For an idea as to how this gets translated into the reality on the ground here in Minneapolis this is an article on what’s going on from the main newspaper in the state.
> In the past week alone, ICE boxed in a Woodbury real estate agent recording their movements from his car, slammed him to the ground and detained him at the Whipple Federal Building near Fort Snelling for 10 hours. A 51-year-old teacher patrolling the Nokomis East community told the Star Tribune she was run off the road into a snowbank by ICE for laying on her horn. Officers shattered the car window of a woman attempting to drive past a raid in south Minneapolis to get to a doctor’s appointment nearby, then carried her through the street. Feds pushed an unidentified motorist through a red light into a busy intersection, reportedly fired projectiles at a pedestrian walking “too slowly” in a crosswalk and shoved Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne while he was observing their actions from a public sidewalk.
A person who believes the above examples should try to find the videos or other details of each case in order to be sure they are being told the truth.
Assuming that the “carried the woman through the street” is the same case as the video I watched, she was clearly deliberately obstructing traffic, as she wasn’t continuing to drive down the street despite the road being clear with no vehicles ahead of her. She then is removed from the car by force and refuses to move, requiring her to be carried.
I’m here in the ground, I’ve seen them detain people for no cause. Masked agents grabbing guys out of a Home Depot parking lot and throwing them in a van only to drop them off later after scaring them. No charges.
Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get picked up so you can get your proof.
The amount of credulity you’re exhibiting is incredible given the tidal wave of evidence that there’s a highly politicized, highly funded paramilitary organization of the government that has to date not been publicly held accountable for any of its actions that clearly violate the rights and safety of even the lawful residents of the United States.
Reposting because there is clearly no reason for it to have been flagged.
The claim that ICE exists and is highly funded is not in dispute. ICE has existed since 2002 and the current funding was provided in the Big Beautiful Bill and was never in question.
"Paramilitary" is a subjective assessment.
Anyone being "held accountable" for anything, ever, in the legal system, takes years. Trump has not even been in office (this time around) for a year yet.
The actions you describe as "clearly violating rights" simply do not do any such thing. The rights of American citizens don't work the way that protesters have been implying.
ICE agents are federal law enforcement officers. They are explicitly empowered in the relevant law (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357 , section (a)(5)) to make arrests without a warrant of any person (including citizens) for any federal crime that they actively see happening, and any federal felony on reasonable suspicion.
Which makes perfect sense, because those are things that any other federal law enforcement officer would be able to do, without a warrant, in the same situation.
The Tenth Amendment does not bar federal officers from prosecuting federal crime and does not bar them from being in your state in the first place. It also doesn't give your local law enforcement the right to interfere with them. It only relieves them of the burden of helping to enforce federal law.
Even a Mother Jones article admits it's "not illegal" generally for the ICE agents to wear masks (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/ice-immigration...). (Aside from any question of anonymity, in the Good case, the face coverings on agents appear to be fabric appropriate to the near-freezing weather.) Attempts to pass state laws to prohibit the masks are being challenged (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-14/federal-...); I'm not convinced they would matter anyway given the Supremacy Clause.
When protesters are resisting arrest, physical force is sometimes required to enact that arrest. (And it's strange to make this argument about "safety" when many protesters are attempting to endanger the officers as well as counter-protesters and critics.) All the same things would be playing out if you had the same actions taken against state LEO that were trying to enforce state law.
I have thus far seen video footage of the ICE protesters:
* vandalizing unattended federal vehicles and stealing a firearm from one of them
* throwing dangerous objects at officers
* intentionally ramming cars
* boxing in officers on the street
* attempting to booby-trap the area around ICE facilities presumably in the hope of injuring the agents
* repeatedly refusing to leave when officers tell them to leave and there is clearly nothing preventing them from leaving, then resisting arrest when that refusal leads to an arrest
* effectively enacting their own "Kavanaugh stops" (without any legal authority) on other random citizens that they wrongly suspected of being plainclothes ICE agents because they happened to own the wrong model of SUV
* vandalizing the vehicle of counter-protesters while they were stopped at a traffic light, physically climbing onto the vehicle, making threats, and soaping up the front window to obscure visibility (a clear safety threat to everyone)
* running in front of a parked ICE SUV and pretending (very obviously) to get hit by it
* using a loudspeaker at close range next to a counter-protester, in a manner that would clearly cause or threaten hearing damage
And a lot of this directly leads to the situations that they subsequently propagandize.
Freedom of speech is not freedom to interfere physically with law enforcement.
Your final point essentially relies on us to believe that because we see evidence of ICE protesters doing things that range from mildly annoying to obstructive, ICE have carte blanche to execute citizens in the street should they be clever enough to manufacture the opportunity for themselves (like walking in front of a parked vehicle of a cooperative, but startled woman).
Your individual points about the technicalities of the actions of ICE being legal or illegal are imo immaterial to the above.
I’ve also seen lots of videos of extremely concerning behavior by ICE agents, like you have seen of protestors. The catch is one group of people are federal agents who can kill you without consequences, and the other group is a wide range of American citizens of varying degrees of intelligence, mental health, and passion that can’t be grouped together into a monolith to prove some point about whether they’re allowed to be executed in the streets.
> she was clearly deliberately obstructing traffic,
You are lying. She waited for the pedestrian to cross.
Also, obstructing traffic is not valid reason to be violent against someone. ICE or cops being violent in that situation is them abusing their power big time. So, again, we are back to Brownshirts comparison.
If you're locking yourself in your car when you're under arrest, and that car is currently blocking traffic, there is no reasonable alternative to using force to get into the vehicle and take you out. Nothing else will get you out of the vehicle, and you legally must get out of the vehicle. You can't just be left there.
If you are resisting having handcuffs put on you, or refusing to walk along as you are taken to a police vehicle, there is no reasonable alternative to using force to ensure that the handcuffs go on and you get in the vehicle. Being carried is about the gentlest thing that could possibly happen.
> she was on the way to doctor stopped by armed thugs.
This is contradicted by the fact that she repeatedly refused to take a clear path when she was being told to take a clear path and the officers were not in any way preventing her from doing so.
This does not in any way contradict "she was clearly deliberately obstructing traffic". There was a very long period in the video where there was clearly no obstruction to her driving down an empty street and multiple officers were repeatedly telling her to do so, and cars behind her were obstructed for no reason.
> Also, obstructing traffic is not valid reason to be violent against someone.
This is a complete strawman.
> ICE or cops being violent in that situation is them abusing their power big time.
ICE are cops. "She then is removed from the car by force and refuses to move, requiring her to be carried" is normal; if you are under arrest and you do not comply with the arrest, LEO are legally entitled to use the force required to enact the arrest. In this case, she had to be removed from the car because she tried to lock herself in the car, and she had to be carried because she refused to move along. That's just how arrests work.
To the extent that any of that can be called "violent", it is not a consequence of obstructing traffic. It is a consequence of resisting arrest.
It's bizarre to me that your comment was flagged and killed (here's a vouch). You see what you see in the video. There is nothing about your comment that violates HN guidelines. On the other hand, rhetoric about "lying" and "fascist assholes" is clearly not in the spirit of constructive dialog.
Other people here seem to think that "obstructing" something entails making it impossible to get around. That is just... not how that language ordinarily works. They also misrepresent your argument, skipping all the steps in between, as if you were asserting that people are being shot directly as a punishment for obstructing traffic. That's clearly not what anyone is saying or justifying, including the officers themselves.
Yes but if shown proof would it change your mind about anything? Are you against federal law enforcement covering their faces, beating and detaining people illegally?
If all those things happened in Spain where I live, I'm 99% we'd have actual riots on the streets, together with a lot of other unpleasant-but-needed civilian action, until things got better, like we've done in the past (sometimes maybe went slightly overboard with it, but better than nothing).
Why are Americans so passive? You're literally transitioning into straight up authoritarianism, yet where are the riots? How are you not fighting back with more than whistles and blocking them in cars? Is there more stuff actually happening on the ground, but there simply isn't any videos of it, or are people really this passive in the land of the free?
Are people inside the country not getting the same news we're getting on the outside? Are you not witnessing your government carrying out extra-judicial murders and then being protected by that same government? I'm really lost trying to understand how the average person (like you reading this) isn't out on the streets trying to defend what I thought your country was all about.
A pervasive "Someone needs to do something!!!" attitude is why. Americans will forever wait for the school principal to come and get everyone into trouble
There is a lot of direct action happening right now in Minneapolis, with people keeping watch on every block. I agree this level of organizing should be happening nationwide.
> American life is so much more distributed than European life.
It isn't though, Google Maps estimate going West>East coast in the US to take 44 hours (pure driving without stops), and puts going from the South of Spain to the North of Sweden to take 50 hours, more or less the same.
Then Europe is a bunch of countries, most of them speaking different languages, with way more difference in culture than the states of the US. I'm not sure it matters though, it really isn't relevant, but probably the wrong thing to bring up regardless, when the reality looks the opposite than you seem to think.
FWIW, when the (last) civil war in Spain happened, you had volunteer civilians coming from Sweden (among other countries) to defend their ideals, even if it wasn't their fight, completely different culture and language. But if you care about something bigger than yourself, then you act.
"My country is large" isn't an excuse to not stand up against tyranny, not sure in what world it would be.
The whole "just barely surviving financially" sucks though, especially considering the poor labor movements and almost non-existing union support, and poor grassroot organization. It always felt weird and artificially suppressed, but without those thing, it certainly seems easier to take over an entire country. Hope others learned their lessons with this.
> Then Europe is a bunch of countries, most of them speaking different languages, with way more difference in culture than the states of the US. I'm not sure it matters though, it really isn't relevant, but probably the wrong thing to bring up regardless, when the reality looks the opposite than you seem to think.
There's certainly more cultural similarity across the US, but that doesn't mean there isn't a sense of emotional and geographic distance. Remember that the typical riot participant is not a political theorist who has some deep theory of how discharging their duty will enact change, just an average guy who's mad as hell about what's happening and not going to take it anymore.
> That would be like driving from Key West to Prudhoe Bay which looks to be 91 hours.
Haha, yeah, at least I got a laugh from it, thank you :) A fair comparison then I guess would be from Canary Islands to Svalbard, if we're aiming to make it as far as possible to make some imaginary point no one cares about :)
Plenty of Minnesotans have come out to protest, just like in other cities where ICE is active. Many people outside the cities, even just in the suburbs, haven't seen any of it at all and it's just something that's happening on TV that doesn't really exist to them. I've never seen an ICE officer in my life, despite living in a area with many immigrants from the Middle East. Minneapolis might as well be Spain to most Americans.
So you don't do anything because you have a job you need to keep and a kid to take care of, but you're perfectly okay with moving to a completely different country on short notice?
The US, for better or worse, isn't a cohesive country of people interested in a collective, but a smash and grab of economic gains sourced from those who are forced to live in it and cannot flee to developed countries. You come to it, or stay in it, to make more income you would in developed countries at the detriment of everyone else.
Whether you believe the economic human factory farm that is the US is worth saving or preserving will be a function of your lived experience and mental model. "What are you optimizing for?"
Yes because one of those can get my face smashed in by a baton. Moving is a far safer option for my family.
Call it selfish if you want (hell, I'd even agree with you) but my priority is my family and my life. This idea that I have to care about "my country" is patriotic BS pounded into us to make it more likely to join the army.
> Because I have a kid to take care of. A job I need to keep, and a way of life I'd like to maintain.
Exactly, so why not go out on the streets and actually defend those things then? Currently your (presumed) inaction will cause those to be harmed, you're not "saving those" by saying and doing nothing, you're effectively giving them away if you don't actively protect them.
What physical government oppression have I missed now? I'm not trying to claim Spain is perfect, because it really isn't, especially considering "freedom of speech" (depending on your perspective of it) and some other things Americans might take for granted.
But I'd say that usually when there are large issues impacting large parts of the population, then you can be pretty sure that there will be country-wide protests against it, many times with smaller violent elements, because people here make their opinions and feelings known.
My point is that what Americans face here is a collective action problem, which is no different than many of the problems facing Spain. While you might go out and protest, there are other collective action problems you're not solving today, even though you could if you took action as a group.
Because actually defending those things requires violence and I shy away from that. Sitting on the sidelines and protesting doesn't do a damn thing. It just makes the maga people laugh harder. Case in point: our own president sharing an AI video of himself wearing a crown and dumping feces on protestors.
Fair, avoiding violence is usually not the way to go, so fair point.
Protesting does do something though, the very least showing other people a direction to go in, to at least show something. It's hard to argue it does nothing, because images and videos do end up on social media and the news, and you really need the rest of the population on your side, if you actually want to change stuff.
You know what actually doesn't do a damn thing? Not doing a damn thing. Literally anything is better than nothing, just showing support is better than nothing. Talking about it is better than nothing.
> You know what actually doesn't do a damn thing? Not doing a damn thing. Literally anything is better than nothing, just showing support is better than nothing. Talking about it is better than nothing.
That's fair. And I'm talking about it right now and everywhere else I can in safe ways.
As far as protesting goes, I agree with you. It is better than nothing. It does help show people they're not alone. But as I said mentioned, this isn't happening where I live. It would literally take me days to travel to Milwaukee or another hotbed. Some people are stronger than me and take time off and make other sacrifices to attend rallies, and I admire those people, but it's not feasible for me. Or I suppose a more truthful way of saying it is it's not worth it for me because of the sacrifices I'd have to make just for the chance of getting hurt or being added to a list.
If nothing else, thank you for sharing your honest perspective, I appreciate it :)
> Or I suppose a more truthful way of saying it is it's not worth it for me because of the sacrifices I'd have to make just for the chance of getting hurt or being added to a list.
It's really sad to hear that the chilling effect is working so effectively. I of course understand why you make the choice you make, that's not strange, but that they managed to turn your society into this is nothing but sad to hear.
going to small protests has done a lot of good for my ability to regulate. Being involved with a cadre of street medics has made me feel a little less crazy.
It's nice to get off line and into the streets- the reasons are terrifying but it feels better to be with my friends in the road than to be at home fretting about stuff and writing dumb HN responses :D
- The American political system has been very successful in telling its people that the only acceptable way to show discontent and enact change is by voting on elections.
- Lots of people are okay with it because it can only happen to the "bad guys", and why would it ever happen to them since they're the "good guys"... right?
... yet still tens of millions of eligible voters don't even bother
the country is very low-density, there's no one obvious point to protest (there was Occupy Wall Street... and then the Seattle TAZ and .... that's it, oh and the Capitol January 6th), strikes and unions are legally neutered, it's just not the American way anymore
the country has a lot of experience "managing" internal unpleasantry, see the time leading up to the civil war, and then the reconstruction, and then there was a lull as the innovation in racism led to legalized economic racism (the usual walking while black "crimes", vagrancy laws, etc), and then the civil rights era, with the riots, and since then (and as always) police brutality is used as a substitute to training and funding
I think a general strike might be effective for low-density places, though that requires enough people taking part to make it truly effective. That way you don't need an obvious place to protest apart from your workplace and it'd be a non-violent protest that would definitely get the attention of the wealthy.
> The American political system has been very successful in telling its people that the only acceptable way to show discontent and enact change is by voting on elections.
Has it? Because I recall a bunch of people gathering in the wrong building on Jan 6
Americans aren't passive: we actively did this. The rioters are in the masks and uniforms. We went so far out of our way to arrive at this godforsaken idiot collapse.
Fixed like Putin is "fixing" his borders through immoral violence, murder, oppression, ...? (Trump's regime are mimicking it well.) Or do you mean something else?
Are you saying USA, in the majority, is still imperialist? Is still racist? Is still white supremacist?
To be fair, Minneapolis is raising hell and has been for the last week. There have been many protests in other cities as well.
I would also say that Trump and his cronies would absolutely love if this boils over into a violent riot. That would give them permission to double down.
I keep hearing this idea that boiling over lets them double down, but at the same time, it is not acceptable to let them keep doing what they do. Once the government starts using physical violence against the people and openly violating constitutional law, there is no choice, but to push back.
But that pushback can look different. Personally, I think that needs to be a massive general strike across every major city.
Totally fine with general strikes, particularly for the business that are accommodating and providing logistical services for ICE. Very much opposed to shooting wars. We don't have the firepower or the political power (yet).
> Personally, I think that needs to be a massive general strike across every major city.
Yes, this tends to be really effective, especially when you're fighting the upper-class, which is more or less what's happening here as far as I can tell.
Get all the cleaners, cooks, hotel workers and other "servants" to strike, pool up to fund a salary-light for them while they strike, and you'll see changes quickly as the upper-class can no longer enjoy their status.
>Yes, this tends to be really effective, especially when you're fighting the upper-class, which is more or less what's happening here as far as I can tell.
You're not fighting the upper class. It's the blue collar workers and the people who hire them who support ICE and strict immigration.
That's true, when workers are not aligned with each others, some get confused who is actually on your side vs against you, and frequently they believe the upper-class will protect them and provide them with support and wealth. I don't think I even have to share examples of how this works out in practice, yet for every revolution it keeps happening with the same results more or less.
You are fighting the upper-class, while some of the working-class people are mislead to fight on the other side. Slowly but surely they'll realize where to go, but often the promises of wealth and what not gets to strong for the individuals to at least try to move up.
Framing this as "literally anyone who works" vs "everyone above that" is a dishonest slight of hand to distract from the fact that the top slice of that category spent decades peddling policy that made things worse for the bottom half (and in many cases kicked them into the non working dependent/welfare class) because it made asset values go up and those whiny blue collar types were just backwards and dumb anyway (or whatever they told themselves to justify it).
I also don’t get why the Democrat leadership is caving in on funding the government. An indefinite shutdown is called for at this point until the train of ethnonationalist authoritarianism is stopped.
> Get all the cleaners, cooks, hotel workers and other "servants" to strike, pool up to fund a salary-light for them while they strike
You mean to try to get them all and find out they're not really against what's happening? There's a reason why socialists, originally fighters for workers' dictatorship, have almost entirely switched to supporting minorities and not workers.
spain isn’t a great example here. it has some of the most racist fans football has ever seen and yet there’s no action. only italy probably compares. if there was a government agency going after black and brown people (ie non-white) i wouldn’t bet on the spanish population to come to their rescue. lamine yamal, a young footballer of moroccan descent hasn’t been spared the vitriol of the spanish hooligans even though he was top 3 best player at the recent euro (where he helped spain to victory).
point being, given that ice is going after non-whites and is getting by, a spanish ice will get by too, with probably more ease.
I've read multiple comparisons between US groups like Patriot Front and the Proud Boys and hooliganism in terms of the culture and demographics. Similar backgrounds, similar attitudes, similar behaviors (get smashed, go start fights). It's just more overtly political here rather than being organized around a sports fandom.
Sad as it is, I think Spain only barely makes it into the top 10 on the UEFA racism ranking. Serbia, Hungary and Israel are probably the top contenders, with Albania and Poland completing the top 5.
I'm not sure that's even in the same class of issues as what's happening in the US and frankly, a bit surprising to hear. Have you seen/been with ultras in the Nordics? Even been to derbies played in Copa Libertadores? Both of those I'd immediately rank as way more violent than what we see here in Spain.
Yep, in all EU countries, this would lead to country wide protests with the usual result being the fall of the government and new elections. Seems like the US is missing this element of democracy.
You should read James Baldwin. Or read up on the debates post revolutionary war in the United States about the French revolution.
The truth is the land of the free has always been quite conservative. Which frankly, is true of most societies. In many ways that's what a society is.
Worse still, ICE stomping people out in the street is what freedom means to a vast swath of Americans. The rest are scared and leaderless and let down by an opposition that betrays their trust at every turn.
And yes Europeans keep telling Americans how to protest, but really they are little better. "Far right" candidates are already projecting big wins in the UK today. To say nothing of the victories far right parties have already secured in Europe. Spain is more familiar with blatant facisim and totalitarianism than Americans are. So idk... imo Europeans really pat themselves on the back too much... what would you do?
Provoking a riot is of questionable value anyway when he won a pretty convincing national victory at the polls just a year ago... no one has any answers as far as I can see, only empty expressions of anger... protest harder means what? I think a better start would be a coherent, defensible list of demands than anyone from a governor to a street activist can convey intelligently. Then you can try to enforce it.
But ultimately you can't muster more force than the state. If that is your only suggestion then it's a fruitless one.
A broad answer: because America is more violent. The ICE officers are armed and absolutely will use their weapons if given half a chance to. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think any rioters in countries like Spain go to a protest with a bet real chance on their minds that they might die.
> Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think any rioters in countries like Spain go to a protest with a bet real chance on their minds that they might die.
That's the thing, they do, and have in the past too. Some might even recall riots ~70 years ago that kind of spiraled out of control and led to a civil war.
Looking at what's happening in Iran as we speak might be a good idea as well, where they've had enough, know that there is a good chance of their regime literally executing them on the spot, yet they're brave enough to continue fighting, because they realize what's at stake, and have run out of other options.
> The ICE officers are armed and absolutely will use their weapons if given half a chance to
So this was the whole point with the 2nd amendment right, that when/if the government repress you in that way, you have weapons to fight back? Or am I misunderstanding what that part is/was about?
Americans are much more comfy than Iranians are though. As much as Americans might dislike what's going on, they're not fighting got their own survival.
