What’s left to talk about? How to react. How it ends. Where we likely go from there. Where we should go.
If nothing else it's very clear we need to bring politics back to the dinner table. And not he afraid to talk about it in 'nonpartisan' spaces. You can ignore politics, but it never ignores you.
I highly recommend Anniversary https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12583926/
https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
https://scribe.rip/@carmitage/i-researched-every-attempt-to-...
What has happened since the Alex Pretti shooting was simply impossible in previous fascist governments. The administration can tell all the lies they want about it, but most of us have eyeballs, and we can see the multiple videos with frame-by-frame analysis. In the past, government propaganda would have been more effective in cases like this - it would have been a case of "who do you believe, team A or team B?" I don't have to believe either team, I just have to believe my own eyes.
Damn I wish I could share your optimism. If one thing, social media has induced more division, and generalised the idea that "if you are not with me, you are against me". We are at a point where many are demonstrably more comfortable staying in their bubble of lies than willing to seek the truth out of it. And truth is unfortunately overrated.
Ergo Trump isn't fascist since he already was elected and democracy removed him once before. Otherwise they have to say that there has been one successful attempt for democracy to remove a fascist. Only reason Trump won the last election was that the democrats failed so hard at coming up with good candidates, if they had someone as good as John Biden before dementia Trump would have lost, trying to hide his dementia is why Trump rules today.
The problem for people like the author is that other more astute individuals [1] correctly diagnosed the issue over a decade ago. All it took was for her to have grown up in Poland and to be a clinical psychologist who knows how to spot malignant narcissism. The rest fell into place because human nature is so... predictable.
So while it's welcome for the author to finally catch up to the rest of us, it's a little late at this point. Also If people like the author had listened to more sensible people when they had started using the F word instead of dismissing them as hyperbolic, then we wouldn't be here.
Also this bit:
> Although Trump is term-limited, we must not expect that he and his MAGA loyalists will voluntarily turn over the White House to a Democrat in 2029, regardless of what the voters say—and the second insurrection will be far better organized than the first.
shows the author is still a step behind. The correct framing is that the first insurrection succeeded. It continued after Jan 6 for 4 years, as Trump waged an information war contending he was the true winner of the election, and also a war on the judiciary to evade accountability. In that battle he evaded all accountability, nullified the impeachment clause of the Constitution, and also gained "Presidential Immunity" from his appointees on SCOTUS. He also nullified Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding state or federal office if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the US. Trump caused an insurrection, and yet somehow he was allowed to run and hold office again.
So the first insurrection was successful, the perpetrators got away with it, and they assumed total power over the government they attacked after evading judicial accountability and waging an information war on the population.
Anyway, next time there won't be a need for an insurrection, because the only reason there was one in 2021 was because plans A through G failed -- they couldn't get votes in Georgia, they couldn't overturn any state, they didn't win any court cases, they couldn't get people to go along with their "alternate electors" theory, and they couldn't get Pence to go along with the scheme. So they caused an insurrection as a last ditch effort to delay certification.
In 2029 every Republican will go along with plan A. They've already purged everyone who did the right thing in 2021 from the party. So they won't need an insurrection because any Democrat that wins in Georgia will just be erased, as they've made sure to take state control over county election boards after county election boards there went against Trump's wishes in 2020.
Back in 2024 after reading project 2025 and about its authors and backers (federalist society, Thiel, Vance, other tech CEOs, Curtis Yarvin, etc) it was already clear that this was going to happen. I was already convinced that the only way out of this was a general strike and/or military coup, and it doesn't look any better now. I fear an Iran like crackdown is in the deck now.
If you redefine success to whatever you want, then sure.
> In 2029 every Republican will go along with plan A
If you treat people as enemies, they’ll become one. The arrogance in the assumption that every Republican will allow Trump to get elected for a 3rd term might spite them into it.
The definition ModernMech actually uses in their comment would seem to be accurate. They did get away with it, they did assume power, and they are waging "information war" on the population. Although I might expand that to say they are waging war, in general, on the population. And government.
They're getting just about everything they wanted except AOC at the end of a rope, that seems like success to me. They're certainly having a better time than liberals or leftists. Or immigrants. Or black people. Or women. Or anyone else.
What part of this definition do you object to, and for what reason?
>If you treat people as enemies, they’ll become one. The arrogance in the assumption that every Republican will allow Trump to get elected for a 3rd term might spite them into it.
...which would mean they were enemies all along and ModernMech's assumption was correct?
People who actually had strong moral objections to Trump would oppose him regardless of the assumptions being made about them. People who lean into the evil because someone assumes they're evil are just looking for a justification.
And the assumption about Republicans seems justified given that they have the power to stop Trump and... haven't. At all.
Also perhaps worth noting that David Frum, former speech writer to Dubya Bush, writes for The Atlantic (and has been against Trump from the start: see his book Trumpocracy):
* https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-frum/
So we're not just talking about 'leftists' criticizing these actions and policies.
The split is currently between people who believe in and want a functional and equitable government, and those who are fine with a kleptocracy as long as they are personally the beneficiaries (or at least, the people they dislike suffer worse).
People like Frum were quick to notice this and get on the correct side of it. Unfortunately, there are not enough Republicans who feel the same way to make much of a difference.
My point isn't to defend the behavior of the people who have called themselves conservative for the past ~forty years. Rather it's meant to reclaim the term for what has now clearly become the middle of the Overton window. For example, never before having voted for a major party candidate in a national race in my whole life, I voted Biden in 2020 and Harris 2024. I consider these solidly conservative votes, and partially attribute them to my getting older and more conservative.
It's quite honestly amazing how much conservative propaganda has warped the liberal mind. So many liberals actually believe that conservatives just want a slow measured pace of change and to balance budgets, but that's literally never been what they have actually legislated for or accomplished. Liberals are the only people in my lifetime who have actually held those values. They are also the only ones who believe conservatives hold those values. Conservative's know better. And they demonstrated it with their vote. You can no-true-Scotsman until you're blue. There has literally never been a time in this nations history when that was an accurate depiction of conservatives.
Consistently throughout this country's history, conservatives rally to oppose rights being shared with a broader group of people. Conservatives fought a civil war to maintain slavery. They fought for Jim Crow laws. They fought against anti-miscegenation laws. They fought against women's right to vote. They fought and are still fighting against gay rights and recognizing trans people as humans. Literally every single time there is a minority "at risk" of having a better lot in life, there are conservatives turning out to fight against it. When the fuck will you give up the benefit of the doubt on conservatives?
