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

Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

petitions.whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 401 posts

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#291

Post by rdtsc »

mikeyouse wrote: post #217
finid wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are the Democrats doing about this. The silence from that group is deafening.

Lol, blame the Democrats for not doing what? The Rs control the White House and both branches of congress.

That's the interesting thing, maybe Trump won because he was a smooth talker but why did the Democrats lose all those seats in the legislature? Does it just mean Dems never even voted? I guess why bother putting the shoes on when CNN and NBC have been showing a solid blue map for months on end and experts discussing grabbing of genital parts for days and days.

In all the discussions I heard so far on Facebook and media I noticed a lot blame, name-calling, despair and so on. But I haven't seen enough solid self-reflections. Specifically focusing on why did the Democrats stay home that day. Without it we will have another Trump and then another ...

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#292

Post by Ar-Curunir »

WildUtah wrote: post #141
intro-b wrote: post #2

How this is happening, the exact trajectory of how much worse these things are (and its potential to worsen) is somewhat terrifying, especially when you consider the cavalier disregard and easy ignorance that this policy represents. I know classmates and colleagues and friends who are discussing, in their groups and communities, how to best help people stranded, whether or not vacations and returns to see ill family…

How this effects [sic] this country's current reputation as a place to study, travel, find work, and start families + settle down can't be understated. That's the intention. The USA is more than a convenient incubator for foreigners. It's a nation responsible for its own future. Quite a lot of Americans don't want foreigners to make plans expecting that the USA will just always be there to fulfill their whims. A litt…

You're just being xenophobic. You do realize that all of America was built up by immigrants, right?

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#293

Post by Ar-Curunir »

grzm wrote: post #251
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even if you feel that you're just calling a spade a spade, you're just providing others with ammunition to dismiss you and anything you say as just an angry, unreasonable rant. I think the problem here is that I genuinely feel I'm calling a spade a spade. Trump himself is probably not ideological enough to be a devoted neo-Nazi. Stephen Bannon, on the other hand, makes Republicans allude to fascism[1]. >“The racist,…

Like I said, it doesn't matter if it's justified or not. All that matters is whether you're able to appear as a legitimate voice. I'd love for everything to come down to rational facts and discourse. That's just not how human psychology works in the even the best of circumstances. And when people are actively choosing to act in bad faith, you need to take that into account even more so.

People have tried to take this "we're better than them" approach. The problem is that the other side isn't playing nice. Gandhian non-violence only works when the other side has a smattering of conscience; it is not so for Trump's administration.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#294

Post by skissane »

dragonwriter wrote: post #264
skissane wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the two systems are fundamentally different. If a British PM has a Commons majority and retains the support of their own party, they can basically do whatever they like. Conversely, if Congressional Republicans wanted to stop Trump, they could pass legislation stripping him of much of the power Congress has delegated to him (and override any veto), they could pass a joint/concurrent resolution censuring…

> I don't think the two systems are fundamentally different. If a British PM has a Commons majority and retains the support of their own party, they can basically do whatever they like. The difference is that a PM has no independent power; they don't just need a partisan majority in the Commons, they need the confidence of the majority of the Commons. The President has independent power, and is not subordinate to the…

Strictly speaking, the British PM's legal power comes not from Parliament but from the Monarch - they are a minister of the Crown, first in rank among the Lords Commissioners appointed to collectively exercise the office of Lord High Treasurer, one of the Great Officers of State. Now, as a matter of longstanding convention, the Monarch will appoint whoever commands the confidence of the House of Commons-but that convention is nowhere enshrined in law.

Turning to the US, under the US Constitution, Congress is arguably the most powerful branch, since Congress has the power of impeachment to remove the President and judges (including Supreme Court Justices), whereas neither the President nor the Supreme Court have any corresponding power to remove Members of Congress. Congress can impeach Trump but Trump can't impeach even the most insignificant Representative.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#295

Post by tptacek »

coldtea wrote: post #287
tptacek wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those polls were broadly accurate, as has been heavily reported. In particular, the outcome tracked the national polls, and upsets were targeted and involved very narrow margins. But, of course, none of your comment answers the questions I posed. I'm less interested in litigating abstractions and more in the specifics. Care to take a whack at addressing them?

> Those polls were broadly accurate, as has been heavily reported. The polls about The Donald losing were also heavily reported: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/26/polls-shatter-myth-pr... In any case, unlike you, I'm more interested in abstractions based on large historical body of evidence (for not trusting pollsters in general) than in specifics (evaluating a particular poll, especially in hot political and pa…

I'm really sorry, I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here, but I am confident that you're pursuing a different argument than the one I was, and I'm just not interested in it.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#296

Post by Ar-Curunir »

tehlike wrote: post #211
warbiscuit wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes Donald Trump's action so sickenly selfish is that a better life is why his grandfather Friedrich Drumpf immigrated from Bavaria. Though one could argue 3 generations later that act of immigration is not benefitting the US.

