201–210 of 213 posts
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The last part is a common knowledge. Don’t worry.
It's okay to kill Muslims - this much is known and established. Actually, we could also add Sikhs and Dalits too if the situation demands it.
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"Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
p.s. I didn't look at which side any of these accounts were arguing for or against, because it doesn't matter and we don't care. Commenters here need to follow the site guidelines regardless of what their beliefs are, how right they are or feel they are, or how wrong others are or they feel they are.
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I appreciate your concern for the HN guidelines and have banned the other account. However, fairness obliges me to add that you also broke the guidelines by repeatedly perpetuating this flamewar. "Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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Democracy is about the people being able to participate in government. That's it. In order for that to be a good thing, the people need to be informed about the decisions they're making. If the people are completely brainwashed by lies that are completely contrary to the truth--like nearly a quarter of our population seems to be at the moment--then they will vote for those with the most convincing lies. If someone wh…
> Democracy is about the people being able to participate in government. That's it. But why is that a good thing? We don't have to have everyone participate. You don't seem to believe in democracy yourself here. > were manipulated by blatantly false Russian and Republican propaganda. I think we should be extremely cautious about views that suggest cross sections of the population are not capable agents. Either you're…
I'm calling it as I see it. "Being cautious" and trying to be "fair" to the other side has been increasingly destroying the country.
47% of the voters in last election, which is just under 25% of the US population, were in fact manipulated, and are really, in this respect, not capable agents as a result of that manipulation. At the very least they're demonstrably not capable of critical thinking.
I've looked carefully at many explanations as to why MAGAts vote the way they do. It's blatantly obvious that there are a small number of primary motivations.
Aside from "sociopathic self-interest" of some of the 0.1% who simply want lower taxes, everyone else be damned, and a big chunk who reflexively vote Republican as if it's their home team and aren't really paying attention, the main motivator seems to be hate of "the liberals." And no, I don't accept that "hurting more than half of the country" is a reasonable motivation for someone under normal circumstances.
Where did that extreme level of hate come from? Manipulation. Sure there was an underlying anger that the propaganda stoked. People in rural America have it hard and they see all of these rich people in urban areas doing well. But that anger has been fanned to the point where kids knocking on the wrong doors are being shot. And the anger is fundamentally misdirected; these blue-collar folks could tremendously benefit from a higher minimum wage, for instance, and it's not like the Republicans would ever voluntarily vote for a minimum wage increase at this point.
> But why is that a good thing? We don't have to have everyone participate. You don't seem to believe in democracy yourself here.
It's the worst form of government around...aside from all the others that have been tried. (paraphrased Churchill).
I don't know of another form of government that has better results. Neither did Churchill. If we could enforce better national education standards, we'd end up with a better result. But in short term I don't know how to fix the problem other than taking the worst liars off the air.
"We don't have to have everyone participate" -- that sounds too much like a support for voter suppression, which is not what I'm talking about.
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Did you even read what I said? EVMs are not being tampered. But they make per polling booth data available to candidates. The BJP candidates use that summary data to withhold municipal services from constituents who didn't vote for them. They are able to make this threat because of summary data made available by EVMs https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/maneka-gandhi-s-vo...
He doesn’t want to read. It’s always hit and run with the fanboys of these authoritarian regimes.
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> Plenty of left-leaning governments throughout history have used censorship. What does that have to do with Modi? Modi's government has moved far to the right.
Not the person you're replying to, but there is this persistent fallacy that left is inherently good and right is inherently evil, despite the fact that neither side of the political spectrum is inherently good or evil. Great injustices have been committed under both liberal and conservative governments throughout history.
Who said that? It seems fabricated to me, but what do I know? Show us some evidence.
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I'm not sure that definition is relevant; it's too extreme to apply to the situation. By that definition the US censors speech such as incitement to violence, fraud, slander, and intellectual property. No place has ever been uncensored. Like everything in life, there's a matter of degree to it and a question of what is censored.
The US government does not remove instances of incitement to violence, fraud, or slander, and most intellectual property law is probably unconstitutional but that's a different issue.
> most intellectual property law is probably unconstitutional
Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.
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Did you even read what I said? EVMs are not being tampered. But they make per polling booth data available to candidates. The BJP candidates use that summary data to withhold municipal services from constituents who didn't vote for them. They are able to make this threat because of summary data made available by EVMs https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/maneka-gandhi-s-vo...
He doesn’t want to read. It’s always hit and run with the fanboys of these authoritarian regimes.
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> Democracy is about the people being able to participate in government. That's it. But why is that a good thing? We don't have to have everyone participate. You don't seem to believe in democracy yourself here. > were manipulated by blatantly false Russian and Republican propaganda. I think we should be extremely cautious about views that suggest cross sections of the population are not capable agents. Either you're…
> I think we should be extremely cautious about views that suggest cross sections of the population are not capable agents. I'm calling it as I see it. "Being cautious" and trying to be "fair" to the other side has been increasingly destroying the country. 47% of the voters in last election, which is just under 25% of the US population, were in fact manipulated, and are really, in this respect, not capable agents as…
> voter suppression
It sounds like your motivation for democracy is that you "owe people" a vote, not that it's actually better to give them it. If education is the factor, what if we gate it by high school, land ownership, or college graduation?
I guess to get back to my original point. You suggested that free information (and misinformation) was a threat to democracy, but I see little indication you believe democracy is important. It's hard to see calls like this as anything other than being upset that the majority is not voting the way you want, and wanting to reign them in.