Democracy, authoritarianism are all abstract and vague concepts
(White) Americans of the center and left have long since lost the conviction that you may just need to bleed for your children’s freedom. It’ll come back, hopefully not too late.
The thing is, to most white Americans, their childrens' freedom isn't at stake. The majority of white voters have always supported Trump, and probably support ICE, whereas most of the rest simply don't don't consider it their problem.
And unfortunately that probably won't change until ICE kills more of them and makes it their problem.
You are right that America isn’t going to fix this problem until Trump supporters feel the pain. It is coming, but I’m afraid of what we will have to go through to get there.
> So this was the whole point with the 2nd amendment right, that when/if the government repress you in that way, you have weapons to fight back?
The point of the second amendment was, in no small part, so that the central government wouldn't deny the states the means to commit genocide against the indigenous population on their own, because the states didn't trust he central government to be sufficiently enthusiastic about it. That was the major security concern alluded to by the “necessary to the security of a free state” bit.
>The point of the second amendment was, in no small part, so that the central government wouldn't deny the states the means to commit genocide against the indigenous population on their own,
What kind of revisionist history is this?
The feds were telling the states "screw off, we do the negotiating" before the ink was even dry on that. Steamrolling the natives was never really a seriously contested job or a point of political contention, the feds were always gonna be the ones to do it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the case of the Cherokee forced relocation from Georgia, the Georgia state government told the federal government (Andrew Jackson) that if the gold-bearing lands weren't depopulated of indigenous peoples then the state would start killing them (after already having terrorized them with armed state militia).
That's 20+yr later and an entirely different generation of politicians though, a far cry from the "we'll just slip this in here so we can harass the red man" that the person above is alleging. And it was done with state backed forces, not like they would have been handicapped by lack of a 2a.
The Federalist papers were campaign ads for ratification of the base Constitution from a faction opposed to adding a Bill of Rights (an opposition explicitly stated in the Federalist Papers; it was, in fact, the central theme of Federalist #84.)
They are neither a reliable summary of the motivations for the provisions they support nor any kind of argument for the provisions in the Bill of Rights.
In Minneapolis and other cities, you do have protests, you have the people following ICE, and it's a valid discussion to have that without the protests and the "mostly peaceful" resistance from Minnesotans is helping the nation see what criminals ICE people are, and what an awful thing they're doing to the country.
Mass resistance movements tend to come at unpredictable moments. The killing or particularly well documented crime of a government, for example. Something acute will trigger it, like George Floyd or Renee Good (whose murder triggered widespread outrage, protests, and despite the bots on Twitter, some shift in the view on ICE from the middle and right).
If, for example, a brigade of soldiers or officers opened live fire on protesters, I think the country would shut down.
Another point, as others have mentioned: It's actually the massive amount of armament on both side of the equation that keeps people from taking the next step. The citizens of Minneapolis could probably take out a hundred ICE agents a day, but now we're in a civil war because the next steps are insurrection act, hundreds of people dead in days, potential of the MN state guard being activated to fight against national forces, and it's already three steps ahead of whatever would happen in Spain.
>The citizens of Minneapolis could probably take out a hundred ICE agents a day, but now we're in a civil war because the next steps are insurrection act,
Just because historians haven't yet given the beast a name, it acts and growls just like like exactly what it is, and "civil war" is exactly what some members of the federal administration want, as you might read in their brazen proclamations about re-interpreting the constitution along a hundred dimensions at once.
The local and federal authorities are at a complete standoff right now. When's the last time you recall a local government essentially asking the court for permission to deploy its national guard to enforce a restraining order against the federal government? All while said federal government was openly conducting sloppy pseudo-urban-warfare in broad daylight?
I'm not trying to fit you into a side, especially not politically. What I'm pushing back on specifically is any insinuation that this will just blow over. That to me is hypernormalization.
And it's not that "the administration as a whole" wants devastation, but study up on what Stephen Miller wants.
The people who love the second amendment are the ones that support the president. Most of them would gladly shoot me or you if their president told them to. In fact, a significant portion fantasize about being able to shoot other Americans and get away with it.
This is one half of the country holding the other half hostage. Despite what you think, there are many protests going on. But a lot of Americans simply agree with what is happening.
Democracies are vulnerable to many things: populism, vote-rigging, importing migrants to vote for a given party, and much more. Without a reboot, many democracies slide into autocracy. First, the government bans weapons, then curtails civil rights under the guise of child protection, offending religious sensibilities, blocks websites, and gradually tightens penalties for free speech. It all happens gradually. And suddenly you can't write your opinion online without being arrested. The UK is a case in point. Unarmed people are doomed to change things not only in authoritarian countries, but even in nominally democratic ones. Examples include peaceful and not-so-peaceful protests in Iran, Belarus, and Russia in the struggle against the authorities. Peaceful protests without the support of the army and the elite always end in failure. Another example is the protests in the UK against the influx of Muslim migrants, where the authorities support the latter.
> Unarmed people are doomed to change things not only in authoritarian countries, but even in nominally democratic ones. Examples include peaceful and not-so-peaceful protests in Iran, Belarus, and Russia in the struggle against the authorities. Peaceful protests without the support of the army and the elite always end in failure.
I'd take issue with that, because once it becomes an armed conflict then the full power of the state military will be deployed.
And modern nation-states of mid-size or above all have militaries than can crush any civilian armed resistance, simply because of the lethality and capability gap between civilian and military weapons.
The only winning move for a populace, then, is to try and keep resistance sub-armed conflict (and avoid being bated into armed resistance).
> So this was the whole point with the 2nd amendment right, that when/if the government repress you in that way, you have weapons to fight back?
Not as far as I understand. The 2nd amendment was from a time when we did not have much of a standing army and the country relied on militias for firepower. Some of the proposed language for the second amendment makes this clearer, but it was cut in the final version.
The tyranny bit was probably always someone's fantasy, and the self-defense aspect is basically a shift of interpretation that is much more recent.
But then I still hear people say that this is what the 2nd amendment is for... Meanwhile, to make sure they have the heavier weapons, law enforcement goes absolutely bananas on what they carry.
The second amendment was written in a time when a firearm was a musket.
Grandpa's 30-06 from WW2 from 200 yards will penetrate anything but trauma plates.
If it's a hand-carried firearm of any kind (including crew-served weapons like the M249, M240B, M60), it's not a "heavy weapon."
> The second amendment was written in a time when a firearm was a musket.
At the time the Second Amendment was written, there were entire private navies with actual cannons far more destructive than any man-portable firearm available today. No background checks on those ships or cannons, either, btw.
They didn't just have muskets at that time, repeating firearms were just too expensive to outfit entire armies with them. When you can supply 10 guys with muskets for the same cost as 1 guy with a repeating firearm, you pick the 10 men even if the 1 guy can fire just as fast.
There is also the Cookson repeater available in the late 1600s. And in 1756 was advertised for sale in the Boston Gazette.
Multiple founding fathers, including George Washington, were also offered purchase of repeating firearms, some for use in the military, some for personal usage. But of course this is still before interchangeable parts so production is of course still expensive and repairs must be done be a highly skilled gunsmith and not just some apprentice blacksmith.
sure. but to me it seems like the there was this vain hope that somehow we could thread the needle. that if we would accept to unjustice and stick it out, that eventually the courts and electoral process would be robust enough. that escalation would just lead to where we've already gotten, where peaceful protestors are being killed for 'disrepect'. that somehow pointing out all the obvious falsehood and gaslighting would be enough to convince people that this was going sideways. this was always going to end in martial law, but our complacency is generational.
This is chicken-or-the-egg reasoning. Maybe the reason such violent behavior is unthinkable by a hypothetical Spanish LEO is because past protest has been so strong?
My counter-hypothesis is that America has never really known authoritarianism, religious wars, etc., so Americans are, on average, more supportive of Authority.
Yeah, I think your last point is a good one and something to consider too. Large part of our perspectives are shaped by what we've experienced, and what our predecessors experienced, and if you don't have the experience of walking through mass-graves created by the government executing dissidents, you don't have a frame of reference for that being a possibility.
So, from my perspective, there were in fact a number of "religious wars", but the folks who lost all ended up on reservations or murdered and in mass graves. I mean 650K folks died in the mid 19th century in a single 5-year war. And that's not counting how we might code the Atlantic slave trade or the post-reconstruction violence, or labor violence into that history.
As a person who has been involved with an riot in a small town, I think that, in the deep unconscious of most folks in the US, is something structure:
"well, there wasn't violence in the 19th and early 20th and mid 20th and late 20thC century... well okay, there was violence but they put folks who were resisting into mass graves or incarceration and everyone was better off for it".
That is, consider that the obverse of your claim might be true:
the violence committed by the US has been so totalizing that it's victims have never even counted as victims and that holocaust so complete that it only exists in the subconscious of white US citizens.
I find that idea to be a very easy way to understand why white folks are so passive and pro-authority.
> My counter-hypothesis is that America has never really known authoritarianism
Funny, because the racist authoritarians most people point to as the canonical example were themselves directly inspired by the US example. I think a more realistic reason is that this particular brand of race-heirarchy-based authoritarianism that mostly only affects white folks if they are seen as challenging what it does to everyone else has been normalized in the US since before the founding, varying only in intensity and the degree to which its intent is overly stated.
If you think that America and Europe have similar experiences with authoritarianism, I guess we just don't share basic ground truth. The fact that you are flip about it is just silly, and makes you seem unserious.
> If you think that America and Europe have similar experiences with authoritarianism
I didn't say the American and European experiences with authoritarianism were the same, or even similar, I said the American experience with a very specific orientation of authoritarianism, with a specific focus, is extremely deep and pervasive, and that that has explanatory power on the relatively mild reaction of the American public to a change in the intensity and overtness of that particular flavor of authoritarianism.
This is, in fact, very different from the European experience.
Just shows that the second amendment is an obsolete idea, and in today's real world it's more likely to oppress people's right to protest than help them fight tyranny.
ICE goons can shoot people because in America, law enforcement officers shooting citizens is thoroughly normalized. It's normalized because law enforcement officers getting shot is thoroughly normalized. It's normalized because the nation decided every village idiot can have a gun and the government can do nothing about it.
Sure, as long as you keep the milling machine and its product in your garage and gloat over it, the government will do nothing about it, because it doesn't know (or care).
You so much as walk around with your gun in the streets of Seoul, and you will very quickly find out that the government can, in fact, do something about it, it will do something about it, the general public will side with the government against you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Gun ownership is a social construct. Where guns are banned, even criminals can't afford one, because there's no place to get these guns in the first place. Those who think they can outsmart the government will quickly find that guns out in the wild is considered a matter of national security and handled accordingly.
> You so much as walk around with your gun in the streets of Seoul, and you will very quickly find out that the government can, in fact, do something about it, it will do something about it, the general public will side with the government against you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Only if you're caught - which requires more than magic. Shinzo Abe would disagree.
Because it’s cold? Here in Minnesota it’s 17F / -7C. Factoring in the wind chill it feels like 7F / -14C.
There are other reasons too of course (geography, lack of urban density, distrust of news, apathy, etc etc) but I think the weather is a definite factor right now.
This is anecdotal, America is geographically quite large. For a lot of people, where these events are happening are more than a days drive away (10 hours or more), it's not happening "here".
A lot of people here _enjoy_ the authoritarianism, judging by the votes, the voter turnout, and the private discussions I've had with my neighbors. They believe this is good for the country and that there'll be more opportunities for their kids.
A lot of other people are holding out for the midterm elections, to see if the will of the majority shifts, because otherwise its risks open civil war. And maybe just a touch of American exceptionalism—this can't actually be happening here, it'll all blow over—and distrust in the story that the media is feeding them is accurate.
And some are just fatalistic, this isn't really a surprising turn of events. America has been creeping toward this for more than a few decades, since Regan at the very least.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I count myself mostly in the "holding out for elections" group but a little bit part of the fatalistic group as well. The really sad part of the whole experience is how many people I know that support everything that is going on, and they are not in any way claiming ignorance.
We had nationwide riots for months back in 2020 over a police officer murdering a suspect, and that resulted in approximately zero actual political change. During the recent shutdown over the budget, we had one of the largest protests in the country’s history and massive shifts towards the opposition in elections followed by them immediately folding in exchange for essentially nothing.
The political class is very well insulated from the popular will in this country, and I fear we may be nearing the boiling point.
The politicians on the right are not well insulated -- they are very responsive to what their constituents' popular will is, to a fault. The left still hasn't figured out what the hell they're going to do next. Probably just continue the "we aren't Trump!" chanting and hope that's enough to win elections. Meanwhile their own constituents are just as frustrated with status quo as the right was.
> they are very responsive to what their constituents' popular will
I don't think this is the case so much as their constituents are very responsive to the messaging from their politicians and media agencies. You can watch almost in real-time as Trump supporters 180 on things that they "really care about" like the Epstein files. Like the "peace" president. Like on inflation being a major issue. You can watch Trump do something outrageous, and the conservatives online act confused for a bit until they get their messaging and then they are all repeating the exact same excuses online.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
I think it's something different than "Americans are passive" - rather, many of them/us perceive the context of what you're seeing very differently. I can share some of this perspective though I don't insist it's the only way to feel.
1. Americans on the ground are clearly feeling the effects of illegal immigration. As an example: a an African American janitor in our kids' school voted republican in 2024 for the first time in his life, because the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there. In that election we've seen nearly every demographic move more republican than before, and I think this is the key issue for them.
2. In that context, when ICE does something, even when we don't like it, people can understand it in the context of a larger problem they/we want solved. When you perceive "passivity" - it's because you come in from a perspective of not wanting the underlying problem solved which is fine, but it's different for people who like "what" is happening even if not "how" it's happening.
3. There are plenty of people protesting and violently rioting if that's what they feel like.
I don’t think data supports this. Polling has shown a lot of people who voted Republican in 2024 (Latinos especially) have snapped back again already, at least partially because of what ICE is doing.
ICE are terrorizing a city and its residents no matter what their immigration status is. Even someone who strongly wishes to curb illegal immigration should have a problem with that.
I would bet that's true just on a statistical level - but my point is that plenty of people still feel that way, or at least have felt that way recently enough about the underlying problem that won't cause them to riot.
There's an interesting other angle that I heard about "terrorizing a city" type thing -- there are many million illegal immigrants in the US who entered in just the last few years, when the prior admin did not attempt to limit. The size of the problem basically leaves no "nice" solutions that are perfectly palatable to everyone. Maybe like "nobody wants to hear about an amputation" but unfortunately some situations are bad enough that you have to.
>I would bet that's true just on a statistical level - but my point is that plenty of people still feel that way, or at least have felt that way recently enough about the underlying problem that won't cause them to riot.
Exactly. If people you hate are getting in a fight you're staying right there on the porch and that's how a lot of the country feels right now.
> The size of the problem basically leaves no "nice" solutions that are perfectly palatable to everyone.
Why not? What is it about the presence of illegal immigrants in a place that makes terrorizing the entire population a good tradeoff? The people who live alongside these immigrants are the ones out on the street protesting so it seems to me they don't consider it a price worth paying.
> The size of the problem basically leaves no "nice" solutions that are perfectly palatable to everyone. Maybe like "nobody wants to hear about an amputation" but unfortunately some situations are bad enough that you have to.
Are you volunteering to be part of the bad solution, or is it only OK as long as it happens far enough away from you? I'm curious because when you talk about needing an amputation, you're referring to American citizens getting killed and having their rights taken away for the sake of some nebulous solution. Where have I heard that before?
I am not sure what you're talking about so I can tell you what I meant.
Life is complex and important things are always in tension.
Do I think ICE needs to deport every single illegal from this country? Yes I do.
Do I think Americans have a right to protest against ICE if they don't agree with this? Yes I do.
I support both and that's fine, the challenge is what happens when these two things collide. For example, when someone's protest involves them interfering with an ICE operation, striking an officer with their vehicle (unintentionally, I think) and getting shot in the process.
That's impacted by scale. If the US had 1 illegal immigrant to catch and deport, and 100 protestors got hurt in the process, that would seem disproportionate. When we have millions of illegals to deport, 100 protestor getting hurt is still bad but is kinda inevitable in the statistical risk sense.
Do I want that to impact me? Of course not. Ideally that would have been handled years ago so we didn't have the scale of problem that necessitates an aggravated approach. But we do.
> Do I want that to impact me? Of course not. Ideally that would have been handled years ago so we didn't have the scale of problem that necessitates an aggravated approach. But we do.
So you accept the necessity of needing to carry your papers in order to prove your citizenship, or needing to deal with door to door warrentless raids, or potentially getting your property destroyed by overzealous ICE agents with no recourse? That's my point. You are saying that the scale of the problem means it's acceptable for your rights to be trampled on. And I'm asking you personally if you're willing to be one of the sacrifices in the name of this system.
> it's because you come in from a perspective of not wanting the underlying problem solved
Where is this assumption coming from? Of course I don't want people to break the laws of the country or immigrate illegally, I never argued for that either.
What I don't understand, if Obama managed to throw out more illegals than Trump did for the same duration of time, yet with a lot less chaos and bloodshed, and you truly want less illegal immigrants, should you favor a more peaceful and efficient process? Instead of a more violent and less efficient process?
I saw you were briefly downvoted but you're correct. The number and % of illegal immigrants in the us has shot up in an unprecedented way during the prior administration, meaning whatever techniques could be argued to have worked earlier (although to your point, did they work?) may not be adequate to current scope of problem.
The BBC piece is about recorded apprehensions/encounters being very low (still “<9,000/month”), not that the “flow” is “largely eliminated.” Encounters aren’t the same thing as total unlawful entries, and “very low” isn’t “eliminated.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o
The ABC/Brookings story is about net migration turning negative in 2025, mostly due to fewer entries. Net migration is not a measure of the unauthorized population, and the article even notes removals in 2025 are only modestly higher than 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
"Largely eliminated". I didn't say "completely eliminated". <9,000 per month can be considered "largely eliminated" when the previous flow was often many hundreds of thousands per month. You can see it plainly on the graph.
Yes of course encounters are not total entries. Do you have a better way of estimating?
The net migration is due to several factors. The result of "largely eliminating" the flow of illegal aliens, along with dutiful removal of those in the interior, has made a big dent. There are other factors, including legal immigration, obviously.
There were 12 million (estimated) illegal aliens here in 2007. There are MORE now. No headway has been made.
“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports.
“Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.”
Also, 58k/month annualizes to ~700k/year. You can argue that’s a big improvement, but calling it “largely eliminated” is rhetorical.
Encounters aren’t total entries, agreed, but that cuts against confidently declaring victory, not in favor of it. If you want “better,” the only “better” conceptually is something like encounters + estimated gotaways, but “gotaways” are themselves estimates and not as consistently published/transparent as encounters. So the honest phrasing is: “recorded encounters are way down.”
“No headway for decades” is false on the standard stock estimates. Pew (and others) show the unauthorized population peaked around 2007 and then declined through 2019 before rising again in the early 2020s. That’s headway, then reversal; not “none for decades.”
It is fair to say: we’re now above 2007 again (Pew estimates ~14M in 2023), so the long-run problem wasn’t solved. But that’s different from “no headway has been made.”
On the ABC/Brookings “negative net migration” point: net migration does not equal unauthorized population, and the article itself notes the change is mostly fewer entries, with removals only modestly higher year over year. So it doesn’t support “dutiful removal has made a big dent” as the main story.
Again, your post is utter pedantry and seemingly wrong.
Why should I care about the number in August 2024? Why are you annualizing the 58k number? I'm referring to the current numbers at the border.
> During Trump's first eight months in office, there have been fewer than 9,000 illegal crossings recorded each month, CBS reported.
249,000 -> 9,000 encounters = flow across the border is "largely eliminated" to any non-pedant.
We have more illegal aliens in the country today than 2007.
2007 -> 2026 = MORE illegal aliens = no headway has been made. It's as simple as that.
Lastly, your link literally confirms what I said:
> The report attributed the shift to combination of the large drop in entries and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures.
It's so refreshing to finally have someone at least attempt to tackle this issue (likely the main issues in the 2016 and 2024 elections). I just wish it was more widespread and less theatrical.
You’re mixing metrics and then calling the correction “pedantry.”
Your own cited stat (“<9,000/month”) is Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry. CBS is explicit about that, and even gives the recent months: July ~4,600; Aug ~6,300; Sept ~8,400 apprehensions. That’s a major reduction, but it’s not “zero,” and it’s not the same thing as “flow eliminated.”
The 249,000 figure you’re comparing it to is typically cited as “encounters” (often BP apprehensions + OFO inadmissibles at ports). That’s a different series than “BP apprehensions between ports.” Apples-to-oranges comparisons are exactly how people accidentally talk themselves into certainty.
“Do you have a better way of estimating?” Not really, that’s the point. Encounters/apprehensions are the best consistently published measure, but they are not total successful entries, and “gotaways” are estimates with their own uncertainty. So the accurate claim is: recorded apprehensions are way down.
On “no headway”: if the unauthorized population fell from 2007 to 2019 (Pew shows that), that’s literally headway, even if it later reversed and is higher now. What you mean is “no net improvement vs 2007,” which is a different claim.
