I agree we should hold police accountable, which is why I voted for whatever the BLM protestors asked for in my city of Portland. When they protested, I supported them. When they harassed mayor wheeler, I supported them.
When they started destroying local businesses, I didn't support them. I posted once on my next door to please let's all remain peaceful and stop the destruction of local small businesses, and was met with immediate condemnations of being racist. I got so many hate messages, despite being brown myself, that I eventually left next door, out of fear of doxxing.
When BLM then went and tagged Pelosi and McConnell's homes, I cheered them on. I don't mind seeing people harass politicians. I just don't want them destroying private citizen's stuff, or killing them when they defend it.
And I don't read Breitbart. I read Mother Jones and the New Yorker, and sometimes I read Breitbart when left wing people get outraged by their articles.
But they called the rallies (the completely peaceful ones) dangerous white supremacist meetings. I am a brown man. They are none of those things. The hyperbole is astounding.
I'm so done. If I cannot live in a country where a politician, of any background, cannot call on their supporters to protest, I will do like my parents did and emigrate.
I cannot believe this is going on in America. This is exactly why my parents left their country to come here. They thought people were free to talk and believe here, independent of the actions of others in their group. This is insanity at every level. I cannot believe I'm seeing Americans go along with it, and there's only one politician in the opposition party (Tulsi Gabbard) with any gumption to downright criticize it.
> IMO he should've been banned from Twitter on the spot after he retweeted a video of a gut shouting white power at a bunch of black people
Oh my goodness, this is such a farce. I remember that video, and you have to have super hearing to even decipher that. Without the transcript, I wouldn't even have heard it. He also took it down once people brought it up.
In conclusion, I am stunned. Throughout his entire term and his entire 2016 campaign, he has not once called for violence, and yet I hear continuously how evil he is. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris calls for an uprising, Maxine waters to confront people wherever they go and not leave them in peace, Pelosi denies there is any rioting at all and refuses to condemn it, etc, and I am to believe that Donald Trump told people to vandalize the US capitol. Unlike all the politicians I mentioned above, the moment Trump heard about the violent breakins, he immediately told people to go home. That puts him on a wholly different moral playing field than Harris and Biden who took many days or weeks to even acknowledge the violence over the summer. I cannot believe this. I thought political speech was allowed in America.
By that metric, I can point to many statements by many democrats, including the incoming Vice President, that 'directly incited' violence. This is a ridiculous standard. The double think is insane.
Yes! Thank you! And now the same politicians and reporters who said that are pretending to care for the police hurt in this riot and talking about how important law enforcement is.
Forgive me for believing that law enforcement protecting family businesses is 1000x more important than law enforcement protecting politicians.
EDIT: love the downvotes from people who believe torching family businesses, often immigrant ones, is cool! I'm telling you guys keep downvoting. You really look like the good guys.
Or will we keep justifying direct justifications of violence, while ignoring the calls to peace spoken and written by Trump.
Honestly, I'm done at this point. I hope people like you keep saying what you're saying. You'll just convince more people, just like y'all have convinced me.
Here's vice interviewing a man who just shot a trump supporter and killed him. They did this after he had done so, but before he was turned over to police. Harboring a criminal is illegal: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7g8vb/man-linked-to-killing...
EDIT: and just like I thought, from the downvotes, people actually agree with the direct calls to violence issued by these mainstream outlets that led to over 30 deaths this summr]er, and $2billion in damages, mainly to small businesses all over america. The lack of moral convictions on this forum is pathetic.
Oh got it, the endgame is to downvote me into oblivion! How incredibly, incredibly childish. This country really needs to improve at the most basic human levels.
What part of Trump's policies are extremist? I ask this question honestly. None of his policies are extremist in the slightest. Even the mob on the sixth are just crazy supporters. Trump instructed them to be peaceful repeatedly, even while they were doing it. I understand that he is brusque and has a brash personality, but I cannot understand what it is about him that makes him more extreme than any other previous US president. I just do not understand.
This is an incredibly honest question. I typically ask it, people give me examples, and then I think back to previous presidents in my lifetime (none of whom I've supported, mind you), and can recall pretty much equivalent situations. Then the person I speak with gets angry and walks away really mad at me for what feels like simply remembering things that have happened in my life. I cannot understand it, and frankly, the simple refusal of people to actively engage has made me go from not liking Trump for his personality, to honestly finding him a hero. Please, will someone calmly explain to me what is extreme about Trump's policies?
I don't label Democrat policies as extreme despite no longer being part of that party and not agreeing with any of them. I don't understand the hyperbole.
I have never said that speech should be fully free. I do have criteria that would be used to censor speech. However, neither the sixth riots or the summer riots had many actors whose speech I believe ought to have been banned.
For example, while I believe the democratic party spurred on or sat back in silence while BLM and Antifa rioted, most democratic politicians did not do anything that deserves censorship. Even Kamala Harris's financial support of those who looted and destroyed police stations in Minneapolis should not be censored -- the bail she asked for was a completely legal thing to provide.
