Why is Ycombinator involved in politics now? This didn't used to be the case.
Welcome, ACLU
401–410 of 1001 posts
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
Trumps entire campaign was predicated on heavily disrupting the status quo. He promised chaos in Washington and now he's delivering on that promise. Obama pushed policies in baby steps to avoid heavily disrupting peoples lives, so of course they were never up in arms over it.
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#403Re: Welcome, ACLU
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 order…
Are they though? I thought Green card holders were not being detained?
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am disappointed by these kind of comments. Being contrarian just for the sake of it doesn't get us anywhere. We cannot anytime someone does something good ask why something we consider better wasn't previously done.
It is not contrarian. It's a valuable reminder. A bit of historical context: America was founded in white supremacy. [1] It did better after the Civil War in the Reconstruction [2], and then things got worse again, with Jim Crow [3] in the south and ethnic cleansing everywhere else [4]. The Civil Rights Act [5] marked an era of improvement (sometimes called the Second Reconstruction [6]), but things have recently got…
Thank you for your comment. I did not look at it from this angle.
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks because it was "their guy" in office.
You're painting with a very broad brush there, smokeyj. Plenty of us were either anticipating (but unable to verify) the sorts of things he leaked or on the side of the leak once it happened. Liberal is not equal to `not libertarian`. Perhaps to `not Libertarian`. Notice the capital there. Little-l libertarianism has long been a major part of the liberal perspective, particularly relating to free speech, press, religion, and privacy rights, and due process.
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't even have to go that far; half the people on these boards step over a homeless person to get to work every morning. >Why weren't we funding the ACLU to help these people? Well, I think that's easy to answer. People care more about causes when it affects them personally. For better or for worse, few of us are strict utilitarian maximizers. I haven't quite settled how I think about it, myself.
100% - conservative in US means bugging homeless people to get away, vs liberal in US means letting homeless people rot on the street in peace. As a Russian saying goes, "it's easy to notice a little chip in someone else's eye, but you won't even notice a log in your own".
One of them isn't a hypocrite though.
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#408Although 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...what examples are there of blacks being gunned down and slaughtered? I think you do not know what the words you are using actually mean or you are doing it on purpose - which when you line your comments up with the facts; is very disingenuous.
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#409I feel the pain of the underprivileged americans, in particular our African-American brothers and sisters. However, there is a difference however between the top leadership of our country making explicit decisions to pass legislation to exclude groups of people that is at odds with the constitution and established legislation, and local government and law enforcement running cities in an unfair way.
ACLU is valuable in both situations, but in particular to fight the current executive branch that requires massive manpower, knowledge and dedication.
Re: Welcome, ACLU
#410How long till Peter Thiel breaks ties with y-combinator?
Hopefully it happens the other way around, no?
Hopefully not... YC needs to retain the inclusiveness. It should have the ability to disagree with civility. If PT is acting in a way that hurts YC's investments then I expect YC to have a civil discussion with him.