Hacker News Reader

Comment by draklor40 | Hacker News Reader

> A MAGA hat can serve as a useful heuristic for "likely to cause trouble".

Wow. And here I am, thinking that we no longer discriminate people based on their political leanings and everyone has the right to freedom of political opinion.

Move over racial profiling. Here comes political profiling.

View on HN

People rationalize that political profiling is acceptable using the paradox of tolerance[1]. Basically, if you can convince yourself that every member of a political party is intolerant due to their worldview, you no longer have to be tolerant of anyone in that party and you are allowed and even encouraged to politically profile them, name and shame them, or any other tactic you think will make them less intolerant (such as getting them kicked off of github projects, kicked out of conventions and events, etc.).

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

You misunderstand the paradox. It's not merely 'rationalizing' to recognize that the paradox demands that we do not tolerate intolerance. The system simply does not work if we tolerate the intolerant.

I find the only way for the system to work is to tolerate the intolerant. That is to say, it's vastly easier and more consistent to allow everyone their right to speak their mind than it is to justify why one person's speech isn't another person's threat. We're at the point where people are claiming MAGA hats are actionably threatening. So should that not also apply to anyone who says "eat the rich"? How about actual real communists that want to dismantle the government? Anarchists? How about anyone who promotes anti-establishment music (e.g. f the police) Which political positions, which political speech is dangerous and which is allowed? How do we know?

Or put more succinctly, when all the other intolerant are gone, who will speak up when they come for you?

[redacted] Please flagkill.

There are plenty of LGBTetc. Republicans who would happily wear such a hat though, if perhaps not at a "LGBTQIA+ community" event. Peter Teal is a particularly high-profile example.

I think it's perfectly legitimate to consider the MAGA hat a hate symbol. Specifically because of what it represents to American minorities; an implicit threat.

At one time the hat represented something legitimate but Trump's first term is coming to its end. The campaign has been over for a long time now. The MAGA hat is yet another symbol that the alt right appropriated for itself. It doesn't just represent Trump supporters and Republicans at large anymore.

> Trump's first term is coming to its end. The campaign has been over for a long time now.

Long enough for it to start all over again in short order, though. And Trump may well choose to keep the "MAGA" slogan for his re-election campaign - last we heard, it was a choice between that or "Keep America Great".

How is the MAGA hat a threat?

I'm a minority. Not only do I not think it's threatening, I'm even considering buying a few.

Not for political reasons, but just because its become so iconic I think they'll be worth a lot more as vintage items in 10-20 years.

Near as I can tell, this "MAGA hat is a hate symbol" notion comes from people who want a group to embody evils X, Y, & Z so that group can be opposed. Lacking such a group, progressives have designated Trump supporters as such via wanton misinterpretation of legitimate, normal, and earnest positions. The term "alt right" didn't exist to any meaningful degree until Trump was elected, to the dismay of Leftists convinced Hillary would win; her supporters suddenly started using this term to slander the opposition. There are, for most practical purposes, no "white supremacists", "alt right", "Nazis", etc. (have you actually met any?). The Trump Right have been wrongfully slandered as "racist", "xenophobic", "sexist", etc; they just haven't figured out how to counter such libelous & intolerant abuse.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com