If you want to say “huge improvement at the border relative to the peak,” totally reasonable. But “flow largely eliminated” + “big dent in illegal-alien stock” is stronger than what these measurements can support.
What people voted for 14 months ago and how ICE is being used are two different things. Polling shows a majority of Americans do not support how ICE is behaving and do not feel like it is making them safer. There are not plenty of people "violently rioting" at this point. Blowing whistles and yelling at federal agents isn't rioting. If you want to see what violent riots look like, see the Iranian footage.
I think your second part of the most makes my point -- most americans are overall OK with what's going on because of the underlying issue. That's why it doesn't look like Iran.
On the first part, I hope the last few elections made it clear that polling is... unreliable at best. For example, asking the question like "in light of the recent shooting of Renee Good, do you feel ICE is making your city safer" vs asking "Do you feel like having removed X,XXX illegal immigrants with prior convictions has made your city safer" would yield a very different result.
For what it's worth, as an immigrant myself and a typical over-educated NY liberal (at least, formerly) I don't like the details of what's going on but I understand why it is.
> What people voted for 14 months ago and how ICE is being used are two different things.
I'm sure lots of people who voted for Hitler in Germany said the same thing in hindsight. Of course they did absolutely nothing to help stop Hitler after voting for him. They just want to pretend they had nothing to do with all the bad stuff despite the vote clearly being in support of "Bad Stuff". There's a meme floating around that goes something like:
2015: You're overreacting!
2016: You're overreacting!
2017: You're overreacting!
2018: You're overreacting!
2019: You're overreacting!
2020: You're overreacting!
2021: You're overreacting!
2022: You're overreacting!
2023: You're overreacting!
2024: You're overreacting!
2025: How could we possibly have known things would have gone this way?!
I live in Europe, in an immigrant ghetto. Well, I'm not sure whether the word "immigrant" is correct, because most residents are second or third generation and have passports.
The cultural gap is just too much. There are explosions 24/7 and the amount of trash on the street hurts my eyes. A party by my window at 2AM - check. It happens that you have a group of six guys walking down the middle of the road and the fuck are you going to do. There's only so much you can explain by poverty and lack of privilege - especially when they were born in one of the world's richest countries while the country I am from started poor but developed immensely.
When voting, immigration policies are for me #1 issue. I just don't want the entire Europe to look like this.
You got downvoted for stating your experience in a way that feels unpalatable to someone who doesn't have to deal with this. But your story is a perfect example of what I am talking about. If you live in MN or somewhere else that's drastically changed in this way in recent years, you're (a) thrilled that someone is finally doing something and (b) just not gonna be super upset about things that go wrong in the process even though obviously you don't want them going wrong.
> As an example: a an African American janitor in our kids' school voted republican in 2024 for the first time in his life, because the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there.
Okay, first off, I am just very confused by this sentence. How is the "shanty town" preventing him from working? Does he work from his home in Brooklyn? Is the school located in the park? Does he want to work in the park but is force to work at the school? I know this isn't the most important part, but I haven't been able to parse the story. Edit: others explained that this is "work out" there, and not related to being a janitor. Thanks. I feel the rest still stands.
Further, I don't understand how what is happening is supposed to solve the "underlying issue". How does 3000 federal agents breaking windows and shoving people in Minneapolis help a Brooklyn community poor enough to become a shanty town? It would be like if I, in my job, had an backend outage on our website, and I went to the design team and began berating them while I fixed a couple UI issues. Sure, I might solve some real problems, and it could feel good in some cathartic way (especially if I've had unanswered complaints for years). But I wouldn't call it "fixing the underlying issues".
I believe it is most likely that the people who still support this style of enforcement have been hurt much like you, some acutely but many just slowly over time, and have bought into the idea that some "other" is at fault. And they want to see that "other" dealt with in some way, any way. Even if it means people get hurt, because they themselves have been hurt. So why not the "other"?
But I don't believe a shanty town in the most populous city what is supposed to be the richest and most prosperous country on Earth is caused by the poorest few percent of people living here. I don't think an illegal immigrant in Minneapolis is at fault, even if they have a "criminal background" (insidious phrasing that inflates numbers by lumping in people who may have paid their debt to society). I don't want to see people hurt.
> > As an example: a an African American janitor in our kids' school voted republican in 2024 for the first time in his life, because the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there.
> Okay, first off, I am just very confused by this sentence. How is the "shanty town" preventing him from working? Does he work from his home in Brooklyn? Is the school located in the park? Does he want to work in the park but is force to work at the school? I know this isn't the most important part, but I haven't been able to parse the story.
So just to clarify, GP said he was being prevented from _working out_, i.e. exercising.
I suspect that these people misattribute poverty and urban decay to illegal immigration when it’s largely a home-grown issue -- in large part due to a concerted effort from right-wing media to slander those immigrants.
A shanty town? In Brooklyn? Yeah, all those hipster trusties who couldn't afford Manhattan (but can still drop 5k a month on a studio in BedStuy or Williamsburg) are really making things bad there.
You ever visited Brooklyn back when it was actually a tough place?
Decades of copaganda paired with police brutality. A fairly large portion of americans view anyone with a badge as "the good guy" by default.
But, I think people are also fearful about what happens after the riots start. Nobody is excited about Trump using a riot as an excuse to declare martial law and deploy the military everywhere. There's still some hope that cities and states will step up and do their job. These ICE agents can and should be prosecuted.
> Are people inside the country not getting the same news we're getting on the outside?
They aren't. And unfortunately a LOT of US media is sanewashing. We have dedicated channels like fox news which are basically framing everything as "violent protesters attacking the police for trying to arrest bad guys". But even centrist and slightly left mainstream media is bending over backwards to give excuses and "both sides" this. Doing things like using a lot of passive language or just not reporting on the raids all together. You basically need to be online or tuned in to alternative media to learn about this stuff.
There's also the very simple and real fact that fascists already have the power. People are scared. There's about 30% of the citizenship who could literally drive a car through a protest or open up fire who'd be completely protected by the state for those actions. Most of the people that'd do that are already employed by ICE.
>" But even centrist and slightly left mainstream media is bending over backwards to give excuses and "both sides" this."
Our "leftist" or "centrist" news sources are owned by right wing billionaires. There is no real actual leftist or even centrist news source that has any sort of clout here in the US.
Minneapolis mayor told protestors to remain peaceful. The Democrats always want to follow the rules even when the other side has abandoned them. To be fair to Mayor Frye though, Trump wants to provoke rioting to invoke the Insurrection Act, which he threatened to do today if the Democratic officials don't "fall in line". So there is that.
Americans have had 100 years of stable government and in the past political solutions have eventually been enacted. The Civil Rights bill was passed. Nixon pulled out of Vietnam. I think a lot of people are still expecting sanity to return. I hope they're right.
You've got three groups here. Federal cops, undocumented immigrants and the kind of people who turn out to protest the former acting against the latter. Very few people in this country finds any one of these groups particularly sympathetic and there's wide demographic swaths of the country that actively hate two if not all three of them. So yeah, everyone sees stuff that's very, very, wrong here, but nobody's really in any rush to intervene except the people who already are protesting.
A political solution will likely come of this, as everyone with a brain knows that the preconditions for all this shit are something that need to be prevented in the future.
Edit. To be clear, I'm talking about the people who are actually physically involved here.
There are more than three groups. What about the group of people who are unhappy that masked goons are violently arresting citizens? What about people unhappy that ICE stopped a naturalization ceremony literally minutes before they were to become citizens?
As well as going door-to-door and forcing entry without a warrant, besieging Spanish language immersion schools, and other dragnet horrors. Meanwhile, official DHS social media accounts are posting literal Stormfront ethnic cleansing memes. I’m not sure how anyone but the most ardent ethnonationalists can be OK with this. Even if you think all undocumented immigrants should be deported, "hunt them down like dogs and to hell with everyone else" is beastial.
Not attacking you OP, but oh look, the top comment again concern trolling the topic to something else less inconvenient. It's wild how common that is on HN.
Basically we Americans have given up on our system. Both on the left and the right. It's why the right elected Trump, and it's why the left silently elected Trump by not voting.
Americans are not passive. Look at the videos of any of these incidents. People are supporting those under attack, collecting evidence, and protesting. The message is clear.
Peaceful protest is the key. Riots, violence, and fighting are not peaceful and only play into the administration's aims.
When Americans resist and protest peacefully, as they have been in the largest numbers ever in the country's history, it exposes the brutality and baseness of those commiting the heinous acts.
Through such peaceful protest as we see, America will overcome this.
The big question is, what next? How to hold people accountable, fairly, while rebuilding the system and rebuilding trust?
Those things work in democratic and ordered societies though, and you need to figure out other approaches when democracy and freedom stops being something the government still cares about. The current leader of the country attempted an insurrection, yet was still allowed to become the leader after that? I think you're beyond being able to change this through just peaceful protests, although it's definitively a part of the answer.
Who are you gonna report this brutality to, when the judicial arm of the government is just following the directions of the administration? How do you hold people accountable, when the system to hold anyone accountable is being undermined?
First, all of what you say is true. I'm going to try to add a little context as someone who is here on the ground, in the city in question.
There is the imminent threat of mass death, and no one here is under any illusions about it.
Every ICE agent is armed, and most have ready access to automatic weapons. These are not well-trained members of an elite organization with a storied, patriotic culture. ICE is a personalist paramilitary organization, and the president has indicated that these ICE agents are immune from consequences, even if they kill people. These are people who volunteered knowing they were going to go into American cities and do violence to people they perceive as their political enemies.
Most of these agents are inexperienced, jittery, poorly trained new recruits away from home. They aren't locals. Their nexus of power and governance isn't local. These are not our community members, they aren't from here, they don't know us or care about us, so they do not empathize with us.
In addition to this, the American citizenry is shockingly well armed. Because everyone involved is so well armed, everybody is slightly touchy about this descending into rioting, because there is a very short path from light rioting to what would essentially amount to civil war. The costs of such any such violence will overwhelmingly be borne by the innocent people who live here, and we know it.
So, people are trying to strike a balance of making sure these people know they aren't welcome here while trying to prevent the situation from spiraling into one in which some terrified agent mag-dumps a crowd of protestors and causes a chain reaction that results in truly catastrophic mass death.
Thank you a lot for taking the time to share what you see there, I really appreciate it. All we can hope for is that it gets better, and that there are genuine people out there who care about others in their community, who all help each other when needed. It's really sad to hear about the realization of how quickly it could spiral but considering the situation, it's real and make sense. Thank you and good luck!
Last night a man was shot by ICE agents, who were (reportedly) attacked with shovel(s) while trying to capture the man, injuring one ICE agent.
BEFORE this began we had 7 million people protesting simultaneously nationwide—they are "out on the street". Minneapolis has organized hundreds into rapid response teams against ICE. The killings get more news than the protests, particularly as much of the media has been bought up by republican owners.
In Philadelphia, residents are being filmed patrolling with automatic weapons in advance of ICE supposedly heading there next. Read what @asa400, another local like myself, is saying in another comment to parent.
Many locals on social media are cheering on the shootings. America is incredibly polarized right now. It's not like all the public is against the government. Nearly half of those most likely to vote in past elections support this. “It wasn’t Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me, and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who were given a uniform....” —Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor EDIT: added "(reportedly)" and rearranged sentence
>Last night ICE agents were attacked with shovels, injuring one. A man was shot.
We don't know if the shovel thing is true, video has emerged that doesn't show the shooting but does show the victim's family's 911 call in which they claim the agent shot through the door at the fleeing victim.
>Every ICE agent is armed, and most have ready access to automatic weapons. These are not well-trained members of an elite organization with a storied, patriotic culture. ICE is a personalist paramilitary organization, and the president has indicated that these ICE agents are immune from consequences, even if they kill people.
This is what terrified me: Not that the ICE officer shot the woman in the car. But what happened afterwards. That he muttered "fucking bitch" after shooting her, that he walked nonchalantly after shooting a person, and everybody was recording him. This person goes to his car and drives just like that ...
It's also worth noting that one function of brownshirts and blackshirts is to provoke violence against themselves, seeking to retroactively justify their existence and to justify a further crackdown.
Say all you want about how any protest, no matter how peaceful will be vilified (it will) or about how the entire foundation is built on lies (it is), but we still have some real elections coming up, and the imagery of ICE brutalizing someone who's clearly not an immigrant, not violent, not obstructing is much more rhetorically effective than that of armed clashes between government and non-governmental forces.
And as you said, many of us are still convinced that this can be solved at least partially rhetorically and electorally.
It's the social media evolution of non-violent confrontation, with the similar goal of making it impossible for any visual image or recording of a confrontation to seem anything other than ridiculous to the average viewer and laying bare the "violence inherent in the system" (as it were).
There is no precedent for this. The executive lacks the authority. It would require Congress to enact a law, and this is easier said than done. The states run elections, and while the feds have some input on how elections for federal office are conducted, it is quite limited.
The vast majority of the population is relying on these protections holding.
> There is no precedent for this. The executive lacks the authority. It would require Congress to enact a law,
Does this actually matter in practice? It seems like the administration has done a bunch of things that normally requires Congress to do something, yet they were able to and I don't see anyone getting arrested. The executive have lacked the authority for lots of things, yet it doesn't seem to stop them.
I'm not saying you're wrong, in theory. But in practice it seems like those things aren't actually stopping anyone, at least not yet.
The executive lacks the authority to do more than 99% of the things done in 2025. Just about all of it is blatantly illegal or unconstitutional.
But, turns out, there is no enforcement mechanism against any of this. There is nobody that can put a stop to the illegal behavior. The legislative branch and the judicial branch can write sternly worded letters, but they have no army to enforce obedience.
What I feared would happen appears to be happening on Saturday: anti-immigrant anti-muslim folks from outside the city and outside the state are gathering to rally in the Minneapolis Cedar-Riverside neighborhood and cause trouble.
The federal administration will use this to ratchet up the violence against peaceful protesters like myself, who are simply trying to stand up for our neighbors and friends and our city and our state. We have whistles and cell phones. The federal government has guns and is killing us.
I think the difference with Europe is that many countries have been through a form of this authoritarianism before, Franco in Spain for example, and have fought wars over it. They never want to see it happen again. The US hasn't experienced war on its soil since the Civil War and has no idea what an authoritarian government is really like. So most Americans either 1) believe the propaganda of a "strong" America (just like the Germans who supported Hitler), 2) think it's not that bad so long as they still have their cheeseburgers (so to speak), 3) think that it's pretty bad but there's nothing they can really do or it's not worth risking life and limb over, or 4) are horrified by where we're going and willing to risk life and limb to stop it. The latter are a very small group, whereas in Europe they'd be much larger. Europe already has a history of nationwide worker strikes whereas that has never been done in the US (also much more difficult being such a large country, but even statewide general strikes haven't happened).
eh, it's mostly racism. White america doesn't have to take to the streets with guns.they just have to yell at their peckerwood gop reps to impeach. Not a peep out of the red states though. they all wanted this.
I think it's important to realize how divided the U.S. is right now. Half the country is in favor of what ICE is doing in some form or another. Some people on the right are denouncing the _way_ ICE is accomplishing this. But they are far from outraged.
The other half of the country is as dumbfounded/shocked as the rest of the world.
This isn't like the French revolution where a majority of the country was suffering and rose up against the few.
This is very nearly 50% of the country wants to make the other 50% squirm.
It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.
The channel "The Necessary Conversation" has some good examples of just how radicalized some American's have gotten. It's 2 kids interviewing their MAGA parents. I think it's not uncommon for American's to know people like the parents in this video.
> It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.
Yeah, it's been a sharp shift, as someone who've watched/read Fox News (and other news of course) for decades out of the US. Fox News always been a bit strange with it's vitriol, but at one point, I can't remember if it was around the middle of Obama's second term, or later, but it took a really sharp turn further into emotional reporting and partisanship. Again, Fox always been a bit special, and other news channels also did similar turns further into their sides, but I can remember seeing the change as it was happening.
There is another documentary I quite liked in similar vein but on an individual level, called "Dear Kelly", that follows a far-right conspiracy theorist and tries to give some understanding into Kelly's struggles and radicalization. Released independently and can be found here: https://www.dearkellyfilm.com/
The fact that ragebait is the most effective way to drive engagement (and therefore to make money off of a captive audience) feels like the first falling domino that sunk us into our current predicament. Certainly the Murdoch empire made its fortune that way.
If the future has justice, Murdoch heirs will have to deal with the same consequences as the Sacklers.
The crime by Fox News is not that they presented a viewpoint, but that they did so at scale, in a knowingly disingenuous manner, to derive financial benefit, for decades.
The other children are also cowards for not taking the legal fight over the inheritance of Fox equity to the limit.
+1 on the Dear Kelly film! While I don't think it explains everyone's radicalization, in this scenario I can see how Kelly fell down his hole of disillusionment
I know what you mean about the country being split politically, but I think using the 50% number is a misleading illusion. Only 31.8% of the voting-age population voted for Trump, so 68% did not vote for these policies.
I get that we often assume that the non-voting population is as evenly split in their support as those who voted during the election. But I think that is going to be wildly off the mark as well. Why? current presidential approval ratings are net -15%, and 2025 elections showed avg 15% swing in district that he won in 2024. His biggest support %s are from old people, and lowest among young voters.
My prediction is that we will see political ads playing non-stop showing ICE brutalizing main street America, and showing how tariff driven inflation is destroying paychecks. The mid-terms will be a dramatic correction which is why you are seeing the ground work to call everything illegitimate or rigged, and attack our established means of voting.
As someone who was waving a "fuck ice" flag on a street corner in rural Colorado yesterday as part of our weekly protest of their facility, anecdotally I'd say about 60% of the 100 or so cars I watched looked away, with about 30% showing some active support and the other 10% or so showing active opposition.
I don't think that folks are braodly supportive of ICE here, though I think that a) the folks who do support it are loud and b) most of the folks who don't support it have fairly reformist politics and are opposed, for instance, to us protesting while open-carrying.
For the record, I am highly worried that open-carrying by the counter-ICE folks at these events will be the next escalation- I carry a stop-the-bleed kit (and did some formal training). We are more worried about getting shot by counter protestors at this point.
The French revolution was also extremely brutal. People idealize it but it actually sucked. The obscene political betrayal and corruption by "revolutionaries" themselves was awful and abuses lasted for multiple generations.
The French revolution isn't a good revolution to aspire to, no matter how satisfying it might feel to fantasize about it I assure you in hindsight your childrens' children would weep if that's what happened to you in the U.S.
Not saying justice isn't due: on the contrary we need to lean even further into this energy, to metabolize it. Not trying to preach either btw. Your rage is valid, trust me I have my own.
Isn't the same true of in the EU though? Immigrants and refugees from Syria were treated quite harshly and has led to a significant rise in far right parties across Europe. These parties are actively harassing immigrants and non-white groups. But there doesn't seem to be riots in the streets over it.
It's almost flipped how the US and Europe have dealt with threats. The US has a long history of organized hate groups having the run of things. I don't Europe has experienced anything like the KKK for as long. However Europe is not far removed from fascist and authoritarian regimes. So things are more fresh in the minds of citizens and they are more likely to fight them. However when attacked through another method it subverts that and allows tacit approval from the public while their neighborhoods are transformed for the worse.
> These parties are actively harassing immigrants and non-white groups. But there doesn't seem to be riots in the streets over it.
It is true, we have vigilante groups going around sometimes acting violent against people they think are immigrants, it is a real problem. It isn't all across Europe, and it isn't super common, but it happens, and that's enough.
I think the difference is in who is coordinating these efforts, because none of those vigilante groups are the country's own border patrol doing that in "official business" capacity, they're small groups of individuals usually associated with some far-right political groups, rather than tax funded government groups.
If the latter were to happen, you can be pretty sure people wouldn't put up with it, because most of us realize what's coming after that, because we were all forced to study history growing up.
> So things are more fresh in the minds of citizens and they are more likely to fight them
Yeah, this seems to be a big factor, most of us here (Europe) still have parents (and grand-parents) who remember and witnessed a lot of awful shit, and growing up would immediately reprimand you if you just pretended to like that, or carry thoughts in those veins.
We are very weary of that in Europe. I consider it to be the case thag the "Rechtsruck" (sudden movement to the right) is a global phenomenon. Alls the right extremist are orienting themselves after the model of what Trumpism is doing which at least thats true for my personally, is why I am ver y concerned of what is happening kn the US. I grew up to a jazz sax playing father to whom the culture the GI brought here was progressive and related to freedom. It feels loke that idea of the US is dead now.
As to why this phenomenon is happening - i would speculate that it has to do with the polarisation that is happening in the face a ever faster progressing disintegration of the social fabric into technology accompanied by the prospect of a scarcity of resources caused by an impeding breakdown of the biosphere and the climate system with which it coevolved plus on a more local scale an extreme increase of inequality of wealth distribution.
man honestly all this stuff pisses me off but I'm just trying to survive over here in my own life. Got friends from all over but no one is really ready to put their life on the line. Like, most disagree with Trump's agenda, many find it offensive, but bottom line is staying healthy, finding work, paying bills, taking care of ppl immediately around you is more important.
Truth is, lots of Americans are really divorced from the reality undocumented immigrants are facing right now. Lots of immigrants from 10-15+ years ago aren't worried if they are law abiding (anecdotal). The online rhetoric rly doesn't match daily life in my most places aside from the active hotbeds.
