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I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#191

Post by geff82 »

ooqr wrote: post #149
geff82 wrote: post #6

Wonderfully written, giving my thoughts a word. For me and my wife, the USA, despite all their shortcomings, are a country we really want to live in. It stands for many good things. It is not a country you want to mess with, and we are fine with that. We embrace American culture, we love American companies, we so far respected American politicians. For stuff we as individuals are interested in (which might not be wha…

As an American (and German as a second language speaker) I'm very sorry. I hope you will consider coming back to visit when this nonsense ends. I've lived here my whole life and have hardly had a chance to explore 10% of the land. We need good people. We need smart people. We (most of us) want you.

Honestly, as soon as it is safely possible for my wife to travel again, we'll come to visit the USA again. Even Trump probably can't kill the spirit we feel in so many places. For me, the USA is a brother country (not only because there are military bases all over in Germany). I'll do my American Amateur Radio License in March (you can do this here in Germany) and I would have even done my American Private Pilots License in the USA in summer (the USA are a great place for flying and the American License can be easily converted into a European one at a lower total cost). So I will not close my relationship anytime soon. But... I am disturbed anyway.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#192

Post by whorleater »

facepalm wrote: post #123

I have high respect for CodingHorror, which is why I am confused about some of his claims. Perhaps HN can help me understand a few things: - why do people claim it is a muslim ban, when really it seems to be a ban on countries that the US is fighting a war with (except Iran)? Whether there is a causality between "at war with the US" and "Muslim" seems to be another question? - what is the proper US stance on Immigrat…

> why do people claim it is a muslim ban, when really it seems to be a ban on countries that the US is fighting a war with (except Iran)? Whether there is a causality between "at war with the US" and "Muslim" seems to be another question?

Because it omits Christians from the ban? Because it bans legal visa holders and (initially) permanent residents, who, I repeat, went through the immigration process legally and now are suddenly banned based on the country of their origin? Because, Rudy Giuliani, the White House Adviser, literally admitted on live television that Trump tasked him to find a legal version of a "muslim ban"? How else are you supposed to see it, "it's not a muslim ban, it's just a ban on people who happen to be muslim specifically because their religion"?

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#193

Post by jondubois »

d3ckard wrote: post #68

Nice post, though there are some caveats. As a Pole (as some of you know, we do have some issues here too, though many would disagree) I feel at least a bit competent to give you a bit of advice, so you can get out of it better than we did. 1. Donald Trump is not your enemy, nor a problem. He is a manifestation of the problem, which is current state of your society and problems you have. Do not believe that you can j…

I've heard similar arguments from Russians about the state of politics in Russia - That the government is ultimately just a manifestation of the character of the population.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#194

Post by whack »

refurb wrote: post #187
geff82 wrote: post #6

Wonderfully written, giving my thoughts a word. For me and my wife, the USA, despite all their shortcomings, are a country we really want to live in. It stands for many good things. It is not a country you want to mess with, and we are fine with that. We embrace American culture, we love American companies, we so far respected American politicians. For stuff we as individuals are interested in (which might not be wha…

As an American, I have a lot of respect for Iran. It's a beautiful country with great people. But when I turn on the news and I see "Death to America" being chanted or Iranians trample or burn the American flag the rust is broken. Not to mention the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing which killed hundreds of Americans and was committed by a group directly funded by the Iranian gov't. The situation feels very strange. Empty…

Think of the most idiotic people you've seen in America. Maybe it's the "God hates fags" protestors. Maybe it's the 9/11 truthers. Whatever. Now think how you would feel if people halfway around the world judged you and affiliated you with those people, just because you're from the same country.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#195

Post by puranjay »

andrewstuart wrote: post #117

Addressing the concerns of the Trump supporters is the only way forward. Why are they angry? Silicon Valley - one of the richest sectors of society, is up in arms because the disenfranchised "have nots" are expressing their anger about being "have nots" by just tearing the whole damn thing down. The "have nots" say - through Trump and his actions - "OK, you got everything, we got nothing, here's the payback". The hav…

Man, I'm working out of an office in an industrial area in New Delhi, India.

Literally across my office is a scrap metal dealer. He has about a dozen guys literally hammering metal to flatten it storing it.

This is work that can be done in minutes by a simple machine. But he has 12 people doing it because it's likely cheaper or because he doesn't know that a machine like that exists.