Eh if you look from a narrow angle, he is providing employment through his business. I think that's a benefit to the country. It's too early to say what benefits the country will have after his presidency.

Are you kidding me? Benefits like regressing on clean energy, blocking PhD students and scientists, and in general violating laws? He's been awful just a week into his presidency. The next 4 years are not going to magically get better.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#297

Post by ActsJuvenile »

WildUtah wrote: post #141
intro-b wrote: post #2

How this is happening, the exact trajectory of how much worse these things are (and its potential to worsen) is somewhat terrifying, especially when you consider the cavalier disregard and easy ignorance that this policy represents. I know classmates and colleagues and friends who are discussing, in their groups and communities, how to best help people stranded, whether or not vacations and returns to see ill family…

How this effects [sic] this country's current reputation as a place to study, travel, find work, and start families + settle down can't be understated. That's the intention. The USA is more than a convenient incubator for foreigners. It's a nation responsible for its own future. Quite a lot of Americans don't want foreigners to make plans expecting that the USA will just always be there to fulfill their whims. A litt…

I have hired 70 people for my corporate overlords in multiple countries, and our national policies are pretty much the opposite of exploited doormat.

What I am trying to say is, if you believe USA is "an easily exploited doormat" you need to step out of the echo chamber and diversify your news sources.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#298

Post by crispinb »

mikeash wrote: post #288
crispinb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many HN readers (and Dem voters) are among the tech elite who at best benefit (and at worst promote) the fundamentalist neoliberal-corporate ideology that has crushed the US citizenry and contributed substantially to the von Clownstick revolt. They were the useful idiots content to keep their heads down, buy shitloads of expensive tech gadgetry, pay the elevated rents that dehomed locals, and obediently wrote code wh…

I'm rather sick of being blamed for Trump's election. How about the people who voted for the candidate from the party of personal responsibility take the responsibility for choosing who they voted for?

Of course they're responsible too. But mass-scale movements come from somewhere. They have systematic causes. The tech industry, and the ideology driving it, is manifestly amongst those causes.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#299

Post by realusername »

551199 wrote: post #195
grzm wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shameful HN doesn't flag posts calling Trump and his supporters nazis, homophobic and other names. While any dissident about liberals is flagged/downvoted to oblivion. Every group on HN notices things that appear to be against them. It's normal human bias. I've seen plenty of flagging/down-voting going on all sides of various issues. If you legitimately are interested to dig into this more, there are at least tw…

Calling people openly nazis, racist, homophobic and other awful names when it couldn't be further from the truth shouldn't be encouraged on a site that prides itself with respectful conversation. Altman Time to Take a Stand Post: Search for any of those words https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13507993

I did not downvote you myself but Trump, as a political movement, is really close to fascism. Look yourself at the definition of fascism: http://www.favreau.info/misc/14-points-fascism.php, Trump checks almost all the marks there and it makes a lot of people afraid. It does not mean anything bad is going to happen and it does not mean anything either on Trump supporters, but it's still very concerning.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#300

Post by grzm »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #293
grzm wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, it doesn't matter if it's justified or not. All that matters is whether you're able to appear as a legitimate voice. I'd love for everything to come down to rational facts and discourse. That's just not how human psychology works in the even the best of circumstances. And when people are actively choosing to act in bad faith, you need to take that into account even more so.

People have tried to take this "we're better than them" approach. The problem is that the other side isn't playing nice. Gandhian non-violence only works when the other side has a smattering of conscience; it is not so for Trump's administration.

Please don't misunderstand me as thinking this is a "better than them" type of thing. It actively denies opponents ammunition. I'm in full agreement that it's not enough on its own. People need to be engaged in political action as well. (Edit to add: And engaged as good, upstanding members of their own local communities.) I strongly believe one of the reasons the election was as problematic as it was all around is that there was too much name-calling and misrepresentation. It allowed people even more room to filter things to align with their own biases, which is going to happen anyway.

How many people strongly supported the candidate they ended up casting their ballot for? Both Trump and Clinton had historically low favorability ratings. If people think they're being attacked by one side or the other, it makes it all the harder for them to listen to reasoned debate, and much more likely that they'll be actively voting against a candidate.

Even this "other side" language is problematic, in my opinion. How are you going to find allies among those you don't already agree with when you think of them as "other"? How do you expect them to listen to you? People dig in, get defensive, when they feel they're being attacked. They're no longer listening. There are some people who will never listen to you, or even if they do listen to you, aren't going to end up agreeing with you. But that's not necessarily everyone you don't currently agree with. If you've already written off everyone who voted for a different candidate than you, then you're stuck with very few options. People are more complex than the effectively binary option that was the 2016 US Presidential Election admits.

It's not a "better than them" thing. It's a "what's actually going to make a difference" thing. Language alone isn't going to solve this, of course. But language used poorly can drive needless wedges between people.

Post reply on HN