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Yes, It's Fascism

theatlantic.com

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Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#191

Post by throwawayb2025 »

eudamoniac wrote: post #169

I read through every comment in this thread and no one seems to be addressing that the people voted for this . They'll probably vote for it again in the midterms and/or 2028. You're despairing over a democratic outcome. What do you actually propose that would fix this? Disenfranchise half the country? Outlaw things people are voting for to happen? Any criticism needs to address how we democratically counter this regi…

There might be Gandhian/Nelson Mandela way of handling this. Both fought to change system and didn't teach hatredness towards individual a Racist person. Get arrested peacefully.

Others can work for immediate protest for release of the arrested.

Appeal to common values that they also have, and show how they are violating the religious values they profess.

Technically someone can make some app, that can easily help in getting the citizenship proof for an individual.

I am not from USA.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#192

Post by cmurf »

messe wrote: post #164
throwworhtthrow wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mods (dang and tomhow) have written probably 50,000 words on the subject. I've also emailed the mods and promptly received personal replies. Transparent as you could ever hope for: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

So the explanation for this removal condemning the ongoing fascist revolt in the US is where? At least that's what it looks like to an outside observer from elsewhere in the world. It's been fascinating as an outsider to watch your republicans suddenly unsure about the second amendment after the last few days.

There's no uncertainty. Republicans now openly assert the 2nd amendment belongs to supporters and defenders of the regime, and no one else.

The movement opposes equality because equality stands opposed to their need for hierarchy. It is a domination and submission movement. It boasts about its application of double standards. Double standards are not logical fallacies, when they use them they are virtues. To enjoy for themselves what they deny to others is a display of dominance.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#193

Post by michaelbarton »

drcongo wrote: post #124
michaelbarton wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." I remember reading 1984 when I was a kid and enjoying it, at no point did I think it was more than sci-fi though. I suppose it goes to show how much we took for granted the last 80+ years. It also makes me respect Orwell so much more. Which was already very high based on how he makes tea. How was he able to…

If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the documentary film "Orwell: 2+2=5", it's considerably better than its IMDb rating would suggest and frames a lot of his writing around recent / current events. It also gives a little insight into his prescience.

Sounds doubleplus good! Will try to find it streaming somewhere!

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#194

Post by scq »

messe wrote: post #164
throwworhtthrow wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mods (dang and tomhow) have written probably 50,000 words on the subject. I've also emailed the mods and promptly received personal replies. Transparent as you could ever hope for: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

So the explanation for this removal condemning the ongoing fascist revolt in the US is where? At least that's what it looks like to an outside observer from elsewhere in the world. It's been fascinating as an outsider to watch your republicans suddenly unsure about the second amendment after the last few days.

Mods didn't remove it, user flags did.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#195

Post by JeremyNT »

throw0101c wrote: post #135
Kaibeezy wrote: post #25

If you are debating whether to read this article, read it. It’s comprehensive and precise, and although political in substance, not political in form — test-fitting an imprecise definition. The fact it also reaches a firm conclusion (spoiler alert right there in the title) is depoliticized by allowing for malleable application. A benchmark article I will now go share elsewhere. What’s left to talk about? How to react…

> If you are debating whether to read this article, read it. It’s comprehensive and precise, and although political in substance […] Also perhaps worth noting that David Frum, former speech writer to Dubya Bush, writes for The Atlantic (and has been against Trump from the start: see his book Trumpocracy ): * https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-frum/ So we're not just talking about 'leftists' criticizing these ac…

The left / right split isn't really meaningful in the United States right now.

The split is currently between people who believe in and want a functional and equitable government, and those who are fine with a kleptocracy as long as they are personally the beneficiaries (or at least, the people they dislike suffer worse).

People like Frum were quick to notice this and get on the correct side of it. Unfortunately, there are not enough Republicans who feel the same way to make much of a difference.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#196

Post by LexiMax »

dang wrote: post #188
jLaForest wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of taking his finger off the scale... Stop taking down threads with productive discussion just because they conflict with your worldview (and financial interests)

What you call "taking finger off scale" would turn HN into a politics / current affairs site. I know that some of you want that, and a few even wonder how we can possibly be so evil as not to do it, but it is simply not the kind of site that HN is. That is the case regardless of what terminology you use - fingers on scales, curation, moderation, - which are different ways of describing the same thing. I'm not sure wh…

Most of the social spaces that I frequent don't have the amount of political topics posted as HN.

Would you like to know the difference between those spaces and here? It's that in those spaces, regardless of if the members are left right or center, the community is on the same page in terms of authoritarians, and authoritarian apologia will get you tossed.

