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Comment by csomar | Hacker News Reader

Imo, this is another show of why politics doesn't work. Or maybe why politics is not efficient.

Somebody does something (an act of terrorism). Instead of fixing the issue at its core, a politician will, instead, do something that is completely unrelated, random and inefficient but that looks like he is doing real work (banning muslims from entry).

A terrorist going on a killing spree is not different than a destabilized white American 30-something going on a killing spree. Both are destabilized (mentally) but for different reasons.

Most people would not care because it doesn't affect their bottom line. Banning muslims isn't an issue for your average American family, even if it doesn't stop terrorism.

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Spot on. In his ABC interview, he cited San Bernardino and 9/11 as reasons for this ban. The attackers in San Bernardino were a US citizen and Pakastani and the 9/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia. Neither covered by this ban.

He also left countries where he has investments out of the ban. That's...interesting.

One of the byproducts of Putin's rule in the first years was to convince the Russian public that politics doesn't work and that Russia needs a benevolent dictator to rule it. It looks like it took just one week of Trump to convince you of the same...

The politician's fallacy:

  "Something must be done.
   This is something.
   Therefore we must do it.

   But doing the wrong thing is worse than
   doing nothing."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vidzkYnaf6Y

This is the same line of reasoning that prevents valid use of profiling. Until you can clearly identify and prove the "issue" that you mention then we have to make do with half-solutions that may be the wrong answer in some instances. As an engineer/problem-solver I find this perfectly logical and reasonable. You can't just throw your arms up and say "sorry" when it could very well mean people dying and the dying of people is exactly what you're trying to prevent. If this blanket policy saves even one life I would find it justified.

Either way... It doesn't sound like the two individuals in the article are actual persecuted refugees. The article doesn't elaborate on that. We're just expected to assume that. But we're told what amazing humans they are and how much they helped the US. That sounds more like a dishing out of green card favors in return for services.

> If this blanket policy saves even one life I would find it justified.

Seems like you'd be in favor of banning peanuts and their related products, as well as guns, considering how many accidental deaths occur from both each year. And of course, who could forget the dreaded and somehow still legal dihydrogen monoxoide...

> It doesn't sound like the two individuals in the article are actual persecuted refugees. The article doesn't elaborate on that. We're just expected to assume that. But we're told what amazing humans they are and how much they helped the US. That sounds more like a dishing out of green card favors in return for services.

Generally speaking, it's implicit that their lives are at risk because they helped the United States, a country that tends not to get much love in the Middle East.

Its always "anything to save a life!" when its nobody you know. But take away your liberties in the interest of lifesaving, and its a different story. That's called hypocrisy. And in this case its very harmful.

I never said I would oppose it if it affected me or someone I know. Even though from that position I might think the response is overdoing it, I still think that they could have logical justification for it.

> It doesn't sound like the two individuals in the article are actual persecuted refugees. The article doesn't elaborate on that.

Yes it does...

*The filing said he [Darweesh] had been directly targeted twice while working for the United States Military."

So helping a defacto invading army and being targeted by the locals is now persecution? Scratch that, I guess I have a more narrow definition of what constitutes a valid refugee.

But yeah my bad I did miss that part of the article.

> If this blanket policy saves even one life I would find it justified.

It's quite likely to cost lives, since it also applies to refugees and asylum seekers. I wouldn't be surprised to find that it results in at least one suicide over the next few months.

Sure definitely, but for the most part a government is tasked with protecting its own citizens. Not the entire world population. If that weren't the case then I'm sorry but no brownie points can be given as there are countless scores of individuals dying all over the world right now and we're not doing absolutely everything we can in our power to stop it.

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