Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

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Is 3000 a low enough number? There are 3000 children in concentration camps in the USA separated from their parents.

Edit: yes, I have chosen the words concentration camps to evoke the sceptre of the Holocaust. Also note my grandmother is still alive and an Auschwitz survivor. We. have. seen. this. before!

1. Classification 2. Symbolization 3. Discrimination 4. Dehumanization 5. Organization 6. Polarization 7. Preparation 8. Persecution 9. Extermination 10. Denial

By my count, the USA is at step 8 of the ten steps of genocide.

Or if you want, check the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court:

Article 6

Genocide

For the purpose of this Statute, ‘genocide’ means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Also note who signed the letter about the US not being part of said Rome Statute: https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/9968.htm Bolton was appointed on March 22, the disastrous zero tolerance memo came out on April 6 and I have a horrible feeling of Bolton reminding Trump and Sessions they can't be hauled to The Hague for committing a crime against humanity because the USA is not part of the ICC -- who would know this better?

not really

if you actually pay attention to border patrol, you will see that these kids have left horrible conditions and many are not separated from parents but from strangers using them to get in or for drug smuggling. some dont even have any parents or family with them.

ICE also saves the most lives on the border

Do you have any data proving that a significant percentage of these kids are being used by strangers?

> Many are not separated from parents but from strangers.

These aren't the ones that the uproar is about. The uproar is about the children who have been separated from their parents, not the children being held in foster care or holding facilities in general. The 3000 separated from parents is a number from HHS Secretary Azar. The Trump administration updated that number to 2342 children separated from 2206 parents.

the parents have committed a crime and the kids will be reunited later if they are real family

it happens to families everyday that are citizens too

not a big deal and the kids are still doing better than before, no reason for the uproar

> the parents have committed a crime

Largely, because the Administration has taken active steps to prevent lawful asylum applications.

> and the kids will be reunited later if they are real family

Maybe, sometimes, after the recent court order requiring that; most recently prior to that the kids were being used as hostages to force parents to sign voluntary deportation agreements and give up asylum claims; during and prior to that children were deported separately from their parents and vice versa in a number of cases. And, in any cases, there was no tracking of any kind to facilitate reunification.

> not a big deal and the kids are still doing better than before

No, they often aren't; especially for the younger children, being forcibly separated from their parents is itself an enormous trauma that will damage their development (social/emotional especially for life.)

> not a big deal and the kids are still doing better than before, no reason for the uproar

Somehow, they handled it just fine and at lower cost without family separation before. If so, why separate them except due to racism? They are now having trouble reuniting families weeks later because of improper tracking.

what is before? separation has been around since law started because criminals do not say with their kids when in jail, this happens to citizens too which you ignored

thinking that its racism is just you jumping to emotional conclusions

there are no problems reuniting families when they are actually families, it is when kids are alone or abused as drug mules that they have to work harder to find where to put them

they still leave horrible conditions so why arent you upset over how bad the other countries are?

> what is before?

Before Trump’s zero tolerance policy, when criminal charges for illegal crossing were essentially never pursued on their own and families with children targeted for deportation without criminal charges were also (since the court order limiting the use of immigration detention for children) not subjected to immigration detention specifically to avoid separation, and where active steps weren't taken to force entrants seeking asylum to enter illegally by preventing access at ports of entry, which is what actually pushed most of the families subjected to Trump's zero tolerance policy into the system in the first place.

> there are no problems reuniting families when they are actually families

Yes, in fact, there are, in the present situation.

> it is when kids are alone

Unaccompanied minors have been a particular problem at times in the past, but that's not the current issue.

> or abused as drug mules

That happens, but, again, is not the source of the current crisis.

> they still leave horrible conditions so why arent you upset over how bad the other countries are?

Most people upset about this administration’s blatant and indefensible mistreatment and hostage taking with regard to asylum seekers are, also, unhappy with the conditions in the countries that they are fleeing. Which is actually a big reason why they are upset at the Administration’s further tormenting them when they are trying to flee, and actively preventing them from lawfully seeking asylum.

