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GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

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Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#661

Post by undersuit »

sneak wrote: post #177
hnruss wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay taxes, you "support" the entire government. That doesn't mean that you are in favor of all of the things that it is doing. If you pay taxes, you are a citizen, not a "customer". These things are not the same.

Taxes are not voluntary. I pay taxes for the sole reason that I do not support armed men coming to my house to jail me for not paying taxes. They are paid under duress. I do not consent.

WAIT. You entered the US? You're not a citizen? You're complaining about our rules after we let you in?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#662

Post by 1111236112347 »

harryh wrote: post #563
1111236112347 wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be really be good to prevent Homeland Security Investigations, a major division of ICE, from investigating sexual abuse of children, and rescuing children from abusive situations? And about one of every 10 agents in Homeland Security’s investigative section — which deals with all kinds of threats, including terrorism — is now assigned to child sexual exploitation cases. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/inter…

There are lots of organizations that do both good and bad things. I hear that the KKK sometimes did some good community building work in addition to lynching black people. It is, apparently, the judgement of a large swatch of GH employees that whatever good ICE does, it is not outweighed by the bad. Given that, I believe their actions make sense.

It's true that most ethical situations are not black and white.

When an organization is doing some good things, and some bad things, is the best course of action to prevent the organization from doing both good and bad things? In the case of ICE, would it not be more effective to pursue a strategy of more targeted reforms that address the unethical immigration enforcement actions without stopping the other divisions pursuing investigations into human rights violations and child exploitation cases?

My concern here is that empathy for children being negatively impacted by immigration policies, while valid, doesn't imply we should act out indiscriminately against the entire ICE organization. Balancing the needs of victims of bad immigration policies against the needs of victims of criminal activity shouldn't be a zero-sum game, and making gains for one group shouldn't come at the expense of the other.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#663

Post by shadowgovt »

malvosenior wrote: post #660
shadowgovt wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what judicial ruling from the day in court of the people you claim are breaking that law justifies their internment in mass camps in conditions substandard to people who have been found guilty of breaking a law? You're forgetting that law enforcement officers aren't judge and jury; they may arrest, but a person has presumption of innocence until their day in court (even if border patrol physically observed them c…

People are regularly detained until their day in court. That's how it's always worked. You realize there's not a country on the planet that won't detain you if you sneak across their border right? The fact is we don't allow unfettered open immigration for many reasons.

None of those constraints justify keeping people in cages and substandard conditions.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#664

Post by malvosenior »

shadowgovt wrote: post #663
malvosenior wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are regularly detained until their day in court. That's how it's always worked. You realize there's not a country on the planet that won't detain you if you sneak across their border right? The fact is we don't allow unfettered open immigration for many reasons.

None of those constraints justify keeping people in cages and substandard conditions.

A detention facility is not a “cage”. These are people that entered the country illegally so yes, they will be detained in some fashion. Do you expect them to be kept in single family homes?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#665

Post by shadowgovt »

malvosenior wrote: post #664
shadowgovt wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those constraints justify keeping people in cages and substandard conditions.

A detention facility is not a “cage”. These are people that entered the country illegally so yes, they will be detained in some fashion. Do you expect them to be kept in single family homes?

That's certainly an option if people were to offer. There are several charities that do offer such things. This administration will not entertain that suggestion because the goal is to maximize the pain inflicted on immigrants and refugees in an ill-conceived attempt to stem the tide via fear.

So instead...

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/imag...

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#666

Post by eeZah7Ux »

supernova87a wrote: post #348

I question how much an employee should concern him/herself with how a product is used once it's created. You have to let certain control go after a point. Or if your product is open to everyone, you'll have to live with the fact that people may use it in ways you disagree with. Xerox or Canon (or whoever) probably makes copiers that ICE uses to make copies. Lenovo or Apple probably makes hardware that they use also t…

> Why do Github employees get a special right to withhold consent ... ?

Why do you ask question in such a biased frame?

Why don't you ask instead:

Why don't other companies have moral standards?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#667

Post by malvosenior »

shadowgovt wrote: post #665
malvosenior wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A detention facility is not a “cage”. These are people that entered the country illegally so yes, they will be detained in some fashion. Do you expect them to be kept in single family homes?

That's certainly an option if people were to offer. There are several charities that do offer such things. This administration will not entertain that suggestion because the goal is to maximize the pain inflicted on immigrants and refugees in an ill-conceived attempt to stem the tide via fear. So instead... https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/imag...

The goal is to minimize illegal immigration. And yes, that looks like a pretty standard detention facility to me. Every person in there knew the risk before deciding to break the law.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#668

Post by shadowgovt »

malvosenior wrote: post #667
shadowgovt wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly an option if people were to offer. There are several charities that do offer such things. This administration will not entertain that suggestion because the goal is to maximize the pain inflicted on immigrants and refugees in an ill-conceived attempt to stem the tide via fear. So instead... https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/imag...

The goal is to minimize illegal immigration. And yes, that looks like a pretty standard detention facility to me. Every person in there knew the risk before deciding to break the law.

> Every person in there knew the risk before deciding to break the law.

That's a delightful lie Americans can tell themselves to try and absolve their personal consciences of responsibility for their part in their country making people miserable on purpose. It falls apart pretty quickly with any investigation (I'm sure that shoeless toddler on the left weighed all the pros and cons before crossing the border), but even if it didn't, it acknowledges the goal is to make people miserable on purpose to deter them from seeking a better life.

Used to be, the United States stood for more than that. At least, it aspired to.

No wonder Github has employees walking over the company voluntarily buying into that shitty behavior.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#669

Post by shadowgovt »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #401
malvosenior wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not actually that easy to revoke someone's citizenship. I know many people who came to the US legally that are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration precisely because they followed the rules and don't see why others shouldn't have to.

This touches on my greatest frustration with the national debate about prosecution/tolerance of illegal immigration: One of my main reasons for opposing illegal immigration is that it's contrary to the rule of law. It subverts the democratic process, and makes suckers of anybody who does try to follow these laws. I'm actually a big fan of legal immigration. But I rarely (never?) hear this distinction made in public s…

As the war on drugs has also demonstrated, there is only but so much behavior-shaping you can achieve with people via the law.

If a law is consistently and chronicallhy broken (and especially if the harm for breaking said law is minimal), at some point one must ask if the law is too incompatible with human behavior to justify enforcement or existence.

I don't think anyone "soft on illegal immigration" is against legal immigration. But they may very well be against the laws as they currently stand, because the laws are demonstrably shaped by racist intent; the national quota system used to decide people per year from each country where very much structured out of fear of a "browning" of America.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#670

Post by fiter »

wvenable wrote: post #213
fiter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maturity could be the ability to compartmentalize. Whether that's a good thing is up for debate. Should we keep religion out of politics? Should we keep politics out of work? I doubt there are any clear answers.

I think if your work is to construct the machines sent to the Nazi's to help perpetrate the Holocaust, you should probably not compartmentalize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust The clear answer is that one should never just be following orders and if your company is doing something that you personally feel uncomfortable with, you should try to stop it. And failing that, quit.

I completely agree that if you do not feel comfortable with the work you are doing, then you should stop. If you feel comfortable with it because you've compartmentalized, then I imagine you would not stop. And, unfortunately, there's often some reason to compartmentalize some situations: because your competitor will just as soon take the business.

It certainly would have been better if we could have gotten US policy on Nazi Germany to change much earlier than it did. It would have solved the coordination problem--for US companies, anyway. This would have required direct political action.

> Harry Truman, was quoted in the pages of New York Times in June 1941 as saying, “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible …”

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