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Comment by Altay- | Hacker News Reader

As a Turk, I think the identity issue is not that the Armenian/Assyrian/etc genocides didn't occur. Its that the exact same sorts of mass executions/population removals had occurred to the Muslims of the Balkans in the decades preceding WW1.

Turkish nationalism, of the genocidal ethnocentric variant, was a direct result of what Turkish leaders at the time personally experienced in the Balkans. The lesson learned was 100s of years of residence in a land didn't entitle you to anything. Just as Turkish reformists copied European concepts in warfare, education, parliamentary reform, they also copied population removal policies.

My only regret today is my ancestors didn't finish the job of population removal when they had the shot. Turkey would be that much closer to Caspian Sea access today.

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It should be clear that advocating population removal is the kind of uncivil and inflammatory comment that we need precisely zero of here. We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14168194.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It makes me a bit sad that this comment was killed. I've never before been exposed to the point of view expressed within it, which seems to be genuinely held by the commenter, and it makes me wonder how many other genuinely held points of view I've never heard because someone else didn't want me to be able to form my own opinion on it.

I think it's important for people to understand where others are coming from, and it doesn't seem like this particular point of view could be expressed in any form, no matter how polite, without being removed from this forum. I think that's unfortunate.

In your profile you can set the showdead=yes to see those comments. There's advocating genocide, and shooting people on sight in an older comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10721429

I have showdead on, which is why I was able to see the comment.

There's advocating genocide, and shooting people on sight in an older comment.

I understand you're not the person that killed the comment, but could the commenter have expressed either of those points of view in a way that wouldn't have resulted in them being removed? If not, I think that's unfortunate. We're adults here and should be able to handle genuine conversation on sensitive topics, I would hope.

You've expressed your point quite clearly, and I appreciate it. Hacker News is not the place for every kind of discussion, and it's fair for users to flag this comment because the guidelines say that we're not here to have this particular one. If civility entails politeness out of respect and consideration for others, then surely it must also include valuing their lives.

then surely it must also include valuing their lives

Valuing them above what? There are probably not very many people on this planet that can truly claim to value all human life equally and above everything else.

I would arguea HN thread about home security systems that shoot intruders upon home invasion would be tolerated on HN.

So self-defense / death alone are not enough to flag a comment. Political movements like ELF (Earth Liberation Front) used arguments similar to mine on why, for example, coal plants are legitimate targets in self defense.

The comment you linked was an (perhaps poor) attempt to prove the absurdity of free market ideology by taking it to the extreme.

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