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I agree we should hold police accountable, which is why I voted for whatever the BLM protestors asked for in my city of Portland. When they protested, I supported them. When they harassed mayor wheeler, I supported them.

When they started destroying local businesses, I didn't support them. I posted once on my next door to please let's all remain peaceful and stop the destruction of local small businesses, and was met with immediate condemnations of being racist. I got so many hate messages, despite being brown myself, that I eventually left next door, out of fear of doxxing.

When BLM then went and tagged Pelosi and McConnell's homes, I cheered them on. I don't mind seeing people harass politicians. I just don't want them destroying private citizen's stuff, or killing them when they defend it.

And I don't read Breitbart. I read Mother Jones and the New Yorker, and sometimes I read Breitbart when left wing people get outraged by their articles.

But they called the rallies (the completely peaceful ones) dangerous white supremacist meetings. I am a brown man. They are none of those things. The hyperbole is astounding.

> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you'd find them far more socialist than you'd like too.

I doubt it. I'm not a free market absolutist, and am really happy DoJ is going after monopolies.

By that metric, I can point to many statements by many democrats, including the incoming Vice President, that 'directly incited' violence. This is a ridiculous standard. The double think is insane.

Did Trump ever call on anyone to riot?

Yes! Thank you! And now the same politicians and reporters who said that are pretending to care for the police hurt in this riot and talking about how important law enforcement is.

Forgive me for believing that law enforcement protecting family businesses is 1000x more important than law enforcement protecting politicians.

EDIT: love the downvotes from people who believe torching family businesses, often immigrant ones, is cool! I'm telling you guys keep downvoting. You really look like the good guys.

> Because WaPo weren't encouraging people to go and "riot".

Maybe WaPo wasn't (although I doubt it). Other media certainly were: https://twitter.com/slate/status/1268415955937513473?lang=en

Or will we keep justifying direct justifications of violence, while ignoring the calls to peace spoken and written by Trump.

Honestly, I'm done at this point. I hope people like you keep saying what you're saying. You'll just convince more people, just like y'all have convinced me.

EDIT: more justifications of violence:

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178...

Here's vice interviewing a man who just shot a trump supporter and killed him. They did this after he had done so, but before he was turned over to police. Harboring a criminal is illegal: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7g8vb/man-linked-to-killing...

EDIT: and just like I thought, from the downvotes, people actually agree with the direct calls to violence issued by these mainstream outlets that led to over 30 deaths this summr]er, and $2billion in damages, mainly to small businesses all over america. The lack of moral convictions on this forum is pathetic.

Oh got it, the endgame is to downvote me into oblivion! How incredibly, incredibly childish. This country really needs to improve at the most basic human levels.

What part of Trump's policies are extremist? I ask this question honestly. None of his policies are extremist in the slightest. Even the mob on the sixth are just crazy supporters. Trump instructed them to be peaceful repeatedly, even while they were doing it. I understand that he is brusque and has a brash personality, but I cannot understand what it is about him that makes him more extreme than any other previous US president. I just do not understand.

This is an incredibly honest question. I typically ask it, people give me examples, and then I think back to previous presidents in my lifetime (none of whom I've supported, mind you), and can recall pretty much equivalent situations. Then the person I speak with gets angry and walks away really mad at me for what feels like simply remembering things that have happened in my life. I cannot understand it, and frankly, the simple refusal of people to actively engage has made me go from not liking Trump for his personality, to honestly finding him a hero. Please, will someone calmly explain to me what is extreme about Trump's policies?

I don't label Democrat policies as extreme despite no longer being part of that party and not agreeing with any of them. I don't understand the hyperbole.

Runit is amazing, and a great replacement for standard init on embedded systems

Nazism?

I have never said that speech should be fully free. I do have criteria that would be used to censor speech. However, neither the sixth riots or the summer riots had many actors whose speech I believe ought to have been banned.

For example, while I believe the democratic party spurred on or sat back in silence while BLM and Antifa rioted, most democratic politicians did not do anything that deserves censorship. Even Kamala Harris's financial support of those who looted and destroyed police stations in Minneapolis should not be censored -- the bail she asked for was a completely legal thing to provide.

