ban. What's worse: the rationale gi…

Given a fixed number of refugees to be accepted, prioritization of one group means a near total ban on another. If there's a justifiable reason for that prioritization, then that's what you'll get. For example, if you had a refugee admittance process in the 1930's that was limited to N people (being a time traveler that knows the future), I might kick out a Jewish refugee in exchange for a nuclear physicist, but not some rando Lutheran. So what you'd get is a mix of Jewish people, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, etc, with prioritization towards the young.

Obviously, this is not Trump's rationale, and there's the whole other angle of blocking reentry of permanent residents.

But for the general concept of religious based refugee admittance? I can't imagine the ACLU going back in time and arguing prioritizing Jewish refugees is unconstitutional.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#186

Post by geofft » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #141

jowiar wrote: post #11

This is meaningless grandstanding until: 1) YC voted Thiel off the island 2) YC establishes a policy of "take money from Thiel and you are toxic to us" Anyone in a position of power who took a look at Trump and didn't recoil with disgust needs to be exiled from civil society.

> Anyone in a position of power who took a look at Trump and didn't recoil with disgust needs to be exiled from civil society. And this well represents the leftist-elitistic-rhetoric that drove so many to vote for Trump (HRC's "deplorables" comment). Five year olds say "I told you so," adults find reasonable pathways forward in difficult situations. People voted for and supported Trump for a variety of reasons, let's…

Five-year-olds don't commit genocide. Five-year-olds don't become tyrants. Five-year-olds don't deport people. Five-year-olds might say "I told you so," but they have a far better track record at the things that matter than adults. Maybe we should take a lesson from them.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#187

Post by barrkel » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

methehack wrote: post #42

_m8fo wrote: post #7

Why is that all of these posts saying to "take a stand" fail to explain the political process? I'll just quote myself here. If you want to help stop trump the most effective ways are to: 1. Call - Local congresspeople (http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/) - Senators (https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/) - Local officials (https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials) 2. Participate - Get involved in local electi…

I think Mr. Altman is largely addressing tech CEOs here and urging them to make public statements. The actions you list are great for you and me, but he's mostly not really talking to us. Supporting quotations from the post (because evidence): "The tech community is powerful. Large tech companies in particular have enormous power and are held in high regard. We need to hear from the CEOs clearly and unequivocally" "A…

Brexit re-demonstrated that business interests are ultimately secondary to politics, populist politics especially.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#188

Post by mschuster91 » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

pfarnsworth wrote: post #26

I am affected personally by this. I have extended family members from Indonesia and Malaysia in the US who are still on Green Card. Although those countries aren't affected by the ban, who knows when Trump will decide to change his mind at his whim. But the time for talk has passed. I don't think very much is going to happen because Trump is empowered by his election victory, and he won't listen to anyone. Has he eve…

> The only way to stop Trump is to silence him by breaking up the Republican Congress majority, and it's only in 2 years.

In the Senate, this will get tough, because the majority of positions in the senate available for reelection is mostly Democrat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_elections,_2018).

And even if Congress Republican majority is broken down, Trump and Pence will still be able to rule with Presidential orders, much like Obama did.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#189

Post by brightball » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

Easiest way to take a stand is to be logically consistent about federal power - which means be against it always and not just when the opposition party is in charge.

If 2/3 of the country can't agree that it needs to apply to the whole country then it's a state policy and not a federal one. Embrace the 10th amendment and make nullification a common act and not some rare that people scorn. It's the agree to disagree amendment. Push it's use and you can unite this country again because half the country won't be able to impose themselves on the other half every 4 years.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#190

Post by lebanon_tn » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

jbhatab wrote: post #108

He clearly stated he would make strong policies regarding immigration. The American people voted for him knowing this and he's following through on it. I'd say “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” is a fitting name given everything he has said up to this point. Whether or not you agree, this looks like the democratic process to me. Taking action against his policies after electi…

Sam did take action before the election. This is not a sudden realization on his part. He publicly endorsed Clinton and has given time and money to stop Trump.