> ICE also saves the most lives on the border

No, they don't, even before the Trump Administration policy changes that have produced the recent issues. You are confusing ICE with the Border Patrol. They aren't the same thing.

Exactly, so it is NOT genocide according to the Rome Statute, Article 6 definition. Unless you really want to argue that US ICE is doing this in a deliberate attempt to 'destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'?

not yet. not. yet.

> concentration camps

This does nothing, but underplay the significance of the holocaust.

But they are literal concentration camps. Concentration camps have existed before and after the Nazis; that's not some idea they invented. The horror of the Holocaust is focused around the death camps more than the concentration camps.

Concentration camps were used very effectively by the British against the Boers (farmers) in South Africa at the turn of the previous century. They killed more women and children than men on both sides [1].

During the first World War, they renamed New Berlin to Kitchener here in Canada. They may as well have named it Hitlerville. The scale of evil wasn't as horrible as the Holocaust, but it was pretty damn awful. It's true what they say, that the victors write the history books. So few people know about that story.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps

The phrase "concentration camp" in the English language no longer has any literal meaning that is simply composed of "concentration" and "camp". It refers strictly to the WWII Nazi concentration camps.

Anyone using the phrase and then insisting that the literal meaning was intended is thoroughly disingenuous. That speaker or writer is deliberately using the loaded term in order to troll the intended audience with a crystal clear Nazi reference.

Ideologically there is no difference to previous uses of the term. Historically it refers to concentration camps of the second Boer War where over 150,000 people died in camps which concentrated specific settler populations in a manner that made the thinning of their population a foregone conclusion.

If it evokes the use of the concept you dislike, rethink your moral stance on it. Not the phrasing of the concept.

It doesn't evoke; it denotes. Like "rain" refers to "water falling from the sky". Not a moral stance whatsoever.

The word for non-murderous concentration camps is "internment".

Not only is that historically incorrect, but it's also a confession of a tolerance for detaining a specific population on ideological, non-criminal pretenses.

"It's different when we do it."

Is that so? So by this amazing reasoning, we should refer to both types of camps using the same term. Since the correct term is evidently "extermination camps" (see surrounding thread), that's what they should be called.

"Historically incorrect" is just a way of saying "presently correct". For instance "sensibility" is not a historically correct way of referring to a rational disposition. Historically, it meant what we today call "sensitivity".

Fuck historically correct; I live today, not in history.

I'm totally confused by your argument here. The simple fact that myself and others posting here don't treat "concentration camps" totally equivalent to "Nazi extermination camps" seems like ipso facto proof that this is not a disingenuous distinction.

The Nazi camps pertaining to the Holocaust are correctly called extermination camps, not concentration camps. Although e.g. Auschwitz is commonly referred to as a concentration camp, this is a euphemism, and the term is not considered correct by anyone writing seriously about the Holocaust.

That may be so, but you're referring to pedants and historians, not common usage.

It is not a euphimism; everyone knows that it refers to starvation and horrific murder and aren't using that word for the sake of masking this.

The term is a euphemism because "concentration camp" just means a camp with a high density of people. The fact that people know what they're really referring to doesn't mean that the term isn't a euphemism. After all, the whole point of a euphemism is that people know what is really meant.

It's quite well known that "concentration camp" is not the correct term for the Nazi extermination camps.

Just like it's quite well known that "hacker" isn't the correct term for someone who breaks into computers.

All that remains is the small detail of convincing the public at large that they are using the word wrong.

As I said, it's pretty well known that Auschwitz and the other camps like it were extermination camps, not (merely) concentration camps. I mean, I'd count myself a member of the "public at large" in this context (I'm certainly no expert on the Holocaust or the surrounding history), and yet I still know what the correct term is. Anyone who has so much as looked at the Wikipedia article for Auschwitz or one of the other camps will know the correct term.

Technically true. Also technically Holocaust could refer to the Armenian Genocide, or the USSR genocide against Ukraine or whatever other catastrophe and yet it doesn't and comparing what is absolutely aweful to one of the worst genocides in human history shouldn't win you any points.

Yes, but the word was clearly chosen in an attempt to liken them to Nazi concentration camps, which they have little in common with, besides being places where people are temporarily kept.

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