As for the sixth, Trump's posts were entirely peaceful. He consistently asked for a peaceful demonstration. There are those claiming that using phrasing like 'fight' or 'take your country back', etc, incite violence. I do not believe that for one minute. Banning the opposition from saying they should 'fight' the incumbents or 'take the country back' from them seems incredibly dangerous. Even such colorful language as asking for politicians heads on a platter should not be banned (I recall several incidences of twitter accounts depicting Trump's beheading).

Politics in general leads to strong emotions. People have strong emotions over politicians. English has lots of colorful language for people we don't like. I believe the standards for 'violence' against politicians ought to be much lower than for calling for violence against people, especially non-governmental agents. For example, I do believe some of the BLM incitement of anger that instructed people to burn or loot local businesses (especially when that anger and mob then led to deaths), ought to have been soundly condemned, and I believe twitter should have flagged it and taken some measures to punish the account (although I still think outright censorship for one post would be overkill).

This is because these posts direct anger indiscriminately at people of a certain class, not one specific person who may actually have power. I find those kinds of posts highly problematic, and those would be the first I would censor, but again, I think we have seen only a handful of those over the past year. Certainly, I don't think any major politician has reached that bar.

So no, I do not believe in no censorship ever, I just have very open standards as to what speech to allow that would mainly have me allowing the vast majority of speech. I am not going to tighten my standards simply because left-wingers find them distasteful or want to accuse me of being a free speech zealot. I've stood on these same principles since when I was a democrat, and I'll stand on them now.

I am a brown man who has been subject to many racist attacks. After 9/11 my elementary school classmates called me a terrorist. My father and I (when I was a young boy) was chased out of a car dealership by a mad salesman yelling strawberry picker at us. Walking through the downtown of my city with my white wife, I have been harassed by people who don't like we are in an interracial marriage.

I still do not believe that racism or incidents of racism, including the ones I described above, are 'objectively' human rights issues. They are clearly quite subjective, since they only really exist in my experience. My religion (which most would also describe as subjective) tells me that these experiences have absolute moral character, but barring my reference to that, I cannot say for sure whether or not such discourse is objectively wrong.

I especially have trouble labeling the discourse as 'objectively' a human rights violation when none of the behavior I described above has come from anyone in any position to have power over my life or my rights.

Honestly, to continue to harp on those individuals that have mistreated me would be incredibly childish.

Fascism is quite literally the merger of corporations with government (see corporatism [1]). In non-Nazi Fascist countries, such as proto-fascist pre-Anschluss Austria and Mussolini's Italy, the government was organized such that individuals and 'stakeholders' (i.e., companies, unions, and guilds) were given a say in government. In interviews with NYT journalists, this is the eventual structure that even Adolf Hitler also had in mind after the revolution was through [3].

Yesterday, we saw the American corporate board take actions that used to be the sole purview of a government. They did this at a time while the current administration (the one they harmed) pursues anti-trust lawsuits against them. This is a clear blurring in the distinction between the incoming administration's government and corporations. The incoming administration would do best to criticize the banning of their opposition. Not only would it make them look like they're taking the 'higher road', it would put them in line with other major liberal western powers, such as Germany, France, etc, all of whom have condemned what happened yesterday. However, instead, we have seen the embrace of these corporate actions by the new congress. It is especially concerning when the incoming president took more donations than his opposition from large corporations [2].

This is very concerning, and -- unlike the constant doom-predictions of 'fasciscm' of the last four years, which have been made without any attention paid to the history of fascism -- brings us closer to actual fascism -- that is to say, the merger of corporations, unions, and government -- than any action of the last four years. That is not to say we're Nazi Germany by any means (for that we'd have to start injecting the language of racial superiority into the picture), but I just want to point this out. The number of people cheering uncritically (especially those in government) is incredibly concerning.

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Corporatist_economic_s... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/joe-biden-don... [3] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/07/10/119...