You need to specify what you mean by "more than". Last night ICE agents were attacked with shovels, injuring one. A man was shot.
BEFORE this began we had 7 million people protesting simultaneously nationwide—they are "out on the street" as you put it. With protests around the country every day. Minneapolis has organized hundreds into rapid response teams against ICE. The killings get more news than the protests, particularly as much of the media has been bought up by republican owners. You seem to be missing the news, and saying it does not exist.
In Philadelphia, residents are being filmed patrolling with automatic weapons in advance of ICE supposedly heading there next. Read what @asa400, another local like myself, is saying in another comment to parent.
Many locals on social media are cheering on the shootings. America is incredibly polarized right now. It's not like all the public is against the government. Nearly half of those most likely to vote in past elections support this.
There are a lot of differences. Americans are not being passive. For one thing, reasonable or not there is still a lot of faith in the election process and many are expecting all this craziness will put Republicans on a back seat for decades. For another, these ICE groups are well armed and operate in numbers. Many Americans are also armed and have deep misgivings about political violence and where this is headed. Where you see "passive" many of us see "knife edge". Also, many live staying busy and near exhaustion to start with and have trouble coming to grips with just how bad this is as no one has ever shown this much contempt for laws without consequences. There is an expectation that the constitution will hold any test. And those following closely understand that just about everything Trump has done including tariffs are illegal and the courts are closing in.
Worth mentioning that America does not have a protest culture like Europe. Being largely rural makes gathering for political expression impractical, and in this particular case Trump and his militias are deliberately trying to stir up chaos in order to rationalize cranking up the pressure. Protests make noise and get you targeted but what is needed now is real change.
> For one thing, reasonable or not there is still a lot of faith in the election process and many are expecting all this craziness will put Republicans on a back seat for decades.
If only the country wasn't systematically designed to favor conservatives. Low population states have way too much influence on this country. It's one of the reasons we're so fucking backwards compared to the rest of the world. We're held hostage in part by places like Wyoming and Nebraska. Our House representation has been capped so we're getting fucked on representation and the electoral college as well. On top of that, the conservative's willingness to lie and cheat certainly puts them at significant advantage as well. Stunts like convincing someone with the same name as your opponent to run as well in hopes of confusing the voters and splitting up votes to running as a Democrat only to switch as soon as elected.
Liberals just aren't equipped or willing to fight against conservative fuckery. If liberals fought half as hard to support their lip services towards helping people as conservatives fought for fucking people over, we might actually make progress in this country.
Do you mean there's no problem?
The appalling situation in France, Sweden, Great Britain and Belgium with crime, rapes, harassment of local residents and the associated financial losses on benefits is striking. Perhaps the situation is better in Spain - I haven't visited Spain in a long time.
American here; studied and lived in France and participated in some big protests there. The US just doesn't have the protest/strike culture that Europe has, it's not part of our tradition; the majority of people don't even know how or understand the implications...Also most cities in the US are built for cars , not pedestrians and people on the street.
I remember 5 years ago americans said same things about russian civil unrest. No grand penalty for violent rioting, you can get off with just prison time!
There is a vast difference between believing that your nation would riot hard and having to risk your own life knowing that your loved ones that would be devastated if something happens.
> Why are Americans so passive? You're literally transitioning into straight up authoritarianism, yet where are the riots?
In the same place. You just aren't seeing footage of them on HN.
> Is there more stuff actually happening on the ground
There is, and there is lots of video of it. You only need search elsewhere.
I have seen such footage. It's all over the place. I've cited examples of what I've seen in other comments. You can infer keyword search terms from the descriptions and should be able to find them readily with any search engine.
> Are you not witnessing your government carrying out extra-judicial murders and then being protected by that same government?
They are not "extra-judicial murders". The only people who have died so far have been those whose actions presented a serious threat to the life or safety of federal officers.
Anyone who disagrees with my claim is welcome to provide contradictory evidence.
You're just describing a recipe for agents opening fire into a crowd. The opposition is doing it right: demonstrate to ICE that they're nonviolent, well coordinated, and much more numerous.
If violence is warranted, the time and place for it is not when they're all together, armed to the teeth, and looking for a fight. It's when they're off duty, alone, and not expecting a confrontation.
- ICE boxed in a Woodbury real estate agent recording their movements
- She was run off the road into a snowbank by ICE for laying on her horn
- A woman attempting to drive past a raid
- Feds pushed an unidentified motorist through a red light
- Fired projectiles at a pedestrian walking “too slowly”
Where does the Palantir app come into any of these stories?
If you work for Palantir and if you work on these systems: You have blood on your hands. You know that it's not right what is happening on the ground right now. Do something.
Yes, Palantir folks have self selected for the first two over and over - anyone working there for many years now is completely blacklisted from anything I touch, when someone advertises ex-Palantir folks in the job description I know I can safely avoid that company forever.
The unfortunate converse is there are plenty of other software companies looking for that .gov money that would pick these less than scrupulous employees right up.
Same. I would never allow anyone who has Palantir on their resume to be hired in any company I have influence over. They are the brownshirts of the tech industry, worse even than the people poisoning children's minds at Meta.
> 3. Are more worried about their next paycheck and having bad things happen to them related to not paying rent.
i feel like a broken record: anyone with a resume good enough for Palantir would have no problem finding work for another company/public sector employer. but they stay.
It’s hard to prove without knowing the app devs, but for points 1 & maybe 2, we can look at whether Americans think the raids are justified.
28% of them think they are [0]. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that the devs would be part of that number
Edit: it looks like the poll it’s for the recent incident of the woman who was shot - my mistake. Then I would assume the number for the raids themselves is higher
When we stop tying our health insurance to our employment, we'll see a drastic uptick in people starting their own businesses. Working at company Z because their health insurance is fully paid for by the employer vs working at company Y where it costs you 1,400 a month for HDHP but the salaries are the same shouldn't be a thing
> JP Doherty did not want to sign the email. But he knew he didn’t have a choice. His son, Rhys, was scheduled to have strabismus surgery in January, correcting an eye issue that made it difficult for him to walk on his own. The procedure cost $10,000 out of pocket. Doherty discussed the decision with his wife, and while she wanted him to be able to quit, they both knew the kids needed his health insurance. [0]
That's not my experience from the time I worked for Google. The popular sentiment was actually "We now work for a company that dropped 'don't be evil' and that sucks". See Manu Cornet comics - they are a pretty good reflection of the sentiment I'm talking about, a random example https://goomics.net/387
And it's not like everyone just complained for moral posturing and then continued to wipe the tears of disgust with wads of cash. Many people who left also mentioned the ethics part as why they left.
Due to background, I know a lot of people who work at google, and while many of them will give lipservice to ethical concerns, none of them have made any changes at all because, and this is an exact quote, "the money is too good."
In a thread last year a Palantir employee said most of them were either Indian, East Asians, or laid off and/or unemployable White males. Good luck guilt-tripping any of them.
Note: I'm not American, nor White/WASP, nor Asian.
I don’t think it’s really this simple. Palantir is a major government contractor that enables it to be more tech savvy. It’s embedded through hundreds of teams / agencies. You can’t remain a credible partner if you play morality police on every workflow. Palantir has worked through multiple administrations of both parties and have to support whoever is in power to have a seat at the table.
Ultimately the question is just: would you prefer to have a competent or incompetent government?
Otherwise you can agree or disagree with government policies, but that shouldn’t be directed at tech vendors, it should be directed at politicians and people in government / at the voting booth.
Haha, true, although I meant competent from a tech perspective. The reason Palantir is even in the building is because the government is notoriously bad at technology.
You need to separate government institutions ability to use tech from Trumps obvious buffoonery.
I am thinking that whether I want a technically competent federal government depends entirely on who I think will be running it in the future. Right now the technical incompetence, such that it exists, works to our advantage.
Palantir's ICE contract itself is 30 million over 2 years. Thats 15 mil a year, where this past year's total revenue was ~4B. Thats about .00375 of their revenue. I hardly think it's the literal contract money they care so deeply about.
The government is notoriously terrible at tech. Are you debating that? Out of the top tech talent over the last 20 years, how many of them do you suppose work in FAANG vs the US government?
I'm not saying Palantir specifically is necessary, but I do think finding avenues for Silicon valley to help the US government is necessary for them to be tech competent.
Wouldn't be surprised if proportionately more software devs supported this. Tech is still a fast track to riches so they would fall for the narrative more than the average worker.
You forgot another point--or it could be related to #3: off-shoring and H1B. Many people are just working the job and working on a small piece of software where they don't know or care about the ramification of project. They're getting paid and even if they know what's happening, they're not incentivized to care about what happens in America.
That's a pretty broad generalization, but OK I'll bite.
- I think Yarvin has a lot of good points. No one should be ashamed to admit the truth of a matter. I can't stand his voice, I think he has annoying mannerisms, but nonetheless the man has a point and I'm not ashamed (especially by unknown and strange online personas) to say so.
- Palantir is objectively a profitable job. I've learned a lot here and the people I work with are brilliant.
- I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument.
Let's be honest, simply conjecturing that someone ascribes to a political view isn't discourse. It's a potshot. You're assuming that anyone who reads your comment and leans in your direction is going to agree and vote with you. This is literally the lowest and cheapest form of engagement. It's also the most self serving. It does nothing to advance the conversation or prove your point.
Most importantly, this is the exact type of behavior that is furthering political polarization and discouraging actual discourse.
Honest-to-God truthfully, reading Moldbug is what made me realize the speciousness of pure rightism and ushered my journey from a rightist-axiomatic "Libertarian" / ancap to a centrist-qualitative libertarian-without-labels that sees left and right thinking as both necessary parts of a complete whole. But YMMV, apparently!
In general I think whenever you find a "red pill", you also end up confronted with a whole slew of new easy answers. Whether you end up buying into them or not really comes down to who you are as a person.
I will never ever understand the construct of right / left / red / blue / lib / conservative without having to take a really dumb view of the world and its human inhabitants.
The problem is that left/right are highly appealing because they claim to have the world figured out. The strongest manifestation being the authoritarians (of either ilk) that think they just need to implement their chosen top-down policies and every problem will end up being solved by construction.
Can you describe at what point someone would “have blood on their hands” in your view?
The problem in my mind is that these systems are exclusively in service of dishonesty. ICE is clearly being used to further political ends. If it were actually trying to stem immigration it wouldn’t concentrate its officers in a state with one of the lowest rates of illegal immigrants.
Are you saying you agree with that cause or that you bear no responsibility?
It makes perfect sense to concentrate law enforcement in a state that is in defiance. Even if the absolute numbers are low, the state cannot back down from enforcing the law because some people are resisting. Otherwise you invite anyone to disregard any law they don’t like. The state won’t allow this and the only way to overcome this is either to change the law or toss out the government, and only one options is realistic. And btw I am against deportations of people who have committed no felonies unrelated to immigration.
I think most people involved in protests would not characterize the thing they are resisting as merely "law enforcement". What they are experiencing is an occupation by a politically weaponized paramilitary organization which is going door-to-door in their neighborhoods wearing masks, wielding ARs, yelling at people and brutalizing them. How do you think you would react if this was taking place in your community?
Of course the brutality is not desirable, but to stay in perspective, what would you suggest they do to still enforce the law efficiently but without this forcefulness? They can’t do it the normal way when they are constantly watched and their targets are warned beforehand by whistles and apps and they can’t and shouldn’t back down on enforcing the law.
I don't accept the framing that this is about law enforcement in the first place. I believe that this administration is run by xenophobic right wing extremists who care little for the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. They have weaponized ICE against the Somali community in Minneapolis today, the overwhelming majority of whom are legal refugees. As we have seen, they will not hesitate to weaponize ICE against anyone else who crosses them. I believe the organization does not exist to protect or serve the interests of the American public and should be abolished.
The American public has sadly elected this administration. I agree with you in principle, especially when legal immigrants become targets. But again, if the actions of this administration are not just morally wrong but illegal there are courts, and in any case there are elections. The people of one state or one city can not obstruct the will of the Union, it is fundamentally undemocratic way of interfacing with the fairly elected government.
I'm sorry, but if you still have any expectation that this administration will engage in good faith in any democratic process, you either haven't been paying attention or are engaging in willful self-delusion. They do not believe in democracy. They care about free speech only insofar as they can use it to claim they are being victimized, but will gleefully take it away from their opponents. They laugh in your face while they pardon the J6 insurrectionists. The presidential election is not and ought not be a referendum on whether or not we all get to have our rights trampled by gun-toting masked goons. At a certain point you have to stand up for what's right--that is, a reclamation of democracy.
Efficiency has never been a goal of US governance, especially in how it interacts with the People. This is deliberate. Read up on the events around the American Revolution if you want to see why that is. There are actually a lot of arguments being trotted out today that were trotted out back then, by the British.
> what would you suggest they do to still enforce the law efficiently but without this forcefulness
How about not violating the 5th amendment by going door to door through neighborhoods randomly? I don't give a single FUCK if ICE can do their jobs today if they have to violate half the damn bill of rights to do it.
I expect them to enforce the law without breaking the law. I want the job of any law enforcement agency to be hard. Not because I want lawlessness, but because the government has a rightful burden to surpass to prove that it's citizens are in the wrong. The government is supposed to serve the citizenry and not the other way around.
We have a freedom of speech and protest precisely to signal our discontent with our leaders. It is precisely for citizens to harass law enforcement that they view as unjust.
The entire reason we got those freedoms spelt out in the constitution in the first place was because of British occupation and the views that the British governments laws and enforcement were unjust. There is a direct parallel. The spirit of the 3rd amendment is that we should be able to kick out law enforcement that we hate. That we don't have to tolerate their presence.
I mean this idea of defiance is absurd. People here are 99.9% exercising their constitutional rights. The majority of crimes happening at this moment are ICE infringing on people’s constitutional rights. I appreciate you sharing your perspective but that logic exists in isolation from the reality. ICE are so bad at policing they are creating more crimes than they are solving.
Of course with the Trump FBI the message is loud and clear, those crimes will not be investigated
ICE officers are bad at policing because they were a paper pusher/investigative agency which should always be assisted by local law enforcement. Most of the other feds operate like that. The administration dramatically increased ICE workload and in addition to that the local police is not always cooperative, and they are being obstructed by protesters. Of course they are fumbling around and making lots of mistakes, but again, they can not give up on enforcing the federal law.
> It makes perfect sense to concentrate law enforcement in a state that is in defiance
Using the word "defiance" indicates that your perspective is decidedly not American.
Both the States and the Federal government are co-sovereign, mediated by the US Constitution that spells out the rights and responsibilities of each. The Federal government is currently in willful and flagrant default of this founding charter - both overall in terms of how it is supposed to function (offices being executed in good faith forming checks and balances), as well as openly flouting the handful of hard limits outlined in the Bill of Rights. As such, the Federal government has lost the legal authority to dictate anything to the States.
It is of course still prudent to recognize the realpolitik of the "Federal government" having command of a lawless paramilitary force currently unleashing terror and mayhem on civil society. But the point is that we need to work towards re-establishing law and order in terms of the remaining functioning sovereigns.
They are certainly NOT co-sovereign, that is an absurd statement as states cannot leave the Union. Any sovereign party can withdraw from a treaty. The states are represented in their ability to collectively steer the federal government by Congress and the Electoral College. The feds are currently enforcing the ill will of both which sadly is the result of last elections.
I said co-sovereign, not that they're both independently sovereign (required for your treaty example). This is straightforward law, go read up on it. States are considered sovereign themselves, with powers limited by the US Constitution - the same qualification as the Federal government.
It's honestly besides the point. For even if I accept their sovereignty, they have exercised their sovereign will in the Electoral College to elect this administration. And they always have the power to impeach it through their representatives, the administration did not take that away, nor did they suspend the Congress, nor do they appear to be preparing to wrongfully influence the next elections. A state can not go and rebel against the Union because it disagrees with the current administration. Hell, the Union can literally change the Constitution against the will of a particular state if enough other states agree. You can consider states sovereign if you want, and I concede that it's an established tradition, but when the whole agreement on the separation of powers can be changed with a particular state voting against it - that's a mockery of sovereignty of that state.
Sorry, this is a whole ball of post-hoc motivated reasoning.
> For even if I accept their sovereignty, they have exercised their sovereign will in the Electoral College to elect this administration
Simply repeating the word "sovereign" doesn't mean you've applied and fully accounted for the definition.
> A state can not go and rebel against the Union
I'm not talking about rebellion here, but the provision of law and order in spite of the federal government's policies of repeated lawbreaking.
> when the whole agreement on the separation of powers can be changed with a particular state voting against it - that's a mockery of sovereignty of that state.
This subject is not like computer programming where finding some lever you can pull to affect an axiomatic-deductive result invalidates the independent meaning of the original thing. If two-thirds of the states actually wanted to scrap the current Constitution and turn the federal government into an autocracy with two impotent patronage-review councils, then you would have a point. As it stands, you do not - the entire point of these necessary supermajorities is to put the brakes and pull us towards a foundation of individual liberty and limited government when things are close to evenly divided.
As I said, you really need to read up on the founding of this country. It's got all of these dynamics and more - including the "liberal media".
I don't think I would ever "have blood on my hands" in my current position as a software developer because Gotham and Foundry have valid and real world use cases that are being implemented in ways that actually make people safe across the nation. That's honestly just the truth. Can people, or and organizations use any given product for nefarious ends? Absolutely. Do we try to mitigate it? Very much so.
At the end of the day it sounds like the people making this argument don't really like how ICE is using the product. That's unfortunate, but it seems like the response is making a proximation error though. For those taking this view: Do you yell at farmers for planting, growing and packaging strawberries because you're upset about the obesity crisis and people's craving for strawberry flavored products? Do you run out into the fields and grab them by the shoulders saying "This is your fault!". I'd hazard not.
There is a larger epistemological argument to be had there, but needless to say I'm just not convinced that any sober person believes that qualitatively ascribing moral outrage to a single group of people is really that simple.
>I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument.
Yes, yes, the little hands at the gestapo that were just filling up forms for deportation do not have blood in their hands, we know. Tried and failed defense, many times.
>No one should be ashamed to admit the truth of a matter.
Yet supports a regime that is censoring colleges, getting workers fired over their political views, pressuring and shutting down press, and more.
The point clearly only matters for truths they like.
>Palantir is objectively a profitable job
And ICE offering 50k signing bonuses. How much is your soul worth?
>I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument.
Dismissing ethics as a salient argument is exactly why pathos is effective. If you were truly without shame you wouldn't be affected by the argument. Deflecting shows shame. I've meet a few sociopaths and this isn't how they respond.
>Most importantly, this is the exact type of behavior that is furthering political polarization and discouraging actual discourse.
Citizens are being killed on the street as we speak by their government. This is not a time to say "but why can't we just get along". There is literal blood on their hands. Maybe yours, I don't know.
And I'm beyond tired of this because this was warned from day one. But it was dismissed by overly reactionary and dramatic (I can pull up many of the flagged threads here). It's tiring because this wasn't some freak accident we correct, but a year of escalation that was designed by the administration.
If you're fine with that to self preserve your lifestyle, then I hope you are a sociopath. Otherwise, that does indeed eat at your soul, deservedly.
it's funny how now days you can spot a tool by how they want to make sure the nuance of the fascist prick argument is being heard. I hear it. It sucks.
A Palantir rep was supporting one of our exercises late last summer, and he said "Knowing what I know about how the military is going all-in on Maven....I recommend buying Palantir stock."
I picked up a few shares, but I haven't checked if Palantir's growth has been unique or part of a general military-industrial complex melt-up.
Nah, free blood money was when my General Dynamics shares went from $60->$120, then did a stock split and went from $60-> ~$100. I think that was in....2005? The Stryker (a GD product) was coming into service in Iraq, which drove my purchasing decision. I was an E-4 in Korea at the time and thought I was a defense stock-picking genius.
I had to pull out of US stocks/market completely last year after I felt dirty just having money in a country sliding into authoritarianism. Interesting where different people draw different lines :)
Man, back when I was doing Big Consulting (including gov't/defense) I had to affirmatively declare every year to Legal that I wasn't directing any investment purchases or doing anything that could be construed as improper use of nonpublic knowledge. And now Palantir reps just out here pushing insider trading tips like it's nothing, smdh.
The US gov (including ICE) uses all of Microsoft Office for coordination and planning: email, spreadsheets, powerpoint, document generation, etc. Would you say Microsoft employees have blood on their hands too? If not, what makes Microsoft different?
> Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address
So essentially, the relevant app here is custom built in order to help ICE raids.
That's substantially different from generic office tech where ICE happen to be one of millions of users.
You're going to have to explain to me why it's a bad thing or immoral for the government to be aware of where immigrants who legally need to be deported live.
That’s not an answer. Please explain why it’s a bad thing that Palantir had produced an application that shows ICE agents the probable addresses of people they’re supposed to deport along with information about them.
If the answer is “I don’t believe in immigration law and the government should not enforce it regardless of what people vote for”, that’s a completely acceptable answer.
I wasn't answering you. I was calling out the vicious sleight of hand where you reduce what ICE is doing to the innocently-sounding "immigrants who legally need to be deported".
