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Comment by binarycrusader | Hacker News Reader

Anti-trump stories? This is not an anti-trump story.

This is a discussion of a likely illegal, unconstitutional, dehumanizing, and ill-considered executive order that affects the lives of many people on HN and related to them.

Everyone wants to ignore problems that don't affect them, which is how the US ended up with its current leadership.

While I can sympathise with the desire for peace, now is not the time, and I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to put up with it. The time for silence is over.

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The time for silence is over.

Hope it's not too late.

> This is a discussion of a likely illegal, unconstitutional, dehumanizing, and ill-considered executive order that affects the lives of many people on HN and related to them.

It is also a policy which was specifically supported by a significant portion of the US electorate to the point that a presidential candidate managed to win the US presidential elections by promising just that.

Additionally, it appears that the same policy was already implemented by former US presidents, except with some nuances regarding current visa holders.

As a non-US citizen whose career may quite possibly involve emigrating to the US, I can tell you that regarding these immigration issues the only thing that actually changed with Trump is this newfound sentiment against the US's immigration policy, which quite frankly appears to be motivated solely by an unwillingness to accept the outcome of the US presidential elections.

I've seen multiple people write that it's illegal or unconstitutional, but I don't understand how. Can you help me connect the dots to see which law or part of the constitution it violates?

It's a story that is overwhelmingly of political and media convenience. There was hardly peep about it being illegal, unconstitutional, dehumanizing, or ill-considered when Obama banned Iraqis for six months in 2011. Gee, I wonder why.

The reason people are upset is because banning Muslims from many countries, when a chief political advisor and propagandist [1] Bannon has called for a white-only US, is what authoritarians do.

Hannah Arendt in her work on 1930s Germany described how well meaning people would fact check the government, but the government's statements were not about what was was true, but what would need to be true to justify their actions.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CykynrCXEAAJOSE.jpg:large

[1] Breitbart.

The president at that time didn't write an executive order preventing the entry of holders of legally approved visas or green cards from entering the country.

What they did do was pause the refugee program, which is wildly different than what you're attempting to imply:

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/18/the-obama-administration...

And even if what you did imply happened and I've somehow missed that, you don't get to use past wrongs to justify present wrongs.

You're very confused. I'm not justifying present wrongs.

I'm proclaiming that the dumbest thing a human rights supporting people can do, is not protest their own President out of partisan loyalty / blindness.

Scenario: you believe Obama was overwhelmingly a decent person. You trust him with various questionable policies, so you don't protest his bad actions, whether related to his vast violations of civil liberties around spying, or the 2011 ban on Iraqi refugees, or his vicious and persistent attacks on press freedom.

It is thus, that by not protesting your own President (who is dramatically more likely to listen to his own voters), you risk allowing his bad expansion of power to be handed down to following Presidents who may be dangerous or tyrannical in any number of ways and may abuse the new powers in question.

If one is a liberal, this is why it's critical to protest as loud as possible about any civil liberty abuses committed by a liberal President. By the time you're protesting Trump's abuse of Obama's (or Bush's) increased NSA powers, it's far, far, far too late.

> By the time you're protesting Trump's abuse of Obama's (or Bush's) increased NSA powers, it's far, far, far too late.

...And what is the precedent for "if you didn't protest back then, then you're just fucking screwed so shut the fuck up"? People who didn't vote Trump aren't happy about the current state of affairs, but I don't think they believe America has descended into a fascist state.

The premise isn't that the partisan left that intentionally ignored Obama's abuses should just shut up, but rather that it's very likely already too late.

Roll back Obama's 10x increase in NSA spying capabilities? Not a chance. The Republicans have the house, senate, supreme court, executive branch, and most of the states. The left should have been loudly protesting their own President's rights violations, that was the only shot they had. This was all very predictable, inevitably a dangerous person will come into the Presidency, that's why you don't allow someone like Obama (or anyone) to push through such extraordinarily dangerous policies if you can help it.

The protesting over things like the wall or this temporary ban on people coming into the US from seven nations, is a sideshow to the abuses Obama and Bush's espionage efforts will make possible in the next decade. Nothing can be done about that now, Trump isn't going to care about liberal protests against spying programs.

The point is, the next time you get a liberal President in office, protest like crazy, encourage them to not violate civil liberties; rather, encourage them to protect them aggressively. Protesting Obama might have worked, protesting Trump is going to be mostly ineffectual.

None of this matters. It doesn't matter what people did or didn't do in the past, and it doesn't matter what they'll do at some indefinite point in the future. This is something that's happening right now. I have no idea why you would be more focused on other things that other people may or may not have done at other times than this thing that is most definitely happening right now. If you want to blame liberal governments for this, remember that the more liberal candidate argued just as passionately against this approach, as the victorious candidate argued in favor of it. So I don't see how you can claim that this is the fault of anyone but the person who is currently making this happen.

I'm proclaiming that the dumbest thing a human rights supporting people can do, is not protest their own President out of partisan loyalty / blindness.

Well, since we only have one president currently, I don't know what point you're trying to make.

Also, some of us did protest the unreasonable expansion of power by previous administrations.

I don't see what anything you're saying has to do with my original comments.

The point is extremely obvious. The left waited until Trump to protest things that Obama had either already done, or has helped to make possible. It's the exact same thing they did in turning a blind eye to Clinton's various abuses, but the instant Bush was President, they rediscovered civil liberties. Partisan hypocrisy, leading to dangerous increases in executive power, handed down to future Presidents whose behavior you can't predict.

The left was very quiet while Obama was violating the civil liberties of hundreds of millions of people by massively increasing the scale of spying, not to mention using his DOJ to constantly fend off challenges to such rights abuses.

