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Time to Take a Stand

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Time to Take a Stand

#241

Post by refurb »

megous wrote: post #122
patrickg_zill wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we never heard from you during the years the Obama administration did the opposite... Syria is over 10% Christian, yet only 56 of the ~10K Syrians let into the country were Christian.

Misleading statistic. Compare the distribution of people who asked to immigrate, not the population of the whole country.

Yet Christians are specifically being targeted in Syria.[1] Wouldn't you think they would be the first ones who want to leave?

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/magazine/is-this-the-end-...

By the way, this article is from one of your reputable news sources.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#242

Post by freshyill »

ftrflyr wrote: post #214

I'm sorry, but you fail to understand exactly what the ACLU stands for - the first word says it all. American. Green Card holders, refugees, and illegal immigrants are not Americans. We need to and should protect Americans first. Period. For all of you who don't understand not agree with this, perhaps you are unamerican?

Jesus, your back must be sore from contorting yourself into such a position.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#243

Post by thedevil »

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…

> I didn't vote for Trump, but I do identify with some of the beliefs of those who did, and I can tell you that the rhetoric I'm hearing from many of the most vocal left is pushing the middle away.

I'm in the exact same boat. I don't like Trump at all and this move frightens me. But my friends who argued for Trump actually had more logical arguments and my friends who opposed Trump actually mostly just insulted the people who voted for Trump.

How is anyone going to listen to us if we just insult them?

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#244

Post by czep »

jsperson wrote: post #58

It makes me sad that politics has made its way to the top of HN. I'm relatively new here. One of the things I love about the community is that it has been something of an oasis over the past few months. This is in no way intended to denigrate the esteemed author or his thesis. I'm just disappointed that we're at this point.

> It makes me sad that politics has made its way to the top of HN.

Yes I'm sad about this too, but we can't turn our backs on this, it's just too big. We can't just pretend it will go away and the world will sort itself out. We can't retreat to the comfortable confines of our algorithms and code, the real world needs us and needs us now.

What's happening is literally sickening to me. The thought of young people in 20 years looking at me and saying "You caused this, you did this to us" is a terrifying image. I blame my parents for Reagan, but this time it's on me. And I'm not going to let this go any further. We all need to get out of our happy code utopia and confront the real world before it is all destroyed. We need to stop this, and we need to stop this now.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#245

Post by Groxx »

467568985476 wrote: post #153
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 comment reeks of victim blaming. Nobody who voted for Trump and Pence should be allowed to escape being held accountable for what they support. If their "economic anxiety" was bad enough that they can ignore the rights of LGBT people and religious minorities, then they are all the more guilty. Those people were never centrists and knew exactly who they voted for.

So by voting you're responsible for everything the person you voted for does? That leads to nobody but the extremes voting.

Has there ever been a candidate who even talked 100% of what you would approve of? If no, why did you vote (or have you ever)?

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#246

Post by jacquesm »

kawera wrote: post #195
jacquesm wrote: post #38

The time to take stand was 3 months ago. Things will get a lot worse now before they can get better and no amount of blogging is going to change that. Trump is hell bent on destroying America from within and his followers (who we are not supposed to criticize) are A-Ok with that. Soon to be seen in a theater near you in Europe as well.

Call me naive but Trump's repugnant behaviour and actions may well steer voters away from similar european candidates. The rise of Martin Schulz, plus Merkel, is probably enough to stop Germany's far right from gaining power. Austrians have shown restraint in the last election and at least for now Spain and Portugal are pretty safe. Will Hamon/Macron be enough to block the FN in France? Lest not forget that the FN in…

NL is about (March) to make a huge shift to ultra-right. The coming elections are predicted to be a landslide victory for the PVV, the extremist/nationalist party which is pushing those exact same buttons that Trump is pushing.

We may end up in a very strange situation where the largest political party will not be part of government and where the prime minister will be part of that party (a constitutional crisis, historically the largest party has always delivered the minister president because they always were part of the coalition, it has never happened that the largest party was not part of the coalition but it just might happen). I'm waiting for the first wave of articles pointing this out and trying to decide whether largest party meant largest party in the coalition or largest party in an absolute sense.

Like you I hope that there will be some kind of vaccination effect from the damage Trump is wreaking on the USA but that may just end up being wishful thinking.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#247

Post by walru »

[deleted] wrote: post #231
walru wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It does not. Edit: You said it deserves a black bar atop HN. Have some respect.

[deleted]

Edit: Since you can't stop editing your posts.

Respect for who, you asked? The people who've left this world.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#248

Post by oblio »

smacktoward wrote: post #174
fowlerpower wrote: post #84

This is absolutely nuts. Green card holders (legal permanent residents of the United States) are being turned back from the US as soon as they get to the airport. They are being forced to file waivers which can be denied. How can legal permanent residents be denied entry? I mean this has to be breaking So many laws, how can this be ok?

Laws do not enforce themselves. They only have power when there are people with authority willing to stand up and enforce them. Without that, they are just words on paper. Right now all three branches of the Federal government are in the hands of the Republican Party. Trump has one branch; the other two have no interest in opposing him, so long as he lets them do what they want as well. So for the moment, at least, t…

The problem with this line of short term thinking is that it can backfire badly. Yes, they get 1 term or 2, but then the backlash can bury them for decades. Especially in the context of America's changing demographics.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#249

Post by patrickg_zill »

ebola1717 wrote: post #89
patrickg_zill wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we never heard from you during the years the Obama administration did the opposite... Syria is over 10% Christian, yet only 56 of the ~10K Syrians let into the country were Christian.

It took 2 seconds of googling to fact check you http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/facts-about-the-syrian-refu...

How could a stat from 11/2015 possibly cover anything that only concluded in 2016?

Is Newsweek part of the Trump train? http://www.newsweek.com/us-bars-christian-not-muslim-refugee... (mid-Sept 2016).

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#250

Post by anigbrowl »

grey-area wrote: post #128
a3n wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying we're there yet, but, at the risk of waking Godwin, at what point in 1930s Germany would violent protest finally be OK? We'll start at "Never," and work back from there.

The 1930s were full of violent protest - running battles on the streets between gangs of thugs on both sides (red vs Brown shirts). It helped Hitler portray himself as the law and order candidate. Peaceful but overwhelming mass civil disobedience and protest is better. The time for that is now.

And now much of that is virtualized or amplified and concentrated in terrorist incidents - like many other things in our technological society. Why would you expect political activity to have stayed the same when everything else is changing? Just as we don't go downtown to do all our shopping any more, many conflicts are carried out in cyberspace rather than in the street. go look at the comments section on major newspapers, they are a battleground for ideological dominance. There is abundant historical evidence that such battles are only a prelude to physical conflict.

Incidentally if you think violence hasn't already erupted then you're being wilfully blind. Here's a recent example and I could point to many more and famous examples, like that of Anders Brievik and his imitators.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-neo-nazi-stabbed-20...

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