Because these systems are not only used on illegal immigrants. To give you a very clear example: a US citizen was murdered without any due process a few days ago by ICE.
Because surveilling people -- PEOPLE, not citizens -- without probable cause is a violation of the US constitution?
It is a bad thing because it leads to innocent people being brutalized, it's a violation of the constitution, it's very clearly the primary tool of an increasingly authoritarian government?
“Due process” is not a magic incantation. This is emotional, moralizing rhetoric that doesn’t persuade anyone. People who insert themselves into operations involving the state’s actors who have a monopoly on violence are risking their lives and legal jurisprudence has upheld the state’s actions to stop them by whatever means necessary in similar cases many, many times. And it’s obvious things could not operate in any other way. The state cannot give you a free pass to stop the operation of law enforcement and they definitely can’t give you a free pass to run over the agents of the state. “Due process” does not factor in to live situations that have a risk of death or injury. (It also doesn’t mean a court case. People talk about it in this thread as though the administrative orders issued by immigration judges aren’t due process.)
I don’t have a problem if people want to acknowledge this and risk their lives knowingly in protest of whatever they don’t like, but it’s absurd to pretend that’s not what you’re doing. I don’t think that’s what’s happening though when Good’s girlfriend asked why they were using real bullets.
The state having your address is also not surveillance in any meaningful sense.
edit: I'm ratelimited so I can't reply to the reply: no, he didn't answer. These people did get due process. So it's about something else. ICE is being used for its legally authorized purpose, which yes, includes removing people who illegally hinder them.
He answered your question perfectly now you're rolling your eyes at the concept of due process, which has little to do with the original conversation (why is Palantir bad?) Do you just like being contrarian?
That person isjustifying using deadly force on someone who was driving away, by the command of said shooter. This is the exact kind of person who is the reason this regime isn't unilaterally overturned.
The term to consider here is >extrajudical killing<
As in: Someone wotking for the executive kills another citizen, without 1) a need to do so for selfdefense 2) any justification from the judicary for it, and that without being charged for murder/aggrevated manslaugther.
The argument: they are not doing what this law enforcement person wants do do of them (whether that obstruction is legal or not), so they are free to be killed is nothing but the total disregard for the law, any decency and the respect for human life and dignity. In short it is lynchmob mentality.
The argument is that people recklessly driving their vehicles with a total disregard for the lives around them are a danger to the people in front of their car and anyone else on the street, which is recognized by the Supreme Court even when nobody is directly in front of the car. They don’t have to wait until you kill someone and get tried for it. They can legally just shoot you under current law. That’s what the courts say.
Self-defense is, however, an entirely plausible defense in this scenario, even if the agent could have acted differently to not be in the path of someone already behaving erratically, and even if people only with the benefit of slo-mo multi-angle replays don’t think so. That’s why nobody is being charged. This happens all the time, unfortunately. The minute you choose to endanger people around you in the presence of people with guns, you’ve rolled the dice on your life.
So do you have any actual examples of what you’re describing?
What? You know someone in thisbthread made the argument, that it is not smart to shoot at someone driving at you because it won't stop the car. The truth of that can be seen in the recording of the video where renne nicole is being shot by that ICE person. The car is driving right on till it crashes into a mast or post or whatever these things are called. At this point her brain must be blown all over the interior of the car, since he had that gun on her head before the car started. You know. The guy was standing to the side of the car, and that woman must have been scarred for her life. I mean when you're so close, you must feel what is going on. And I think it is clear where the car will be going by the point that man decided to pull the trigger. Watch the video closely again. Imaging standing there with the gun. You would feel the rotation of her boy propagating through the pistol that is elongating your hand. You feel how the car is movjng away from you, even so you want it to stop and want the dooe to open up. You must see the thoughts and emotions of that woman running over her face as she decides to disobey and flee.
What I see is someone who wants someone else to obey and to control them and is so entitled to the idea that the woman in the car should do, that when she doesn't do as he wants, the inhibition that a person who is representing the state doesn't work anymore and the impulse to take control and to take power is taking over. And he pulls the trigger.
I mean that is what I think I see when I watch the video. You described your perception. (That isn't even to contadicting. You argue that starting the car and (potentially) fleeing, is legitimage reason to kill someone.
To me that is insane but so is everybody carrying weapons, so there is that. Especially non police having these privileges that are normally reserved for highly trained and sworn in police (that have in my understanding absolutely have to weigh the risk to their life against the certainty to end that of someone they are there to protect, even if that person acts against there will. Where I live it is assumed that the impulse to flee is and to preserve yourself is extremely strong in every individual so, that attemptimg to do so does not constitute a crime/felony or whatever)
Anyways: to get from disagreements in perspective and assumptions about what is right and wrong to something that can be the foundation of a civil society (as opposed to the "lawless wild west" as the sayinf goes) there is written law and independent judical processes in which these assumptions and perspectives are weight againsg each other. So that is what should be happening.
People not having to undergo this scrutiny after such an act hat ended someone elses life means and being protected from that is so inlawfull I miss the right terms to qualify it. Something about lynching, mobs, lawlessness and disregard for humaan life and dignity all sanctioned by the highest political authority of your country.
>The argument is that people recklessly driving their vehicles with a total disregard for the lives around them are a danger to the people in front of their car and anyone else on the street
And my argument is that no matter what SCOTUS law one cites, or hand-waving about self-defense that is said, that shooting her in the head from the side of the car was not only tactically unnecessary, but objectively made the situation worse in a way that a competent person should immediately recognize.
One does not need slow-mo to see she wasn't trying to kill anyone.
>The minute you choose to endanger people around you in the presence of people with guns, you’ve rolled the dice on your life.
This is shorthand for "comply or die". Welcome to the free world. I wonder if Europe and Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the world know what they're missing by not having LEO as qualified as ICE running their streets.
> One does not need slow-mo to see she wasn't trying to kill anyone.
She accelerated her car before turning the wheels knowing people were in the path of her car. (Even if you argue that the wheels spinning before the wheels turn doesn't count, cars do not turn rotate on their central axis, so accelerating while turning still endangers people in front of the car.) Nobody can read her mind but the possible consequences of that action are obvious. Legally that constitutes intent, regardless of what we might want to project on her state of mind.
Further, if you do want to talk about state of mind, you cannot argue that any person behaving rationally would choose to commit a felony and flee from LEO in a vehicle in the first place. This is an extremely high-risk move for zero benefit and the video confirms it didn't even take place out of panic, which was my original thought. On the ground in that situation there can be no analysis of "what is she thinking" because she abandoned the reasonable course that anyone there would have expected her to take.
> that shooting her in the head
No confirmed gunshot wound is in her head. Where did you hear this? It appears the ICE officer fired center of mass, as two confirmed gunshot wounds are in her chest and one in her arm.
I realize that arguing these technical issues will not change your mind, because for you the emotion of "people dying is bad" trumps all the reasons it happened. But I hope it will get you to consider what other people are thinking.
> tactically unnecessary, but objectively made the situation worse
That isn't clear at all because you cannot know what the counterfactual is. There were armed people who could have shot James Fields before he accelerated into a crowd. If they had, Heather Heyer would be alive today. If they had shot him, then people would be making the same argument you're making. Hitting the gas while your car is surrounded by people is no different than firing a gun randomly. In the very best case, your are operating a deadly weapon with a total disregard for human life. In some situations (self-defense), that may be justified. But it is not innocent.
The way to stop this from happening is to stop encouraging people to commit crimes by interfering with law enforcement. There are other effective ways to protest. Another good start would be winning elections. Encouraging people to get into violent encounters with law enforcement is risking peoples' lives for nothing. Once you choose violence you don't know where it's going to go.
I highly disagree with your analysis. And yes, some of my perspective is based on the ideology that the ICE agents are largely incompetent, racist, hateful human beings led by people of the same quality.
You are correct, she didn't get shot in the head, she was shot in the chest and lived for 20 minutes while she was denied medical attention.
Any resistance to tyranny will involve disobedience of varying levels of severity. This administration is fascist in the true meaning of the word. A woman blocked the street, got killed then called a f*cking b*tch by the cop after he shot her, and a domestic terrorist before her body was cold by the DHS secretary and president and vice president.
You say she shouldn't have been there. I say ICE shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have issued conflicting orders, shouldn't have gotten in front of her car, and should have kept going around her like they had been. I say her demeanor before she left meant she clearly was not trying to harm anyone. Period.
There were no conflicting orders, unless you mean ICE telling her to get out of the car while Good's partner yells "drive, baby drive!"
> shouldn't have gotten in front of her car,
It certainly would have been smarter for the ICE agent on a personal welfare level, but the idea that the cops have to leave you an escape route is silly. It's policy mostly for police safety; from everyone elses' standpoint, you don't get to say "the cops have stopped me and I don't have a way out so I have no choice but to run them over."
> Any resistance to tyranny will involve disobedience of varying levels of severity. This administration is fascist in the true meaning of the word.
Right, well, I think it's pretty clear that anyone who is out protesting and resisting the incompetent, hateful, and violent thugs of a fascist regime should absolutely, 100% expect to be killed. I mean, that's what fascist thugs do. Instead, Good and her partner appear to have been caught totally off guard, with her partner demanding to know why they had real bullets. There's a disconnect somewhere.
Anyway, I guess one of my overarching points is that this is not actually unusual police behavior, even by international standards. It's getting so much attention because of its political salience. I don't know (and doubt) there is any coordination going on, but in these situations I think people should always ask themselves why: a) this event, like many others, is incorrectly being treated as unprecedented or beyond the norm and b) why it is so emotionally charged when similar past events were not, c) whether the emotionality is productive at all personally and d) whether the outrage is likely to lead to desirable political consequences. For a closely related example in the lattermost question, I am no lover of cops, but it appears the actual political results of the BLM protests were highly mixed, at best, and in some cases made things worse. So, for example, returning to a situation where we have immigration laws and minimal enforcement is clearly not a desirable end for anyone except maybe some classes of businessmen.
It got a lot of attention because it is death, because it was avoidable, because it was the responsibility of ICE to make it avoidable, and because popular tension breaks at unpredictable moments. Hers happened to be on video from a thousand different angles.
Your rhetoric waffles between support of the actions of the authorities, and you seem to drift between satire and reality. "I'm no lover of cops" while you victim blame a woman for getting killed.
>I think it's pretty clear that anyone who is out protesting and resisting the incompetent, hateful, and violent thugs of a fascist regime should absolutely, 100% expect to be killed
Given the amount of energy you are expending to defending the actions of officers in this instance, I assume you are a supporter of this administration and their actions.
Feel free to post a video showing the conflicting orders. As best I can determine, this was just early (and very typical) misinformation. I could be wrong!
> responsibility of ICE to make it avoidable
I disagree. I don't see that LEOs have some sort of moral responsibility to make sure they aren't standing where they can be run over. People have a moral responsibility to not drive recklessly.
> "I'm no lover of cops" while you victim blame a woman for getting killed.
It is certainly an unfortunate situation, but if you can set aside your moral outrage, looking at the chain of cause-and-effect, she definitely took actions that had a very high probability of leading to being shot. Do you disagree? I don't see how looking at this shooting from a moral framing is sensible or likely to be productive in any way regardless of which side "wins" and is able to execute policy based on it.
> It got a lot of attention because it is death, because it was avoidable, because it was the responsibility of ICE to make it avoidable, and because popular tension breaks at unpredictable moments
See, I don't think it's actually unpredictable at all. There are very good reasons there aren't mass riots in Canada over police not in any particular danger shooting up someone driving a stolen truck, and there are for Americans ICE shooting a woman who, at best, disobeyed clear instructions and operated her vehicle with a reckless disregard for human life.
> I wonder if Europe and Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the world know what they're missing by not having LEO as qualified as ICE running their streets.
"Europe" is of course not a place, but maybe you'd be surprised to know this does happen in "Europe" and other countries. In fact France specifically legalized police shooting vehicles fleeing traffic stops even if the police themselves are not in danger, and about a dozen people are killed that way every year.
Heck, here's a video of a shooting in Canada where the police fired at someone just trying to get away:
>This is emotional, moralizing rhetoric that doesn’t persuade anyone.
If the constitution is now just "emotional rhetoric", then we are lost. No point showing you the article breaking down every bit of conduct in this situation if you dont care aboht law.
This will be a civil war with the only winner being China. Good luck.
First: I do not believe immigration laws should be enforced in their entirety vis-a-vis mass deportation. Decades of flawed immigration laws, flawed employment laws and flawed enforcement have led to the current situation where millions of people are in this country undocumented, who are otherwise law-abiding, decent people who contribute to their communities and love the US. The rhetoric about immigrants being a drain on society are flawed at best, and hatefully wrong and bad faith at worst.
Second: If we want to get a handle on immigration volume and change the system so fewer people are undocumented, the correct response logistically and morally is to create a path to legal status (not citizenship) for those currently here, who have been here for a long time, who have families and who have not committed violent crime.
Third: If someone wanted to maximize the effectiveness of immigration enforcement resources for the purpose of safety using deportation, they would still be doing targeting of violent offenders. They clearly are not. Stephen Miller wants all undocumented people out of this country because he is a white supremacist. When "moderating forces" in the administration tried to push back on raids at farms and factories, Miller angrily protested and got Trump to change his mind back to indiscriminate mass deportation.
Third, pt 2: If Republicans were serious about measured but effective reforms to reduce immigration, they would have accepted the 2024 legislative package that capped asylum volume and vastly increased border patrol and border judiciary resources to expedite cases and get people back out of the country in a fraction of the time the current system requires. Instead, they wanted to win the 2024 election with immigration as a wedge issue, and they want to pursue a maximalist position of fear and mass removal.
Fourth: The US federal government is a semi-democracy. We have a single-choice, no-runoff election system in most of the country that forces an extremist-friendly two party system, and the presidential election is further removed from popular choice by the electoral college. The president is the least "democratic" elected position in the nation. I do not think most people support the extent of the violence and maximalism of the administration.
Fifth: The surveillance technology being adopted by the government is not being used solely on undocumented citizens.
Finally: If I were in charge and wanted to take a stance on immigration, I would do largely what was in the 2024 bill, I would set up a work visa program for industries that heavily utilize undocumented labor, and I would target recent arrivals and criminals for deportation - not all undocumented residents.
---
TLDR:
We're arresting and deporting veterans, PhD students critical of US policy, and people who have lived here for decades as part of the "American Dream" who have done no harm to our country. What is being done is not in the name of safety nor does it even indirectly improve the lives of Americans. Surveillance and tracking tools are being deployed against all citizens. In the broader context of the behavior and statements of Miller/Trump/Vance et al, this is part of a multi-pronged attack on democracy and the freedom of citizens from government intrusion.
Edit: and all of this debate is without the context of an administration that has declared itself above the law domestically and internationally, that has invaded a country for oil and is currently preparing to invade a treaty member of our strongest military alliance to steal their natural resources. So if the parent wonders why some people are hostile at debating this, it's because to debate the point at all is to ignore obvious truths.
>The rhetoric about immigrants being a drain on society are flawed at best, and hatefully wrong and bad faith at worst.
Ironically all the big wealthy GOP donors all hire illegal laborers to clean their homes and mow their lawns, and to maintain the golf courses at clubs they belong to. But we can't actually have the conversation about illegal immigration get to the root causes of why immigrants are actually here, now can we?
> Stephen Miller wants all undocumented people out of this country because he is a white supremacist.
Another point of irony - most of the ardent white nationalists from the heartland of America would be aghast to learn that Miller is a rich Jew from Southern California whose grandparents were immigrants. For a lot of them, Jews are explicitly NOT white nor are they American.
> If Republicans were serious about measured but effective reforms to reduce immigration, they would have accepted the 2024 legislative package that capped asylum volume and vastly increased border patrol and border judiciary resources to expedite cases and get people back out of the country in a fraction of the time the current system requires.
Or, even earlier, they could have backed e-Verify as federal minimum standard for all employment as far back as the 1980s. But no, let's not go after the businesses hiring illegal laborers.
> Or, even earlier, they could have backed e-Verify as federal minimum standard for all employment as far back as the 1980s. But no, let's not go after the businesses hiring illegal laborers.
Strong borders are entirely about making easy to exploit cheap labor. That's entirely the reason why neither democrats nor republicans have addressed immigration. It's also entirely the reason why the only lever being pulled is deportation.
Businesses simply love being able to say to workers "Do what we say or we'll have you deported".
This is why undocumented workers pay taxes and can get jobs, even in the reddest of states. It's not some sort of "flaw" or "impossibility" that couldn't be fixed pretty quickly.
Rightly targeted law would penalize businesses hiring undocumented workers and would protect the workers regardless of documentation status. Doing that would immediately fix any perceived problems with immigration.
You were arguing that the use of Microsoft office vs the bespoke Palantir app were equivelent, and I'm simply pointing out that they are very different.
I'm a stranger on the internet, if you don't already think that the USA's immigration raids and camps are a bad thing, I'm probably not going to be the one to convince you otherwise.
There's a lot of good journalism and commentary on the topic, so if you want to have your mind changed, do a web search and read from people much smarter and more knowledgable than me.
Considering that Microsoft is also providing services to the Israeli government with the explicit intent of storing and cataloging all of the phone calls made by Palestinian citizens so that they can be analyzed by AI for potential bombing targets...yes I would say Microsoft also has blood on their hands. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they have deep partnerships with Palantir for compute services.
Yes, absolutely. These are criminal scum, on par with pedos. Just look at how they are helping a people getting wiped out from their own territory in the Middle East.
Microsoft is a modern IBM holocaust tabulation machine. Yes, many of the people who work for Microsoft should be prosecuted and put in prison for war crimes, with varying degrees of culpability. There are people in MS who knowing negotiated deals that aided and abetted war crimes, and those who wrote morally repugnant military surveillance software that was used to automate mass murder in the Gaza holocaust.
Palantir does not work in a vacuum - it requires other technology, platforms and systems to operate and succeed - many of which are designed and maintained by the users of Hacker News.
Palantir is built explicitly for surveillance, in a way the other companies you listed are not. There is no comparison here. It's like saying the City of Minneapolis is complicit because they maintain the roads ICE is driving on.
Not really. Palantir is data integration and analysis software that in some cases (like ICE) can be used for surveillance. There are also thousands of commercial clients who use Palantir for completely non surveillance workflows, as well as many other government teams who use Palantir for non surveillance things. This is all public information.
> Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.
Is ICE using a general purpose app for surveillance or is Palantir making a deportation-centric app for ICE?
Certainly you must be aware that there are not just binary values of morality in life. The obvious answer is yes they are stained, as we all are through our participation in various systems, but with vastly varying amounts.
Is the manufacturer of the bomb responsible for when Israel drops it on a family home in Gaza? Yes. Is it the same responsibility as the general who gave the order? No. Is it the same as the pilot who followed the order? No.
Does that make it useless to hold people accountable? Of course not.
Respectfully, this is cheap cope. The bomb maker didn't know when he made the bomb, maybe. Now he knows, as do all the people turning the gears on this meat grinder, including a bunch of people here.
If you value your comfy life over the well being of others and the future of not only the country, but without an ounce of hyperbole, the human race, then keep your head down. If you don't, fuckin DO SOMETHING.
You know all those times you've said or heard others say "well if I was in Germany in the 30's...." well, guess what, games fuckin real now. So act like the person you want to be.
>If you value your comfy life over the well being of others and the future of not only the country
For people who think borders are just lines, our country as geography doesn't even exist. It's just lines. For people who think that all people are the same, everywhere, and deserve to go where they please, our country as a people doesn't exist either.
So if that's your conception of a country, why should I care about it at all? It's just a random place I happened to be born, and its disloyalty to me outweighs any I might show it. I inherited a house jointly with the rest of you, and you keep letting squatters live here for free. Once they're here, you screech if anyone tries to evict them. If I complain about them punching holes in the drywall and shitting in the kitchen sink, you tell me I'm racist. Whatever else, you and I are incompatible, and I am out of options.
I don't believe borders should exist, but they do. If you say otherwise you are simply in denial. Borders are promises of violence made by nation-states, which I also don't believe in, which nevertheless exist and are harming people.
Whatever ideological differences we may have, need to be shelved. We can bicker about that later. For now, the border of the U.S. exists, and it's killing people.
> Whatever ideological differences we may have, need to be shelved. We can bicker about that later. For now, the border of the U.S. exists, and it's killing people.
The ideological differences are, in no small part (directly or implicitly) over whether the border should exist and whether it killing the people it kills is a good or a bad thing. Can’t really just shelve that.
I believe in borders; my taxes fund my government, and not someone else's. However, there is no US-American "people" aside from the indigenous people who have been massacred. Ever since, it has always been whoever has been here.
We are all experiencing this, just at a larger scale. To call it a metaphor is to deny the reality, nothing about this is metaphorical.
It hurts all of us, but those on the left are willing to endure the torment if it they think it hurts their opponents more. They're willing to endure it if they think that tihs will swing voting numbers in their favor in the coming decades. The right to live within the United States, as an actual inalienable right and not just some temporary privilege is called citizenship, and those without it have no such right.
When those of you vote me down so you can pretend that everyone disagrees with me, you're setting yourself up for failure in the future. You will believe your own echo chamber and be sure that the Democrats will inevitably win, once and for all, because how can they not when they never hear anyone disagreeing with them? The numbers aren't on your side at all.
