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Welcome, ACLU

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Re: Welcome, ACLU

#331

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

muninn_ wrote: post #135
CydeWeys wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I'm too cynical and look at these moves (AirBnB, Uber, Google, etc...) as marketing moves. I strongly disagree that this is purely for marketing. As someone working for one of the aforementioned companies, we are all aghast at how quickly this administration has jumped to eroding everything we believe in. These companies' moves are motivated by very real horror at the US going down a dark path. The worst you…

"This temporary hold on people entering the country from one of 7 countries for 90 days affects a lot of my coworkers" And then "I don't care about the dozens of black people gunned down every day" Seems a little selfish no? This is exactly the same mentality that Trump supporters had, just exchange Americans with coworkers and refugees with black people. Maybe they aren't purely marketing moves, but I just have a ha…

I mean, yea, it would be great if tech CEOs started showing up at a Black Lives Matter marches. America's institutional racism is certainly an issue no less deserving of attention and work towards alleviating it.

But the reason for the differential in responses is pretty clear to me: American racism didn't just get instituted with the stroke of a pen last week, nor could it be reversed as easily (or struck down in court). It sucks, but it's a kind of cruelty we're accustomed to (victims, active perpetrators and passive perpetrators alike), and have been living with for centuries. The immigration order, on the other hand, is a newly instituted policy of cruelty, which can potentially be defeated directly with sufficiently urgent action.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#332

Post by siphor »

artmageddon wrote: post #221
jookoolok wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

There are plenty of people who are trying to become American, as well. My wife came here from Iran to study at an American University, and her conditional green card is set to expire next year. We want her to get her citizenship as fast as possible. Now it seems that USCIS has put all that on pause though, so we're sweating bullets over whether they'll actually let us file the petition to have the conditional aspect…

Why doesn't she qualify for naturalization (married to a u.s. citizen?)

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#333

Post by stephancoral »

wtvanhest wrote: post #3

I remember when HN did not have a political agenda. Right or wrong, this used to be mainly about startups. Now its become a highly political message board

Politics are involved in everything. Each business decision made by a company the size and scale of YC has political ramifications. Even something 'innocuous' as funding Scribd is a political move - why? Think about copyrights, the lawyers needed to handle trademark laws and to challenge them. Or Soylent - they circumvent the FDA and do direct food testing on people, resulting in contamination outbreaks. Are these not political moves, this policy of 'disruption' i.e. grey-area skirting of existing so-called 'burdensome' regulation(s)?

There are no vacuums anymore, if there ever were (which I doubt). If something is 'about' startups then it is by necessity also about the politics those companies are involved in, especially considering in the US companies are persons with certain rights of expression.

Thanks to the intertwining of capitalism with our representative democracy by way of lobbying, our everyday lives are politicized. Should we suppress these notions or engage with them?

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#334

Post by [deleted] »

wtvanhest wrote: post #3

I remember when HN did not have a political agenda. Right or wrong, this used to be mainly about startups. Now its become a highly political message board

[deleted]

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#335

Post by problems »

jrmurad wrote: post #260
del82 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain specifically how the ACLU is a left-leaning political organization, rather than an apolitical nonprofit?

Some "left-leaning" stances they take where I'm hard-pressed to see how they are defending civil rights, if not outright violating those of one party for the benefit of another: affirmative action: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-actio... voter id (are all the other countries that have this violating their citizens' civil rights?): https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...…

I feel like you could have a good argument about most of those, but the affirmative action one is pretty damning. That's blatantly political and in no way related to constitutional protections.

There are plenty of good civil liberties related ways to look at race, but affirmative action is not one of them.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#336

Post by the_watcher »

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…

So because this didn't happen earlier, when you wish it did, it can't be celebrated as a step in the right direction? Progress, by its very nature, takes time and is incremental. By this logic, no one should ever bother with anything like this, because it will just be seen as cynical "marketing."

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#337

Post by codq »

saosebastiao wrote: post #244
striking wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a list inherited from the Obama administration. The best time to argue about whether this list stands up to scrutiny or not was years ago. Edit: I'm not making comments about Trump's actions (specifically, I'm not defending what he did). As for whether this particular list stands up to scrutiny, that question should have been asked a long time ago.

The list was for increased border scrutiny and travel restrictions, created by a republican congress and passed as a string attached to a much larger bill. It was not an outright ban. And especially not a ban whose appeal priority would go to christians. Bannon is a genius. The fact that he can co-opt partisans in the deflection of criticism with facile ideas like "Obama did it" is terrifying.

They do this constantly. See: Trump's tweet about imprisoning flag burners for a year and fining up to $100,000.

That was taken directly from a bill Hillary Clinton co-sponsored years earlier (though obviously with far less context or nuance).

They're very mindful to use some sort of liberal precedent when fanning their flames, giving them (and their flock) plenty of retaliatory talking points.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#338

Post by throwaway76543 »

m3rc wrote: post #251
jMyles wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are an unqualified, categorically "good" organization The ACLU is wonderful, no doubt about that. But I think some people do put an asterisk next to the group because of their (obviously somewhat strange) categorization of the protections of the 2nd amendment as outside the scope of American civil liberties.

What? This is a giant [citation needed]

Right here: https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment

It's well established that the ACLU refuses to defend the individual civil right to armed self defense.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#339

Post by jrmurad »

problems wrote: post #335
jrmurad wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some "left-leaning" stances they take where I'm hard-pressed to see how they are defending civil rights, if not outright violating those of one party for the benefit of another: affirmative action: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-actio... voter id (are all the other countries that have this violating their citizens' civil rights?): https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...…

I feel like you could have a good argument about most of those, but the affirmative action one is pretty damning. That's blatantly political and in no way related to constitutional protections. There are plenty of good civil liberties related ways to look at race, but affirmative action is not one of them.

I agree that "a good argument" can be made about some of them but it appears to me that ACLU always goes "left" with such nuanced issues. If I knew of examples of them going "right" to balance things out, I'd see them differently.

For example, I tried to find out if they took a position in Kelo v City of New London to defend property rights but my searches came up empty.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#340

Post by mcphage »

thinkcontext wrote: post #197
mcphage wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL at all the liberals giving money to a group that defends the constitution, how silly is that amirite?

No, I don't think you are right. Even a brief perusal of the history of the ACLU is one of liberals defending the Constitution. The Scopes trial, Pentagon Papers, Japanese internment, segregation, interracial marriage, McCarthyism, Patriot Act, etc. So liberals have supported the ACLU to defend the Constitution throughout its history, and not just for liberal issues. ACLU supports Citizens United and defended Rush Li…

...I'm not sure you replied to the right comment.
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