It was my understanding that 18 U.S. Code § 871 included depictions enticing or encouraging such acts. I will look this up and come back with more information at a later time.
And to be clear here I mean a depiction of an actual US president. Not a fictitious president.
> Full stop, no it doesn't. Where the heck are you getting such misinformation? It is not just wrong, it is bordering on libel.
The mainstream news media is where I am getting this information. I remember it being reported on during the Pearl Harbor film some years ago (Bush Administration). Though I see it all the time: the SONY Leaks disclosed how the State Department and CIA helped to influence "The Interview" so that it would both depict the assassination of their president and to encourage civil unrest.
I take the libel statement seriously. I will pass it by my attorney. Difficult to discuss here, as neither of us are lawyers.
In the United States, it is illegal to portray the assassination of a president.
Handling topics of National Security, such as Pearl Harbor, must be screened and if needed edited by National Security personnel.
Close partnership and collective ownership of media production facilities has given us movies with fake narratives like the Jessica Lynch story, Zero Dark Thirty, etc.
I was actually asked to leave. My comments and opinions have been deleted, hidden, shadowbanned and obscured elsewhere.
Indeed, it's hard to find a place on American social media where dissenting opinions can be argued. There's either an administrative agreement to shut the ideas down, or places (such as HN) don't like the idea of having opinions on their site for whatever reason (harmful to the community) so they shut it down.
I'm certainly not getting thrown in jail. But you won't hear any dissenting opinions.
I posted this elsewhere. I'm posting it here so people on this thread can see it.
Thank you dang. This will happen.
More and more, social media platforms have been telling me - or using their algorithms to tell me - that my opinions, as educated and well argued as they are, are not welcome on their sites.
I did not expect to see this from Hacker News. Indeed, after the experiment banning political conversation, I had thought that the opposite decision had been made.
And finally, to be clear, I use HN for far more than political chatter. I read the technical content, and use it as a general news feed (one of my many). I comment where I am inspired to. I did not realize how often that ends up being of a political nature. I care deeply about individual freedoms and the technology that enables and disables these.
Can we find a mechanism whereby my nationality is confirmed? I would like to do this for the sake of my own vindication, as well as clarity to those who were/are suspicious.
I would like to add that I have never intentionally fueled a flamewar, nor do I think it's healthy or a good idea. I insist that you reread some of this after some time has passed and try to see it from my perspective: I have dissenting opinions and am a strong advocate for them. I do not try to get emotional rises out of people, or to encourage them to argument. I do try to make the strongest possible fair case for how I understand what is going on in the world today.
I want you to know that I feel victimized by this wretched thread (and others) and feel that you are blaming the victim for a widespread animosity you can't attribute to any single poster.
I argue that if you take some time and then look at my comment history you will find that it is composed of civil substantive discussions, gratifying intellectual curiosity and more.
In direct opposition to what you've said, I do not think that political topics are the opposite of civil or unsubstancial. Indeed, the very idea that politics is uncivil and must be unsubstantial is a plague on the very idea of democracy. I would ask you to square your comment here with the decision made at the end of the 'no politics week'.
More and more, social media platforms have been telling me - or using their algorithms to tell me - that my opinions, as educated and well argued as they are, are not welcome on their sites.
I did not expect to see this from Hacker News. Indeed, after the experiment banning political conversation, I had thought that the opposite decision had been made.
And finally, to be clear, I use HN for far more than political chatter. I read the technical content, and use it as a general news feed (one of my many). I comment where I am inspired to. I did not realize how often that ends up being of a political nature. I care deeply about individual freedoms and the technology that enables and disables these.
Can we find a mechanism whereby my nationality is confirmed? I would like to do this for the sake of my own vindication, as well as clarity to those who were/are suspicious.
Is there a term I should be using instead when I'm talking about international media coming from Western countries? I use the term Russian media and Chinese media, though I don't talk about them as much (I don't read them as often, though I try).
Thank you, it's interesting to hear what my account history looks like.
Please also check xnull, xnull3guest, xnull4guest, etc.
I have another account jwtadvice.
These are all on different computers. I was lazy and created different credentials for all of them.
If you have questions, whatever, let me know.
I understand why people are afraid that other commentators may be intelligence agents. I too suffer from this thought. The truth of the matter is that governments around the world participate in social media propaganda (US, Russia, and China included, don't kid yourself).
