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Comment by togetheragainor | Hacker News Reader

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The thing about fascism is that you don’t actually have to be guilty of the things they claim because they’ll just deport you or jail you regardless.

Europeans are getting interrogated in US airport detention rooms over liking tweets critical of Trump. If they choose to make an example of you, they will, and it doesn’t matter if your visa or green card was in perfect order.

They’re supported by an endless supply of online bootlickers who will believe and parrot any justification given. “Of course we sent this Czech citizen to El Salvador in chains, look at his middle name!”

> Europeans are getting interrogated in US airport detention rooms over liking tweets critical of Trump

Oh no, they’re being asked about tweets? Is that worse than the UK arresting its citizens in the middle of the night over their tweets? Or threatening to extradite Americans over their tweets? Thank god America has Europe to look to as a bastion of liberal democracy.

Oh no, what-about-ism. The US was known for having incredibly liberal free speech laws, not only on the books but in actual, honest-to-goodness, practice.

Well, that's gone, and what's worse, so is the reputation. The rule of law can be restored tomorrow. The perception of rule of law, will take generations to fix, if ever.

That's not what whataboutism is. Bringing whataboutism here is just pure deflection. A European being concerned about getting arrested for his tweets in the US makes just as much sense as an American not wanting to go to Europe because of gun violence in Europe.

Perhaps you’re not American and unfamiliar with the situation here, but Trump’s election was largely a reaction against the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the rule of law.

This played out at the local level, with progressive district attorneys and progressive judges refusing to prosecute or sentence criminals. And at the national level with the Biden administration failing to enforce a sensible border policy, against the wishes of the majority of Americans.

Is Trump going too far in the opposite direction? Maybe, but the prior administration did far more to destroy the perception of the rule of law than Trump has so far.

Going too far in the opposite direction? Even if what you are saying is true, I don't think "breaking the law" and "breaking the law even more" are opposite directions.

You’re free to believe whatever you saw on Fox News, but whataboutism isn’t terribly interesting.

In fact it just leaves everyone free to be their absolute worst.

It’s interesting because many Europeans would be safer from fascist government overreach in the U.S. than they presently are in Europe, despite what you saw on MSNBC.

That's not what whataboutism is. They didn't say what about Europe, they said that the precedent already exists so the argument makes 0 sense.

Do these look like MS-13 gang members?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/germany-inve...

https://www.dw.com/en/german-nationals-us-immigration-detain...

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/03/28/a-harvard-...

And even for gang members, there's such thing as 'due process'. Otherwise, there is no government, just another competing gang.

Illegals immigrants are not owed ‘due process.’ They’re owed a swift exit.

Agreed. I have here in this document that you are an illegal immigrant. You are not you say? I'm sorry, you're not owned any due process. Swift exit with you.

It’s not actually that hard to verify whether someone is a U.S. citizen.

Despite what they’d like you to believe, it does not require months of detention, or release into the country on blind faith that you’ll show up for a court hearing in a year.

That still sounds like "process" of some kind, maybe of the "due" kind. That's not for you. On the bus with you.

Due process is how you check that they are both immigrants and did so illegally.

Rule of law is universal. If they are illegal immigrants, it should be established by law and proper legal procedures. Otherwise, it is you who can be an illegal immigrant tomorrow, just because some dictator says it. You can prove otherwise? Good luck, you are an illegal immigrant, you can't.

In point of fact they are already trying to take away birthright citizenship. So clearly this is an endgame for them. “Oh that was a pretty critical tweet a few years ago citizen. Bring me documentation that one of your ancestors passed through Ellis Island from this brightly lit cell or we’ll deport you.”

Do you know that the majority of countries around the world don’t have birthright citizenship?

It’s an anomaly pretty much limited to the Americas.

Because it’s stupid and easily exploitable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nn7evq/places_wher...

Birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the US Constitution for nearly 160 years.

Calling it into question is a massive attack on the basic Constitutional framework of the country, and will immediately affect tens of millions of Americans. Are you a citizen? Sorry, you'll have to prove that your parents were citizens, and that their parents were citizens, and that their parents were citizens. It's a nightmare.

Why would you claim that existing citizenship would be revoked? Ex post facto laws are incredibly rare in the US, and the executive order explicitly said it “shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.”

Also, why are you implying that the US Constitution is immutable? Birthright citizenship was enacted by the 14th amendment, which as the name implies, was a change to our “enshrined US Constitution.” The founding fathers themselves passed amendments. They recognized that no constitution could possibly anticipate every future circumstance or challenge that a nation might face. They viewed this as a feature, not a bug.

The Trump administration is claiming that the 14th Amendment does not confer birthright citizenship. In their view, no ex post facto law is needed. With that logic, they can argue that tens of millions of Americans never legitimately obtained citizenship.

Stephen Miller, Trump's chief advisor on immigration, has promised to start aggressively de-naturalizing US citizens. This is how these people talk, and it has to be taken seriously.

> the executive order explicitly said it “shall apply only ...

The very fact that the President of the US is trying to abrogate a Constitutional right by executive order is incredibly alarming. Trump started with this order. If he's successful, he won't stop there. You're trusting in his own self-restraint, which is very unwise.

> Birthright citizenship was enacted by the 14th amendment, which as the name implies, was a change to our “enshrined US Constitution.”

Birthright citizenship was the norm in the US since the founding. The 14th Amendment formally guaranteed what was already the status quo, and made sure that it was applied without regard to race. The Supreme Court's majority opinion in the Kim Wong Ark case has a good discussion of this.

If a demacracy, you can change this law. If you are not in a democracy, you can just have Dear Leader give edicts.

As well as being disingenuous your whole argument is beside the point. ASML isn’t threatening to move to the US.

The current administration has created day light between the US and EU governments and ASML is using this leverage to try and get the Dutch to ignore US export bans.

Here are some choice exerts so you can continue to avoid clicking on TFA:

> The pressure on asml began to build in 2019, when the Dutch government, at America's urging, barred the company from exporting its advanced euv machines to China... President Donald Trump's second term brings the threat of still tighter controls

> Referring to the Dutch government's willingness to follow America's lead on export bans, Mr Fouquet says that Europe must "decide for itself what it wants" and "should not be dictated to by anyone else".

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