Actually, the policy proposal is to recognize in law that women and men are defined by sex, not self-declared gender identity.
Maybe? I feel like my only real assumption is that there is some coherent set of values that describe conservatism. But maybe that is still falling into a trap of applying a liberal value of intellectual consistency to the "conservative" position (cf "Wilholt's law").
I would often read conservative media / forums from about 2008-2016, and saw merit to many of their arguments. And for others I could at least put on my empathy hat and see where they were coming from. At the same time I would see plenty of excesses and blind spots in progressive media and forums. So it really did feel like a "both sides" dynamic, where they both earnestly wanted freedom but always failed to catch the roadrunner (thanks to corrupt politicians that tended to only move in the corporate-authoritarian direction).
But sure, with the whole-hog rise of Trumpism I'm now confronted with the possibility that perhaps the kernel of conservatism isn't based on any sort of lofty ideals at all, but rather the starting point is always the ingroup-outgroup thing - even if locally-coherent logical arguments branch off of it.
But even if this is true for the vast majority of conservatives, surely it is not true for at least some "liberal minded" conservatives who do apply those values consistently? And even if they're only a small segment, with the way elections get decided isn't it still worthwhile to try and reach them by pointing out the failings in what they're ultimately supporting? (eg flagrant rejection of the 2nd amendment, previously with Breonna Taylor and now with Alex Pretti)
> Consistently throughout this country's history, conservatives rally to oppose rights being shared with a broader group of people. Conservatives fought a civil war to maintain slavery. They fought for Jim Crow laws. They fought against anti-miscegenation laws. They fought against women's right to vote. They fought and are still fighting against gay rights and recognizing trans people as humans. Literally every single time there is a minority "at risk" of having a better lot in life, there are conservatives turning out to fight against it.
Let me explicitly state that I agree with where you're coming from morally on these specific points - I'm certainly not trying to whitewash or defend these things. But I don't see how these points support your main point - they're all instances of trying to prevent social change. But before Trump, it doesn't seem like they were openly trying to turn the clock back (at least more than one lifetime). Now perhaps that's just me viewing the past with rose-tinted glasses. But it really feels like there was a sea change with Trump, and I think it makes sense to try and appeal to people for whom the reality distortion field may be fading - especially as the Trumpists continue to shamelessly kill American citizens.
This is cope, they don't exist, it's just comforting to believe they do. And if they ever existed, they would never, ever vote for a Democrat.
And no, I am not ok. My facts are rooted in what I daydream of.
Maybe he's grown a spine.
Yes, he hoped to fight from the inside, but recognized that the GOP had been taken over my inmates.
In 2016 he voted for Clinton and urged others to do so:
> Surely the American system of government is more robust than the Turkish or Hungarian or Polish or Malaysian or Italian systems. But that is not automatically true. It is true because of the active vigilance of freedom-loving citizens who put country first, party second. Not in many decades has that vigilance been required as it is required now.
> Your hand may hesitate to put a mark beside the name, Hillary Clinton. You’re not doing it for her. The vote you cast is for the republic and the Constitution.
* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch...
I really worry for the people in the US, but I'm hopeful it's hegemony is ending.
I think the real group behind this is people who are capable of sensing that this is wrong at least on some deeper level, but who are so complacent that they just want not to think about it too much. Maybe it's because they're in too deep, maybe they make too much money off of it to care, maybe their heels are too dug in on social issues for them to ever try to reconsider. Possibly a combination of any of the three.
If you are not American, it’s rather tiring to have every website and news outlet talk about it ad nauseum, and have it take over every subreddit and conversation. Americans get all uppity when you tell them that you don’t want that, as if their news are so important that they transcend categorisation.
I care. It’s important. It’s just not the right website.
I don’t understand the insistence that this isn’t on topic. Hard not to paint it as anything but willfully ignorant.
Awareness of your country's politics definitely isn't the issue here. I am keenly aware of the US presidents' threats to invade my country.
The issue is the insistence that it has to be discussed in every community, all the time, and that the importance transcends categorisation. Every website just becomes another dumping ground for US politics, and when you bring that up, Americans get indignant.
It's Hacker News. I am here for news for hackers. The guidelines are pretty explicit: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic".
IMO it sounds like you’d be better off reading Linux mailing lists and open source READMEs if you want to avoid politics. Just so happens that right now politics is uncomfortable, but it wasn’t 10 years ago when the interest rate was effectively 0% and the US gov and SV had still some semblance of separation.
You had to go out of your way to find this thread and make multiple comments complaining about it.
Just ignore the thread, or hide it and move on.
So the visibility of these stories isn't the issue, and the quality of discussion isn't the issue, since neither matter.
I wonder what is it that people actually object to?
“MOST stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.”
Emphasis mine
I'll make sire not to male the park dirty and maybe pick up a litter or two. But I'm not a ranger.
On the other hand, if you actively click on an article, read it, and make multiple posts on it, well that’s on you.
But this article isnt that. If you don't find any of the last years of happening this year curious at the bare minimum, I wonder how deeply aware someone really is of it.
>If you are not American, it’s rather tiring to have every website and news outlet talk about it ad nauseum
I'm sure greenland sees it as tiring too. But of there wasn't such a huge pushback, "tiring" would be the least of their concerns. Why can't we then have a deeper discussion after that to analyze how it came to this (and how to prevent it)? We sure can't have that discussion on Twitter.
Also, I'm pretty fundamentalist when it comes to posting on social media: if I don't like it, I don't click in. If I clicked into every AI buzzword post, I'd go insane. But others want it, who am I To judge? Certainly not a moderator. If you want me to moderate, we can discuss pay.
I do wonder of boosting the flag threshold for posts to double that of a downvote would change much. Probably not depending on the flag threshold and of this truly is coordinatied
It's intentional inaction. From the mods.
This post, and many many others, ought to have been unflagged.
So, so, so many popular and active stories about Musk and DOGE and Trump have been removed this past year, while at the same time Garry Tan and PG were cheering them on on their Twitter feeds.
People who call this out too much get banned. For super unrelated reasons, apparently.
Dang has explicitly disallowed any and all posts talking about the weaknesses of the flag system. IT'S PROTECTED.
People use the word "transparency" to mean different things. Here are the ways in which I think it's fair to say we're transparent about mod actions: (1) we explain the principles that we apply, frequently and at length; and (2) we're happy to answer questions, including about specific cases.
What we don't do is publish a complete moderation log. To understand why, it's probably easiest to look through my past answers about this at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Here's one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234189.
