They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955) • Hacker News Board

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#311

Post by _lffv » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

drilldrive wrote: post #273

elipsey wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did last time, and in the middle of the Palmer Raids at that. The necessary and proper use of pulic health orders during pandemics has been thourougly adjuticed in the US, and has a basis in precedent centuries old. This is hardly a regression. Why don't you worry instead about whether we get a trial before we get shot or locked up?

The difference of today is our world's global businesses look up to the major Communist force of our world today instead of seeing it as a competitor, they have noted the methods of censorship and totalitarianism and have taken notes back-home.

China is Communist the same way the third reich was Socialist: in name only.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#312

Post by advisedwang » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #268

Lmao, Dang must not be awake, because this is far more of a "political flame-bait' thread than basically any other I've seen on this website in quite some time.

This is an historical analysis. It provides no dictum for current behaviour, and no comparison to current events or people. You seem to be suggesting that merely looking at history should not be allowed in case we are able to draw a conclusion from it that suggests something remiss in the political sphere now. That's pretty chilling.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#313

Post by _iyig » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

haberman wrote: post #189

vkou wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what I'm talking about is the one that took place on CH, during the East Precinct protests, not the freeway. You obviously don't live in Seattle. The driver 'accidentally' turned, with speed, off an arterial, into the protest street, and despite having clear visibility of hundreds of people in his line of travel, kept driving, with people scattering out of his way. He stopped when he hit a blockade, shot at one p…

Enough with the "You obviously don't live in Seattle." The event described by _iyig really did happen and was described accurately (except the "high on pills" part, I haven't seen any report of that, news I saw said he took a field sobriety test and was found to be unimpaired). Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand…

Regarding pills, I read he had Percocet addiction problems and that drugs were found in the car:

>The charges say Kelete told jail officials that he was withdrawing from the narcotic Percocet and that he struggled with an “untreated addiction.” Washington State Patrol accident investigators found “several implements commonly used to smoke illegal substances” and a substance “that appears similar to crystal methamphetamine” in the car, according to the charges.

I hadn’t read about the field sobriety test (so thank you for providing that information!), only the drugs in the car and his opioid addiction. I don’t know whether a field sobriety test would detect that type of intoxication.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/seattle-man-...

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#314

Post by anonunivgrad » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #206

anonunivgrad wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a surprise that armed people would show up to oppose the trashing of their cities?

I can imagine arming myself if I felt my neighbors or myself were in danger, but the idea of arming myself and my friends to drive to some other neighborhood or city to “protect” them is beyond anything that makes sense to me.

You really can’t imagine why vigilates’ sense of citizenship would extend beyond a neighborhood? And if we are assuming only selfish self interest, what happens in one neighborhood doesn’t stay there. I’m not saying their actions were right, but they’re not hard to understand.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#315

Post by Viliam1234 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #222

vkou wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How quickly people who don't live in Seattle shout nonsense about the CHAZ. Let's break down what actually happened. 1. After weeks of protests, police intimidation, beatings, and frequent gassing of the entire street (much to the delight of people living there, who were unable to breathe inside their own apartments), including a right wing chap driving a car through a crowd, and shooting someone trying to pull him o…

>5. An idiot called Raz, and his boys start providing 'security'. Nobody asked them for it. People who ran the protest didn't ask for it. People living in the area didn't ask for it. Smells like a gang moving into a power vaccumm to me. So you blocked the police out of a whole neighborhood of a few square blocks, and a gang moving into the power vacuum is a surprise ? Come on!

> So you blocked the police out of a whole neighborhood of a few square blocks, and a gang moving into the power vacuum is a surprise?

It was completely unexpected. And it will be completely unexpected the next time, and the next time, and the next time...

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#316

Post by dang » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #268

Lmao, Dang must not be awake, because this is far more of a "political flame-bait' thread than basically any other I've seen on this website in quite some time.

I wasn't awake—good guess! But actually the bulk of this thread is pretty good.

What we want to avoid is veering into tedious, predictable flamewar - that did happen, but at least it was concentrated in one subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956).

Substantive discussion of an interesting historical article is always welcome on HN. I don't know if it seems like the moderation standard is obscure but to me it's pretty clear: we're just trying to optimize for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Curiosity dies a flaming death as partisan and ideological passions take over, but there's plenty of space for it if one can steer clear of those supernovas.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#317

Post by lisper » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #308

lisper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but there is no moral equivalence in the U.S. between the left and the right. It's certainly true that neither side is squeaky clean, but the left does not deny basic facts, and in particular, it does not attempt to dispute the outcomes of elections when the results are clear (and indeed has in the past thrown in the towel even when the results were not clear). I could go on and on, but those two things ar…

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological or political flamewar. The last thing we need here is yet another angry, generic argument between left ideology and right ideology. Those are utterly repetitive, and therefore tedious, and therefore off topic on HN. That's not to say the issues aren't important; of course they are. But this site has a particular scope and repetitive flamewars aren't in it. https:/…

I sympathize, and I've been doing my best to keep my comments narrowly focused on matters of fact rather than policy. This is one of the problems we face: facts have been politicized. And the politicization of facts is not evenly distributed along the ideological spectrum. That, too, is simply a fact.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#318

Post by dang » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #237

aazaa wrote: post #122

Imagine you're living through the events described in the essay. You know exactly where things are heading and that the situation is dire. You're willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the inevitable from playing out. What's your plan and your next move?

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. We want curious conversation here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

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

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#319

Post by _iyig » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:08 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #76

bmmayer1 wrote: post #6

This is a powerful piece about a time in Germany where people couldn't, to paraphrase, see where things could go, and so couldn't really understand when things have started. I suspect that readers will see this piece as a reflection of their greatest fears about our own Republic. Unfortunately, the message will be lost by those who are most in need of hearing it. That includes many of the readers of this piece who th…

> Both the left and the right in the US have paramilitaries (antifa, proud boys). They are both irrelevant comparing to the US military. Germany, when Hitler rose to power, had a bad economy and weak military but I think he did give up to the military choices at the end of the day. The US military is a behemoth who could decimate the left and right paramilitaries in a few days, and then go to invade Argentina. Having…

In my personal experience, the U.S. military - Army in particular - firmly drills “loyalty to the Constitution, not the President” into every soldier. The top U.S. general gave a speech to that effect earlier this week. You can draw your own conclusions as to the timing of his remarks:

>” We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or religion. We take an oath to the Constitution. And every soldier that is represented in this museum, every sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman, each of us will protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price," Milley said during remarks at the opening of the US Army's museum.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/12/politics/mark-milley-pentagon...

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#320

Post by arrosenberg » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:08 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #282

Digory wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's fair to say the President was outmatched by the job. If he wanted to be a dictator, he was incompetent. But the damage to the immediate office of the president is worth considering. No honest person wants to work close to this man, and that's new. 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. 3. The university and corporate culture is overwhelmed with demands for ev…

> 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. Which media are we talking about? There have always been left, neutral, and right-leaning media, but in the last four years the neutral media was painted as being biased against the president because they reported the facts. The facts, they're very unflattering. The president has brought the pro wrestling 'heel' character into…

> Which media are we talking about? There have always been left, neutral, and right-leaning media, but in the last four years the neutral media was painted as being biased against the president because they reported the facts. The facts, they're very unflattering. The president has brought the pro wrestling 'heel' character into national politics and reporting on that reality is not bias.

I think it's more the way they are playing both sides. The best example being the New York Times — a well-beaten, but still-living horse. They get painted as biased for reporting the facts about Trump, but simultaneously they engage in palace intrigue journalism that softens the administration's image and run it well ahead of page 6. That's not neutrality, it's duplicity.