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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

#241

Post by rdtsc »

varjag wrote: post #152
rdtsc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The level of outrage doesn't seem to make sense. If they are ready to donate to ACLU, drive to a protest at an airport, subscribe for more media, over a botched travel ban surely they protesting 10x harder when actual killing was talking place. I even got an email from Lyft about it. A driving app on my phone is now telling about this travel ban too and how much they are donating to the ACLU.

We must be from parallel universes, because there were massive protests against Iraq war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003,_anti-war_pr...

Not parallel universe. That was more than a decade ago. Why go back in 2003. We just dropped more than 26k bombs just in 2016. Where were these CEOs and tech leaders then? Were they blocking the entrance to the Pentagon, or WH? With the resources of Brin and others, surely there is a track of heavy lobbying against such things if they indeed seem to deeply care about the fate of refugees

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/americ...

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#242

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Patient0 wrote: post #16
MisterWebz wrote: post #8

Bombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured. These are things that are acceptable, but a 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries, that's a step too far? Has everyone seriously lost their mind?

It's not just "a 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries" - the fact that Christians from those countries are exempt makes it explicitly a "muslim ban".

They've actually inadvertently included a bunch of Mizrahi Jews in the ban, too.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#243

Post by googletazer »

grzm wrote: post #230
throwaw181ay wrote: post #227

> We lead the free world i sincerely hate when people from anywhere say that. During the second half of the 20th century, the american government was directly or indirectly responsible for at least half of the conflicts on that planet. Americans need to wake up, they are as much the beacon of tyranny than they are the beacon of the "free world". It's just that most Americans don't care about what their own government…

Please stop creating throwaway accounts to post purely political rants.

Why does it matter? He (mostly) isn't wrong in his political rant

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#244

Post by googletazer »

andrewstuart wrote: post #120

I look fondly back on George W Bush, that clever, subtle, wise and compassionate President.

At least he was funny, thats about it. Anybody else saw that video where a lady describes how she works three jobs to make ends meet and he nods and declares it to be "exceptionally American"? So much for GW compassion

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#245

Post by marcosdumay »

noelwelsh wrote: post #83
MisterWebz wrote: post #8

Bombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured. These are things that are acceptable, but a 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries, that's a step too far? Has everyone seriously lost their mind?

Imagine you're a person who was strongly against "[b]ombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments[,] and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured". Now imagine that the US has just elected a president far more conservative (and volatile!) than his predecessor, and a result there is a widespread movement for progressive political change, in line with your beliefs, from people who are normally n…

c) bitch and moan at the candidate at your side that isn't listening to your ideals?

There's a deep level on hypocrisy here, and that people (against both bombing and closing) are really not trying to fix this, otherwise they would have started sooner.

This is the third time in a row that the US public votes against the candidate supported by the Pentagon. Yet, the non-warmonger is a complete asshole...

(By the way, I'm watching from a safe distance, not participating on this stuff.)

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#246

Post by varjag »

rdtsc wrote: post #241
varjag wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must be from parallel universes, because there were massive protests against Iraq war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003,_anti-war_pr...

Not parallel universe. That was more than a decade ago. Why go back in 2003. We just dropped more than 26k bombs just in 2016. Where were these CEOs and tech leaders then? Were they blocking the entrance to the Pentagon, or WH? With the resources of Brin and others, surely there is a track of heavy lobbying against such things if they indeed seem to deeply care about the fate of refugees https://www.theguardian.com/c…

You realize that you are now shifting the context from original "protesting wars, black sites and torture" - which are Iraq war theme - to a tiny subset of military activity that was protested least, precisely because they were protested least?

Of course you do, and you are using it as rhetorical device only, you couldn't care less about people bombed. If I go and find protests and statements against droning, you'd switch to Delta raids, TOW shipments or whatelse. The purpose of exercise is to show that people opposing Muslim bans are not any better and are simply hypocrites, hence the scrupulous fact-combing.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#247

Post by grzm »

googletazer wrote: post #243
grzm wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop creating throwaway accounts to post purely political rants.

