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Comment by sctb | Hacker News Reader

Hacker News is not a site for engaging in political battle. Most politics are off-topic, but a blanket ban would deprive the community of topics that are indeed intellectually interesting, or representative of new phenomena. The political discussions that we do have, then, are for the community, and the expectation is that comments are thoughtful, patient, civil, and substantive.

Creating accounts that only post politically is not good community behavior, nor is reposting comments that have been flagged, nor is making deliberately inflammatory (troll) statements as you have. These behaviors are against the goals of this site and they just don't belong.

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On the first two points I agree with you. Those are good community guidelines here. However, HN is allowing many political threads lately and it's out of order to single out someone for political comments you don't agree with. Nowhere did I make troll statements and that's not something you are capable of substantiating. No government is perfect and beyond criticism and you should not attack someone for having the bravery to be a political dissident no matter how scared or biased you are.

We ban accounts that abuse this site from any political angle. You're abusing HN by using it primarily for political battle, tossing Molotov cocktails ("now we know you can only be racist if you're a white European") and reposting flagged comments. That's indeed trolling, in effect if not intent.

That's not appropriate. My comment already accepts and agree with the guidelines about political posts, however, my point was that you can't entertain political posts in general (as HN has recently) while criticizing political posts you disagree with as off-topic, especially If they are relevant to a parent. You just ignore that double standard though and go right for slandering me and my comments, and claim all accounts are subject to this treatment, which just isn't true and anyone who reads HN lately knows that since the Trump Presidency. How many users banned for Trump Comments? Please tell me. Further, derision of political speech that you disagree with as 'throwing molotov cocktails' is nothing more than unsubstantiated slander, which was exactly the thing that I posted about in the first place in response to another user's criticism: you can't say anything without being slandered and having your words twisted (in this case into violent rioting or figurative violent trolling? Give me a break). You can write anything about Trump here, even opinions about his intelligence or character, but address a real double standard with this one country and you'll be labelled as a violent troll causing destruction, and you're proving that. It's Orwellian political correctness and censorship. You are better than this. By the way, the idea that Whites are the only racists is not something I invented, it's a common theme now. I.E. Mic recently ran a piece about "all whites are racist," and it's only possible for Whites to be racist because racism is "prejudice plus power." So calm down and do a reality check on what you're saying, please. I won't use this account primarily for political debate, or repost any comments, I can respect that, but also don't use your authority to project double standards on political speech you disagree with. That's why people would feel compelled to repost censored comments. Even if it is a breach of guidelines. At any rate I can respect that rule in the future. And I don't even disagree with Israel's existence or think they're even generally 'a bad country,' that's what's the most ridiculous about this. In fact, I think They have a lot to be admired for and have done a lot of good. I'll leave it at that.

Every commenter we chide (or ban) for abusing this site with political battle thinks we're siding with their political enemies. That's understandable but it's not based on data—it comes from the partisan passion that drives the political battle in the first place.

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