In our experience, the current approach is a reasonable balance between the tradeoffs. It's true that we don't see all the comments like the ones you posted here, and we can't address what we don't see. It's also true that, as volume has grown, we've found it harder to reply to absolutely every question. But it's still eminently possible to get an answer if you want one—especially if you're asking in a way that signals good faith*.
(*I add the latter bit because some people use the format of "asking a question" as way of being aggressive and in such cases we may respond otherwise than by taking the question literally. That's pretty rare though.)
I'm pretty sure that if you sqldump the list of flaggers of this and other posts (like the MN posts) you will find it's not a uniformly distributed list of users.
I've answered that point many times, e.g. recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818. If you take a look at that and have a question that isn't answered there (or here), I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
I haven't had a chance to look at the flaggers of these recent stories to verify that they fit the same pattern, but the pattern is so well-established that it would be shocking if they didn't. Btw, when you say "anything that goes against MAGA", the converse is the case as well (possibly even a bit more so). And when I say (quoting the comment I just linked to):
> There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights.
... I didn't add that we do this the same way in either political direction, because that goes without saying, or ought to. But I'm saying it explicitly here.
Am I wrong that there used to be a flagged option on the lists page, or am I missing where that is?
If you flag a post, you are inadvertedly trying to push a hn post away.
That's fine if the current moderation finds it okay and I respect HN moderation but once again another post gets flagged & dead.
If someone flags a post, they should have a reasoning why. So have it public, so that its easier to call people out if they are being unfair and it would make people more aware of who they are flagging and actually why.
The problems we're talking about come from the fundamentals: how HN is defined (i.e. its mandate), how the site is structured (one front page that everyone shares, only 30 stories per page, etc.), how people feel, and what's going on in the world at large. Given those fundamentals, these conflicts are inevitable. All we can do is work on how we respond to them—trying to respond better, more creatively, more relationally. By "we" I mean all of us: mods qua mods, users qua users, mods qua users, and users qua mods.
That's not going to happen to anyone's satisfaction, but if it can happen at all, that has to be good enough.
I feel like Freud telling you guys you're all doomed to frustration!
In other words, the situation on this story turns out to fit the usual pattern as I described it a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818):
The accounts that flag these stories are almost always established accounts, so I'm not too worried about them being sockpuppets or paid influencers.
From everything we've seen, flags on political stories are a coalition between (1) users who don't want to see (most) political stories on HN, and (2) users who don't like the politics of a particular story they are flagging. In other words, users who care about the quality of the site, and users who care about a political struggle. This dynamic shows up on all the main political topics.
There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights.
This, so far, seems sufficient to me. If we start to see indications that it's not sufficient, we'll take more action.
To make the point clearer, I went through all the other accounts that flagged the OP (i.e. not including the half dozen abusive cases) and collected examples of other stories they had flagged. I'll put that list in a reply to the current post since it's so long. I think anyone who browses that list will see what I mean when I say that most of these accounts are not flagging for purely political reasons.
I don't know if that assuages your concerns—probably not, because it's in the nature of the internet that people feel this way and explanations, data, etc., don't address those feelings—but we can at least try.
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I understand you're between a rock and a hard place on this one but I also notice that this thread has not had its flags removed, which you could easily do.
Please don't just say that the system is as is and no change can be upgraded.
I feel so frustrated at times whenever I comment in posts and I am observing a lot of the articles themselves getting flagged effectively killing the discussion.
I spent an hour today trying to find HN api to build my own custom HN alternative on which people can respond after a post turns dead for not much apparent reason.
It frustrated me because it was about Children's safety & how EU's taking action against Grok in this case... I mean I just want to share my frustration right in here that people aren't thinking of even children but an us vs them dynamic or some reason and flagging and deadding posts. This is a new low that really really frustrated me & I feel like you might understand why too.
Please change the system. I beg of you to fix it because I am seriously frustrated by not even knowing what can get flagged or not or even Dead. I am not against the moderation but can we make it so that instead of auto flagging atleast, its a flag that moderators have to pass?
Please dang, I know you want the best of HN community too. Let's work together, I feel like much of HN community really appreciates you (myself included) but we are all frustrated about it. How do we convey such change in any way where the idea of change seems feasible because It just seems that the idea of change seems like something which doesn't feel possible in HN from whenever I read such threads and that does depress me because HN is the best community i am part of. I am proud of being part of HN and many others are too and this is why we are vocal about some need of change. Some need that moderators are willing to hear our demands of frustrations and fix some aspects with change.
Once again, thank you for your moderation efforts. And I hope we can have a fruitful discussion about my comment in which I have tried to express my deep frustration today...
I am a minor dang, I have got female friends my age and If any one of these photos would've been abused by Grok, I will tell you that they would've been scarred for life, maybe worse. These could have been someone's sisters and daughters.
And what HN community flagged was a post about EU trying to levy a 6% fine on Grok...
My blood boils thinking that there are people in the community I am proud of being whose first thoughts were to flag such an extremely important discussion to make it dead.
I don't come here for politics but I still discuss about them often. I primarily come here to enjoy tech but man oh man I hope you realize my frustration and other users frustrations & are able to implement some thing which can satisfy us well instead of doing nothing please!
I know you aren't a corporate sellout and are passionate about this community, I just hope that something can be done. I believe in you & trust you after writing this message that you will do what you feel is right.
Have a nice day dang.
Edit: Looks like the other thread got reopened again. If Dang opened it (maybe after reading this?) then thanks a lot broski! This is absolutely great that you fixed it man!
But I hope that Hackernews can have such that things like these just don't happen ie. wrongful flags of genuine topics in the first place etc. or something can still be done or atleast some discussion about it within HN discussions or if possible, please discuss it with a community by creating a ask HN just once and discussing it with other (moderators? if I remember I think you are the only one paid moderator, or maybe tomhow iirc) but my point is please just involve the community just once and weigh in for this problem once again.
Modern problems require modern solutions. I just hope that Hackernews keeps on growing and false positives can be stopped and such system can be generated to prevent such as I must admit that the amount of frustration at that time was seriously immense.
Thanks once again for opening that discussion again and once again have a nice day dang!
Flags are basically me waving my hands in the air calling for a mod. That's not something I do unless I feel it's outright harmful to the site. I'm a late commenter so I pretty much never have to flag postings (mostly just comment responses that come straight out of Twitter).