Exact quote since it's behind a paywall:

"Asked if, after four years or twenty years of dictator ship, he foresaw the resumption of parliamentary government in Germany, the Chancellor [Hitler] paused: 'Yes,' he said finally, 'but with a Parliament of another and better type, in which representation will be on a technical basis. Such a development is the Italian corporative State.' (this is what I reference above on Wikipedia)

So, what's the end game here? Can I not ever talk about my opinion to anybody? Can I share it with my wife? Can my wife look at what's going on in the world and disapprove, or is that not allowed? Are people who believe as I do simply to not exist? Should we be exterminated? Should our lives simply be made so miserable that we'd rather we were killed in Gulags? Exactly what are you attempting to accomplish here, because right now, I am not allowed to talk with people on facebook (group bans); I can't talk on reddit (subreddit bans); I can't talk in church (lockdowns). As we saw with Parler (which we were promised was safe, because now the central authority was not someone who didn't like me), I also can't make my own app or service with my tech skills, because they'll be banned too. I can talk with my wife and family, so I guess I'll just keep on breeding to make more people to talk to, until you decide that the school system ought to be used to take my children, nieces, and nephews away, as we've seen in other western countries already, or until we're not allowed to have kids, as has been proposed by some journals and implemented in other countries (to much applause, mind you).

That sounds like a really great world you have planned for us. I am so glad my parents fled a third world country where our ethnic group made us be treated like trash to escape to this! This is exactly what they had in mind when they left :)

I guess I just don't really get it. I've accepted that my ideology has lost; all I ask is to be left alone to work, garden, own my home, have my children, raise my children, and let them do the same. I have already unregistered to vote, and have no more interest in politics, other than to complain about it online. Am I allowed to do this? What more must I do to not be considered an evil monster? Honestly, my treatment on Hacker News over the past year has been worse than the combined effect of racism growing up brown in a mostly white neighborhood during 9/11. This is insanity at every level.

Right. I used parler to do such things as follow EWTN. I stopped using Twitter for this sort of thing because I figured that -- with EWTN's stance on the trans issue -- it was only a matter of time before they were banned (there had been talk of banning JK Rowling for similar tweets at the time, so it's a reasonable fear). I joined parler to not have to worry about this. This constant belittling of anyone who does not completely toe the line of whatever ethical system has taken over Twitter to classify people like me -- a brown man with immigrant parents -- as white supremacists is scary, dystopian, and insane.

I'm a trump supporter. I don't believe the election was stolen necessarily. However, there are major issues that have gone unresolved and unexamined by courts and cases dismissed without investigation.

For example, in PA, a judge ordered the election officials to allow republican watchers to view the counting, and struck down the distance requirements set by the governor due to COVID. However, election officials refused to do so, violating a court order. The GOP sued the officials, but the court dismissed it due to standing. They didn't even consider the complaint. Then a voter group tried to sue. They dismissed that for standing. Then trump sued, they dismissed that too. So if neither the political party, the voters, nor the candidate purportedly affected has standing to force the state to allow the vote to be examined and cannot bring a case against an official violating a court order -- then who exactly has that right? Can any election official simply do what they want?

Or in the TX v PA case, the Supreme Court really displayed major cowardice. They ought to have taken the case, examined the merits, and said yes or no. They dismissed it due to lack of standing. The case asked a very important question -- the Constitution says only the legislature sets the election rules, but in PA, the governor and SoS made up rules. Additionally, the PA supreme court simply extended a deadline set by the legislature. If indeed the legislature is the only one who can make electoin rules, then these moves are clearly illegal. The Court should have said if it's okay or not. They could have not granted the relief requested, which I do admit is a major ask. But they should have ruled on whether or not the PA Supreme Court or the governor's actions were legal.

To many republicans, it seems as if there were bad actors who got away with not following the law. It now seems that governors, courts, etc can simply set whatever election rules they want and get away with it. Even if it wouldn't have changed the outcome, I'd like to see a court penalize those officials in PA who disobeyed a court order, or explain in clear legal detail after hearing a case as to why those officials were right to do so.

I also want explanations into why the counting stopped. It is quite clear now that the supposed water leak in Atlanta was a simple toilet overflow that should not have caused anything to stop. Why did they do that, and why did they report it as a leak? Why did we see major drops for Biden with zero votes for Trump? Again, I am ready to concede that Biden won. In fact, I think it likely. However, it is crazy to me that so far not a single body has been willing to investigate these seeming discrepancies and instead told the groups interested in seeking resolution that they have no standing to question it.