The left was very quiet as Obama prosecuted the most aggressive campaign against freedom of the press in US history.

The left was very quiet as Obama murdered tens of thousands of civilians in Syria with his bombing campaign, not to mention arming terrorists within Syria to help escalate the destruction on the ground.

Obama supports the Secure Fence Act or a refugee ban, the left remains very quiet.

Trump becomes President. The left widely rediscovers civil liberties again. Waiting until that point, means you waited too long.

You've been making many comments to this effect. Do you agree with the Executive Order? If you disagree with the Executive Order do you think it's worth protesting? If you think it's worth protesting, will you allow others to protest with you even if they didn't protest to your satisfaction for similar issues in the past?

If you agree with the order, please say so explicitly. If you disagree but don't think it's worth protesting, what's the point of your comment? If it's worth protesting, can you forgive others their past mistakes and let them join you now?

Or are you content to just repeatedly point out what you perceive as hypocrisy? If that's all it is, at this point it's no longer civil or substantive, and please stop.

If I'm misunderstanding your goal, please do elaborate and correct me.

edit: let me put it in even more simple terms. I think the Democrats should be overwhelmingly focused on rebuilding their party right now (in terms of where their energy is going), in extraordinarily strict terms, as the party of civil liberties. No exceptions. If their next President crosses any lines, mass protests must ensue, otherwise their party can't be taken seriously. One of the problems the Dems have right now is the lack of credibility as they intentionally failed to widely protest nearly all of Obama's rights abuses. I won't support them because I have very good reason to believe they're frauds on civil liberties; as a voter, they get my support when they act consistently. That effort would be far more useful, than protesting Trump and the Republicans, who are not going to listen and do not have to for now (and this isn't to say there shouldn't be legal challenges thrown at bad policy).

---

I think it's barely worth protesting now (in the style it's mostly being done), because of how ineffectual that will be in obtaining results. Legal challenges are likely the only meaningful thing that can occur at this point. The protestors should be focused almost exclusively on raising money for that purpose, more so than marching or showing up at airports. Sergey Brin could make a difference by putting together a $100 million civil liberties fund, to try to roll back Obama's spying programs, and legally challenging the Trump policies he disagrees with such as this temporary ban. Showing up at the airport won't do a thing, the Republicans have all the power. It's equivalent to putting a bumper sticker on your car.

Unfortunately for most of the left (to one degree or another), they made a massive mistake in three big ways: not turning out for the election in nearly the numbers they should have, turning a blind eye as Sanders was intentionally sabotaged by the DNC, and turning a blind eye to Obama's abuses.

They can't put the genie back in the bottle under Trump. I think the single most important point is: they better remember how this feels, the next time they are fawning over a liberal President, because that's exactly when they should be protesting. Yet I don't see too many people talking about this, and those that attempt to are roundly getting shouted down. It's the same thing/effect John Cusack got to enjoy, as he tried to speak out against Obama and was shunned for it (now he'll be a hero again); that is, the vast partisan hypocrisy.

I think it's barely worth protesting now (in the style it's mostly being done), because of how ineffectual that will be in obtaining results.

It certainly appears that the protests today had some effect. It at least increased awareness. Don't dismiss protests with specific purposes out of hand. The MLK Jr and others of the Civil Rights Movement were very effective when doing just that. And there are those on HN today that participated.

In terms of money, I've read numerous comments where members have made donations to the ACLU and other organizations.

I agree with you that there should have been more done to roll back the infringements on civil liberties that go back all the way to at least the Patriot Act. There were people that did, even though it was very difficult to do so without being cast as unpatriotic. I don't see how it does anyone any good to say "Well, you missed your chance then! Just wait until you get a president you like, you can protest then!"

As for "fawning over a liberal president", have you noticed the contortions some are bending themselves into reconciling the many blatant mistruths and inconsistencies uttered by Trump during the campaign? For goodness' sake. Not everyone on either side fits in either category, but there are those who do. Focusing on that and using such pejorative language does nothing to help the situation.

Certainly people should remain critical of even the politicians they vote for. With a limited number of parties, it's unlikely that any one candidate is going to align perfectly with anyone's particular set of values. But to admonish people to stop now because they weren't adequately righteous in the past is just asinine.

And there are those of us who aren't really happy put in one party or the other, but have issues we care strongly about. Do we get categorized as a Democrat when we happen to align with them and a Republican on other issues? What are we supposed to do, regardless of which party the President aligns with, or which party holds a majority in which chamber of Congress? Let people work together on the issues they care about, regardless of party affiliation.

Unless you have another agenda.

I ask you again: Do you support the Executive Order?

We really need to move beyond this binary division. Yes, there are partisan cheerleaders on both sides that will only parrot opinion that matches their sides. So what? They can be safely ignored.

Personally, I saw plenty of articles sources that criticized the NSA snooping, including liberal sources (also more libertarian ones). I saw plenty of articles criticizing the Syrian bombing (and articles that wanted more intervention, again from various viewpoints). I also saw criticism of the refugee ban.

I personally lean moderate left, and yet there is a lot in Obama's presidency that I didn't care for one bit.

I am hoping that there is enough on the right that cares more about civil liberties vs. partianship too, and is appalled by Trump's actions.

Because it has nothing to do with what Obama did. Any country has the right to decide who they accept on their soil or not. But only authoritarians remove that right at the stroke of a pen without due process to those who have obtained it legally and have never committed a crime.

Essentially, what the administration is saying now is that it doesn't matter if a person has a certain right granted to them in accordance to the law, this right can be removed unilaterally by the President. If you don't care about that, wait until they come for you or your family.

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