This is happening all across the world and no one is willing to address it. People are angry because there is no "real work" left for them anymore. Even in startups around me, I see so many jobs that don't need to exist. We're just "creating work" by adding jobs that don'tn need to exist, or refusing to adopt technology.

The way the world is right now, something had to give. Trump is just a symptom of that.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#196

Post by VLM »

pg314 wrote: post #85
venomsnake wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still it is not. Because when you leave out China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Germany, Turkey, UK, France ... which each have a lot of Muslims there whether in relative or absolute terms. The ban is only for arabs in very unstable countries and Iran. There is no good reason to allow entry of people from countries that are at (civil) war and Iran is adversary, so there is n…

> There is no good reason to allow entry of people from countries that are at (civil) war There is a very good reason: a humanitarian one. I do not know how a nation where 70% of the population calls itself christian could turn away refugees from war-torn countries. > there is no reason for non diplomatic personal Iranians to enter US at all. Top US universities and tech firms beg to differ. The US got the best unive…

What about the humanitarian goal of protecting your own people, your own family, your own culture? Surely they should come first before an abstract "other". Who is willing to kill a close family member to make space for a refugee?

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#197

Post by geff82 »

refurb wrote: post #187
geff82 wrote: post #6

Wonderfully written, giving my thoughts a word. For me and my wife, the USA, despite all their shortcomings, are a country we really want to live in. It stands for many good things. It is not a country you want to mess with, and we are fine with that. We embrace American culture, we love American companies, we so far respected American politicians. For stuff we as individuals are interested in (which might not be wha…

As an American, I have a lot of respect for Iran. It's a beautiful country with great people. But when I turn on the news and I see "Death to America" being chanted or Iranians trample or burn the American flag the rust is broken. Not to mention the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing which killed hundreds of Americans and was committed by a group directly funded by the Iranian gov't. The situation feels very strange. Empty…

That is why it is ok to check Iranians more closely. Which is what all but a few states do with Iranians. We accept that (and even me as a "pure" German have to go through those checks because I travel to Iran from time to time). And while the TV cameras capture some fools on Iranian streets, I have never heard someone telling me "Death to America" when I was there or similar stuff. In contrary: all were only talking about the great "Azadi" in the US (Azadi: Freedom) they all long for. They like Germany, but they love the US. I also remember you of the 50 Million deaths Germans caused in the world last century, yet we are allowed to the USA without visa at all.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#198

Post by nicolas_t »

dankohn1 wrote: post #154
zimpenfish wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is quite likely, that if Democrats nominated Sanders, he would win with Trump. I haven't seen a single political analysis which shows a path for him to do that. Do you have any examples?

The GOP had a ton of dirt on Sanders that they never used. If they had, he likely would have done much worse than Clinton. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/the-2016-electi...

That was a very informative article. Thanks. I'm still not sure how bad it would have looked like compared to Hillary's email server but that article makes a good argument that Sanders wouldn't have been a guaranteed win.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#199

Post by czep »

Mahn wrote: post #147
pzone wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn I'm sorry. This is truly the opposite of making America great.

"Make America great again" never stood for making America actually great, it was all along an euphemism for "Make America go back in time 50 years again", and sadly a lot of people wanted just that.

> for "Make America go back in time 50 years again"

Or 100 years. There were culture wars in the 1910s that were as fierce as those today. That's how we got the Harrison Narcotics Act for one example. I certainly don't mean to belittle the present crisis, but we should realize that these battles have been going on for a long time. As long as people like Mr. Atwood continue to speak up, we will weather this one as we have since this great nation was founded.

For evil to win it is sufficient for good to remain silent. Let's not be silent.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#200

Post by 3131s »

Angostura wrote: post #91
MisterWebz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet people seemed to be awfully calm when Obama was droning weddings. I'm not saying we should've put so much hate towards Obama as well, I'm saying we should put things into perspective.

> Yet people seemed to be awfully calm when Obama was droning weddings. No, no they weren't. However it was always pretty apparent that the administration took death of civilians seriously and did all it could to minimise it. That doesn't mean that there weren't screw-ups.

Did all they could to minimize them by classifying all males age 18-49 as militants automatically.

And what about Operation Haymaker [1], showing that the intended target consisted of only about ~10% of the total deaths from drone bombings? How can there be any certainty at all about civilian death tolls in massively war-torn, chaotic environments? I personally don't trust the Obama administration's numbers, which are not all that good in the first place.

https://theintercept.com/document/2015/10/15/operation-hayma...

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