Telling people that they do not deserve an answer is what leads to the behavior we're seeing now.

The courts made a huge mistake by simply dismissing on standing. Rumor has it that John Roberts didn't want to take the case due to fear of a mob... Well he got his mob, just not the one he expected.

Downvoters: please engage in good faith. Someone asked if there was anyone who believed the election was 'stolen'. I have given my good faith answer as to what I would have liked to have seen in order for me to fully trust our elections. You may disagree with me, but I'm simply giving my solicited opinion.

No fault divorce needs to go away when there are children involved. That is basically the end of it. Marriage is ultimately about creating family. You can't undo your marriage once you have a child anymore than you can undo your parentage or undo your relationship with a cousin. If mom and dad want to screw around with other people, their rights to do so obviously should not be restricted, but there should be no out from the marriage itself, except for cases of abuse or endangerment.

What does it say to a child to unmake the very thing that made them? How awful. The wisdom of the past says that the old way was simply superior, and we see that when we look at things like the mental health crisis, the lack of grit, the prevalence of anxiety disordes. Generations past would look at our current system and say the obvious -- which was said at the time no-fault divorce became a thing as well, just forgotten by this day -- that the prevalence of family dissolution causes severe, apparently unrelated social ills. We need to put the brake on really.

Asians are regularly targeted by police. Brown skinned Indians often look arab and are subject to the same racial profilings. One need only look at history (hello bellingham riots) to see rampant violence against asians that typically goes ignored due to asian cultural pragmatism.

Yeah, the other things Asian American small-business owners are subjected to is being the butt of violent inner-city riots supported by major political parties.

Anyone who denies this has forgotten roof Koreans and the effects that the LA riots (and that the BLM riots today) are having on Asians.

EDIT; people downvoting me need to see reality. This stuff is reported in Asian outlets all the time, but the American mainstream media will tell you sweet stories of Asian business owners 'supporting' BLM riots. You have to remember that these people, including my parents, have come from countries where it is normal to publicly say whatever you need to to appease the majority group. My mom and dad, like most Asians, will say whatever needs to be said to keep their family safe, even if they disagree. Americans do not understand Asian culture at all.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1190650.shtml

https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403231749/baltimore-unrest-re...

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/black-lives-matter-billboa...

You are conflating fiat currency and physical dollars. The total sum value of physical currency is much less than the total amount of dollars in existence. Most dollars exist only as entries in a ledger.

> Now, call me crazy, but given that he believes it once existed, I find it hard to believe that he also believes that it's just over and done with now.

Yes, he does believe racism exists within systems. But this is not what is meant by 'systemic racism'. Today, systemic racism is both a description of a problem, as well as an insinuation of its cause -- namely 'white privilege' and white hegemony -- and an insinuation of solutions -- namely progressive legislation. Sowell rejects these insinuated causes and insinuated solutions and instead believes discrimination and poor outcomes for blacks today is driven by progressive policies such as a lack of school choice, laws encouraging loans be made to blacks who cannot afford it, etc. He believes that blacks will be helped by a return to a less regulated market. While this viewpoint could be named under the umbrella of 'systemic racism', let's be honest with ourselves that that's not what the term has come to mean

> He opposed Trump in the primaries, like many conservatives, and supported him in the general, like most conservatives.

I feel using the final election to say someone 'supports' a particular candidate is not really a good metric in the American voting system. Primaries are better since there is more policy choice.

Obviously, Sowell would support Trump over Hillary even if he didn't like Trump as a candidate, or even if he thought Trump was not the best candidate. Sowell is very conservative, and believes in school choice, free market healthcare, deregulation, etc. Clinton didn't want any of that. Like many people, Sowell's 'support' of Trump (I don't believe he ever even endorsed him specifically) in 2016 (and likely in 2020) is a vote against the other candidate.

> but it does make him a weird topic for an HN discussion.

Why?

