Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Trasmatta

>far-left

>Obama folks

Obama was not in any way "far left"

View on HN

I added air quotes to make irony obvious.

People these days use /s for that, not quotes..

You should understand what putting a word in quotes means, regardless of internet memes.

According to Wikipedia [1], and I quote:

"A quotation or quote is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written."

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

By quoting "far-left" the poster is indicating that he himself does not believe that Obama is far left but that it is something someone has said or written about Obama.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes

I "support" the article's criticism section.

Especially on the international stage. American "far-left" is totally different to say, European "far-left."

Obama wasn't US far left either though. More center right.

Yes, what's center right in the US is "far left" to the far right currently in power.

Obama would be "far right" by current Democrat standards. He was against gay marriage in 2008, for example.

Funny, because I remember he was a far-left muslim communist from Africa back then by Republican standards.

Of course, it goes without saying that opposing same-sex marriage doesn't make one "far right". I mean, I know you knew that and are just ragebaiting – but I wanted it to be explicitly clear for others.

I'm not rage-baiting. I'm saying it's a reasonable point that people can disagree on, but if any Republican candidate had had it as a policy position in the last election they would have been labelled as "Far Right".

And Kamala Harris was labeled far-left for campaigning on a Trump-lite platform on immigration and the economy that appealed to no one.

>And Kamala Harris was labeled far-left for campaigning on a Trump-lite platform on immigration and the economy that appealed to no one.

I am begging people on the left to stop slandering "we will enforce the law" as a right-wing position. It is not, shouldn't be, and the right doesn't deserve to get credit for it.

Kamala wasn't "Trump-lite" any more than AOC is "Stalin-lite". The differences between the two are fucking categorical.

Yes, you’re rage-baiting; a republican candidate would have been labeled that way because of the aggregate of their positions, not this one.

Though of course, that is by modern standards quite a conservative right position to take. (And incidentally not one I’d consider reasonable to take; though I’m obviously biased by being directly affected)

No, I don't think it takes more than one position to get you labelled "far right" these days. The Free Speech Union, which is UK pressure group in favour of free speech was recently labelled "far right" by Wikipedia for promoting free speech.

This is what I mean by rage-baiting :)

Disagreeing with you is rage-baiting?

I just checked the wiki, but can't find the far-right references.

There is some chatter in the Talk page about some members of the group associating with far-right figures and pushing some very dodgy views on far-right topics. Is this what you are referring to?

The far right accusation was recently removed after they publicised it.

Which dodgy views on far right topics?

Obama was further to the right than the conservatives in the UK at the time.

Agree, but when you staff an entire agency with his supporters, the echo chamber effect can result in it becoming a hive of far-left types.

The same would apply to the right too, except that the right tends to shut down agencies, not create them.

DHS is a counterexample here. It’s huge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com