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

Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 366 posts

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#131

Post by xtracto »

alan_cx wrote: post #123

I believe that in the UK, and probably the EU, you cant extradite people, I think including Americans, if there is a chance the death penalty will be given. Not 100% sure, but I think that is the case. So, in some ways, the US has been a place form which one can seek asylum for ages. Or at the very least, be very careful in considering extradition application. Assuming the US government bothers with the legal inconve…

>I believe that in the UK, and probably the EU, you cant extradite people, I think including Americans, if there is a chance the death penalty will be given. Not 100% sure, but I think that is the case.

That is also the case even in Mexico. To think that in a country (my country) where deaths by beheading, bar mass shootouts and rampant corruption still stands on a 'higher moral ground' that the USA really amazes me.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#132

Post by mpyne »

randomsearch wrote: post #91
newbie12 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY the government. Thomas Jefferson: ""When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Interesting. But, how does owning a gun provide protection against the US military?

In a way, it doesn't. There's really no way to arm yourself in a fashion to survive sustained attack from the U.S. military in this day and age.

But that's one of the reasons the military are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution as the primary goal, not simply to obey orders. They even throw in the surreal weasel words "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" as a way of really punching that point home.

So it's not really possible to meet the full intent of the 2nd Amendment any longer but at the same time there are other safeguards.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#133

Post by eli_gottlieb »

powertower wrote: post #127
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No Society Takes On the Characteristics of Its Exceptions". That's a terrible phrasing. Every society generates the characteristics of its "exceptions" through its internal contradictions.

I removed the quote because the original source is too controversial, but how exactly do the many and real positive characteristics of a society get outweigh by a few negative and mostly overblown characteristics that are not even characteristics as much as exceptions, and in most cases are simply natural products of ANY and ALL societies (and in other cases just emerge due to the sheer number of overall events)? Tha…

But that's not how societies work. America doesn't have a school shooting problem because all human societies develop shooting problems, it has them because America specifically squeezes its youth in ways that makes them more violent.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#134

Post by [deleted] »

_airh wrote: post #8

It is strange that the same country which cherishes its 'right to bear arms' on the grounds that it gives them a level of protection that the government is unable to provide is 'happy' to build the infrastructure which allows the same government to peek into their lives. On the one hand, we don't trust the government with the basics (physical security). On the other, we trust them with information we don't want our p…

[deleted]

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#135

Post by gadders »

xtracto wrote: post #117
zmb_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I wouldn't say I see the USA in the same light as China and Russia, but I definitely feel uncomfortable when I have to travel to the US for work. Given the US's recent track record with human rights and the ongoing mass surveillance, I just can't be sure some innocent comment on some website I've made at some point won't flag me and cause me to be indefinitely detained. I know it's probably not likely,…

Did you have to take a photograph and save your 10 fingerprints and disclose all your personal and economic information to get into the USA? I had to... because it seems for the USA, any Mexican that dares to enter the country is a potential criminal, so there I am in the huge Mexa database. Just because I needed to spend a week in the USA for work. Whereas the 7 years I lived in Europe (UK and Germany) I did not fee…

I had to do the photograph and fingerprints thing, and I guess they get my personal information from my passport. I wasn't asked economic information. I'm British.

I would guess that every Mexican is treated as a potential illegal immigrant.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#136

Post by mpyne »

zmb_ wrote: post #56
josephagoss wrote: post #2

Americans might not realise this but we see the USA in the same light as China and Russia when it comes to freedoms. We might be wrong, but thats the perception myself and many other people from outside the USA see the current state of the situation. To think anyone would feel safe in the USA is ridiculous, the USA is one of the last places anyone should seek refuge in modern times. What scares me most is the United…

As a European I wouldn't say I see the USA in the same light as China and Russia, but I definitely feel uncomfortable when I have to travel to the US for work. Given the US's recent track record with human rights and the ongoing mass surveillance, I just can't be sure some innocent comment on some website I've made at some point won't flag me and cause me to be indefinitely detained. I know it's probably not likely,…

The U.S. can't assume that a white male from a friendly European nation is any less likely to be a terrorist though, as that would be discriminatory against Muslims and quite a few other ethnicities.