> support for Donald Trump in 2016 (and after)

Um no.. Sowell endorsed Ted Cruz in the primaries and wrote quite the scathing critique of Donald Trump:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/16/traged...

In Sowell's own words:

> Some seem to think that Donald Trump's lead in the polls and in the New Hampshire primary make him the most electable candidate, even if he often acts like an overgrown spoiled brat.

Secondly:

> opposition to criminal justice reform and particularly decarceration,

is a common position amongst blacks in America. Many civil rights advocates fought for tougher criminal sentencing in the 80s and 90s, including many in Congress, such as Charlie Rangel. In this regard, Sowell's position is more in line with the views of African Americans of a certain age, instead of his conservative beliefs (recall, many libertarians were against the war on drugs: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/praise-imp...)

> a spicy "Brown v. Board of Education was decided wrongly" take

Here is Sowell's opinion: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/5160. As someone who himself went to a segregated school, I feel he is entitled to his opinion on whether or not the children who went there feel inferior, which is the reasoning behind Warren's majority opinion. That being said, Sowell is extremely pro-school-choice and generally against publicly run schools, so in Sowell's America schools would have been naturally desegregated due to market forces.

Sowell believes that systemic racism doesn't exist because he has examined the various research and finds issues with all of them -- namely that the various discrepancies they find can be explained in other ways.

He never claimed that systemic racism could not exist. In fact, in his books, he openly admits that he believes that it did indeed once exist. He just questions whether the studies being produced today are done so without pre-existing bias (are they looking for data to back up their belief, or vice versa) and whether the data produced evidentiates the conclusion. If indeed the studies you cite and that he refutes are looking for data to back up their pre-existing conclusion, then propaganda is the correct description.

No one has put forth the argument that Sowell believes systematic racism cannot ever exist. All that has been said is that he questions whether it currently exists today and the conclusions of the studies you cite.

> I guess if you want to be fair, you need to let the Native American nations to decide, and what if they decide to create multiple nations in the middle of the not-any-more-united States?

The United States should decide... either as a constitutional amendment or as a popular vote. If the tribes have input, that should be taken into account. But it's not like Native Americans have any more right to exist than any other person born in the United States.

In general, states can enforce their borders, but it's safe to say that the Native Americans failed at that considerably, and those wars have concluded and the USA has firmly won. This is not a value judgement, or a statement of what should have happened. It is simply observation.

Ultimately, the tribal system is a compromise to make things work as they are now. But, in the long term, this is never going to work out. Like I said, there is nothing good to come of this. At some point, some generation will have to bite the bullet and allow separation or pressure integration. This system we've created which encourages pseudo separation and shies away from integration really can't work out in the long run. It will lead to factionalism, in-fighting and eventually war or genocide.

A better solution would be to put in place incentives for Indians to leave the reservations and integrate with American society, with the eventual goal to privatize native lands or to make them public like any other land. Again... the system we have now, to hold land into perpetuity will not work.

Ultimately, tribal belonging is currently tied to how 'pure' one's blood is. This is the last vestige of racial preference in this country. These sorts of things invariably lead to bad outcomes in the long run.

Is it sad that cultures die? Yeah, perhaps, but cultures have always died. Thus is the way of the world. As each one dies, more will be formed. Oh well, times change.

Easy dating app: instead of making profiles and 'matching', just organize a bunch of dances, hikes, etc in a community and charge a nominal fee for membership. This will likely lead to much better matches than some silly algorithm.

Vote Red. Don't mistake not being mentioned with being ignored. Took my parents (Indian) a while to make the switch, but they've never looked back.

> We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God. (Applause.)

> We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture.

> We embrace tolerance, not prejudice.

> ...

> We are the country of Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglass. We are the land of Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. (Applause.) We are the nation that gave rise to the Wright Brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen — (applause) — Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton — General George Patton — the great Louie Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, and Mohammad Ali. (Applause.) And only America could have produced them all. (Applause.) No other place.

-- Trump's address at Mt Rushmore

EDIT: you don't even need to vote for Trump, just look at your local elections.

No not really unfortunately. I'm not great at that kind of thing.

Completely agree with trump here honestly. Looting private business is not a form of protest against the police or the state for that matter.