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Comment by becarefulyo | Hacker News Reader

So your argument is that if you didn't do what was right before, you shouldn't do what's right now?

I'm all for doing what's right now, but let's try and address the root of the problem instead of continuing to have partisan, knee-jerk reactions. There's way too many Democrats calling out Trump who have STILL not said a peep about the weapons we funnel into these civil wars or the bombs we drop ourselves, or the rest of the screwed up immigration process, none of which Obama did much to slow down. I began and finished the process of immigration to the US under well-established Democrat presidencies, and all of the things that people are saying is evil on principle about Trump's plan are things I had to go through. My citizenship interview was almost entirely an ignorant interrogation about my religious and reproductive choices. There's a lot of things in my documentation that should be a yellow flag to someone screening immigrants, and none of it got brought up. Only my religion and number of kids. My family members had to return back to our country and retry multiple times because of ridiculous bureaucracy, also fleeing a civil war. But now that Trump does it, we're marching? Great. But when a Democrat gets back into office I'll be pissed if everyone forgets their principles and keeps funneling power to the executive because it suits them at the time.

The other problems still exist and in my opinion are far worse. My argument is that we should prioritize problems like those over the current outcry.

This is not the only issue people are protesting.

People often support the ACLU because they believe that threats to free speech and free assembly are systemic and have potentially catastrophic future consequences. Doing so does not imply an absence of action in other arenas, and IMO it's dangerous to assume that.

The timing for this is peculiar. I'll give my hypothesis. Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks because it was "their guy" in office. This huge revelation that our constitutional rights were being systematically violated didn't register because of cognitive dissonance.

Liberals are finally piecing the puzzle together. The executive branch with dragnet surveillance, infinite military capabilities, the right to detain and torture anyone including US citizens is the recipe for disaster.

As a libertarian I welcome anyone joining the fight for our constitutional rights regardless of what triggers them.

> Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks

Yes, lots of them did. In fact, it was liberals that organized around the information in the leaks, liberal groups that sponsors the lawsuits based on the leaks that got at least one program revealed by the leaks ruled to be illegal by the courts, liberals who kept calling for a pardon, and liberal media personalities that reached out to Snowden in Russia and broadcast his views to the positive reception from their liberal audiences.

Quite a lot of liberals criticized Obama throughout his Presidency on national security and civil liberties, and equal rights issues, including Guantanamo (even though the closure was blocked by Congress), surveillance, drone strikes, the treatment of Manning and Snowden, the initial feet dragging on DADT, the administration's failure to intervene as timely as critics on the left would have liked in various state and local law enforcement issues, issues surrounding the DAPL protests, etc.

> Yes, lots of them did.

I'm not disputing that, but my point is there wasn't the current sense of urgency to reign in the executive branch. HN didn't partner with the ACLU and unicorns didn't use the situation as a PR piece.

But what's changed? The president decided to restrict travel and "enhance" screening from muslim countries? Ok.. Yet Obama's drone usage in Islamic countries wasn't good enough to get this response? Or maybe the American citizens Obama decided to assassinate without due process, that didn't raise any eyebrows?

I think my point stands. Obama was so damn charismatic that only he could have pulled that off without major backlash. The vast majority of voting democrats just didn't care about constitutional rights when Obama was in office, and the renewed interest is politically motivated. And for that, I'm thankful to have this clown in office.

"And for that, I'm thankful to have this clown in office."

I wonder if anyone said the same thing about emperor Nero's role in raising the profile of fire safety.

> Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks because it was "their guy" in office.

You're painting with a very broad brush there, smokeyj. Plenty of us were either anticipating (but unable to verify) the sorts of things he leaked or on the side of the leak once it happened. Liberal is not equal to `not libertarian`. Perhaps to `not Libertarian`. Notice the capital there. Little-l libertarianism has long been a major part of the liberal perspective, particularly relating to free speech, press, religion, and privacy rights, and due process.

A lot of people believe that we are in the midst of a fascist takeover of the United States government. The most terrifying part is that this can't simply be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, given the actions that have taken place so far.

I don't see how "the current outcry" can possibly be dismissed in this context, or how anything else could be more important.

> The most terrifying part is that this can't simply be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, given the actions that have taken place so far.

Yes it can, and an awful lot of people are doing just that.

The breakdown of the rule of law is probably worse in that it will contain all the aforementioned, and more.

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