Time to Take a Stand • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#91

Post by a3n » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

_m8fo wrote: post #7

Why is that all of these posts saying to "take a stand" fail to explain the political process? I'll just quote myself here. If you want to help stop trump the most effective ways are to: 1. Call - Local congresspeople (http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/) - Senators (https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/) - Local officials (https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials) 2. Participate - Get involved in local electi…

If you oppose Trump and the right's regressive goals, then to condense this list down: take over state legislatures and governors, by running, supporting, or voting for progressive people. The Republicans learned years ago that state legislatures are the key to regressive state policies, and to helping keep a regressive majority in Congress.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#92

Post by myblake » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

bratsche wrote: post #73

myblake wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How effective is calling local congress members if you live in an area with a strong progressive majority such as the Bay Area. Not that we shouldn't voice our option to our represented officials but I suspect in some ways it's redundant whereas things like raising money for national organizations may be more impactful.

It feels like it's not very effective, but that may be because there needs more weight of numbers behind it. If you're in a progressive area like the Bay area I can see how it would just add extra load to officials who may not need further persuading. I'm in Texas though. A very red state. I've been calling my representative and senators to voice my opinion on all this stuff, but it's hard to tell how effective it is…

Yeah it's interesting how it can go the other way if you're in a solidly conservative district too (I used to live in austin ehich thanks to some ridiculous gerrymandering has very conservative congressional representation). Thanks for calling even if you aren't convinced they'all listen though, I think it's important to try and change minds and that's the place to start.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#93

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

_m8fo wrote: post #7

Why is that all of these posts saying to "take a stand" fail to explain the political process? I'll just quote myself here. If you want to help stop trump the most effective ways are to: 1. Call - Local congresspeople (http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/) - Senators (https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/) - Local officials (https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials) 2. Participate - Get involved in local electi…

For an emergency thing like this, direct pressure from affected tech companies is going to be the most effective thing. Letters to Congressmen from tech CEOs and the like.

For people who are not tech CEOs, financially supporting legal challenges is probably the highest value near-term approach, though the other stuff is important long term.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#94

Post by rcpt » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

I know it's an extremely antisocial position but I can't help but feel like most of Trump's immigration policies and outrageous tweets are just bait to keep our attention away from big money legislation that the 1% wants to get through.

For example, the Keystone XL and Dakota access pipelines were heavily debated, protested, and ultimately rejected under Obama but Trump just signed orders to have them built and Sam's post doesn't even mention it. Seeing Sam write about the accusations of voter fraud instead brings this quote to mind:

> The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....

- Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#95

Post by kyrre » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

aren't the majority of Americans in favor of this ban?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/18/fox-news-poll-vie...

https://theintercept.com/2016/07/07/donald-trump-backs-off-m...

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#96

Post by disantlor » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

jsperson wrote: post #58

It makes me sad that politics has made its way to the top of HN. I'm relatively new here. One of the things I love about the community is that it has been something of an oasis over the past few months. This is in no way intended to denigrate the esteemed author or his thesis. I'm just disappointed that we're at this point.

fair but there are such things as moments in history where things go one way or things go another way and the results of that breaking point cannot be reversed. there is no oasis in those times

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#97

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

mjmsmith wrote: post #71

mcenedella wrote: post #12

"The executive order… is tantamount to a Muslim ban" isn't quite true. Islam by country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country 1. Indonesia 2. Pakistan 3. India 4. Bangladesh 5. Nigeria 6. Iran 7. Turkey 8. Egypt 9. Algeria 10. Sudan It's probably not a great tactic to perpetuate the American habit for making sweeping comments about the rest of the world which aren't really grounded in truth. Might be best to…

That's true, it doesn't apply to countries that Trump does business with, including the one that produced most of the 9/11 hijackers.

It actually doesn't include any of the countries the 9/11 terrorists came from.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#98

Post by mavdi » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

This order directly affects me.

But frankly I've lost hope in any political process. I know this is a grim message, but perhaps standing idle is exactly what needs to be done.

I fear people now vote out of frasutration, and leave it to someone else to make the right choice and cancel out their vote. Perhaps it's time for everyone to realise the full force of their voting power, and perhaps it's time to trust the powers to be. That breaking social contracts will be detrimental to The society in the long run and hope that voters will realise this.

My pessimistic two cents.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#99

Post by burkaman » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

patrickg_zill wrote: post #55

facetube wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the Christian Broadcasting Network no less. This is morally repugnant.

Yet we never heard from you during the years the Obama administration did the opposite... Syria is over 10% Christian, yet only 56 of the ~10K Syrians let into the country were Christian.

1. Obama is no longer president, this is not a particularly relevant point.

2. We did hear about it, Ted Cruz could not stop talking about it.

3. Refugees are referred to the US by the UNHCR. If their referrals don't reflect the demographics of Syria, that's not something we can directly or easily change.

4. Christians are 10% of Syria, but it's not clear that they would be 10% of refugees. I couldn't immediately find any statistics on that.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#100

Post by general_ai » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

First, it's not a "ban". It's a temporary suspension until new vetting procedures are put in place.

Second, it's not "Muslim". Muslims from all other countries (some of them pretty large, e.g. Indonesia and Pakistan), will experience no change in their ability to enter the US.

Other than Iran (which imo shouldn't be on the list) we're bombing and droning all of those countries at the moment. It's insane to accept military age males from there for entry into the country, particularly if information about them is very sparse (which in war torn countries it typically is).

But there's another aspect of this that baffles me. Somehow Sam has no issues with democrats totally destabilizing the Middle East, and funding/arming ISIS to depose Assad. Yet the moment Trump attempts to mitigate the negative side effects of that to this country, "it's time to take a stand". The time to take a stand was back when Obama and Clinton armed extremists in Iraq and Syria -- years before Trump.