I have observed that any post that is negative about Musk gets flagged. Almost 100% of the time. In that regard, it has certainly occurred to me that someone with Musk's wealth would find it trivial to hire millions of people to monitor and attempt to influence his image on social media - and imo it would be quite surprising if he didn't have massive numbers of people whose full time job was to do precisely that.
In that regard, I find it obnoxious someone of his wealth should be entitled to such personal privileges on HN. I don't mean to imply HN is actively supporting that - just that I believe HN should be taking affirmative steps to prevent the removal of 100% of things that would annoy Musk from ever reaching the front page.
I hear you about privileges and I don't disagree, but we're mostly just trying to optimize for interesting discussions.
Thanks for taking the time to respond - and I certainly agree with the above. It's what makes HN pretty unique.
Besides those who flag political posts they don't agree with (which is a problem), I see a conflict in the comments between
those who think HN should be "politic-frei" because this is a "tech site" and "if I wanted to read about politics I'd go to reddit",
and those who agree this is a "tech/science/expand-curiosity-about-the-world site", and that's what makes HN a great community, but that it's sometimes, and especially recently, not possible to disentangle politics and tech. Musk/DOGE is a great example. No one asked Musk to drag politics into tech, and I wish I never had to read any articles about it and we could just talk about EVs and SpaceX, but he did, and so it's important to be able to talk about the impact which that has on tech, and on society, because this directly impacts us who are involved in tech/science. Tech/science does not exist in a vacuum.
The 'official', if I have to call it that, position of HN is closer to the second than the first, although I wouldn't say identical.
Fascism isn't a subjective matter. We have loads of definition and the article makes a serious argument. If the quality of the article matches the subject matter, it's not flag worthy.
That's why I don't flag on ideology. I flag based on if 1) this inspires curiosity and 2) does not inspire hate (which is usually built into 1. You can't be curious of your biases are clouded by prejudice).
>or because I point out the legal basis for justifying an LEO's use of lethal force, etc.
There's a time and place. I'm very critical of Charlie Kirk, bit I gave it a week before o really went full hog on my tjoughts and actions. I have to look it back up, but I believe here I left it at "no one should be assassinated for their thoughts, even if those thoughts don't follow the golden rule" and left it at that.
Now, months later I will happily say that it quite the coincidence that so many Kirk articles here weren't flag while calling the situation what it is still gets flagged.
The article makes an argument because it cannot follow a consensus-accepted decision tree. We have many conflicting definitions from multiple sources, and there is all sorts of room to debate whether any given incident actually evidences some point of some definition. It is dictionary-definition subjective.
But more importantly, trying to fit something under a definition doesn't change what the thing actually is. Labelling things as "fascism" encourages lazy argumentation, and makes one prone to motte-and-bailey fallacy and the noncentral fallacy. For one example, people are now going around referring to ICE as "gestapo", prompted by this "fascist regime" framing. The central defining feature of the actual Gestapo is that they were secret. ICE agents are not hiding themselves in general, and even on the relatively unusual occasions that they are in plain clothes on video footage, they are not thereby doing anything that would be out of order for, say, local law enforcement.
This rhetoric also primes people to perceive "1A violations" when people are arrested for reasons clearly other than what they were saying, or "4A violations" in cases where a warrant is not legally required, or "10A violations" when federal law enforcement officers attempt to enforce federal law and happen to be within a state (or DC or Guam or whatever, you know what I mean) when they do so (as if there were any alternative). And it primes people to perceive ordinary law enforcement actions that have always happened and were always expected to happen in similar circumstances, in other developed countries like Canada as well, as some kind of fascist oppression. Most importantly, it has always been a federal crime to obstruct federal law enforcement; and 1A clearly does not and never did empower people to physically block the path of LEO to wave a sign in their face; and nothing ever legally empowered people to resist arrest.
> I flag based on if 1) this inspires curiosity and 2) does not inspire hate (which is usually built into 1. You can't be curious of your biases are clouded by prejudice).
I am not flagging based on ideology when I flag submissions like this one. I am flagging because they do not inspire curiousity and do inspire hate. Labelling people with terms like "fascist" (including vague political outgroups) is hateful. The fact that I can get responses like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768495 and (in another thread) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46754655, and the fact that I can get flagged on comments like (in another thread) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749406, makes the lack of curiousity-inspiration clear. As does the fact that every attempt I make to point at legal code and case law goes ignored in favour of people telling me that I'm out of line for daring to contradict their assessment of who is or isn't a fascist. Cogent arguments against the article's point of view are summarily rejected; threads fill with propaganda about "summary executions" (in ignorance of what self-defense law actually says) and pithy statements that don't seem to require any clear argumentation as long as they come to the right conclusion; and the ingroup gets more and more worked up.
>There's a time and place. I'm very critical of Charlie Kirk, but
People were openly celebrating the assassination; and they were spreading propaganda that blatantly misrepresented many different things he said, in many cases coming across as if they had had talking points prepared. And they also baselessly tried to associate the shooter with their political outgroup, despite that narrative barely making any sense.
Outside of HN, I saw all sorts of people call for more political violence, say that certain people "were next", etc. It was the first time in nearly a decade of being on Discord that I ever felt compelled to report anyone's messages to Discord Trust & Safety.
None of that should be accepted in the first place. To say that "there's a time and place" to call out such egregious behaviour is appalling.
You may notice that neither I nor anyone else justifying the shooting of Renee Good here on HN have been speaking ill of her. I have in fact been careful and explicit in not ascribing malice to her (because any resulting case is about Ross' perspective, and Good's mens rea is not relevant to an LEO's self-defense claim.)
(May I please also just say that it's especially galling to hear current appeals to 1A used to defend protesters who were impeding officers and resisting arrest, from the same political direction as the people who were happy that someone engaged in an act of protected speech was shot and killed by a sniper who politically disagreed with that speech? I didn't record any instances of the same person making both arguments, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it happened, either.)
I don't at all mean to come across as angry or belligerent. I simply want to explain why it hurts to read these things, and why I think they aren't in keeping with the intended spirit of political discussion on HN.
> quite the coincidence that so many Kirk articles here weren't flag while calling the situation what it is still gets flagged.
This is not about sides. This is about the tenor of rhetoric in submissions and comment sections (and the reasonable expectation of how comment sections will play out based on the submission).
Transparent as you could ever hope for: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang
At least that's what it looks like to an outside observer from elsewhere in the world. It's been fascinating as an outsider to watch your republicans suddenly unsure about the second amendment after the last few days.
Its very similar to ICE. Obviously they are guilty, but I place the real blame on lawmakers' hesitancy to tale actions to reel this in. They have the power to do so and won't even investigate the issue in ways the public cannot. That's complicicy.
