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Comment by galaxyLogic | Hacker News Reader

You may dislike that but I can't see how anybody could disagree with those 3 slogans either. So they can't do any harm to anyone, can they?

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They're not very specific and quite open to interpretation. As a left leaner here in Norway, I find at least the last two to be quite problematic and a huge red flag. They make me feel significantly less welcome.

Are we just going to pretend they’re not political slogans?

The statement was perfect until that last line.

It really shouldn’t be controversial to suggest that calling people nazis on the official website for your programming language is unprofessional, but here we are…

> shouldn’t be controversial to suggest that calling people nazis on the official website is unprofessional

Whom did they call "nazi"? Anybody?

If they didn't call any particular person "nazi" then it's unprofessional to suggest they did that.

The exact phrases in question are:

1. Black lives matter.

2. Trans rights are human rights.

3. No nazi bullsh*t.

Phrases 1 & 2 are well-recognized political slogans, and I don't like some of the organizations that have very vocally rallied behind these slogans.

Do you think that makes me a nazi? If not, how welcome do you think this makes me feel?

No one explicitly

But the idea that it would even be a concern for there to be “nazi bullshit” in a programming language would require such an absurdly broad definition of nazi that i can only assume whoever wrote this would consider a large % of Americans to be Nazis. This is inherently exclusionary. The statement is bullshit. It isn’t “Friendly <3” as the heading would suggest.

You’re pretending it isn’t a political slogan and that the meaning doesn’t extend beyond the literal sense of the words.

I’m wondering why you’d do that.

Quite the opposite if you see my other comments, I think you may have misread what I said here. This statement is clearly a problem imo, its usage of political slogans makes it more of a declaration of political allegiance rather than actually being about inclusivity.

I did indeed misread, and we are in perfect agreement! My apologies!

The line that says "no Nazi bullshit"? That has to be the safest political position you can hold as long as you're not friends with Kanye West.

Only if you take it literally which you would only do if you were entirely ignorant of American politics or deliberately hiding behind this interpretation to pretend you aren’t actually taking about a broad % of the population

This rhetorical tactic has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

It should be safe. Still it seems some people get offended by it. What kind of people? I can only assume they are people more supportive of autocratic regimes than the rest of us.

The exact phrases in question are:

1. Black lives matter.

2. Trans rights are human rights.

3. No nazi bullsh*t.

Phrases 1 & 2 are well-recognized political slogans, and I don't like some of the organizations that have very vocally rallied behind these slogans.

Do you think that makes me a nazi? And if not, how welcome do you think this makes me feel?

You seem to be applying some kind of modus ponens rule to this list. To me, they read disjointly; you can agree with the status quo regarding police violence, and that trans people should not be welcomed in society, and still not follow Nazi ideology.

Respectfully, you’re dodging part of the question.

How would you feel if my org stated “all lives matter” and pretended not to see the problem?

It's a dog whistle. It is exactly the same as if I were to say to you, "all lives matter" or "make America great again".

PS: we know you know this.

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