Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 215 posts

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#171

Post by humanrebar »

cshipley wrote: post #163
humanrebar wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dispute your attempt to conflate protests against Trump's ban on entry with an indictment of middle America. You can refute all you want. I'm talking about real conversations I've had with real people. It looks like some Americans are hateful towards "hateful" Americans and it puts people on the defensive and pushes them away. EDIT: > you don't speak for the American people Right. That's not the message that peop…

Well here, talk to me. I protest the travel ban. I think it is racist. Not middle America, but the president and his strategist. I think a lot of other people who are for the ban aren't racist, just misinformed. A lot seem to think Muslim immigrant|refugee == terrorist. One person told me "I'm for the ban because I don't want them to come and kill me and my family in our sleep." I blame this perception on the people…

Disclaimer: Maybe you (and any particular reader of this post) are an exception to the rule -- I don't know you personally. I only know the people I've personally interacted with in this whole national discussion.

> A lot seem to think Muslim immigrant|refugee == terrorist.

Some do. But some people think the U.S. never landed on the moon. That is, just like not every Muslim is a terrorist, not every person who wants change in our visa laws wants to introduce internment camps, etc.

It's fair to think the due diligence done in admitting foreign nationals has been lacking. I think this particular approach is heavy-handed and inhumane, but we're not arguing for a more humane alternative... actually, I'm not sure what we're arguing about other than people are mad and think things are really racist right now.

> I'm for the ban because I don't want them to come and kill me and my family in our sleep.

So maybe you heard "Muslims are clearly dangerous" when they meant "my government's job is to protect my family and waiting until people are dead is too late". And even if they think Muslims are more dangerous, the right response is to, empathetically, discuss facts (statistics, counterfactuals) with them. The goal is to appeal to their better nature, not to make them lose so we win. All the left-wing apoplexy and panic these days is actively harmful from that perspective.

> I blame this perception on the people who seek to profit by the general hysteria, not those manipulated by it. I am sad for the victims of it.

Me too. I think the misconceptions about Trump-voting America is the another instance of the same phenomenon. And it's no less harmful, in my mind.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#172

Post by paulddraper »

sctb wrote: post #164
paulddraper wrote: post #33

Nice thoughts, but none of the groups you mentioned in your analogy have the worldwide penchant for terrorism that Muslim groups do. Berlin, Brussels, New York, Israel, Orlando, etc. Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. I understand the tiny minority is the problem; just don't think your analogy to these other groups is an apt one.

We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13560351 .

Why? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Does removing it from its parent context make it better?

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#173

Post by paulddraper »

tptacek wrote: post #152
paulddraper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "complete BS" right back. > portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women Suspecting a group of criminal activity is hardly terrorism; you could have just quoted attitudes towards blacks for a less obscure analogy. > So your allegation that the linkage of Muslims to terrorist extremism is unique is provably untrue. I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terr…

Italians were literally accused of terrorism. That's what "anarchism" meant in the 1920s. And just as there is today with "Radical Islamism", there was a nationwide panic about anarchism.

Again, like I said, many groups have been labeled terrorist.

That's irrelevant though.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#174

Post by paulddraper »

and0 wrote: post #115
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice that reading that link, 22/23 acts of terrorism killing a hundred people or more happened in Iraq and Syria which is literally a war-zone. Just as a thought experiment, if you listed civilian casualties in the Ukraine-Russia war as deaths from terroristic acts you could easily come to the conclusion that it was Eastern-European Christians that were the world's greatest terrorists.

The Bible and Quran share the same DNA. There's no difference between any type of religious extremism, just as there's no difference between any group of humans. The difference is context, and in the case of the Middle East the socioeconomic context is crushingly awful. Much of this (shoutouts to the Hypernomalization mention above, which I can't seem to reply to, excellent documentary) is even a result of more power…

That's probably why the "Muslim ban" wasn't a ban on Muslim immigration, but a ban on immigration from particular Middle East countries.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#175

Post by tptacek »

paulddraper wrote: post #173
tptacek wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italians were literally accused of terrorism. That's what "anarchism" meant in the 1920s. And just as there is today with "Radical Islamism", there was a nationwide panic about anarchism.

Again, like I said, many groups have been labeled terrorist. That's irrelevant though.

That seems like the opposite of the argument you're making, so not only is it relevant, but it also seems like a non-sequitur rebuttal. What am I missing?

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#176

Post by tptacek »

paulddraper wrote: post #174
and0 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bible and Quran share the same DNA. There's no difference between any type of religious extremism, just as there's no difference between any group of humans. The difference is context, and in the case of the Middle East the socioeconomic context is crushingly awful. Much of this (shoutouts to the Hypernomalization mention above, which I can't seem to reply to, excellent documentary) is even a result of more power…

That's probably why the "Muslim ban" wasn't a ban on Muslim immigration, but a ban on immigration from particular Middle East countries.

It is a ban on immigration exclusively from Muslim-majority countries with a bypass for Christians from those countries.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#177

Post by [deleted] »

cshipley wrote: post #163
humanrebar wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dispute your attempt to conflate protests against Trump's ban on entry with an indictment of middle America. You can refute all you want. I'm talking about real conversations I've had with real people. It looks like some Americans are hateful towards "hateful" Americans and it puts people on the defensive and pushes them away. EDIT: > you don't speak for the American people Right. That's not the message that peop…

Well here, talk to me. I protest the travel ban. I think it is racist. Not middle America, but the president and his strategist. I think a lot of other people who are for the ban aren't racist, just misinformed. A lot seem to think Muslim immigrant|refugee == terrorist. One person told me "I'm for the ban because I don't want them to come and kill me and my family in our sleep." I blame this perception on the people…

[deleted]

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#178

Post by anonymous1356 »

paulddraper wrote: post #33

Nice thoughts, but none of the groups you mentioned in your analogy have the worldwide penchant for terrorism that Muslim groups do. Berlin, Brussels, New York, Israel, Orlando, etc. Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. I understand the tiny minority is the problem; just don't think your analogy to these other groups is an apt one.

> Nice thoughts, but none of the groups you mentioned in your analogy have the worldwide penchant for terrorism that Muslim groups do. Berlin, Brussels, New York, Israel, Orlando, etc.

This is called the availability bias - you're correlating the tendency of a group to take certain actions with the ease of which you can think of examples of members of that group taking those actions.

If I can think of an equal number of examples of Christian (or Jewish or Eskimo) terrorists, then by your logic we should be equally suspicious of those groups.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#179

Post by tptacek »

paulddraper wrote: post #72
beat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back to the 1970s, and you'll see similar numbers by the Irish.

Okay... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I don't know about the Irish in particular, but the list of links you've presented --- sorted by casualties, on a year-by-year basis --- makes a powerful case for the diversity of terrorist attacks in the 1970s. It doesn't well support an argument that terrorism is somehow endemic to specific ethnicities.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#180

Post by idlewords »

tptacek wrote: post #154
badmadrad wrote: post #109

Using this as a criticism of Trump's travel ban is a false equivalency. There have literally been a rash of terrorist attacks in Europe perpetrated by radicalized Syrians, Somalians, and Iranians. Not to mention the knife attack from Somalian refugee (who was getting a free ride) at Ohio State. Read through these lists and tell me there is nothing to be worried about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_i…

What travel ban should we enact to create common-sense protections in this country from the gathering toddler threat? In 2015, more people were shot by toddlers than by radical Islamist foreign nationals.

In fairness, the statistics don't disambiguate whether these were multiple toddlers, or a single armed toddler on a spree.
Post reply on HN