Regarding "pro-China" accusations. I'm pro-American. I love American values. And that's why I will criticize America when it does not live up to them.
I am one person. I am an advocate for decentralized systems, including in Russia and in China.
I've given advice to people on HN in these various accounts about where I get information. If you feel that I am well educated, I recommend finding one of those comments and looking into those sources. They include all open source information channels - and many of them are US official outlets (such as State Department press briefings).
Libya is a failed state. There is no recognized, coherent government of Libya.
> It's an air campaign against an ISIS stronghold, and it's pretty black and white in that most people agree that it should be done.
I don't think this is the case. But if it were, it would be an argument ad populum - a logical fallacy.
> So yes, America can be horrible. But America can also be the world's largest source of good, especially when other governments can't step up to the plate.
I think this is exactly right. It depends on how America chooses to use its power.
Today, it looks a lot like containment, of aggravating and funding extremist elements, of playing proxy war, of pursuing its interests behind a cloak of public relations.
The American incentive at this point of world history is to prevent, at all costs, other countries from becoming influential enough to challenge American decision making.
That's not just on the battlefield. America has been trying to block countries from lending money, from industrializing, and even from building independent news media industries. It has refused to join international institutions of law, such as the Convention on the Law of the Sea and the International Criminal Court, it has an overt first strike nuclear policy - the only of its kind in the world.
The United States faces a choice:
A.) allow other nations to grow, in a completely peaceful and benign manner, wealthy and strong enough risking that it will no longer a hegemon capable of making unilateral global decision making.
OR
B.) disrupt the growth of regions of the world, delaying the growth of competitor states, guaranteeing America maintains its 'critical leadership role' in the world.
Judging by actions rather than words, America chooses, and will continue to choose B. America is the country with the incentive to start wars.
The world should be multi-polar, and where it there is need for violence to rectify or prevent violence, it should be under international leadership with international decision making.
> why is it that you condemn describing what the Chinese government is doing wrong, but think it is good to do so for the US?
I condemn the Chinese for all of their civil rights infractions, watch: China has a serious problem with gross human and civil rights violations.
Anyway. People tend to react to accusation that the United States government commits serious human rights attrocities with a knee jerk - accusing the other person of being employed by other governments, etc.
This is not the case.
Let me put this out there, because I think it's important to understand.
China has been drastically improving in the field of human rights over time. It's trajectory is UP.
America has been drastically devolving in the field of human rights over time. It's trajectory is DOWN.
Is that concerning? Why do Americans feel that China is even a metric for comparison?
No government gives their people rights. Rights are inalienable.
The United States government has been taking away their people's rights.
Articles such as the above make China seem like the problem, or the most important problem.
If you are an American and you are concerned with human and civil rights, you won't win them by fighting the Chinese. You will win them by fighting your own government.
I take the allegation that I am a paid Chinese propagandist seriously. I reject this accusation fully.
I'm an American. I grew up in the New England area and I now live on the West Coast. I'm in Computer Security.
I do not know how to address a challenge like this?
How can I - without providing something absurd like my driver's license - prove that I am an American and of American decent?
Note that I was talking the other day about the situation in Cyprus, where I used the terminology 'aggressive' to describe Turkish behavior. I was accused of being a Greek.
Anyway, I fully reject the accusation that I am 50 Cent Party member or paid by any government, including my home country the United States.
I'm ashamed of my US college education and the US public school system, for it has failed at even the most simple task: endowing me with intelligible enough English so that random commentators on the internet are able to identify my first language.
I had seen statistics that our school systems were bad. But it wasn't really palpable until I got accused of having the vocabulary and grammatical equivalent of a paid Chinese shill.
You read the first Wikipedia article looking for reasons to dismiss it.
There's plenty of Civil Rights activity in China. It's a myopic American view that there is none and "no true Scotsman" all the civil rights law firms, attorneys and court cases should be dismissed out of hand for consideration.
In China, most disputes are resolved without institutional involvement whatsoever. Off the bat it's difficult to point to institutions and institutional processes and claim China doesn't have equivalence.
You are right. China is different. But it's not some wasteland dystopia from a fantasy novel. It has a wide and active civil society. That civil society is uniquely Chinese, and frankly, it's exciting to see it blossom as it has been since the 80s.
The most shocking thing is that the United States thinks China and Chinese society is a country to compare itself to. The ignorance of these comparisons is nearly as shocking.
You are censoring me.
If you would like, I would speak with you or other mods on the phone.