Therefore, there isn't the same sort of desire - or need - to point out the obvious and show the uncomfortable realities to the crowd.

Refusing to take a stand on this sort of thing and leaving it for the community to sort out will only make things worse. It's functionally no different than the kind of combative environment you get on major social media networks; the only difference is the amount of tone policing caused by the user-facing moderation tools.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#197

Post by dang »

tombert wrote: post #142
mickle00 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish there was more transparency around mod actions

I think generally the mods like to avoid anything involving "politics" since it's likely to start a flame war. The issue, of course, is that literally anything can be "political", and moreover by trying to actively avoid political discussions you sort of tacitly endorse the status quo. It's a tough line to draw, and I'd be lying if I said where I knew where to draw it; HN is a fun forum specifically because the moder…

> the mods like to avoid anything involving "politics" since it's likely to start a flame war.

You're correct that we like to avoid flamewars, but not correct to say "anything involving politics". We don't try to (or want to) avoid politics altogether—a certain number of threads with political overlap have always been part of the mix here*. For (reams of) past explanations see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

What we want to avoid is HN being taken over by politics altogether, and thereby turning into an entirely different site. We want HN to adhere to its mandate, which is to optimize for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). That certainly includes some political discussion, but (a) not beyond a certain threshold, and (b) not every kind of political story or article. (For example, opinion pieces are usually less of a fit than stories which contain significant new information, and so on.)

Unfortunately, this way of doing things inevitably generates conflict. For politically passionate users, that "not beyond a certain threshold" bit is far too little—especially in turbulent times, as now. Apart from that, there's no agreement on which particular stories deserve to be on the frontpage, and even if there were such agreement, there's still no way of making sure that the most deserving stories get the spots (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306).

Everyone has the experience of being frustrated when a story that they care about gets flagged or otherwise falls in rank. When feelings are running hot, people jump to the conclusion that we're secretly on the opposite political side, or trying to suppress discussion on a particular topic. That's not the case at all—it's all explicable by the principles that we've been repeating for years—but that none of that changes how it feels.

Then there are the users who feel like HN has gotten too political and is a shadow of its former self—this also has always been with us: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.

Double unfortunately, I don't know of a fix for any of these binds, because all of them derive from the fundamentals of what HN is - e.g. a single frontpage with only so many slots (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

(* Or to put it differently, note the words most and probably in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, as pg once said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426.)

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#198

Post by hypeatei »

eudamoniac wrote: post #169

I read through every comment in this thread and no one seems to be addressing that the people voted for this . They'll probably vote for it again in the midterms and/or 2028. You're despairing over a democratic outcome. What do you actually propose that would fix this? Disenfranchise half the country? Outlaw things people are voting for to happen? Any criticism needs to address how we democratically counter this regi…

I thought a lot of the rhetoric was around economic issues during the 2024 campaign season? I see this argument a lot, and while it's true that a sizable percentage voted for punishment of their political opponents, I don't think independents (in the immigration and "egg prices" camps) wanted this. Trump 2.0 voters should be ashamed because the signs were obvious, but the notion that we need to put kid gloves on for the vile, murderous fascists is asinine.

The next chapter of America needs to be punishing anyone who was apart of these death squads and the officials who allowed it to happen. That's it. There is no statute of limitations on murder or treason. We can't make the same mistakes as we did after the civil war (leniency towards confederates and various compromises)

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#199

Post by Redoubts »

smw wrote: post #150
dang wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has had numerous major frontpage threads that are critical of this administration. Not enough to satisfy those who want more, but that is a separate issue.

Hey, I think you're a superhero for making this place such wonderful forum for deep and interesting conversation, but isn't there some point where you might consider putting your finger on the scale to help stop the slide into authoritarianism? This seems like the moment, maybe?

> isn't there some point where you might consider putting your finger on the scale to help stop the slide into authoritarianism? This seems like the moment, maybe?

posting isn't praxis. what do you think more articles on this site will achieve?

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#200

Post by hackingonempty »

protastus wrote: post #59

The Trump administration has gone so far down the path of fascism and crime that I'm convinced they don't simply want to be in power indefinitely -- they need it. Otherwise, the moment a law-abiding president gets elected, there will be criminal charges against all involved. And there's no statute of limitations for murder. I believe this country will need massive investigations and criminal trials to heal. I am conc…

> I believe this country will need massive investigations and criminal trials to heal. I am concerned with what happens in between, but this is reality as I see it.

Trump learned his lesson and pardoned every Jan 6 terrorist. If he leaves office, he is going to pardon every single person in his administration for anything they did from 2025-2029. There will be no investigations and no criminal trials. They all know this to be true.

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