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Stripe bans Trump campaign

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Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what happens to the Republican party over the next few years, given that they've ended up tying themselves so strongly to Trump's cult of personality.

It appears as if they started distancing themselves as soon as he lost. There was always a contingent of "Never Trumpers". Politicians are fickle. It will be interesting to see what happens, more so because I expect widespread disillusionment from Trump republicans.

Even Pence has done some distancing. Probably a lot more after he realized that Trump's rhetoric resulted in an assassination attempt.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#562

I was on the fence about this, but reading the comments convinced me it was the absolute right decision. The fact that all these institutions just allowed this horrible hateful speech for four years, in the name of free speech etc, despite all the harassment, harm (mental and otherwise) it caused to so many people in America actually emboldened so many to the extent that now that they crossed this invisible line, the…

A few issues: 1) The most radicalized are by Q. Which itself is a disinformation campaign, contributed to by government entities. 2) Bernie sanders brags about occupying government buildings. Would he be held to the same standard? OAC praised BLM protesters marching on the White House a few months ago, with Antifa trying to breach police lines and storm the White House. Should we throw her in jail for sedition. How a…

> Bernie sanders brags about occupying government buildings. Would he be held to the same standard? OAC praised BLM protesters marching on the White House a few months ago, with Antifa trying to breach police lines and storm the White House.

This is "what about"-ism. It deflects responsibility and puts the focus on other's behavior. In this philosophy for one side to accept that what they did was bad, it requires every single other person in the world to be perfect, which is obviously impossible and therefor insulates the person from criticism.

But, I'll indulge anyway.

Occupying a building is a form of civil disobedience, which in the US is a respected form of protest. I don't know what incident you're talking about with Bernie, but the results matter. Did he schedule the occupation of a government building that threatened the lives of elected officials and killed a police officer? Or was it a peaceful protest?

For AOC, was she praising the mass of peaceful protestors and what they stood for or was she praising an attempt to breach the White House? There's a big difference, so I want to be clear. If it was the later, then that is definitely dangerous.

But praising or bragging is a far cry from planning, persuading and instigating. Plus, Bernie and AOC aren't the leader of the free world. The President has a responsibility to serve the entire US, all 330M, regardless of who voted for him or against him. Bernie has a responsibility to Vermont and AOC to the Bronx. It's apples and oranges. If you want the highest public office in the country, you need to be held to the highest standards and not complain about how those with far less power might have acted.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#563

There is a difference between bank accounts, Visa/MasterCard access and Internet service, on one hand, and App Stores, Twitter accounts and payment providers, on the other hand. The First Amendment promises both free speech and free assembly. Core to the latter is the freedom not to assemble. This freedom is regulated. You can’t refuse to do business with protected classes. But political affiliation is not a protecte…

I buy this argument as the law currently stands, but this is also such a moral double standard (Colorado bakery for instance). Also, how far do we go with this reasoning? Stripe and PayPal refuse service so they're supposed to "Go build their own" (it costs billions to create a new service like stripe or PayPal that can compare). AWS shut you down? Build your own data center... (Again, costs millions or billions). Wh…

>What happens if the party in power next decides to attack religious organizations who congregate during that pandemic with the same type of concerted de-platforming?

I didn't realize that Stripe's actions were due to a government order. Probably because they weren't.

You're conflating a private organization's decisions with government action. If the government were to attempt do as you suggest, the courts would slap them down hard.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#564
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entertaining how the left was so critical of the use of the word "terrorist" when talking about the War on Terror, but then immediately started throwing it around when it politically expedient.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-capitol-in...

“Not being taken seriously”? They are all being tracked down and arrested. Put on no fly lists. New legislation is being drafted to address domestic terrorism. All of their social media platforms are being shut down.

What does this author mean by “not being taken seriously”?

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I think you might have the Colorado case misrepresented here. The baker was ruled in favor due to objecting based on his religious beliefs. Part of this was that he was okay with baking a cake for the gay couple but NOT one that had certain messaging that would violate his faith. [1] If the baker had altogether refused to bake a cake for the gay couple, it would have been discrimination on a protected class.…

> The baker was ruled in favor due to objecting based on his religious beliefs. No, he was ruled in favor of because the US Supreme Court found anti-religious animus in the enforcement process leading to the State ruling against him. > Part of this was that he was okay with baking a cake for the gay couple but NOT one that had certain messaging that would violate his faith. No, it wasn't. The decision specifically no…

Not to mention they are intentionally sending more LGBTQ customers his way to have him politely say no and refer them to another business, just so they can sue him again, and again, and again...

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/masterpiece-cakeshop...

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#566
post #462
post #64

Not to be reductionist but I don’t see this as a totalitarian issue. This is a free market decision. $Company decides to sever ties with another organization. That choice can be good, bad, reactive, overreactive, misguided, etc but it’s still a market participant choice. Market remains open for other market participants to make other choices.

https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1347970421161922560 does this make you reconsider at all?

Interesting, but no, it doesn't change my mind. What I agree with is that the ban decision making process should be open and transparent, which this was not.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This takes it a step closer, and certainly invokes that fear.

They would have done it sooner if it was politically motivated, as opposed to being in reaction to breach of their ToS.

Or they wanted to do it sooner but they were afraid that Trump might get angry and come after them like what he did to Tic Tok?

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd define fascism as a method of government which enforces some specific morality/actions/market through force. By this definition it's entirely possible for two different brands of fascism to have two opposing goals, and for one to use fascist methods on another fascist. If your definition of fascism is specifically centered around nationalism or racism then this doesn't really work, but I don't think the word fasc…

That's not the definition of fascism [0] Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in w…

From the page you linked,

  There has been considerable disagreement among historians and political scientists about the nature of fascism. [...] For these and other reasons, there is no universally accepted definition of fascism.
I recognize the definition I gave is different from how most people define "fascism", hence the disclaimer. I will however reject the idea there is actually a single precise meaning to "fascist". It has become heavily overloaded and is primarily used as a derogatory expression, something that dates well back into the 20th century. [0]

  By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
Coming from a very leftist man who fought against Franco's very classically fascist government in Spain for the anarchists and communists, I don't think he said this to protest the far-right from being called mean nasty words.

[0] https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/e...

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#570
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-capitol-in...

“Not being taken seriously”? They are all being tracked down and arrested. Put on no fly lists. New legislation is being drafted to address domestic terrorism. All of their social media platforms are being shut down. What does this author mean by “not being taken seriously”?

“Enjoyed”, past tense, while they were openly plotting terrorism and insurgency.

Once they executed it, that stopped (mostly, though people—including here on HN—are still arguing that they shouldn't be taken seriously.) But, had they been taken seriously when plotting murder and Insurrection in the open, it could have been disrupted before they swarmed the Capitol, or even showed up in D.C.

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