Why does it matter? He (mostly) isn't wrong in his political rant

Because HN is a community where people have discussions with each other. Pseudonyms are fine. The community benefits from consistent accounts that others can relate to as members of the community. Otherwise there are effectively no users and no community, which is a very different place.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#248

Post by coldtea »

pwinnski wrote: post #240
coldtea wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just like Obama did back in 2011 for 6 months and nobody batted an eyelid?

This claim is untrue.[0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...

>“Immigration authorities soon began rechecking all Iraqi refugees in America, reportedly comparing fingerprints and other records with military and intelligence documents in dusty archives. About 1,000 soon-to-be immigrants in Iraq were told that they would not be allowed to board flights already booked. Some were removed from planes. Thousands more Iraqi applicants had to restart the immigration process, because their security clearances expired when the program stalled. Men must now pass five separate checks, women four, and children three.”

Sounds pretty similar to me, including a 60% drop in incoming immigrants from Iraq the year that took place compared to the previous and next year.

Let's see how WP differentiates the two cases:

First, they say that Obama "responded to an actual threat" whereas Trump "issued his executive order without any known triggering threat".

So being pro-active in this case is bad? Isn't that the whole idea behind threat prevention? It's not like Trump invented a threat in a new domain where there is known to be none -- we called for potential threats in the same domain (immigration from certain regions) where actual threats have been discovered previously, including under Obama. And ISIS wasn't even a thing back then, nor several big attacks have happened yet in France and Germany.

2) Second, they say that "Obama did not announce a ban on visa applications". And then they excuse that the effective result was similar anyway: "There was certainly a lot of news reporting that visa applications had slowed to a trickle. But the Obama administration never said it had a policy to halt all applications".

3) Third, they say that "Obama’s policy did not prevent all citizens of that country, including green-card holders, from traveling to the United States".

Which is probably the main point they get that can stand on its legs -- though government spokespersons deny that this is the case (even if that was the intention or unintended consequence of the command as issued).

That said, the people accepted as immigrants into the US, either under Obama (and even less now with Trump's order) the last 3 years from Iraq and Syria are an insignificant amount. And that from a region where millions fled to escape, and have been asking for asylum all over Europe etc.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#249

Post by DougN7 »

rtpg wrote: post #143
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?

Massive Clintonite, but here's the way I see it: Would Sanders have lost any state that Clinton won? Probably not. Would Sanders have worked better in WI, Pennsylvania, Virginia? Probably. Clinton was 77k votes from being President. Sanders might not have had as much institutional backing in the primaries, but considering that this seemed to have been decided on turnout, and Sanders had a strong grassroots following.…

Agreed. And Clinton was so unpopular on the right you would have had some Trump voters going for Sanders. I've said before that Clinton was the only politician unpopular enough to lose to Trump.

Re: I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream

#250

Post by whorleater »

facepalm wrote: post #231
whorleater wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prioritization of people who are religiously persecuted", who happen to include Christians in those Muslim countries? Christians are hardly persecuted in Muslim countries. > But that seems to be the goal? I don't understand you? A blanket ban is not due process. These people were legally allowed to immigrate, and a ban (thereby leaving them off of American soil) is not due process.

"Christians are hardly persecuted in Muslim countries." You mean, for example, a Christian family living on IS territory would be just fine? That seems very unlikely to me. But perhaps I have fallen victim to fearmongering about the IS. "A blanket ban is not due process." I am not saying it was handled well, but it seems an important distinction to note that the ban is temporary. The assumption seems to be that the c…

>You mean, for example, a Christian family living on IS territory would be just fine? That seems very unlikely to me. But perhaps I have fallen victim to fearmongering about the IS.

How is this any different from Muslim families fleeing the ravages in Aleppo? Do you really think Muslim families are in any better position than Christian ones?

>I am not saying it was handled well, but it seems an important distinction to note that the ban is temporary. The assumption seems to be that the checks previously in place were insufficient.

Temporary and be to be extended at the sole discretion of Trump, and indefinite for Syrians. Tell the families that seek asylum this is temporary. Hell tell the people who went through the legal immigration process, the ones who have lived in the US for years that suddenly their lives in America was not enough vetting. Do you even realize how hard it is to get a visa to get into America from one of these countries?

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