The movement opposes equality because equality stands opposed to their need for hierarchy. It is a domination and submission movement. It boasts about its application of double standards. Double standards are not logical fallacies, when they use them they are virtues. To enjoy for themselves what they deny to others is a display of dominance.
The issue, of course, is that literally anything can be "political", and moreover by trying to actively avoid political discussions you sort of tacitly endorse the status quo.
It's a tough line to draw, and I'd be lying if I said where I knew where to draw it; HN is a fun forum specifically because the moderation is generally very good. They're not perfect but they do try and shut things down before they devolve into flame wars and personal insults. If there weren't aggressive modding, HN would devolve into 4chan or 8chan, and it wouldn't be appealing to me after the age of ~17.
But now that the status quo of Western countries had begun rapidly shifting into something completely different, the other side of that initial ruling is starting to bear fruit. I really think that at this point they should revisit this policy - not to abandon moderation, but make amends that try to distance this place from the current political establishment. What was yesterday's implicit favoring of the boring consensus is now a defined position that's supportive of whatever the current powers do. But, being more cynical, given how close HN is to Y Combinator, I'm not sure if that option is on the table.
I've long argued for a 'other' category as one overflow method or a homepage that is generic and subject specific pages for those that only want LLM news or Apple. I'm sure we could agree on a 10 level 'top' set with 'All' the default. That's one step closer to Reddit of course, but with the growth that HN has seen over the years you can't continue to pretend that the 'small town' measures still apply to this big city. A lot of this really is just about scale and you need to adapt to scale.
Incidentally, my above comments don't violate guidelines and should not have been flagged.
I did observe some of this activity over the past couple days and note that many of your interlocutors were also flagged, downvoted, etc., and not always for clearly legitimate reasons. I turned on showdead for a while just to follow the plot. So it goes.
I think it’s a good policy (in general, not specific to HN) to match your interlocutor’s effort. There’s no return on investment in any case.
I don't feel that I have a particular "style" of political analysis. In the case of ICE I'm not even doing political analysis; it's legal analysis.
I don't like seeing my communities swell with outrage that appears, to me, to be based on propaganda and ignorance. I would not be talking about these topics otherwise. And my defenses are not based in ideology, unless "the terms people are using here describe really serious terrible things, and shouldn't be abused" is an ideology.
I don't like being dissuaded from responding to it, because without any reassurance that it will be cleaned up as off-topic, that comes across to me as suppressing an opposed point of view. That especially galls on platforms that otherwise appear committed to open discussion of contentious topics.
You're correct that we like to avoid flamewars, but not correct to say "anything involving politics". We don't try to (or want to) avoid politics altogether—a certain number of threads with political overlap have always been part of the mix here*. For (reams of) past explanations see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
What we want to avoid is HN being taken over by politics altogether, and thereby turning into an entirely different site. We want HN to adhere to its mandate, which is to optimize for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). That certainly includes some political discussion, but (a) not beyond a certain threshold, and (b) not every kind of political story or article. (For example, opinion pieces are usually less of a fit than stories which contain significant new information, and so on.)
Unfortunately, this way of doing things inevitably generates conflict. For politically passionate users, that "not beyond a certain threshold" bit is far too little—especially in turbulent times, as now. Apart from that, there's no agreement on which particular stories deserve to be on the frontpage, and even if there were such agreement, there's still no way of making sure that the most deserving stories get the spots (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306).
Everyone has the experience of being frustrated when a story that they care about gets flagged or otherwise falls in rank. When feelings are running hot, people jump to the conclusion that we're secretly on the opposite political side, or trying to suppress discussion on a particular topic. That's not the case at all—it's all explicable by the principles that we've been repeating for years—but that none of that changes how it feels.
Then there are the users who feel like HN has gotten too political and is a shadow of its former self—this also has always been with us: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
Double unfortunately, I don't know of a fix for any of these binds, because all of them derive from the fundamentals of what HN is - e.g. a single frontpage with only so many slots (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
(* Or to put it differently, note the words most and probably in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, as pg once said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426.)
Hacker News is my favorite forum in no small part because this forum's users are, on average, a lot more educated than the average internet user. If not formally, a lot of the people here still do value learning and education as a whole. Those environments aren't organic on the internet, and it is largely due to efforts from folks like you to cultivate this audience and I do not want to dismiss that.
The concern, then, is that when the educated people can't discuss (and let's be honest, argue about) politics, then the only people who will be discussing politics will be the uneducated people. Politics is inherently contentious and we can't make progress (however you want to define it) without occasionally hurting feelings.
Now, a perfectly valid counter to this is "we're not stopping you from discussing contentious political issues, you're welcome to discuss it on one of the many other forums on the internet, just not here". That's fair enough, but it can come off as a little arbitrary, because virtually anything can be deemed "political"; I could argue that disagreements with type systems or the ISO standard of C or complaining about SQLite could be construed as "politically motivated".
I do realize that a line has to be drawn, though. The last thing I want is for the forum to devolve into 8chan or The Drudge Report or something, so while I don't completely agree at where you draw the line, I do understand why it is drawn.
If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters.
(For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions. All the more reason not to nurture threads about it here.)
PS: I'm a longstanding "too-much-politics-on-HN" person, and even I'm a little annoyed that Jonathan Rauch's piece won't work here, if only so I can annoyingly noodle on the varying definitions of fascism. But flags are the right call here.
Funny because I'm probably very radical about ICE and I can still find subtleties on how to reform this. I've never been "Defund the police", quite the opposite. I believe LEOs should have standing, qualities, and training that makes them stand by their emergency peers. Truly the best of the best. Getting that badge should be a similar thrill to being accepted into a top college. They should have years of schooling before truly starting to gain their title.
Getting into a firefighting isn't easy, so why should an LEO see of as a career as a backup for failing to graduate high school? That's where all this falls apart. And now the standards barely get these ICE goons a month of "training". That needs to change.
But with current times, that's not a topic I can discuss on X nor Bluesky. That makes it all the more frustrating that HN plugs its ears on such subtlety instead.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762767
Is a pretty good comment, but it got flagged, there is a degree of unfairness here.
When I see a submission like the current one, I get the impression just from the title that the OP doesn't believe it.
I think this is a poor litmus test, because there are plenty of stories on HN where the majority perspective is going to be either agreement or disagreement. For example, zero day exploits, leaks, anything related to Tesla circa 7-8 years ago etc. The notion that every conversation needs to have multiple perspectives is a common fallacy; I think we can agree that things like companies ignoring security holes is bad for example and someone saying 'actually, it's good' isn't actually adding anything productive.