> If you work in technology, you are part of this force, whether you like it or not.
Disappointing to see you downvoted. I agree with this partially, but only because I think it applies more broadly.
I work in tech (although not in Big Tech/Mag 7/FAANG/whatever they're called now), and I feel quite acutely that anyone in the field is culpable in part for the enabling the absolutely massive dump that the capital-adjacent class is taking on the world to have their power play fantasies play out.
To the extent that I've started apologising on behalf of the field/profession to non-technical folks when they complain about yet another dark pattern/"growth hack" designed to steal their attention and money.
Yes, this is how market economy works. For every organization doing horrible things, literally everyone is a small number of payment-handshakes from it.
No, it doesn't mean that "mr gotcha"[1] argument is valid. You don't have to isolate yourself from society Kaczynski-style to either criticize society or to do something smaller (like choosing who you work for).
The rage should be dependent on the contribution. You mention a third party software vendor who produces tools that aren't even "dual-use" with respect to the abuse by ICE, they are specifically tailored. That's not the same as, say, providing electricity to them.
They are dual use. Palantir creates platforms (Foundry, Gotham) which are used by ICE but also thousands of other companies. Are you saying that just because ICE tailors these platforms to their workflows they’re not dual use? That feels akin to saying some super complicated excel workflow used by a company means excel is not dual use.
Palantir does a ton of customization and consulting for specific use cases. This isn't like Microsoft Excel being used to track uranium enrichment in Iran, it is a direct, explicit part of their business.
Even if you do nothing else of impact in your life, you can stop defending the bad guys.
I’m not defending the “bad guys”. The original argument was about moral culpability based on distance from the bad deed. Microsoft could have just as easily refused Azure for the ICE contract, but they didn’t, yet somehow they are just far enough away to not be culpable.
In general, if you're working for Palantir, you're unlikely to find yourself in the right side of history. Whenever you hear of tech being used for questionable purposes, Palantir seems to have their fingers deep in the pie.
Palantir is solely a surveillance business. Like, maybe some day in the future they branch out into something that's not explicitly evil, but that seems unlikely.
Wouldn’t it be even more fair to say that the people who allowed or even encouraged illegal immigration have blood on their hands because they know what they were doing and how the government would have to respond under the law? If we are going to use the line of reasoning you suggest then this should easily be on the table also.
the government uses force for everything it does, it doesn’t need to resort to violence if you comply, (and yes it feels gross to type that) I hate to appear to defend something I hate but it’s because I understand the nature of it not because I approve of it: the point still remains that the people who facilitated the illegal entry knew without a doubt that this was going to happen afterwards, however far you want to extrapolate that onto their motives I don’t intend to speculate on here
it only assumes that the government is aware of their own laws and has half a brain to realize what that means, what I wrote is being proved true right now
* It assumes that the government's priorities are malleable enough that it will eventually decide to prioritize these laws, but not malleable enough that they could change them. This is self-contradictory.
* It assumes that a person's immigration status is not malleable and cannot be normalized. This is strictly false.
* It assumes that immigration laws are static. Again, strictly false.
* It implies that all force is equal in violence, which is something I usually only hear from high schoolers who have just encountered libertarianism and love it
* It suggests that there is no moral agency in acting on behalf of the government, only in acting against the backdrop reality of this monolithic slab of granite.
* It suggests even that the violence currently taking place is for the purpose of enforcing laws. This isn't true for the U.S. citizens by birth or naturalization who are being unlawfully detained, it isn't true for the thousands of non-citizens with legal status who are being detained and moved across state lines. It isn't true for the non-citizens who are being arrested literally while attending the process of maintaining their legal status. It isn't even true for those without legal status who are having their doors kicked in without warrants, and it isn't true for those without legal status who are being detained and tortured. None of this is actually according to the law, it's just what they can get away with and make a spectacle of violence.
I'm not even exactly clear who the nebulous group of people is that you want to blame for getting people caught up in the government's violence. I guess if you're mad at coyotes, sure, be my guest? If you're mad at anyone involved in the process of asylum you're mad at people following the law. If you're mad at people helping their neighbors you've lost the plot. If you're mad at state or city governments not enforcing federal laws for then either you don't like federalism or you don't understand it, but at best your assumption is historically contentious.
People like... Donald Trump, prominent employer of illegal labor for decades?
If you want to go after prominent employers of illegal labor (and others who profit from it) I shan't shed a tear. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening.
Meh, I blame social media specifically and media generally for the state of our country. Why call out just Palantir. The US, maybe the world, would be better off if companies like Meta (and others) didn't exist....
1. He's white and lives in a blue state. Doesn't affect him. Oh, and money.
2. The attention on Palantir and their customers makes his stock and options go up. He's happy, because money.
3. His GOP-worshipping parents get to brag to their GOP-worshipping friends that their son is helping God's Gift to Humanity - Donald Trump. And making bank while doing it.
4. He believes that Palantir is doing good work, and that's the end of it. He believes himself to be a genuinely good guy, so if he's doing something, it must be good.
I wonder how he feels about what the administration is doing and how his own work is directly helping them. Surely he is aware of all of the supremacist rhetoric coming from the official Twitter accounts of various government agencies or Elon Musk or Stephen Miller. Surely he has seen the kind of racist abuse that Vivek Ramaswami endured on Twitter, which led to him recently quitting social media.
Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next?
I've been on the receiving end of federal enforcement (DOJ, high-profile "cybercrime"). When they want you, they don't need a confidence score. There is no quota—they take time to build a case. The existence of these tools tells you this isn't targeted enforcement, it's industrial-scale population processing dressed up in an algorithm.
The Palantro CEO, Alex Karp, is on the record that he approves of what the president is doing in regards to immigration enforcement and the striking of boats in international waters.
And in 2016 he was a Clinton supporter and a self described progressive. Vance was also a never trumper by his own admission.
It’s quite clear to me that these elites are just grabbing power by any means necessary. It won’t end after Trump. He’s just providing the cover in the current moment.
I'm not sure why the down votes, I'm not being glib.
Go read the work of historians who study this. The transitions in Russia, Hungary, etc are well documented. There is a pretty solid consensus understanding of the dynamics, the typical playbook, etc.
They will take the country down in death throes if there's a progressive movement, but will happily kiss the shoes of a dictator in an authoritarian regime.
I do hope I live to see the day we properly oust this mentality of "a single person deserves a billion dollars". But that's a big "if"
This is what happens when one allows oneself to hide in "safe spaces" (like HN) where there's a "no politics" rule enabling people to hide and avoid being confronted with the ramifications of their actions.
The entire world runs on technology now. It's all inherently political.
This exactly hits in on the head. You're trying create a forum absent of politics. In fact, you're just enabling one political view over another. This hides social issues and in the end comes back to undermine your pure "technical view". It's not apolitical, it's disassociation from reality.
Exactly. Declaring that there must be no discussion when confronted with situations in which one party is doing harm to others, is an implicit endorsement of the harms being perpetuated.
Thank you all in this thread! I couldn't have put it better. I cannot stand "no politics rules". Politics divides and it is personal. But it shouldn't be either of those. We should be attacking policy and not people. No politics rules just deny reality because software doesn't exist in a vacuum without policy and money. Heck most people want to use software to get money which is a product of policy.
HN isn't even absent of politics, just the front page is really.
Everything we do is political. When we are making software and publishing it, whether or a company or ourselves, for sale or for free, there are political implications to those actions.
It's a privilege that many people working in tech have, who then create and populate forums where discussion of that privilege is considered political and therefore forbidden.
But chatting with absolute strangers about random tech-adjacent topics is an inherently privileged activity. So let's just say the privilege needed to do that is large enough that it also gives you the privilege to not talk about politics.
"My children are starving. Militants have surrounded our village. But let me pop into HN for a bit and drop my hot take on the San Remo Pasta Measurer."
Thank you! Everytime you interact with government, it is politics. Filing taxes is politics. TurboTax lobbying against free self filing and government filing is politics and technology. It goes on and on. You cannot avoid politics because politics is about people.
You can see in this threat that confronting people with the ramifications of their actions causes them to double down. They'll just come up with more and more justifications of why the victims deserve it. Same as every mass atrocity.
Yes, HN is my safe space. I have enough politics in my daily life, I don't need it when I'm with phone in my bed trying to wind down.
And which politics? American internal politics are foreign and distant to me. How much do you care about my country internal affairs? Probably not much. And it's OK, you can't fix every country in existence, and if you tried to care you would get insane.
While I completely agree in principle, these threads get very very heated so I can kinda see why HN/dang/our reptilian overlords are trying to keep them from becoming a majority of the site (which they easily could be, absent the flagging of these stories).
Also, I totally understand pruning back discussion that is political, and way off the topic of the actual post/story. People should reasonably be able to read and discuss a non-political story without big political discussion springing up.
Yeah, I don't know where you draw the line. Like, I personally have often gotten a lot of value from HN political threads, but they have been getting worse and worse since about 2016 (I wonder what happened then?) so I can see why other people might just be sick of dealing with the noise.
I'm going to defend the HN "no politics" rule here.
The reason "no politics" zones exist is because there are enough people going out of their way to shout at everybody, everywhere, in every corner of the internet and enough people are tired of it that they flock to...no politics zones. In real life, a person like that confronts you...you remove yourself from the situation, because that person who can't stop shouting at everybody comes across as nuts.
I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil. So banning political discussion is political in and of itself.
I'd agree with your no politics preference if we were in a functioning society that wasn't actively spiralling towards fascism. I recognize that this line is blurry, and that's exactly the reason why no politics zones exist, there is always someone yelling about fascism. He might be a crazy guy on the corner who yells about everything.
I think the difference here is that there is a big critical mass of people who have recognized that the pillars on which our country sit are being actively sabotaged. It's not that everyone wants to be talking about politics all of a sudden, it's that the frog is finally boiling.
> I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil.
But this simply isn't the case. The fact that "no politics" zones exist is a response to the fact that politics is everywhere else.
People here aren't blissfully unaware, they're just tired of it and many realize that arguing about it on the internet won't accomplish anything other than wasting time. As I sit here writing this, I'm thinking that I'm probably wasting my time.
We all have this idea in our head that if people are confronted with enough evidence, they'll change their minds. But that doesn't happen. People rationalize.
My goodness, people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier. Every point he's made, every plan he's had and every policy he has advocated for have been totally logically sound. There's been nothing extreme in any of it. Every young parent I know is so relieved with what he's doing and frustrated that it took so long to do what seemed obvious.
But it's not that. It's inflammatory headline after inflammatory headline. It's putting words in his mouth, saying things he didn't say, making statements he didn't make, berating him in front of Congress for click bait video nonsense reading from a script.
It's exhausting. We're all tired of it. If you show me something that you think will convince me of something, I will look at it. And then I will look deeper. I will look to see if any information has been left out. I will look to see if editing has happened.
Because almost every time I invest the time to look into something, I find that it's exaggerated internet nonsense that only plays well in echo chambers. When you do that enough times, your skepticism meter goes to 11.
>people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier.
My man, the dude is a former heroin addict that has admitted to eating roadkill. He's pushed the vaccines cause Autism narrative.
Trying to make the country healthier while taking huge gifts from lobbyists who work for industrial scale meat producers? Come on.
And besides, what does discussing technology itself have anything to do with it? If you work at big tech you're not allowed to particpate in tech forum as a hobby?
We already discuss politics here as it has to do with tech (privacy is a pretty common topic here for example).
Right, but we should be able to shame, ostracize, and criticize the people that do work at those places because if we don't then it's a tacit approval of what they do.
You know that saying about how if you have three people sharing a bench with a Nazi, you actually have four Nazis? Tech has social and political ramifications, the discussion of which is artificially suppressed on HN.
Most of the time you can't do that here. Try saying something negative about Sam Altman, for example. dang has certain topics he just won't permit and then hides behind the excuse of "if everyone is upset with you, you must be doing something right".
>If you work at big tech you're not allowed to particpate in tech forum as a hobby?
I don't understand what you mean, can you please clarify?
I just disagree. I don't think you're entitled to shame people because you don't agree with the place they work at all. And I don't agree working at Google or whatever means you're not allowed to privately have a forum where you can talk about tech as a hobby.
>And I don't agree working at Google or whatever means you're not allowed to privately have a forum where you can talk about tech as a hobby.
As far as I can tell nobody's advocating this. Anyone is free to spin up a private instance of a hackernews clone (e.g. [0]) or a phpbb instance, or a discord.
But working at DOGE or Palantir or whatever doesn't mean you're entitled to the freedom from consequences of your actions.
There's a vast difference between tribal partisan politics and discussing policy as a system of governance (hacking society). I do my best to avoid the former and embrace the latter.
That said, there's a disappointingly significant number of HN members who hew to the latter and embrace the current regime. I consider this to be a forum of intellectual engagement, and that those people walk amongst us is quite distressing.
The “those people” comment is kinda the issue though isn’t it?
I generally try to assume that everyone has good intentions, but we’re all being fed massive amounts of different information. I learned years ago that it wasn’t an issue of people reporting things that were factually inaccurate, it was an issue of people leaving out details to frame the story in the context that supports your readers/viewers belief system.
And then there are the Stanford studies like this:
That's why I prefaced it with "That said" as an acknowledgement of calling out a different tribe.
There's a nuance to this -- the current political environment is not normal and cannot be emphasized enough. The GOP is now a cult of personality and there is no allegiance to country by its members. Its all to one man, who many believe is wholly unqualified for the job.
Its a well-documented phenomenon that millions of people have joined this cult -- many coming from the other side of the aisle. There is no possible reasoning, dialog, or engagement that can make them reconsider.
I would be classified as a "Lefty" if evaluated on my values, but I actually believe in the value of old school conservatism as of "limited government", the value of families, and the ability to have their own personal relationship with God (I am an atheist but I get it).
One of the things that makes America great is the Constitution -- that we are ostensibly a nation governed by law. The current regime does not share those values and is actively hostile to all who do not worship or pay tribute to their leader.
I've been following US politics for half a century and what's happening now would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.
I live in the southeast so I'm friends with a lot of the people you describe and nothing could be further from the truth of your description.
Most people I know who voted for Trump this time around did it specifically because of what a train wreck the Biden administration was, the terrible candidate that the Democrats tried to put up to replace him and that Trump ran on essentially fixing all of it. Cult of personality and/or hero worship had nothing to do with it.
The man is absolutely abrasive, there's no question about that. But the stock market is at all time highs, the trade deficit is the lowest it's been since 2009, GDP is up 5.5%, inflation has leveled off, gas prices are the lowest I've seen in many years (I just filled up for $2.39 / gallon), the border was closed on day 1 despite years long calls that it couldn't be helped without legislation and today I saw that drug overdose deaths have been cut in half nationally in a single year.
People voted for him to clean up a mess. The cult of personality stuff has been the algorithm at work from everything I've observed to this point.
Trying to decide how to categorize those giant first page threads from 2022 where Brian Armstrong would complain about activist employees or Google employees would stage walkouts about their employer doing contracts with the Department of Defense, the comments would be chock full of "yeah, actually a company should fire those employees, because business isn't about politics" then a few years later Coinbase drops $150M on the elections and Google is happily working with Palantir to build dragnet surveillance of US citizens.
I don't think you can really blame HN specifically here. It's much wider than that; pretty much the tech industry as a whole actively discourages any kind of philosophical reflection on technology, at least the kind that says you shouldn't build something, even if it's profitable.
There have been some insane politics (especially "culture war" stuff) that got laundered through the HN "reasonable discussion" filter, especially from 2021 through 2024. They still come up all the time. HN loves talking about politics when the commenters can get critical mass to grind the libertarian or "anti-woke" axe.
Not to mention every leader of YCombinator has had some kind of wild politics that come from having money that separates you from any kind of consequence.
> This is what happens when one allows oneself to hide in "safe spaces" (like HN) where there's a "no politics" rule
HN does not have, and never has had (except for a very brief experiment that failed spectacularly and was very quickly aborted) a “no politics” rule, and, in fact, politics is usually all over the site.
This comment is wrong and/or malicious along every dimension.
> "safe spaces" (like HN)
HN is not a "safe space". Saying that most politics is off-limit most of the time for very good reasons (that only either insane or malicious people would deny) does not make this a "safe space". Go look up how Wikipedia defines it and it's easy to see that your statement is literally false.
> where there's a "no politics" rule
This is false. There is no "no politics" rule.
> enabling people to hide and avoid being confronted with the ramifications of their actions.
This statement is just insane. The direct logical conclusion of this statement is that if every site on the internet is not blasting out political news all the time, that it's enabling people to "hide" from something. That's not just false - that's a deranged position that 99.999% of people will disagree with.
> It's all inherently political.
False. Deciding your backend architecture (microserves vs monolith) is not political. Picking a text editor is not political. Helping a friend install Linux is not political. Not everything is political - the fact that you is means that something is wrong with the way that you view the world.
And even for the things that are political - only a crazy and/or evil person would take the fact that emacs is made by GNU and vim is not as a reason to incite political flamewars on the internet and try to inject politics into every online forum.
People like you are the main reason that modern American culture is so toxic and politically polarized and that democratic discourse is breaking down.
> And ppl were worried about China's 1984 style use of Ai, lol.
Came here to say the same...
> In the end it was greedy software developers that enable this.
Nope. First is a failing govt system (not upholding the constitution) that's enabling this.
Second it's not the devs but the business men (that are so much in bed in govt that they have become indistinguishable).
Look, there are software devs (and probably business men) that are equally greedy in, say, Finland/Iceland/etc. But it's not happening there: they simply have a govt that's better for the people at large.
GP didn't say greedy devs caused it, they (we?) are only enabling it.
Obviously there's always the cop out of "someone else would have done it anyway" but it doesn't really change the (un-)ethical side of your choices. I'm not saying it's black and white either - if the other choice is to leave your kids without proper medical care then it's a different thing than just being intentionally blind to ethics.
Amazing. I have a hard time believing that comment isn't sarcastic, its just too perfect. Its hard to tell these days
If its not, it sounds like the output of an LLM if prompted "You are a toddler. Write the most naive and illogical ideological propaganda possible. Offer no rational justification for your thoughts"
Worth reminding everyone in the EU and UK that this is not a 'them' problem.
Palantir is the main software vendor for Europol. Equally pretty much all the 1984 proposals for age or id online verification that are being massaged into existence (both in the UK and pushed by the European Commission) have their fingers all over them.
They sell pre-crime and opinion control to our democratic leaders and apparently everyone in Davos loves it.
For some reasons I think europol officers (the ones taking decisions, at least) are loving ice. They didn't have issues when proposing to expand chat control, which would meant large scale surveillance, so they'd appreciate whatever palantir can come out with
Great time to bring up the Imperial Boomerang[1]. My paraphrasing: the weapons and technology that imperial and colonial powers develop or use to control subjugated populations will inevitably be used to also control its own population.
A decent chunk of people on that list are working at the companies that are actively harming society. At what point does it become a joke? It's not like the millionaire devs working at big tech couldn't take a stand, but I guess their addiction to money is more preferential than sacrificing something to better society.
I have never heard of this site but find it confusing that there is no information on the date this was started or which administration they are referring to.
I am all for criticizing and pointing fingers at trump and this entire administration.
But it does say they have been working with ICE for “years” in the article. What is not really clear to me is was the app made worse recently, was it originally commissioned under trump?
Nothing about that changes that they should not be working with ICE and they deserve any pressure they get to cut ties. But there is some history here I am very curious about.
All of that being said, I am concerned about how this will be turned around and used in more than just ICE and targeting everyone. Especially since we can be sure this will be used in largely blue big cities.
They've definitely using tools like this for a while. It's been true under all administrations, and it's always been a problem. Privacy advocates have been alerting on this for a while.
Physically attacking citizens takes it to another level.
It's one thing for tech companies to be complicit in eroding privacy, it's quite another to be complicit in overt fascism.
We get absolutely nowhere if we just blindly blame trump for everything. All it does is give the other side ammunication to paint us as just “anti trump” when they can poke holes in our information. We have to be better than them.
We have to have all of the information and actually inform people instead of the half and twisted “truths” that is all that ever spew from this administration.
It doesn’t change or diminish what is going on right now, but it changes some of the conversation around this particular contract.
I guarantee you that if this contract started under the Obama or Biden administration and we just conveniently ignore that, it will come back and bite us in the ass. This app existing before this administration, what form did it exist, and how much use did it get is critical information.
You are a fool if you can't see what's right in front of your nose. Every single person I've talked to outside of the US sees that Trump is working towards a genocide. I'm very concerned about my family and friends over in the US.
But I do agree that all the other administrations have paved the way
Not entirely sure where you get that I am not seeing what is happening.
All I am saying is that we need to be better than them and not twisting information to fit what we want to say.
That doesn’t remove or diminish any criticism of trump and this administration but let’s actually fight lies with facts instead of stooping to their level.
It would not be a good look at all (hypothetically since I don’t know) if we go after Palentir for this app and its all trump this, trump that. And it comes to light that the contract started under Obama for example. That doesn’t mean we don’t criticize them, it doesn’t mean we don’t criticize trump, it doesn’t mean we don’t protest ICE. But it means that we don’t try to say that ALL of this is under trump.