As for the sixth, Trump's posts were entirely peaceful. He consistently asked for a peaceful demonstration. There are those claiming that using phrasing like 'fight' or 'take your country back', etc, incite violence. I do not believe that for one minute. Banning the opposition from saying they should 'fight' the incumbents or 'take the country back' from them seems incredibly dangerous. Even such colorful language as asking for politicians heads on a platter should not be banned (I recall several incidences of twitter accounts depicting Trump's beheading).
Politics in general leads to strong emotions. People have strong emotions over politicians. English has lots of colorful language for people we don't like. I believe the standards for 'violence' against politicians ought to be much lower than for calling for violence against people, especially non-governmental agents. For example, I do believe some of the BLM incitement of anger that instructed people to burn or loot local businesses (especially when that anger and mob then led to deaths), ought to have been soundly condemned, and I believe twitter should have flagged it and taken some measures to punish the account (although I still think outright censorship for one post would be overkill).
This is because these posts direct anger indiscriminately at people of a certain class, not one specific person who may actually have power. I find those kinds of posts highly problematic, and those would be the first I would censor, but again, I think we have seen only a handful of those over the past year. Certainly, I don't think any major politician has reached that bar.
So no, I do not believe in no censorship ever, I just have very open standards as to what speech to allow that would mainly have me allowing the vast majority of speech. I am not going to tighten my standards simply because left-wingers find them distasteful or want to accuse me of being a free speech zealot. I've stood on these same principles since when I was a democrat, and I'll stand on them now.
I am a brown man who has been subject to many racist attacks. After 9/11 my elementary school classmates called me a terrorist. My father and I (when I was a young boy) was chased out of a car dealership by a mad salesman yelling strawberry picker at us. Walking through the downtown of my city with my white wife, I have been harassed by people who don't like we are in an interracial marriage.
I still do not believe that racism or incidents of racism, including the ones I described above, are 'objectively' human rights issues. They are clearly quite subjective, since they only really exist in my experience. My religion (which most would also describe as subjective) tells me that these experiences have absolute moral character, but barring my reference to that, I cannot say for sure whether or not such discourse is objectively wrong.
I especially have trouble labeling the discourse as 'objectively' a human rights violation when none of the behavior I described above has come from anyone in any position to have power over my life or my rights.
Honestly, to continue to harp on those individuals that have mistreated me would be incredibly childish.
Fascism is quite literally the merger of corporations with government (see corporatism [1]). In non-Nazi Fascist countries, such as proto-fascist pre-Anschluss Austria and Mussolini's Italy, the government was organized such that individuals and 'stakeholders' (i.e., companies, unions, and guilds) were given a say in government. In interviews with NYT journalists, this is the eventual structure that even Adolf Hitler also had in mind after the revolution was through [3].
Yesterday, we saw the American corporate board take actions that used to be the sole purview of a government. They did this at a time while the current administration (the one they harmed) pursues anti-trust lawsuits against them. This is a clear blurring in the distinction between the incoming administration's government and corporations. The incoming administration would do best to criticize the banning of their opposition. Not only would it make them look like they're taking the 'higher road', it would put them in line with other major liberal western powers, such as Germany, France, etc, all of whom have condemned what happened yesterday. However, instead, we have seen the embrace of these corporate actions by the new congress. It is especially concerning when the incoming president took more donations than his opposition from large corporations [2].
This is very concerning, and -- unlike the constant doom-predictions of 'fasciscm' of the last four years, which have been made without any attention paid to the history of fascism -- brings us closer to actual fascism -- that is to say, the merger of corporations, unions, and government -- than any action of the last four years. That is not to say we're Nazi Germany by any means (for that we'd have to start injecting the language of racial superiority into the picture), but I just want to point this out. The number of people cheering uncritically (especially those in government) is incredibly concerning.
"Asked if, after four years or twenty years of dictator ship, he foresaw the resumption of parliamentary government in Germany, the Chancellor [Hitler] paused: 'Yes,' he said finally, 'but with a Parliament of another and better type, in which representation will be on a technical basis. Such a development is the Italian corporative State.' (this is what I reference above on Wikipedia)
So, what's the end game here? Can I not ever talk about my opinion to anybody? Can I share it with my wife? Can my wife look at what's going on in the world and disapprove, or is that not allowed? Are people who believe as I do simply to not exist? Should we be exterminated? Should our lives simply be made so miserable that we'd rather we were killed in Gulags? Exactly what are you attempting to accomplish here, because right now, I am not allowed to talk with people on facebook (group bans); I can't talk on reddit (subreddit bans); I can't talk in church (lockdowns). As we saw with Parler (which we were promised was safe, because now the central authority was not someone who didn't like me), I also can't make my own app or service with my tech skills, because they'll be banned too. I can talk with my wife and family, so I guess I'll just keep on breeding to make more people to talk to, until you decide that the school system ought to be used to take my children, nieces, and nephews away, as we've seen in other western countries already, or until we're not allowed to have kids, as has been proposed by some journals and implemented in other countries (to much applause, mind you).