Kind of a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't thing, I fear.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#137

Post by mpyne »

DannoHung wrote: post #74
epsylon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But non-US citizens can liberally have their basic human rights denied. 12 years after 9/11. That's the land of the free for you. (Looking at how Bradley Manning was treated even shows that US citizens aren't treated much better. Being denied a lawyer and confined to solitary cells for months is not much different from torture.)

Manning was a member of the Army. You give up a significant number of rights and freedoms as a US citizen when you become a member of the armed forces. Which is not to say that it is right, but that it is legal.

And also, Manning wasn't denied a lawyer, even in his first confinement facility.

I remember this vividly because Manning's own lawyer was the one who admitted that Manning had joked about killing himself before being placed on prevention-of-suicide status...

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#138

Post by vidarh »

mbesto wrote: post #76
Jare wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My overall, fact-less impression is that the UK has already cast a pretty wide public surveillance net. They don't seem to be actually using it for enforcing anything, however. I don't think I would blink twice if it turns out they have a PRISM-like operation going on.

CCTV runs like mad across the UK. Well at least London. Almost every street corner here has a CCTV vid cam on it.

The vast majority of CCTV in the UK is privately owned, not networked and most of it is not watched live, or ever unless something actually happens. The police often ignores CCTV because figuring out who controls which cameras and whether or not they were working, and if so how to get the footage can be too time consuming to be worth it.

So while I can't say I like the amount of CCTV here, it's a lot less sinister than portrayed.

Now, some parts of central London is very well covered by live, monitored CCTV, though.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#139

Post by mpyne »

mcherm wrote: post #92
euroclydon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly do not speak for everyone outside the U.S. who has asked themselves the question: "Can I name a U.S. reporter who has disappeared or been murdered for producing material critical of the government?" or "Are U.S. citizens routinely arrested and placed in re-education by labor camps for a year without a trial?"

> Are U.S. citizens routinely arrested and placed in re-education by labor camps for a year without a trial? No. But US citizens are routinely arrested and placed in solitary confinement (widely held to be worse than a labor camp) for decades without a trial (guilt is nearly always resolved via plea bargains using the threat of even more years). And by "routinely" I mean the highest incarceration rate in the world: a…

Uh, no to "decades without trial". And, for that matter, to "solitary confinement" as a routine, since we simply don't have that number of empty jail (not prison) cells anyways.

It's funny how you mention having a jail cell with no one to bother you as worse than a labor camp though. I think those who have survived gulags or Nazi labor camps might disagree with you on that.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#140

Post by jckt »

cema wrote: post #103
josephagoss wrote: post #2

Americans might not realise this but we see the USA in the same light as China and Russia when it comes to freedoms. We might be wrong, but thats the perception myself and many other people from outside the USA see the current state of the situation. To think anyone would feel safe in the USA is ridiculous, the USA is one of the last places anyone should seek refuge in modern times. What scares me most is the United…

we see the USA in the same light as China and Russia when it comes to freedoms I think I understand where it is coming from. Perception is there, and perception is important. There is however a big difference between China and Russia on one hand and USA on the other: the openness of the US society is, among other things, manifested in noticing and magnifying dirty spots. Other countries with Western European cultural…

I agree with you, but I'd also like to point out that, despite the ridiculous censorship and corruption in China and Russia, it's not like the DPRK where everyone is mind-controlled (exaggeration) and there's no real dissidence. I might even say that the "culture of dissidence" in Russia and China is more healthy than the typical Westerner is aware of (simple language barriers, etc), and has improved over time.

On the other hand, yes, the USA is much better right now. However, one can say that the important distinction is that, while China in particular seems to have improved over the last 20 years, the USA has gotten worse (w.r.t. freedoms). But of course, this is up for debate.

Post reply on HN