Hacker News Reader

Comment by faitswulff | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if trolling, but look up family separation, Vietnamese deportation, the sales of national park lands, incitement to violence against journalists, the rise in hate crimes, etc

View on HN

Why do you include

> the sales of national park lands

How is that comparable to what the Germans or Russians did?

For that matter, how is any of that comparable to gulags or Auschwitz?

The forger also helped people refuse participating in the Vietnam war or get out of war-time Algeria.

Concentration camps or Gulags aren't the only reason for people needing to leave the country without its government learning about it.

Are you suggesting forgers should forge documents to help people illegally enter the United States, to get around Trump's restrictions?

I don't care about the United States. Other than that, "needing to leave the country" (what I said) is very different from "illegally enter" (what you said), starting with the direction of travel.

I agree, which is why I was confused.

If any of Trump's policies have led someone to feel they need to leave the US, they don't need forged documents to do it.

The Holocaust has become a symbol of absolute evil, like the devil in a religion. We rightly understand that nothing contemporary could be comparable. In the same way that we wouldn't believe that a child has been possessed. Maybe the child is sick, even if not possessed. The lack of evil possession is not an excuse to ignore the illness.

And there is a lot to be concerned about our culture. And yes there are parallels to some 20th century isms. But those things are bad because they are bad. Not because of some bogeyman from yesteryear.

But, Holocaust did not happened because devil or supernatural. It happened because humans. It was entirely and fully human affair. Some of people who were kids at the timead seen it are still alive. Nazism is not bogeyman from yesterday, it is living ideology, altrought not in power.

Alao, ISIS acts are contemporary and we might find they are comparable.

Oh I agree with you. Nazism is no more mystical than HIV or cancer. My point is more that society doesn't view it's in that way. WWII has become a big thing in the minds of people who had no direct involvement. It has assumed a cultural and political significance that is much more symbolic than how it was viewed in the past. And when something becomes symbolic it assumes a rhetorical and emotional power. You can talk about nazi evil and everyone knows what you mean, without really having any direct understanding of what it actually means in a practical sense.

And in a practical sense the key is always to consider the effect of bad actions on individual people. It is about human rights and dignity. And that is what nationalists want to destroy. They value the "nation" more highly than they value individual humans. That is what made Nazis bad. Everything else is just fact based symbolism that can be twisted to support any argument you want.

I know there were discussions about selling national park lands, but I can't find any information on whether it actually happen? Do you have any links?

The instance I remember was land in Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Not sold yet, but no longer protected.

There are also new national parks being created: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/overnights/430...

Link found in Wikipedia: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fg-trump-national-monument...

Thank you.

Doesn't look like something has been sold though...

> Vietnamese deportation

Vietnamese-Americans include some of the most reliable Republican voters in the country, I wonder if this will change that.

Are they indeed deporting US citizens?

Family separation started under Obama and the rise in hate crimes is a false narrative. Violence has actually decreased over the past decade. Journalists are only covering specific cases because it pushes the idea that Trump=bad.

The vietnamese that got deported also committed crimes. He didn't deport everyone, which isn't really that bad.

Again, he hasn't really done much of anything and is mostly a lame duck president.

Don't pretend like separation didn't happen during previous administrations including Obama's. The Vietnamese situation is simply uncertainty and involves only folks with criminal records. No actual action has taken place. Trump admin walked back plans to sell Utah national park lands:

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/402727-adminis...

He also recently signed a bill to expand national park territory including Joshua Tree:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/13/senate-b...

Where did Trump call for violence against journalists?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com