They Thought They Were Free (1955) • Hacker News Board

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#251

Post by stevenwoo » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:28 PM UTC

1oooqooq wrote: post #213

brainwad wrote: post #179

Everyone in this thread is reading this in relation to the current US government. But some other interesting parallels are the current Israeli government, and more speculatively, A(G)I.

IR is more complex. They know very well what it's leading to, since it's part of their founding history. Half the population do go out on streets to rotest, while the other half go out to protest the protests. So it is the opposite of the lack of awareness/too busy with life and changes etc the article talks about. meanwhile, this is very pertinent to USA current climate. But interestingly, people will repost this, c…

He’s been impeached twice already and the GOP has chosen party over constitution and country twice. The handful of token GOP senate votes for conviction don’t matter. With a GOP house, an impeachment stops there without going to the Senate, there’s already been a House vote to impeach this year that failed. A bunch of Democrats voted against it.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#252

Post by noobermin » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:28 PM UTC

permo-w wrote: post #241

tbrownaw wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires there to be meaningful systematic differences between the people who happen to live in different countries.

so what are you suggesting causes, for example, the French to strike more often than other Western countries? or Japan to typically have particularly low inflation? or Argentina to typically have particularly high inflation?

Waiting for the country of people who fly out of their mother's wombs or whom are born in a sack on their father's backs and further those who mentally convince themselves to pass through walls.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#253

Post by epistasis » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:28 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #224

robwwilliams wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth drawing a distinction between governmental support for science and for the humanities. The first does a lot of relative low mark-up contract work requested by governmental agencies. Governments and all of us would like to see cancer and Alzheimer disease cured. The request for “bids” (aka grant applications) from NIH, DoD (now DoW) and NSF is what has greatly expanded research-focused universities and msde the…

It’s my understanding that the humanities doesn’t get much in government grants to begin with, but when the sciences have a finance problem, they cut the humanities for some reason.

I'm not aware of humanities getting get to fund the sciences, at least in the UC system. But in many places with highly complicated accounting, the sciences can sometimes indirectly fund humanities through the overhead rate that universities charge. These are highly negotiated rates between the government and the universities, so there has to be a bit of confusion on what money keeps which buildings going.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#254

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:29 PM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #234

jackstraw42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excerpts from this have popped up in Reddit comments quite a bit the last few years. At first it did feel out of place, but now I'm going going back and listening to Dan Carlin talk about the headspace of society before something like Nazi Germany happens. With all the Executive Orders and lawlessness from the Executive Branch and throughout our federal government with this new regime, it's pretty clear they're attem…

> and who knows what it will look like if we have some kind of civil war out of this. I don't understand mentions of "civil war" in the public lately (there's even a Hollywood movie about it). There is only one party controlling the armed forces. I also doubt that any high-ranking officers would take the troops they command out of the command structure and then even order them to attack the government and other troop…

[deleted]

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#255

Post by jackstraw42 » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:31 PM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #234

jackstraw42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excerpts from this have popped up in Reddit comments quite a bit the last few years. At first it did feel out of place, but now I'm going going back and listening to Dan Carlin talk about the headspace of society before something like Nazi Germany happens. With all the Executive Orders and lawlessness from the Executive Branch and throughout our federal government with this new regime, it's pretty clear they're attem…

> and who knows what it will look like if we have some kind of civil war out of this. I don't understand mentions of "civil war" in the public lately (there's even a Hollywood movie about it). There is only one party controlling the armed forces. I also doubt that any high-ranking officers would take the troops they command out of the command structure and then even order them to attack the government and other troop…

Well, I think you did a pretty good job of describing the resources that they are consolidating into that one party that controls the military. For now it's just the National Guard going into cities, but didn't they float the idea of sending Marines to LA? There's so much it's impossible to keep track of what's actually going on.

I've always been of the idea that 100 guys with guns gets wiped out with 1 bomb nowadays, so why do individuals arm themselves to the teeth and LARP in the woods? it is looking more like that's going to be a paramilitary arm, or "private consultants" to ICE and CBP. those resources aren't for nothing, and they certainly aren't for taking down the US military.

This is a WW2 figure who had a song written about him after he was martyred. It became the anthem of the Nazi party. I didn't ever hear about him in my many years in the US, until a few days ago on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#256

Post by epistasis » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:31 PM UTC

grosswait wrote: post #106

hagbard_c wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I've had comments flagged for far less inflammatory framing than that comment! And they probably should have been flagged, they resulted in lots of bad discussion. In this thread it's a completely appropriate flagging because it's basically troll bait. People did engage with it in far higher level of thinking than it used, this time, but I think we would all have been better off without this digression.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#257

Post by someguydave » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:32 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #248

I know this is made to be an analogy with America, but people there still think much about politics at least at this moment, despite the recent chaos slowly becoming expected and mundane. I think the point of the passage is not to allow things to slip and not to simply accept the chaos, but the good news is there's still time, for the most part.

no the point is to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about their perceived political enemies

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#258

Post by Hikikomori » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:33 PM UTC

ethical_source wrote: post #137

wyldfire wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the first amendment and are still free to a degree you are not and will never be. I'm not so sure about that. "It's no longer free speech [when someone criticizes the president]." [1] This seems like it's remarkably in line with "they thought they were free" because here you are, thinking you're free. But in fact, your speech is not free because all three branches failed to protect you from this and have no…

You have to take Trump "seriously but not literally". The government threatened to revoke a broadcast license , a right to use a limited resource for the public good. Broadcast licenses come with rules to ensure the limited resource is used for public benefit: for example, you're not allowed to broadcast profanity over the air despite profanity in general being protected speech. Nobody is denying anyone's ability to…

Fake news? Or like Hitler called it, lugenpresse.

I was going to write more but your post is so incredibly stupid I can't believe you believe this.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#259

Post by AfterHIA » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:33 PM UTC

There really needs to be a Second American Revolution. It should be bloodless and as simple as 90% of the country showing up to take back the wealth that was stolen from the middle classes during the neoliberal assault. The popular momentum exists for this project in both the MAGA camp and lefties that support Sanders. It seems like the only alternative is liberal authoritarianism which we're seeing from Vance and Peter Thiel. We still have a chance. Let's use it.

This isn't a drill. Let us assemble the Rebel Alliance.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#260

Post by username332211 » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 3:35 PM UTC

bix6 wrote: post #242

username332211 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen social media's reaction to that murderer Mangione?

Social media is not real life. How many of those comments are bots? How many people say things online they wouldn’t say in person? The right and left are not as far apart as the internet would have us believe.

> How many of those comments are bots?

Wasn't there a group cheering in front of the courtroom when the judge dropped the terrorism charge? Those people were not bots.

> How many people say things online they wouldn’t say in person?

Ohh, so lovely of them. I wonder how Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and ultimately Paul Graham feel, to know that the only reason why a good portion of the population doesn't advocate for their death is taqiyya?