Hacker News Reader

Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with you that his comment cheapens the discussion. I do think that your comment cheapens it. His point that the US military, with its illegitimate wars, torture practices, and widespread murder of civilians, is reasonably considered to be a terrorist organization is a reasonable and good comment which advances the discussion intelligently and productively. The fact is that US military are in fact terrorists, as is the citizenry that supports this terrorist regime with tax money. So the honest and true response for US citizens at least would be to answer yes to that question.

View on HN

> The fact is that US military are in fact terrorists, as is the citizenry that supports this terrorist regime with tax money.

Please don't post shrill ideological denunciations to HN. It's not what this site is for, there's no substantive argument that requires it, and one needn't be a militarist to know that.

Oh come on. That was the substantive argument, expanding on what was said before in good faith and providing a reason why it matters to the discussion. Several other users here seem to think it has at least something to contribute, and it has already provoked a somewhat more nuanced discussion below. Calling it a "shrill ideological denunciation" is, itself, a shrill ideological denunciation. ("Shrill" in particular is a very unbecoming word for a supposedly apolitical moderator whose main enemy is supposed to be incivility.)

I am trying to be charitable in my interpretation here, but twice now you have zeroed in specifically on the charge that US military activities constitute 'terrorism'. It really looks like your objection is to that postulate, and not to its relevance to the discussion or the politeness with which it's advanced. If that's really the case, then you have taken an unequivocally political position which you are willing to enforce through moderation.

I don't want to believe this is the case, as it would mean the end of my participation on HN. So I would like to know what moderating principle is being used here. So far all I have are the following pejorative terms: "deeply uncool", "political flamebait", "shrill ideological denunciations", and "ideological rants".

That's not an accurate description of a comment that didn't only call the U.S. military terrorists, but U.S. citizens terrorists for paying taxes. By that logic Chomsky himself is a terrorist. That's absurd, and it's hardly politicized moderation to call it a bad comment for this site. (Actually I'm surprised that you'd defend this low-quality subthread to begin with, which started with a dose of political snark and descended from there. It ought to be obvious that that doesn't belong here, regardless of one's politics.)

The moderating principle is that comments should be civil and substantive. Heated rhetoric is neither, so it lowers the signal/noise ratio at both ends.

I'd be delighted to use more neutral, more precise, less pejorative language than I currently do to express what's wrong about that sort of comment. But I'm at the limit of what I know how to say, especially ex tempore. If you can think of a better phrase than shrill, etc., I'd like to know what it is—of course it would require suspending your politics to think of a good one, which isn't always easy to do.

dang/mod account, you host many political threads and then frequently censor viewpoints contrary to yours. Deleting off topic comments, spam and abuse is appropriate. Attacking and censoring all who are reasonably critical of the american military's torture and surveillance state, its illegitimate wars, and its harm to civilians, in the context of related discussion, is not appropriate.

To maintain the credibility of HN and ycombinator, I suggest you review your censorship and control issues associated with your moderators. Thank you.

I am very critical of America's torture, surveillance apparatus, wars and all the things you list. However, it cheapens the discussion you and I have against it. Terrorism is fundamentally very different from an invading and occupying force. The nature of the soldiers, their funding, purpose, propaganda used to send them off, as well as their very mission and goals all differ to such an extent. Calling this terrorism cheapens the word (terrorism), and makes it easy to ignore your somewhat valid points. I think there is a place for discussing the merits, drawbacks, and issues associated with America's unreasonable middle east adventures, but this is not it. It is also unreasonable to cry 'Censorship!' Whenever one strays and veers far off the OP topic. Please, do put up a thread, a blog, a news article and we can discuss, debate, and learn together about which is which, and why. But not here, and not in a way that cheapens the wonderful site that this is. Let us do all we can to not become reddit.

You've sidestepped the issue with your comment in a way that unfortunately just confirms it. But let me try to answer these concerns.

As I said, there's no defense of militarism in asking people not to post ideological rants here. If that weren't true, it would mean there is no civil way to state your view. That would be a rather strong refutation of said view.

Re my personal opinions: you're assuming that you know what they are and then getting angry at your assumption. That's a self-referential activity.

I know how tempting it is to conclude, when we moderate X on HN, that our politics must be anti-X. But even perfectly apolitical moderation, if it were possible, would generate the same reactions—more of them, actually, because there would be more Xs. So that feeling is not to be trusted. It's too easily explained by the simpler theory that none of us likes it when our own statements, or ones we agree with, get criticized.

Classifying the US military forces like that just cheapens the word "terrorist". I'm not arguing that everything the US did in Iraq was morally right or justifiable, but it's generally implied that terrorists are almost always non-state actors. If you use that definition almost every nation in the world is full of terrorists. China, North Korea, and large swaths of the Middle East enforce their power using fear, so they're all terrorists. You can chuck in Japan, Italy and Germany for their involvement in WWII and inhumane treatment of PoWs.

In fact, I think Switzerland may be the only country in the world not considered to be terroristic, purely because of their lack of involvement in any major modern wars.

Torture and attacks on civilian populations are both terrorist actions.

If you define terrorism as necessarily non-state, then you have to discard the state sponsored terrorism of Libya, ISIS (which is in fact now a state), Afghanistan, Nazi Germany, etc. I do not believe that discarding state sponsored terrorism as "not terrorist" by defining terrorism as not possible by states to be a useful definition, do you?

> ISIS (which is in fact now a state)

No. Absolutely no state in the world recognizes ISIS as a state. State is a circular definition by nature btw.

The US does not use terror as a weapon in the same way terrorists do. The US Military does not purposely target the innocent.

I think that's a good point, but to make a counterpoint, there are many documented cases of their soldiers independently doing just that.

Almost by definition, a terrorist is on the other side of the conflict. Therefore, relative to the US, they are not terrorists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com