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Welcome, ACLU

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Re: Welcome, ACLU

#311

Post by bryanlarsen »

EnFinlay wrote: post #190
muninn_ wrote: post #41

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I'm glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I'm questioning all of this. Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Wh…

My guess is that up until now, the cause for these events has been hard to quantify and identify. Like your example of people in West Virginia and Kentucky who have lost their jobs and got drenched in opiates. Who do we rally against for that? You could argue that it's caused by automation, outsourcing, globalism, capitalism, local policy, state policy, federal policy, and at least a dozen other things. People don't…

Exactly.

And those are also issues that everybody agreed are issues; it's the solutions where there was disagreement.

Trump's platform was that bribing corporations to keep jobs in America, loosening environmental regulation and tearing up TPP & NAFTA were the solutions for lost factory jobs.

Clinton's platform was that education, a social safety net and withdrawing from the TPP were the best solutions.

Fighting to build awareness of problems is a lot easier than agreeing on a solution.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#312

Post by beaconstudios »

rqebmm wrote: post #282
beaconstudios wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's so true any more. See: calls to sever ties with Peter Thiel on every political thread on HN right now.

Well that's because he's publicly backed Trump, who is as un-libertarian as you can get.

that depends entirely on whether you view a global job market as intrinsic to libertarianism. For nationalist libertarians, Trump's economic focus would presumably be a good thing.

as far as I've seen, a global job market has resulted in more exploitation than prosperity. Most of the profit seems to go to international businesses that have little interest in giving back to their host nation in the form of jobs or taxes.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#313

Post by ra1n85 »

jblow wrote: post #150
ra1n85 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's virtue signalling. Nevermind that Chicago had more murders in 2016 than New York and Los Angeles combined, or that there's a rampant opiate epidemic across wide swaths of the country - this is a cause with visibility among the well heeled coastal elites. Where were these same people when we undermined and bombed the governments of the countries these immigrants are fleeing from?

Accusing someone of "virtue signalling" instantly ends any possibility for reasonable discussion, because it's a stark violation of the Principle of Charity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity On a meta-level, invoking "virtue signalling" is itself a signal that you want to ad-hominem the human subject rather than discuss and resolve the issues. It is the opposite of rationality, and it's a bit weird…

Wrong.

It's entirely irrational to give this level of attention and resource to an issue with such relatively little impact, particularly when noting the contributing events that led up to this issue were largely ignored (and directed by the same presidential candidate many of these organizations openly supported). Virtue signalling is the correct description. This is more about image than substantive change.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#314

Post by lixquid »

jackmott wrote: post #213
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is somewhat dangerous for YC. I would like to see that this was planned before November and their support was not determined by who the president turned out to be. Combined with the outspoken politics of Paul Graham1, I get the feeling people who identify as conservatives may not feel welcome at YC. 1 http://twitter.com/paulg EDIT: I changed "conservatives" to "people who identify as conservatives" to clarif…

>I get the feeling conservatives may not feel welcome at YC. Among most people with an education conservatives are not really welcome right now. If you feel welcome, people are being polite, but we are all really really mad at you right now. -honest feelings. -Honest feelings, sorry.

My, disregarding all external political input is an awfully conservative viewpoint, don't you think?

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#315

Post by chasing »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #87
rexreed wrote: post #21

Does YC have a page of their particular positions on various political matters which guides their decisions on which non-profits to support and which ones not to? I'm genuinely interested in reading a "platform" as it were on what YC believes and is willing to support.

Yes this is somewhat dangerous for YC. I would like to see that this was planned before November and their support was not determined by who the president turned out to be. Combined with the outspoken politics of Paul Graham1, I get the feeling people who identify as conservatives may not feel welcome at YC. 1 http://twitter.com/paulg EDIT: I changed "conservatives" to "people who identify as conservatives" to clarif…

The ACLU didn't have $24m burning a hole in their pocket four months ago.

Also, conservatives need to get off their "persecuted" high horse for a second and take a look around themselves. Donald Trump is the one butt-fumbling his way into empowering organizations like the ACLU by scaring the shit out of right-minded people. As these groups experience spikes in popularity and cash, they're going to reach out and start working on new initiatives.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#316

Post by CydeWeys »

maxerickson wrote: post #51
CydeWeys wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where do you think Silicon Valley is, or where YCombinator is based?

I believe they may be making an oblique reference to the ACLU acting on behalf of immigrants this past weekend. Of course, it's perfectly consistent to believe that the government of the United States of America does not sufficiently respect the civil liberties of non citizens.

Huh, what a weird point to make. If he were to actually look at the ACLU's mission, though, he'd see that there's nothing in it about only working to protect the rights of American citizens.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#317

Post by nickparker »

pcl wrote: post #269

This is very timely. In particular, I was happy to see the appeal for help from engineers. I've been brainstorming for the last couple of days about what more I can do to defend the America I want to live in, now that it seems clear that such defense will be necessary. But as a programmer, it's not obvious to me what is the best way for me to do so in the immediate term. One of the things that's appealing to me about…

It isn't bipartisan, but ProgCode was mentioned elsewhere in the thread. They build open-source tools for progressive political organizations.

If you aren't a progressive, you might still consider getting involved and employing those same tools to help your preferred party/organizations. The ideal of higher political involvement through digital tools is very bipartisan in my opinion - notwithstanding disenfranchisement efforts by the right, which I like to view separately from conservatism itself.

http://www.progcode.co/#about

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#318

Post by bbctol »

laurent123456 wrote: post #97
muninn_ wrote: post #41

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I'm glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I'm questioning all of this. Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Wh…

This logic (people should do nothing today because they did nothing yesterday) doesn't make any sense, and I don't get why it keeps coming up every time something related to Trump's policy comes up.

I don't think the argument is "people should do nothing today because they did nothing yesterday." I think the argument is "Just because you're doing something today, doesn't mean your organization doesn't have issues, and the fact that you didn't do something yesterday is useful data about your priorities."

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#319

Post by smokeyj »

muninn_ wrote: post #158
becarefulyo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is that if you didn't do what was right before, you shouldn't do what's right now?

The other problems still exist and in my opinion are far worse. My argument is that we should prioritize problems like those over the current outcry.

The timing for this is peculiar. I'll give my hypothesis. Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks because it was "their guy" in office. This huge revelation that our constitutional rights were being systematically violated didn't register because of cognitive dissonance.

Liberals are finally piecing the puzzle together. The executive branch with dragnet surveillance, infinite military capabilities, the right to detain and torture anyone including US citizens is the recipe for disaster.

As a libertarian I welcome anyone joining the fight for our constitutional rights regardless of what triggers them.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#320

Post by tptacek »

TenOhms wrote: post #303
bmelton wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to speak for the OP, but at least for me, I'm seeing a lot of my friends all of a sudden up in arms over policies that Obama (and Bush, and in some cases earlier than that even) got crickets for. Admittedly, I'm not trying to compare apples to apples, and I'm the furthest thing from a Trump supporter, and it's absolutely amazing that the media have finally grown into their role of a check and balance against the…

It also reeks of hypocrisy of the highest order.

When we're done evaluating the motives of individual Internet commenters and ensuring that the evils of hypocritical rhetoric are forever banished from the fair shores of our message boards, can we acknowledge that children with American citizenship and their green card parents are being detained or even deported at our borders, without access to counsel, in flagrant violation of both the law and standing court orders?

I'm on board for the tribunal where we evaluate everything anyone ever wrote in an Internet comment. Twenty lashes for me, I'm sure. I'll submit willingly, if we can put that aside for a year and a half and work on resisting the current threat to the rule of law.

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