That sounds like a really great world you have planned for us. I am so glad my parents fled a third world country where our ethnic group made us be treated like trash to escape to this! This is exactly what they had in mind when they left :)
I guess I just don't really get it. I've accepted that my ideology has lost; all I ask is to be left alone to work, garden, own my home, have my children, raise my children, and let them do the same. I have already unregistered to vote, and have no more interest in politics, other than to complain about it online. Am I allowed to do this? What more must I do to not be considered an evil monster? Honestly, my treatment on Hacker News over the past year has been worse than the combined effect of racism growing up brown in a mostly white neighborhood during 9/11. This is insanity at every level.
> Based on your logic, if both parties rejected Stalin then you'd be in favor of him.
Yes, I'd rather have a social democrat that rejects Stalin than a fiscal conservative that embraced him.
Unlike the various 'what-ifs' of policy issues, anyone can examine the actual record of Stalin and his policies. And, in my opinion, anyone who finds him a source of inspiration, regardless of their stated policy preferences, has a severe lack of judgement.
Right. I used parler to do such things as follow EWTN. I stopped using Twitter for this sort of thing because I figured that -- with EWTN's stance on the trans issue -- it was only a matter of time before they were banned (there had been talk of banning JK Rowling for similar tweets at the time, so it's a reasonable fear). I joined parler to not have to worry about this. This constant belittling of anyone who does not completely toe the line of whatever ethical system has taken over Twitter to classify people like me -- a brown man with immigrant parents -- as white supremacists is scary, dystopian, and insane.
I'm a trump supporter. I don't believe the election was stolen necessarily. However, there are major issues that have gone unresolved and unexamined by courts and cases dismissed without investigation.
For example, in PA, a judge ordered the election officials to allow republican watchers to view the counting, and struck down the distance requirements set by the governor due to COVID. However, election officials refused to do so, violating a court order. The GOP sued the officials, but the court dismissed it due to standing. They didn't even consider the complaint. Then a voter group tried to sue. They dismissed that for standing. Then trump sued, they dismissed that too. So if neither the political party, the voters, nor the candidate purportedly affected has standing to force the state to allow the vote to be examined and cannot bring a case against an official violating a court order -- then who exactly has that right? Can any election official simply do what they want?
Or in the TX v PA case, the Supreme Court really displayed major cowardice. They ought to have taken the case, examined the merits, and said yes or no. They dismissed it due to lack of standing. The case asked a very important question -- the Constitution says only the legislature sets the election rules, but in PA, the governor and SoS made up rules. Additionally, the PA supreme court simply extended a deadline set by the legislature. If indeed the legislature is the only one who can make electoin rules, then these moves are clearly illegal. The Court should have said if it's okay or not. They could have not granted the relief requested, which I do admit is a major ask. But they should have ruled on whether or not the PA Supreme Court or the governor's actions were legal.
To many republicans, it seems as if there were bad actors who got away with not following the law. It now seems that governors, courts, etc can simply set whatever election rules they want and get away with it. Even if it wouldn't have changed the outcome, I'd like to see a court penalize those officials in PA who disobeyed a court order, or explain in clear legal detail after hearing a case as to why those officials were right to do so.
I also want explanations into why the counting stopped. It is quite clear now that the supposed water leak in Atlanta was a simple toilet overflow that should not have caused anything to stop. Why did they do that, and why did they report it as a leak? Why did we see major drops for Biden with zero votes for Trump? Again, I am ready to concede that Biden won. In fact, I think it likely. However, it is crazy to me that so far not a single body has been willing to investigate these seeming discrepancies and instead told the groups interested in seeking resolution that they have no standing to question it.
Telling people that they do not deserve an answer is what leads to the behavior we're seeing now.
The courts made a huge mistake by simply dismissing on standing. Rumor has it that John Roberts didn't want to take the case due to fear of a mob... Well he got his mob, just not the one he expected.
Downvoters: please engage in good faith. Someone asked if there was anyone who believed the election was 'stolen'. I have given my good faith answer as to what I would have liked to have seen in order for me to fully trust our elections. You may disagree with me, but I'm simply giving my solicited opinion.
When they started destroying local businesses, I didn't support them. I posted once on my next door to please let's all remain peaceful and stop the destruction of local small businesses, and was met with immediate condemnations of being racist. I got so many hate messages, despite being brown myself, that I eventually left next door, out of fear of doxxing.
When BLM then went and tagged Pelosi and McConnell's homes, I cheered them on. I don't mind seeing people harass politicians. I just don't want them destroying private citizen's stuff, or killing them when they defend it.
And I don't read Breitbart. I read Mother Jones and the New Yorker, and sometimes I read Breitbart when left wing people get outraged by their articles.