We are constantly calling them out for lying, half truths, twisting truths, etc. We must be better than them or we look like hypocrites and all that does is make it harder to get people to actually come out and vote for our side when it matters.
> is not really clear to me is was the app made worse recently, was it originally commissioned under trump?
I think it's pretty clear that we've slidden into this situation for years.
This is what privacy advocates have been shouting about a long time. When the systems are in place all you need is a trigger for everything to go to hell.
I have a message to all Palantir employees. You can quit, you don't have to make this technology. Palantir cannot function without you.
Let me tell you a story. When I was young, just out of college, I worked for a tech startup. The tech startup was a mapping company. At some point I overheard the company CEO talking about how the software I built was being used. I thought it was being used to help track miners and equipment working in mines so that if there is an accident, they know where all the people and equipment are so they can be saved.
I learned by overhearing him that the software was being used in the Iraq war to track people to kill. I wasn't supposed to know since I didn't have a security clearance to know.
I quit that job over this.
I told this story because there are certainly employees there that don't have the clearance to know what is happening. But the reporting is making it clear. You can quit your job. They can't function without you.
I remember hearing the "imagine if Stasi/Gestapo had the data Facebook and Twitter have on us" argument for years. Turns out they were right to be worried.
Why would you think they wouldn't be right? Even on paper, doesn't that sound like a bad thing?
the past 15 years of my life feels like a bus full of people yelling at the driver to not hit the wall he's speeding towards and he's just ignoring them saying "it will be fine." and here we are!
Reading comment sections for news like this makes one understand better how it is possible that widescale horrible things happen.
At first you'll learn about something horrible in the past and think, How could people let that happen, yet alone participate in it? Well, its spelled out pretty neatly here.
Some people don't care - its "them" being targeted (jews, tutsi, immigrants), not "us". Some people care, but not in the way you'd think - they agree with the actions. Some people just wash their hands - I was only following orders, I was only working for Palantir. Some will be dismissive or downplay what is happening: its no big deal, its overblown, its being exaggerated and distorted by Radical Left-Wing Terrorists™.
Per the WSJ, as of January 10th this year, ICE has identified 13 instances of agents firing at or into civilian vehicles, leaving eight people shot with two confirmed dead. Five of those shot were citizens. According to court records, only one of these civilians was armed and never drew his weapon.
There is a sickness curdling in the dark corners of Silicon Valley. These people need to be humiliated for being the sniveling, authoritarian toads that they are.
There are reports that ICE threw a flash bang into a vehicle last night that contained a father trying to leave with his children to get them to safety.
2nd person was just executed, with multi-angle clear video footage of the wrong doing. White House is defending the murderer and posting memes on twitter.
Sure hope that we start holding people accountable before more innocent people are executed in the streets
The govt contract with them should be voided. That's the way.
But in the US no one believes they can meaningfully influence govt for real issues. And they are right.
Sure you can get them to paint a rainbow zebra crossing. /s
But not stop/prevent a (civil) war. Democracy dies and lobbyism (what we call corruption in "modern western democracies" -- because we dont do corruption, that's for poor countries!) takes over when the power is consolidated at a high enough level.
In the meantime, between now and the elections, what is a good method for deterring tech people from working for ICE? They are administering an authoritarian state today.
As a vegan I want to deter people from working in slaughter houses etc. I feel it's urgent. But they make their living.
As an intactivist I want people to stop genital mutilation of minors: both male and female. I feel it's urgent. But those baby cutting doctors and "priests" make their living.
That's why it is so easy to make a war when people are hungry. You need little money to convince them to turn to the dark side.
Can someone tell me three things, please!
- is ICE illegal or immoral ? Or it is a good tool used wrong ?
- can people vote and make ICE stronger / weaker depending on their choice ?
- are non registered people breaking the law or not ? Is it basically bad law or bad people ?
I am sure US is republic and democracy together, but everyone here pretends ICE is a tool of dictatorship and should be stopped immediately.
If you ask about my personal opinion - it is an internal problem of US citizens, and they need to fix it.
This. ICE serves a necessary function. It is intentionally being wielded with malice. The target is not immigrants, they are just the face of the brawl, the real target is democratic voters.
> can people vote and make ICE stronger / weaker depending on their choice
This question is easy to answer. The citizens could easily vote in a new president in 2028 who defunded ICE altogether. We already know that cutting funds is way easier than granting them.
>The citizens could easily vote in a new president in 2028 who defunded ICE altogether.
You think that after two more years of this regime that any such candidate would be allowed anywhere near whatever pretense of an electoral system still exists?
I need you to understand that the United States is already no longer a democratic republic in anything but name. The system of government you're assuming will fix the mess will have been entirely dismantled by then. The time to fix this within the system was in 2024.
Your ability to be convinced by arguments, or refusal thereof, is not an objective measure of the likelihood of future events.
If anyone had described to you the timeline of this administration from 2024 to now, prior to it happening, you probably would have dismissed it as ridiculous. Yet here we are, this is already normal.
The way it plays out is they have two more years to lay groundwork and entrench their power, dismantle systems and burn alliances which will take decades to rebuild, declare martial law because someone twitched at an ICE goon the wrong way, and possibly start a war in Europe, and no one stops them because people like you think they'll just get to vote the baddies out and everything will just go back as it was.
I hope you're right, I don't think you are but I hope you are. But if you think everyone is just engaging in "online rhetoric" then I think you're naive.
> Your ability to be convinced by arguments, or refusal thereof, is not an objective measure of the likelihood of future events.
Okay but that just makes both of us crazy speculators.
> If anyone had described to you the timeline of this administration from 2024 to now
I would have said it was a plausible but terrible misuse of the executive branch's authority that I hoped not to see. After the first administration, I definitely would not call it ridiculous. Basically everything he has done so far is exercising power we've been delegating to the executive branch.
> declare martial law
That's easier said than done. And even using actual law, in the form of the insurrection act, would not give him the power to undermine elections. This country had elections during the civil war, and we are not quite there yet.
> But if you think everyone is just engaging in "online rhetoric" then I think you're naive.
I am trying to be charitable. A lot of the rhetoric is over-the-top spinning everything for maximum doom. What is really happening is bad enough without trashing our credibility through easily disprovable statements.
And sure, maybe I'm just naive. We should chat about it again in late January 2029.
Some states also have a “state defense force” which is explicitly under the control of the state. But they tend to be pretty small I think, and lots of them are inactive or purely ceremonial.
> Approximately 4,000 NYPD officers took part in a protest that included blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and jumping over police barricades in an attempt to rush City Hall.
> The ACLU obtained a court order prohibiting strikers from carrying their service revolvers. Again, the SFPD ignored the court order. On August 20, a bomb detonated at the Mayor's home with a sign reading "Don't Threaten Us" left on his lawn.
> Among the hundreds of protesters arrested over the four days of demonstrations in New York City over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, only one was highlighted by name by a police union known for its hostility toward Mayor Bill de Blasio. The name of that protester? Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daughter.
Here's an example. One of my friends works for a manufacturing company. He attended a protest. The next day ICE called his employer and he was informed that if he attended another protest he would be fired. All this b/c he had a small company logo on his jacket.
The ability to en-mass record, lookup and intimidate citizens is unprecedented and while I have no hard proof that this is due to Palantir, it sure smells like it
ICE employees working to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same”, such as exercise of 1st Amendment rights, is itself super-illegal (not just “outside their authority” but a federal criminal violation of the KKK Act), whether or not the employer’s response to the resulting pressure is also illegal.
My understanding (and I couldn't get past the app paywall) is that Palantir is joining databases from many different federal and state agencies, including passport and driver license photos. The app then allows you to scan a phase and it finds a match. It returns information on the person found, including citizenship.
The existence of this technology means that ICE can grab anyone they want, scan their face, and instantly have (or not have) probable cause to arrest them. Without the app, there would be hours before probably cause could be established which makes justifying the detainment legally much harder. I.e without the app, ICE has to actually build a case or see something suspicious for each target. With the app, ICE can just mass sweep people.
</i> Which should be illegal, but thanks to the shadow docket order on Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, is happening anyway.
Eh, joining these datasets can be challenging. Names can be spelled differently or changed, dates of birth can be off, people can share names and dates of births, addresses change and are can be expressed in multiple ways, databases may store names as a single string or separate fields, middle names may be missing or initials, databases might not share IDs etc. So it's kinda hard to do well although nothing really exciting technology wise.
This, incidentally, is why the "confidence score" is needed. And why the app frequently gets data (including citizenship) wrong.
CBP has been taking photos of all legitimate foreign visitors to the US for over 20 years. I presume any catch-and-release border apprehensions are subject to the same photographs.
How hard is it to do facial recognition on just this dataset in real-time?
> “Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets
What constitutes this "high value"? & valuable to who, ICE agents with an itchy trigger finger?
Make no mistake, the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are only a training ground for how to undermine civil rights for us all. Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality. But eventually these same tools will be used against us.
Along the same lines, anyone who thinks this is just about immigration should ask themselves what all these tens of thousands of ICE agents are going to do when all the immigrants are finally deported.
Are they just going to go home and go back to their old jobs? Or do you think the Administration is going to find something else for them to do.
Deportations aren’t all that high. The raids are theater.
Thinking that they’re going to deport all the immigrants isn’t realistic or supported by the numbers. Immigration control is a constant ongoing operation in every country. This administration is just making a big show out of it for political points.
I don't think it is just political points. Illegal Mexican border crossings crashed on the run up to Trump taking presidency. Signaling you'll get captured and deported wherever you are, I'm sure if keeping a lot of people who would be illegal immigrants away.
My point still stands. The country will obviously not be permanently swarming with ICE agents violently grabbing immigrants off the street. There is going to be mission creep. If this isn't obvious then I don't know what to else I can say to convince you. Immigration is clearly just a pretext to establishing a national police force.
Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.
>Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.
And when it doesn't, will you remember the wild accusations you made or off making others with no accountability?
Hitler's regime didn't start out making death camps for Jews. The initial plan was to deport them, with camps for holding and processing. That was unrealistic given the volume of people to process, which led to the detention and work camps converting to death camps.
Just saying, similar outcomes could occur here. It's happened before. Their goals being unrealistic doesn't mean they'll stop, and may be part of their justification for doing even worse things than they're already doing.
Palestine was the training ground, now it is being deployed back at home. Turns out it is a small world and you shouldn't have selective empathy.
"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me"
I have a hunch most people recognize this, but many are ok with it. I have hope (But not confidence) people will see this in the upcoming US elections and more broadly. This is transparent authoritarian behavior.
Edit: Challenge: If you downvoted the parent post here (It's currently grey), I would love to hear why you think this doesn't match the pattern. Are you living in the US? I in general am struggling to understand my fellow US citizens, given the history of our nation.
I expect masked ICE agents to be deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)
"A pair of armed and masked men in tactical gear stood guard at ballot drop boxes in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 21 as people began early voting for the 2022 midterm elections."
They might be "off-duty" but this is during Biden's admin. They're immensely more emboldened now and local LE will absolutely not enforce any laws restricting this.
And I'd fully expect some fuckery via executive orders closer to the election, and SCOTUS to use the emergency docket to let them "temporarily" be enforced.
It is being restricted. My red state has gone from allowing mail-in ballots that were allowed if they were postmarked by election day, to requiring them to be in by election day. When the postmaster general is a Trump appointee, and the mail has slowed down over the last few years, it makes me wonder if this is deliberate.
I would start with this, because it's a flat out lie
> Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality.
People have been complaining about the attack on immigrants for a good, long while. And the complaining has been getting louder, more frequent, and from more people with every day. When they kidnapped workers and suddenly the price of everything went up, there was a lot of "see?!? this is what we're talking about"
So no, "everyone" isn't ok with the targeting of immigrants.
They should have said "enough are ok" instead of "everyone is ok".
Unfortunately, there are still enough people who are fine with the Trump / Miller / Noem / Bovino approach to immigration enforcement, or they're not impacted personally enough to make them speak or act.
I hope the cartoon villain responses coming from the administration when they're challenged on any of this will get more people to stand up against it all.
> I hope the cartoon villain responses coming from the administration when they're challenged on any of this will get more people to stand up against it all.
I don't think we should expect people to stand up against all of this. Even if most of them don't like it, let's be honest, it's not a dealbreaker for them. Especially if the next election other party puts forward some deliberately hypocritical, racist, out-of-touch elitist like Kamala Harris.
> hypocritical, racist, out-of-touch elitist like Kamala Harris.
Gee I wonder what side of the political spectrum you align to...
I like rule of law and due process. I like the Constitution and its balance of powers. I think that a good chunk of Americans also like these things. I believe the current administration is acting in extremely contrary ways to those things. So yes, I expect more Americans to stand up and speak out.
Many people like this. It's just that the choice, as far as I understand, is not between rule of law and authoritarian dictatorship.
> I like the Constitution and its balance of powers.
And here, frankly speaking, I'm unfamiliar with the American Constitution in these aspects. How does it work? Does it only protect citizens? Or residents too? Does it protect illegal aliens too? Does it protect everyone in the world? Or does it operate on territorial principles, and begin to protect any person who sets foot on American soil, but does not protect everyone else?
This is standard right wing hate-filled drivel, like that peppered throughout your comment history.
Your ilk really are hoping that Trump's authoritarian takeover of the US succeeds, through provocation, apathy or by whatever means, because you're driven only by the pursuit of power to turn your hate into violence against your perceived enemies.
Sorry, bad wording. I was using the "you all" in the same context as the parent's "collective we". Yes, there's tens of thousands out in the streets protesting, but also yes there's tens of millions who aren't.
I think it's millions, not tens of thousands protesting.
I hate that the online world is so polluted with America Bad that we cannot even have a good discussion. There is literally nothing American citizens could be doing right now that would meet with approval from outsiders.
Hello. I posted the above comments before I'd read asa400's amazing insight right at the top of this discussion, that post has given me the perspective I was clearly missing when I posted these. I was never coming from an "America Bad" position, but I was definitely failing to appreciate the nuances of protest in such a heavily armed country.
You are getting downvoted, but this is a fair point. The only other country with a higher estimate for illegal immigrant population is Russia. The next closest Western European country is France, with barely over half the rate of the US. [0]
In the poorer parts of the world, people absolutely detest illegal immigrants (or basically most working migrants as well) because they are taking jobs from the locals. They hate refugees because there's not enough resources to go around to use in feeding and housing them.
Welcoming people in because "no-one wants to do those jobs" is very much a luxury belief of the well off.
I think the number of people who welcome immigrants for this reason is actually quite small, and is mostly business owners. And to be fair, they are not entirely wrong -- all evidence we have suggests that many of the jobs are so hard that getting citizens to do them would require bumping the wage 3, 4, 5 times, and even then it is a tough sell.
What I think has happened culturally is that Americans see us as the shining beacon on the hill, where everyone wants to be, and so we feel sympathetic to those who will do whatever it takes to come here. There are lots of cultural references historically that reinforce this mythology. Call it American Exceptionalism or whatever, but the mythology is real.
Between our own loss in confidence and the onslaught of 'America Bad' inundating the online dialogue, this mythology is dying in a hurry. Makes me a little sad, honestly, because I am of the opinion that a nation benefits from a strong mythology. Sometimes that is served by religion, but in the US it has for a long time been 'Land of Opportunity' and associated beliefs. I dare anyone to go to the US Capitol tour and watch that 15 minute intro video about the founding of the country and not come away with a tear in their eye. It's quite moving, even if it is largely a fabrication.
It's always the land of opportunity for those who want to come in and displace the existing inhabitants. Fun when you're the one displacing until you are on the other side.
I meant "we" in the sense that our country has yet to put an end to it and there is still a majority of people either actively in support of ICE or remaining silent.
No. One old man and a bunch of malicious zealots at his side are introducing a tremendous amount of instability into the country and the world at large; just like they did with his first term, only now less inhibited.
The problem is the old man and his enablers have zero respect for the law, whereas the other team does (they are not above reproach but in this regard they are distinctly different).
This makes the fight unfair, as without law all we have is unbridled violence as a tool and that is a path to ruin for all.
They are simply enforcing a law that people have had every opportunity to democratically change in the decades since it just stopped being enforced properly, and yet they failed to secure a democratic mandate to do so.
Complaining from that position is far from being on a moral high ground.
While a pan-US national awareness is widely seen as emerging during the civil war the rest of what you are saying is disingenuous. Prior to that it was a selection of colonies etc. which very much had borders because skirmishes over taxation rights was a thing.
There was significantly more inter ethnic strife in the US pre WW2 than most people seem to appreciate, much of it relating to if encountered (by whatever means) people should be settled/assimilated/rejected. There were riots/protests of this type in major cities at least between the civil war and the 1930s, and state policy reflected this, such as with the Chinese exclusion act which would hardly have been possible without a border.
That they neutered themselves doesn't make them any less neutered.
I'm skeptical about their ability to reclaim it, too. Lots of them remember being terrified and running away Jan 6, even if many now pretend not to... and SCOTUS has been on a tear wiping out long-standing legislation Congress was quite clear about like the Voting Rights Act.
To extend the analogy, Congress hasn't had their balls removed, they simply aren't humping other dogs right now.
I'm not an expert, but while many of SCOTUS' rulings have been against the plain letter of the law, few of the decisions ruled out Congressional power in those areas categorically. Congress could pass a new Voting Rights Act, or redefine the EPA's powers over wetlands, or any number of things, they just choose not to. And of course, even with a Democratic Congress, getting past the veto may be impossible.
Current ICE/Homeland Security actions are unambiguously illegal.
The problem is that without an independent congress the US system is able to descend into authoritarianism. The court has (reasonably) decided that on many broad issues regarding presidential actions and abuse of authority only congress (via impeachment and removal) is able to constrain the president.
The current congressional majority has, for now, decided to allow the president to do almost anything he wants, regardless of the law and constitution.
> Everyone is ok targeting the immigrant populations
To echo another commentor, we're not. And even if we were, this is not how it should be done. Enforcing the laws is one thing, but we have to have due process. Without due process, we have no rights.
Due process for EVERY person in the legal territory regardless of who or what they are. Otherwise it's way to easy to say, "they're the other, and have no rights", and they are already using this line.
Which is absolutely unconstitutional. The constitution says the 4th amendment protects all people, not just citizens. It's been upheld many times by the supreme court. This administration is knowingly and willingly trampling the constitution. The midterm elections can't come soon enough. And in the meantime we all need to get in the streets. Anyone can manipulate social media. But you can't manipulate the narrative when there is an overwhelming number of brave people in the streets clearly and peacefully protesting.
If it is this tweet you are referring to, it's about _teaching_ hate, which is only a slight nuance and still a terrible point to make for a self-labeled "free speech absolutist"
> Teaching people to hate America fundamentally destroys patriotism and the desire to defend our country.
> Such teachings should be viewed as treason and those who do it imprisoned.
And a very difficult thing to define, and very clearly not the sort of thing that'd be enforced against, say, the current President no matter how clear the violation.
>the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota
If you think this is only immigration enforcement you haven't been paying attention. That was ostensibly what Trump campaigned on. That is not what is happening in Minnesota and other previously safe places. What is happening is a massive terror campaign against all US citizens who don't happen to be the right color. And increasing, against everyone.
Does anyone else think that the biggest reason for ICE and the National Guard deployments is to normalise such situations?
It seems most likely to me this is being done in preparation for the ending of democracy. If the midterms become mired in controversy, for example, there will be protests on the streets. And these deployments will be ready to crush dissent. This is why deployments are mostly focused on the likely flashpoints.
There's a clear difference in the premises behind the thinking of the "right" vs. the "left". One side sees "evil officers acting too aggressively towards fellow humans", and the other side sees "patriotic police catching criminal aliens, and leftists attacking the police".
To the eventual detriment of the latter, I expect. There are plenty of people currently on the "evil officers" side who would be much more willing to support the mass deportation effort if the ICE officers were calm, unmasked, not using violent SWAT tactics just to apprehend an undocumented immigrant. This intentional violence turns away a lot of people who'd otherwise be sympathetic to the goals.
Well the idea is that you grab brown people en masse and then scan them with the app. In fact the entire point of the app is to enable grabbing brown people en masse, so it's probably looking pretty good to Noem and the like.
It's crazy that anybody who has read books could learn about the company "Palantir," know where the name comes from, and join it thinking it's anything other than evil.
The thing is, I know palantir engineers are well paid. Money warps people's brains. It's much easier enable evil if you can go back to a home you own in Silicon Valley.
I've lost count of people who have read Tolkien's work and never dug deeper than "cool fantasy story" level. I was no different when I read the Lord of the Rings as a teenager. Unlike C. S. Lewis, Tolkien does not shove his message down your throat.
We have technofascists trying to bring AI into the military and saying it's Star Trek. Star Trek! One of the most clearly socialist, "woke" tv series! Media literacy is not a conservative value while illiteracy and ignorance is.
No one ever joined palantir thinking they were a good person. You join palantir because you've done enough drugs to believe that "good" and "evil" don't exist and you've "evolved" beyond that. You know, sociopaths.
Every single engineer who works on this should be in prison for life. Nuremberg trials are coming. Be careful associating yourself with techno-fascists, history will not forget your git commits on evil technologies.