> If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters.
That ship sailed long ago with stuff like the Google Manifesto or companies like Palantir. People rightfully point out ycombinators (and by extension, HNs) connection to the current political environment which means people here, especially long standing users, will find themselves more and more agitated.
For me at least, these kind of stories are increasingly unavoidable because they aren't just things I read on the internet, they're directly my life. Schools have gone into lockdown here in Seattle when ICE activity flares up, stores I've gone to have needed to prepare and think long and hard about what to do when ICE knocks at the door. Naturally this means people are going to gravitate towards stories here that are directly related to their life, and when those stories get squashed people start to notice the disconnect. People might go on HN to avoid these stories, but I literally cannot avoid my life.
This would disqualify more than half of AI/LLM/<insert_tech_person> stories. This seems like a cope out. It is our inability as tech people to embrace the discomfort that is not rational and engage with it.
Although generally I think the un-nuanced AI hype/doom articles are not nearly as damaging as the flood of one-shot LLM projects being presented under "Show HN" with apparently none of the framing text (HN post, project README, responses to feedback) being human-written.
In that we are practicing the very doublethink we criticize in the society.
Having a tepidness when it comes to the dozens of slop articles on some trivial Ai blogs contradicts this mission to encourage curiosity and encourage a quality discussion. It feels outright contradictory and feeds into this sentiment that "anything tech is fine, nothing political is". Having flaggers do the work and promoting it as "community vote" is a convinent smokescreen, even though we all know flagging is based on a super minority of the community.
I know it feels knee-jerk, but I had this sentiment for a few years now as AI rose, and it of course hit a fever pitch in 2025. I think seeing a Tesla earnings call flagged because it wasn't stellar earnings really made me go from quiet apathy to being more vocal on the phenomenon. The actions (which I disagree on) simply do not match the words behind it (which I overall agree with).
This is a perfect example of imagining or assuming our (or the community's) motivations or allegiances then criticising us for what you imagine or assume.
Tesla is far more commonly criticised than praised on HN these days. The moderators have no allegiance or care for Tesla, its reputation or its stock price.
If a ”Tesla earnings call” story was flagged, it would be for the same reason that almost all earnings call or stock price stories are flagged on HN; they usually don't qualify as great topics for curious conversation.
I think it's noteworthy that we couldn't even keep a metadiscussion of this topic completely civil. This shouldn't surprise anyone. "Don't bring up religion or politics"; it's a rule of etiquette (and probably the most common bit of advice in the "Respect" section of every page on WikiVoyage). Why do we think we're exempt?
It's very difficult to talk about, because it's important and people have strongly held beliefs. Respect that, and the purpose of this site.
Calling out hypocrisy, especially of a superior, is important for order in a community. Otherwise you get a smaller version of the US c. 2025
I don't see anything wrong with it. Yes, the executive branch wants chaos. If we can't agree on that (something both sides of the lane agree on, even of the reaction differs) how can we really dig into solutions?
The guidelines read clearly to me like tone policing is expected:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Flagging https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768275 is completely inappropriate (I do not accuse you specifically). It does not in any way violate HN guidelines. The comment it was responding to clearly did, and was correctly flagged and killed as a result.
Yes, this is exactly what my framing was doing - it is more substantive, positing a starting point for people who earnestly want to solve this problem. How the heck do we save, or at least triage, our country when we've got a hostile federal executive trying to start a civil war (among many other types of overt damage) ?
This conversation is open to people of all political persuasions except Trumpists/fascists (or whatever you want to call yourself). I myself am coming from more of a libertarian / Austrian economics background. I can have some wildly different takes on constructive solutions than someone who is a lifelong Democrat, or a conservative who has been pushed out of the Republican party.
The thing you seem to keep missing is that you were not invited to this conversation - or more accurately you've self-selected out. You could choose to join the conversation at any time, but to do this you need to stop throwing out these disruptive upside-down framings that are basically just promulgating the rogue regime's unapologetic litany of bullshit that's trotted out every time they kill another American.
> The thing you seem to keep missing is that you were not invited to this conversation
I didn't vote for Trump, don't live in the US, wouldn't have voted for Trump, and am not a fascist, so I don't understand the objection. But even if I were any or all of those things, I would not require your permission to post here.
It is worth noting that you are the one in this exchange seeking to establish authoritarian control.
I am not "seeking to establish authoritarian control". I am pointing out that you are being disruptive to good-faith productive conversations. The only reason you seemingly responded to my initial comment was to engage in ideological battle. It's like when someone barges into a discussion about Python, asserting that Python sucks and everyone should use PHP instead. Regardless of whether they have a point or not, it's not particularly germane to conversation for the people who wanted to be talking about Python.
I completely agree. That's why ultimately I abandoned the mainstream stuff (outside of YouTube. Yay monopoly) for discussion and go to Tildes for a lot of political talk. But Tildes is small by design and will have some blind spots.
I feel denying a quality article like this (or rather, upholding the minority's rule of denying) cracks into the idea that these policies work to keep HN high quality. Especially when what's on the front page right now is "I ported typescript to rust in a month with Claude!". These don't feel quality driven.
If the answer is no then the risk that someone will flag the article increases dramatically. If the discussion environment isn't open and peaceful then how much more likely isn't it that people will just disengage, flag, and then move on.
If however a large portion of comments get flagged or downvoted to the point of being killed, or met with hate rather than polite and constructive discussion, the result becomes a hostile environment. Repeat that experience a few times and many people will stop engaging in the discussion and just use tools like downvote and flag without making a single comment. It becomes a battle ground where moderation tools are a weapon, rather than a forum where moderation is there to improve the quality of those wishing to participate.
There has been a few times where dang has removed the flags of an article but also done some more heavy handed moderation with a seemingly focus on civility and tone. Personally I would also like to see them remove downvoting for those articles, leaving only upvotes as a way for people to appreciate other comments. It is a nice way to give people room to have a serious and open discussion around political topics here on HN, but with some supervision.
My perspective is that a scale has tipped, a critical mass of people decided they want this sort of thing, and they got it. It wasn't rigged, it wasn't fraudulent, it was a democratic election. Critique democracy itself, or the criticism is incoherent. Make an argument for why a government should be disallowed from doing things that the voters want it to do.
Way more than half the country was disenfranchised in the last election. Best case scenario (and very unlikely scenario): blue sweep in the next elections and then massive electoral reform.
Over 152 million votes were cast, representing more than 64% turnout among those eligible to vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...).
The USA has about 342 million people, and over 18% of them are age 14 or younger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...) and at least some of them are 15-17 (citation needed). So clearly, doing some arithmetic, there are fewer than 304 million adults.
Not only was "half the country" not "disenfranchised", literally a majority of adults actually voted (and this is not even considering that not all adults were statutorily allowed to vote in the first place).
But also, Trump won the popular vote this time.
If we can't agree as a people that the Constitution applies to everyone equally then it isn't a problem with democracy, it's a problem with fascism and must dealt with as such.
Others can work for immediate protest for release of the arrested.
Appeal to common values that they also have, and show how they are violating the religious values they profess.
Technically someone can make some app, that can easily help in getting the citizenship proof for an individual.
I am not from USA.
It's also hard to quantify how much the pandemic and inflation moved some voters away from Biden/Harris.
I think Dems will win big in the next election. The question is how long this lesson will last with voters.
Republicans are now defending straight-up murder in broad daylight by federal forces. I doubt there's anything that could change their minds at this point, they're too far gone.
The next chapter of America needs to be punishing anyone who was apart of these death squads and the officials who allowed it to happen. That's it. There is no statute of limitations on murder or treason. We can't make the same mistakes as we did after the civil war (leniency towards confederates and various compromises)
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
They'd have to change the fundamental nature of business. Most US companies are run like tiny little fascist dictatorships, which is a great training ground for the real thing. The relationship between capital (owners/management) and labor is usually adversarial with "at-will" employment. Contrast in Norway, where businesses operate within a 3-way Agreement (Trepartssamarbeidet) - a formal cooperation between the government, employers' associations, and trade unions.
Americans would have to change capitalism too. The most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance.
But even in this thread they don't want to do that.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-tr...
https://x.com/eastdakota/status/2009654937303896492
he's even using their rhetoric ("DISGUSTING")
I do have my domain name in them but I have been lazy to migrate out with cf tunnels but I definitely hope that I can have courage to muster to migrate my domains and cf tunnels alternative and everything.
Edit: Looks like we were talking about the same thing, y'know what's crazy is that there are some points in which I can justify cloudflare but in no way or form should they try to speak the rheoteric or something.
Like just call spade a spade and we can understand it that in this case italy is wrong but the fact that he had to speak in the rheoteric or even spoke in first place is why I also don't really like cloudflare & think that the internet should move away from 12% traffic being in cloudflare
Hope that I am able to explain that italy vs cf, I feel like italy's in the wrong but overall cf with its CEO rheoteric is wrong too and as you mention, he isn't above kissing the ring and we probably need alternatives too.
Hopefully old man won’t be around that long
Millions in the U.S. get "information" from a firehose of propaganda.
That defines the reality they see. Others perhaps just feel hopeless but... want to believe that our constitutional democracy somehow manages to hold on and rebound.
Not a big delta between that and firing squad.
Slaves were brought here against their will.
Illegal immigrants snuck in against ours.
Population of democracy vote for something.
President of democracy enacts stronger power for that something.
That something gets done.
People who disagree with democratic powers doing what they said they were going to do want to stop it by force.
That something now gets done, by force.
---
Sounds justified because it is.
We know for certain no people voted for it, because the option was never on a ballot.
What, do you think they should not be punished, or should be immune from following the law? The laws passed by the representatives and president of the democracy you're so keen on?
If you think they are following the law, you sound crazy, because you are.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/atlantic-media/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditForGrownups/comments/dvyd48/w...
https://therapygroupdc.com/therapist-dc-blog/why-we-snap-und...
I'm guessing the existence of two sites, both rated [HIGH] for factual accuracy, give you a sense of outrage when you read accurate facts?
See Ted Cruz's remarks on Jimmy Kimmel: "[W]hen it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it."
Or Brett Kavanaugh on Lisa Cook: that Trump shouldn't dismiss her because "what goes around comes around [...] if there's a Democrat president".
This is the moderate Republican position: no concern for the harm caused to people on the political left, only concern that they on the right might not get away with it. The MAGA position is, as this article shows, much worse.
Now imagine the people who don't want more housing (for some reason) end up burning all new houses being built in a state.
Now imagine crying about how the people who want the houses to be built to solve the problem are still wanting more houses to be built.
Turns out it's harder to solve a housing problem when the houses keep getting burnt down. Who'd have thunk?
My heart aches for the countless victims of this band of fascists in the executive branch.
This suggests to me there is some level of systemic intent (or at least ambivalence) with this administration's use of ICE's use of lethal force. It is beyond concerning. This admin is now very literally murdering us and will immediately try to justify it.
I remember reading 1984 when I was a kid and enjoying it, at no point did I think it was more than sci-fi though. I suppose it goes to show how much we took for granted the last 80+ years.
It also makes me respect Orwell so much more. Which was already very high based on how he makes tea. How was he able to see you presciently?
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
The US administration has always labeled any resistance against it as terrorism at least ever since 9/11. You might remember the justification of killing young Afghani males, who were posthumously labelled as terrorists. They drone strike an apartment complex and report 25 dead terrorists, conveniently omitting to report on dead children or women, because there were 25 males between the age of 15 - 25 among the dead. No evidence of terrorist activity required.
The only change is that the same justification is now being used within the US borders.
The dead are still, however, The Other, which is how it's being justified now as it was when the dead were foreigners in a war zone.
think of ELF/Earth First in the 90s with "ecoterrorism"... plenty of stops between that and, say, the Haymarket affair. Or hell, much of the anti-indigenous genocide could probably be described using the term "counter-insurgency", which is closely related to how the US gov. thinks of terrorism.
It's 100% the intent of this admin to use their secret police to drive fear and terror
Imperial boomerang. After enabling Israel/IDF which routinely just shoots unarmed people and officials on all levels simply justify it with "Terrorists.", and also routinely denies ambulance access to victims shots, it was only a matter of time until such and similar tactics come back home. Because politicians back home saw that the world was okay with it, so why not do it home.
People are supposed to defend their rights from far away, so that they don't have to defend them uncomfortably close when it's too late to avoid many casualties.
But “scapegoat”?
“Israel did 9/11” is treating them as a scapegoat. “IDF often calls men they killed terrorists with no justification” is just stating a fact.
Leaving that bit of history out certain seems like a missed point of history, and absent that your parent post's point might indeed seem a little reach-y.
I think they are simply poorly trained people that are given free reign. The results are disastrous. They probably don't wake up thinking "Today I'm going to murder someone" but they just don't realize what they're doing. I'm not sure how it's at the destructiveness scale at this moment, but these organizations can and it probably will get much worse as their internal culture morphs into more directly aggressive stance.
The shootings were incredibly dumb, and it's pretty much what one would expect when they create this kind of situation. Listening to the "Revolutions" podcast I realized situations like these are incredibly common all along history, you have armed people with tense spirits, a gun goes off and tragedy ensues. The most terrible part of all of this is the reaction of the authorities that lie, gaslight and support these people, get them off the hook and this reaction will only generate more violence and more deaths as ICE realizes they _really can_ act with impunity.
The Stanford Prison Experiment is a good analogue to what we are seeing with ICE. People empowered to be cruel.
And they are given the message (from the president!) they have absolute immunity, and instructed to regard the law as a set of nonbinding guidelines.
The Supreme Court played a role in this too. They made it harder to stop by halting the long-established precedent of nationwide injunctions.
The people pulling the trigger are still not blameless. They are murderers no matter how badly misled. Your common murderer is misguided too. That doesn't mean they are absolved. I don't think that's what you were saying, but it bears mentioning.
I personally don't think it's making the agents worse, but rather that it's very heavily selecting for very bad people. If you have a job where people can be violent and abusive with little-to-no oversight, you are going to select for people who want to do violent and abusive things. Keep in mind, these people aren't being "drafted" into ICE, they're voluntarily joining, meaning that they had to demonstrate some interest in it.
This doesn't imply that every ICE agent is a terrible person, just like how not every Catholic priest abuses children, but if you create a selection pressure then it isn't surprising when you get what you selected for.
Sample size of one but bear with me; I am an asshole but I am a decidedly non-violent person. I genuinely do not want to commit any form of violence on people. Law enforcement doesn't seem appealing to me because it pays worse than software and I wouldn't view physically attacking people with impunity as a benefit.
ICE is said to be paying signing bonuses up to $50,000 [1]. That must seem like a fortune to the sorts of people they are recruiting... people who would happily do stuff like this for free if given permission.
Jonathan Ross (the ICE agent who shot and killed Renée Good) is an Iraq war veteran who has served in military and paramilitary units (National Guard, CBP, ICE) for over two decades. He intentionally engaged in a behavior that has been documented as far back as 2014 [1] to manufacture a reason to shoot the person in front of him.
Did he premeditate killing someone while getting out of bed that morning? Probably not.
Did he make the decision to kill Ms. Good in advance? No reasonable doubt.
[1] Even by CBP internal reviews, no less: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/us-border-agents-i...
They absolutely woke up thinking that. This is the happiest these monsters have been in their lives
Granted, I've been accused of feeling too much empathy by people, but I don't think that that's an atypical reaction. The fact that this officer was able to brush it off without blinking is extremely concerning.
[1] If you want you can read about it: https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Personal/July-2023/Guilt-and-.... That said, please do not feel compelled to tell me stuff isn't my fault. I know you mean well when you say that but my emotions are complicated and I am seeing a therapist about this stuff.
The shooting of Alex Pretti was a long chain of escalatory and poor decisions on the part of ICE (well, assuming here that "good" is defined by not shooting people, I'm sure some in this admin might disagree). I might come off too sympathetic to ICE. I am not, but the real killers here are the ones creating these kinds of situations, the ones using ICE as a political gain machine. I'm sure that ICE has its shares of psychopaths, but giving them reign in the first place... those people empowering them have blood on their hands.
Except that "flinching" is not happening. An earlier comment of mine:
---
On the most recent event, a reduced-speed video showing one agent (centre, bent over at beginning) removing the victim's firearm from his waistband, then a second agent (left) waiting for the first to get clear, and then pulling his pistol (video stops before any shooting):
* https://x.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015272806636736647
* https://xcancel.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015272806636736647
The actual shooting of the victim; view discretion advised:
* https://x.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015335743443378660
* https://xcancel.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015335743443378660
---
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46754974
The second waited for the first guy to be clear, then drew, then started shooting. He was waiting for his opportunity.
I still think that the most dangerous thing from this whole situation is how this admin frames it and effectively encourages ICE to kill people further, because there will be no consequence for them. Essentially, same thing they did with the Jan 6 protesters.
That's why we train law enforcement to de-escalate instead of doing what they are doing right now, which is antagonizing and brutalizing. You absolve them of their crimes when you pretend that this was all inevitable.
Obviously, the ICE agents have to rationalise what they do. "We are the good guy, we work against the bad guys". But I don't think that they wake up in the morning hoping that they will have an opportunity to hurt what they themselves consider "average americans".
Looking at the video, I could totally imagine that the first shot fired was a mistake, and then one or more of the agents panic and shoot... well... a LOT of times. That doesn't seem rational, or professional. I don't think that the agent thinks "ahah! Here is my opportunity, I'll shoot him 5 more times". Still, they killed someone for no apparent reason (it's not a proportional defense, quite obviously) and they should be judged for that.
Then why are they letting people take these positions without specific training and why are they letting them return to work immediately after making fatal mistakes? Why are those above them immediately covering up their mistakes and why are their colleagues illegally tampering with evidence after the events take place?
Yes, please don't give those people guns.
Most LEO's are lawful well intentioned, but they do stand by and cover for a good many who are not, those that these days have encrypted chat groups dehumanising those they interact with and swapping notes on what they can get away with and come out smelling of roses.
Those rotten apples corrupt new recruits and normalise harshly putting the boot in, curb stomping, and other extremes.
An acquaintance of mine has seen the full roller coaster over the past 45 years, first defending police that were unquestionably exuberant in violence, later shunned for having had enough and pulling the rug.
Oh they absolutely fucking do
Maybe not explicitly, but I do think there's a selection bias towards people who do want to do that. If you know you can get away with exerting violence towards a group of people you don't like, then that career is going to be very appealing towards people who want to do that.
It's the same thing with priests and their abuse of children. It's not like being a priest turns you into a child-abuser. It's just that priests are in a situation that they're constantly surrounded by kids unsupervised, can live alone unmarried without anyone questioning it, and when they do something horrible and abuse their power then they're often just moved to another parish. Of course a job like that is going to be attractive to people who want to abuse children.
I think ICE is similar. I do think there are people who join ICE with genuinely noble intentions, like getting rid of cartels and whatnot, but the Trump admin has made ICE something extremely appealing to people who have worse intentions.