I remember in the 2010s when Silicon Valley was full of founders who genuinely wanted to use technology to make the world a better place, and now it's just fascists who want to use technology to kill brown people more efficiently
> Silicon Valley was full of founders who genuinely wanted to use technology to make the world a better place
No, it wasn't, it was full of people who said they wanted to use technology to make the world a better place because saying you would use technology to make the world a better place was viewed as the path to investment and success.
Now, as soon as feigned empathy is no longer required for $$$, the mask comes off. It was never about anything other than profit.
To be fair DOGE was the ultimate SV neo-libertarian power fantasy. Just get a bunch of hackers together, screw the rules, get root on the government and start deleting shit. Doubly so after a "leftist" administration.
> He radically restructured operations, splitting the company into thirty, and later forty, different units that were to compete against each other. Instead of cooperating, as in a normal firm, divisions such as apparel, tools, appliances, human resources, IT and branding were now in essence to operate as autonomous businesses, each with their own president, board of directors, chief marketing officer and statement of profit or loss. An eye-popping 2013 series of interviews by Bloomberg Businessweek investigative journalist Mina Kimes with some forty former executives described Lampert’s Randian calculus: “If the company’s leaders were told to act selfishly, he argued, they would run their divisions in a rational manner, boosting overall performance.”
SV was always full of limp wristed callous nerds who hate those they consider to be beneath them. Back them they called themselves libertarians or ancaps or something along those lines, but fundamentally nothing has changed.
This take is so wrong it qualifies as delusional. The valley was all about money and nothing but money by any means by no later 1996 when the dotcom got under way. In 2001 I was at a company actively engaging in meetings with a certain three letter agency wanted us to build a secret project to tap oc192 cables at various service providers while talking about how the internet was bringing freedom and openness to society.
For an idea as to how this gets translated into the reality on the ground here in Minneapolis this is an article on what’s going on from the main newspaper in the state.
> In the past week alone, ICE boxed in a Woodbury real estate agent recording their movements from his car, slammed him to the ground and detained him at the Whipple Federal Building near Fort Snelling for 10 hours. A 51-year-old teacher patrolling the Nokomis East community told the Star Tribune she was run off the road into a snowbank by ICE for laying on her horn. Officers shattered the car window of a woman attempting to drive past a raid in south Minneapolis to get to a doctor’s appointment nearby, then carried her through the street. Feds pushed an unidentified motorist through a red light into a busy intersection, reportedly fired projectiles at a pedestrian walking “too slowly” in a crosswalk and shoved Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne while he was observing their actions from a public sidewalk.
You can read the full thing here: https://www.startribune.com/have-yall-not-learned-federal-ag...
A person who believes the above examples should try to find the videos or other details of each case in order to be sure they are being told the truth.
Assuming that the “carried the woman through the street” is the same case as the video I watched, she was clearly deliberately obstructing traffic, as she wasn’t continuing to drive down the street despite the road being clear with no vehicles ahead of her. She then is removed from the car by force and refuses to move, requiring her to be carried.
I’m here in the ground, I’ve seen them detain people for no cause. Masked agents grabbing guys out of a Home Depot parking lot and throwing them in a van only to drop them off later after scaring them. No charges.
Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get picked up so you can get your proof.
How much of the situation were you actually able to know? Were you privy to the entire conversation?
The amount of credulity you’re exhibiting is incredible given the tidal wave of evidence that there’s a highly politicized, highly funded paramilitary organization of the government that has to date not been publicly held accountable for any of its actions that clearly violate the rights and safety of even the lawful residents of the United States.
Reposting because there is clearly no reason for it to have been flagged.
The claim that ICE exists and is highly funded is not in dispute. ICE has existed since 2002 and the current funding was provided in the Big Beautiful Bill and was never in question.
"Paramilitary" is a subjective assessment.
Anyone being "held accountable" for anything, ever, in the legal system, takes years. Trump has not even been in office (this time around) for a year yet.
The actions you describe as "clearly violating rights" simply do not do any such thing. The rights of American citizens don't work the way that protesters have been implying.
ICE agents are federal law enforcement officers. They are explicitly empowered in the relevant law (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357 , section (a)(5)) to make arrests without a warrant of any person (including citizens) for any federal crime that they actively see happening, and any federal felony on reasonable suspicion.
Which makes perfect sense, because those are things that any other federal law enforcement officer would be able to do, without a warrant, in the same situation.
The Tenth Amendment does not bar federal officers from prosecuting federal crime and does not bar them from being in your state in the first place. It also doesn't give your local law enforcement the right to interfere with them. It only relieves them of the burden of helping to enforce federal law.
Even a Mother Jones article admits it's "not illegal" generally for the ICE agents to wear masks (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/ice-immigration...). (Aside from any question of anonymity, in the Good case, the face coverings on agents appear to be fabric appropriate to the near-freezing weather.) Attempts to pass state laws to prohibit the masks are being challenged (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-14/federal-...); I'm not convinced they would matter anyway given the Supremacy Clause.
When protesters are resisting arrest, physical force is sometimes required to enact that arrest. (And it's strange to make this argument about "safety" when many protesters are attempting to endanger the officers as well as counter-protesters and critics.) All the same things would be playing out if you had the same actions taken against state LEO that were trying to enforce state law.
I have thus far seen video footage of the ICE protesters:
* vandalizing unattended federal vehicles and stealing a firearm from one of them
* throwing dangerous objects at officers
* intentionally ramming cars
* boxing in officers on the street
* attempting to booby-trap the area around ICE facilities presumably in the hope of injuring the agents
* repeatedly refusing to leave when officers tell them to leave and there is clearly nothing preventing them from leaving, then resisting arrest when that refusal leads to an arrest
* effectively enacting their own "Kavanaugh stops" (without any legal authority) on other random citizens that they wrongly suspected of being plainclothes ICE agents because they happened to own the wrong model of SUV
* vandalizing the vehicle of counter-protesters while they were stopped at a traffic light, physically climbing onto the vehicle, making threats, and soaping up the front window to obscure visibility (a clear safety threat to everyone)
* running in front of a parked ICE SUV and pretending (very obviously) to get hit by it
* using a loudspeaker at close range next to a counter-protester, in a manner that would clearly cause or threaten hearing damage
And a lot of this directly leads to the situations that they subsequently propagandize.
Freedom of speech is not freedom to interfere physically with law enforcement.
This is Gish-gallop.
Your final point essentially relies on us to believe that because we see evidence of ICE protesters doing things that range from mildly annoying to obstructive, ICE have carte blanche to execute citizens in the street should they be clever enough to manufacture the opportunity for themselves (like walking in front of a parked vehicle of a cooperative, but startled woman).
Your individual points about the technicalities of the actions of ICE being legal or illegal are imo immaterial to the above.
I’ve also seen lots of videos of extremely concerning behavior by ICE agents, like you have seen of protestors. The catch is one group of people are federal agents who can kill you without consequences, and the other group is a wide range of American citizens of varying degrees of intelligence, mental health, and passion that can’t be grouped together into a monolith to prove some point about whether they’re allowed to be executed in the streets.
Yeah probably is all just made up seems like good guys /s
> she was clearly deliberately obstructing traffic,
You are lying. She waited for the pedestrian to cross.
Also, obstructing traffic is not valid reason to be violent against someone. ICE or cops being violent in that situation is them abusing their power big time. So, again, we are back to Brownshirts comparison.
Please post a link to the video you viewed.
That way we can be sure that we’re discussing the same thing.
Just go watch the one that starts with a car driving past her car.
Obstructing justice, and then refusing to comply / resisting arrest will lead to you being forcefully removed. This is in fact a valid reason.
Actually, it is not. Also, she was not obstructing justice, she was on the way to doctor stopped by armed thugs.
> Actually, it is not.
The law disagrees: https://www.justice.gov/jm/1-16000-department-justice-policy...
It's very easy to find abundant sources for this.
If you're locking yourself in your car when you're under arrest, and that car is currently blocking traffic, there is no reasonable alternative to using force to get into the vehicle and take you out. Nothing else will get you out of the vehicle, and you legally must get out of the vehicle. You can't just be left there.
If you are resisting having handcuffs put on you, or refusing to walk along as you are taken to a police vehicle, there is no reasonable alternative to using force to ensure that the handcuffs go on and you get in the vehicle. Being carried is about the gentlest thing that could possibly happen.
> she was on the way to doctor stopped by armed thugs.
This is contradicted by the fact that she repeatedly refused to take a clear path when she was being told to take a clear path and the officers were not in any way preventing her from doing so.
It's bizarre that your comment was flagged and killed for an objectively true statement.
These guys always fall back on "bbbbut Obstructing Traffic!" as if that's a capital offense.
Florida made it one.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-p...
> Gov. Ron DeSantis said that drivers will not be at fault if they hit protesters that block roadways in a clip that took social media by storm.
> She waited for the pedestrian to cross.
This does not in any way contradict "she was clearly deliberately obstructing traffic". There was a very long period in the video where there was clearly no obstruction to her driving down an empty street and multiple officers were repeatedly telling her to do so, and cars behind her were obstructed for no reason.
> Also, obstructing traffic is not valid reason to be violent against someone.
This is a complete strawman.
> ICE or cops being violent in that situation is them abusing their power big time.
ICE are cops. "She then is removed from the car by force and refuses to move, requiring her to be carried" is normal; if you are under arrest and you do not comply with the arrest, LEO are legally entitled to use the force required to enact the arrest. In this case, she had to be removed from the car because she tried to lock herself in the car, and she had to be carried because she refused to move along. That's just how arrests work.
To the extent that any of that can be called "violent", it is not a consequence of obstructing traffic. It is a consequence of resisting arrest.
It's bizarre to me that your comment was flagged and killed (here's a vouch). You see what you see in the video. There is nothing about your comment that violates HN guidelines. On the other hand, rhetoric about "lying" and "fascist assholes" is clearly not in the spirit of constructive dialog.
Other people here seem to think that "obstructing" something entails making it impossible to get around. That is just... not how that language ordinarily works. They also misrepresent your argument, skipping all the steps in between, as if you were asserting that people are being shot directly as a punishment for obstructing traffic. That's clearly not what anyone is saying or justifying, including the officers themselves.
Is there video for any of that?
Tons
a few here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46634217
Yes
If there is proof of it would it change your mind about anything?
Proof is always better. I assume just about everything I hear about politics on the internet is exaggerated until I see evidence at this point.
Serious question: have you tried looking?!
Skepticism is fine! You should review the published video evidence that has appeared over the last week.
Yes but if shown proof would it change your mind about anything? Are you against federal law enforcement covering their faces, beating and detaining people illegally?
It would change my mind. I try to base my opinions on evidence
Of course. Although, I have a feeling your question wasn't genuine, and was more of a projection.
If all those things happened in Spain where I live, I'm 99% we'd have actual riots on the streets, together with a lot of other unpleasant-but-needed civilian action, until things got better, like we've done in the past (sometimes maybe went slightly overboard with it, but better than nothing).
Why are Americans so passive? You're literally transitioning into straight up authoritarianism, yet where are the riots? How are you not fighting back with more than whistles and blocking them in cars? Is there more stuff actually happening on the ground, but there simply isn't any videos of it, or are people really this passive in the land of the free?
Are people inside the country not getting the same news we're getting on the outside? Are you not witnessing your government carrying out extra-judicial murders and then being protected by that same government? I'm really lost trying to understand how the average person (like you reading this) isn't out on the streets trying to defend what I thought your country was all about.
A pervasive "Someone needs to do something!!!" attitude is why. Americans will forever wait for the school principal to come and get everyone into trouble
There is a lot of direct action happening right now in Minneapolis, with people keeping watch on every block. I agree this level of organizing should be happening nationwide.
American life is so much more distributed than European life.
Population density and the gigantic geographic distance make these kinds of events feel "remote" even if they are happening in our same state.
It's a 17 hour drive from Atlanta, Georgia to Minneapolis for example.
On top of that, a lot of Americans are just barely surviving financially, so they are in full bunker mode just making rent.
It's a scary time to rebel.
> American life is so much more distributed than European life.
It isn't though, Google Maps estimate going West>East coast in the US to take 44 hours (pure driving without stops), and puts going from the South of Spain to the North of Sweden to take 50 hours, more or less the same.
Then Europe is a bunch of countries, most of them speaking different languages, with way more difference in culture than the states of the US. I'm not sure it matters though, it really isn't relevant, but probably the wrong thing to bring up regardless, when the reality looks the opposite than you seem to think.
FWIW, when the (last) civil war in Spain happened, you had volunteer civilians coming from Sweden (among other countries) to defend their ideals, even if it wasn't their fight, completely different culture and language. But if you care about something bigger than yourself, then you act.
"My country is large" isn't an excuse to not stand up against tyranny, not sure in what world it would be.
The whole "just barely surviving financially" sucks though, especially considering the poor labor movements and almost non-existing union support, and poor grassroot organization. It always felt weird and artificially suppressed, but without those thing, it certainly seems easier to take over an entire country. Hope others learned their lessons with this.
> Then Europe is a bunch of countries, most of them speaking different languages, with way more difference in culture than the states of the US. I'm not sure it matters though, it really isn't relevant, but probably the wrong thing to bring up regardless, when the reality looks the opposite than you seem to think.
There's certainly more cultural similarity across the US, but that doesn't mean there isn't a sense of emotional and geographic distance. Remember that the typical riot participant is not a political theorist who has some deep theory of how discharging their duty will enact change, just an average guy who's mad as hell about what's happening and not going to take it anymore.
>South of Spain to the North of Sweden to take 50 hours, more or less the same.
That would be like driving from Key West to Prudhoe Bay which looks to be 91 hours.
Sorry the US is big spread out place, but I also agree it's not really an excuse for what's happening.
> That would be like driving from Key West to Prudhoe Bay which looks to be 91 hours.
Haha, yeah, at least I got a laugh from it, thank you :) A fair comparison then I guess would be from Canary Islands to Svalbard, if we're aiming to make it as far as possible to make some imaginary point no one cares about :)
Well if we're including islands then Hawai'i is pretty far away...
They weren't comparing the entire US to all of Europe. They were comparing Minneapolis and Spain.
Plenty of Minnesotans have come out to protest, just like in other cities where ICE is active. Many people outside the cities, even just in the suburbs, haven't seen any of it at all and it's just something that's happening on TV that doesn't really exist to them. I've never seen an ICE officer in my life, despite living in a area with many immigrants from the Middle East. Minneapolis might as well be Spain to most Americans.
Because I have a kid to take care of. A job I need to keep, and a way of life I'd like to maintain. Because it's not happening where I live (yet).
I care about people but I don't give a fuck about my country. It's just a place to live. If it gets too bad I'll move my family elsewhere.
Also, this whole checks and balances thing we learned about in school will surely kick in sometime soon...
So you don't do anything because you have a job you need to keep and a kid to take care of, but you're perfectly okay with moving to a completely different country on short notice?
The US, for better or worse, isn't a cohesive country of people interested in a collective, but a smash and grab of economic gains sourced from those who are forced to live in it and cannot flee to developed countries. You come to it, or stay in it, to make more income you would in developed countries at the detriment of everyone else.
Whether you believe the economic human factory farm that is the US is worth saving or preserving will be a function of your lived experience and mental model. "What are you optimizing for?"
Calling the USA a "economic human factory farm" is the best thing I've heard all year.
Yeah we have some perks here. But they're not as rare as our propaganda would have us believe and we sure do pay for them in various ways.
Yes because one of those can get my face smashed in by a baton. Moving is a far safer option for my family.
Call it selfish if you want (hell, I'd even agree with you) but my priority is my family and my life. This idea that I have to care about "my country" is patriotic BS pounded into us to make it more likely to join the army.
Just curious, do you have dual citizenship? If not, what's exactly your plan to acquire a legal resident status quickly, and where?
> Because I have a kid to take care of. A job I need to keep, and a way of life I'd like to maintain.
Exactly, so why not go out on the streets and actually defend those things then? Currently your (presumed) inaction will cause those to be harmed, you're not "saving those" by saying and doing nothing, you're effectively giving them away if you don't actively protect them.
The same reason you guys don't just deal with any of the big problems facing Spain that collective action would solve pretty quickly?
What physical government oppression have I missed now? I'm not trying to claim Spain is perfect, because it really isn't, especially considering "freedom of speech" (depending on your perspective of it) and some other things Americans might take for granted.
But I'd say that usually when there are large issues impacting large parts of the population, then you can be pretty sure that there will be country-wide protests against it, many times with smaller violent elements, because people here make their opinions and feelings known.
My point is that what Americans face here is a collective action problem, which is no different than many of the problems facing Spain. While you might go out and protest, there are other collective action problems you're not solving today, even though you could if you took action as a group.
Because actually defending those things requires violence and I shy away from that. Sitting on the sidelines and protesting doesn't do a damn thing. It just makes the maga people laugh harder. Case in point: our own president sharing an AI video of himself wearing a crown and dumping feces on protestors.
Fair, avoiding violence is usually not the way to go, so fair point.
Protesting does do something though, the very least showing other people a direction to go in, to at least show something. It's hard to argue it does nothing, because images and videos do end up on social media and the news, and you really need the rest of the population on your side, if you actually want to change stuff.
You know what actually doesn't do a damn thing? Not doing a damn thing. Literally anything is better than nothing, just showing support is better than nothing. Talking about it is better than nothing.
> You know what actually doesn't do a damn thing? Not doing a damn thing. Literally anything is better than nothing, just showing support is better than nothing. Talking about it is better than nothing.
That's fair. And I'm talking about it right now and everywhere else I can in safe ways.
As far as protesting goes, I agree with you. It is better than nothing. It does help show people they're not alone. But as I said mentioned, this isn't happening where I live. It would literally take me days to travel to Milwaukee or another hotbed. Some people are stronger than me and take time off and make other sacrifices to attend rallies, and I admire those people, but it's not feasible for me. Or I suppose a more truthful way of saying it is it's not worth it for me because of the sacrifices I'd have to make just for the chance of getting hurt or being added to a list.
If nothing else, thank you for sharing your honest perspective, I appreciate it :)
> Or I suppose a more truthful way of saying it is it's not worth it for me because of the sacrifices I'd have to make just for the chance of getting hurt or being added to a list.
It's really sad to hear that the chilling effect is working so effectively. I of course understand why you make the choice you make, that's not strange, but that they managed to turn your society into this is nothing but sad to hear.
Just to chip in:
going to small protests has done a lot of good for my ability to regulate. Being involved with a cadre of street medics has made me feel a little less crazy.
It's nice to get off line and into the streets- the reasons are terrifying but it feels better to be with my friends in the road than to be at home fretting about stuff and writing dumb HN responses :D
The MAGA people I've seen drive by at protests seemed pretty angry.
That is a very Russian way of solving the problem.
>If it gets too bad I'll move my family elsewhere.
They're talking about starting wars with the rest of the occidental world. There won't be a elsewhere where you'll be welcome.
I'd say a couple of reasons:
- The American political system has been very successful in telling its people that the only acceptable way to show discontent and enact change is by voting on elections.
- Lots of people are okay with it because it can only happen to the "bad guys", and why would it ever happen to them since they're the "good guys"... right?
... yet still tens of millions of eligible voters don't even bother
the country is very low-density, there's no one obvious point to protest (there was Occupy Wall Street... and then the Seattle TAZ and .... that's it, oh and the Capitol January 6th), strikes and unions are legally neutered, it's just not the American way anymore
the country has a lot of experience "managing" internal unpleasantry, see the time leading up to the civil war, and then the reconstruction, and then there was a lull as the innovation in racism led to legalized economic racism (the usual walking while black "crimes", vagrancy laws, etc), and then the civil rights era, with the riots, and since then (and as always) police brutality is used as a substitute to training and funding
I think a general strike might be effective for low-density places, though that requires enough people taking part to make it truly effective. That way you don't need an obvious place to protest apart from your workplace and it'd be a non-violent protest that would definitely get the attention of the wealthy.
> The American political system has been very successful in telling its people that the only acceptable way to show discontent and enact change is by voting on elections.
Has it? Because I recall a bunch of people gathering in the wrong building on Jan 6
Very does not mean perfectly.
Americans aren't passive: we actively did this. The rioters are in the masks and uniforms. We went so far out of our way to arrive at this godforsaken idiot collapse.
Americans have wanted the border fixed for around a century.
Fixed like Putin is "fixing" his borders through immoral violence, murder, oppression, ...? (Trump's regime are mimicking it well.) Or do you mean something else?
Are you saying USA, in the majority, is still imperialist? Is still racist? Is still white supremacist?
How is thugging around Minneapolis fixing the border in any way?
Authoritarians always use some out group as a scape goat for problems to be fixed by a strong man who isn't restrained by the law.
To be fair, Minneapolis is raising hell and has been for the last week. There have been many protests in other cities as well.
I would also say that Trump and his cronies would absolutely love if this boils over into a violent riot. That would give them permission to double down.
I keep hearing this idea that boiling over lets them double down, but at the same time, it is not acceptable to let them keep doing what they do. Once the government starts using physical violence against the people and openly violating constitutional law, there is no choice, but to push back.
But that pushback can look different. Personally, I think that needs to be a massive general strike across every major city.
Totally fine with general strikes, particularly for the business that are accommodating and providing logistical services for ICE. Very much opposed to shooting wars. We don't have the firepower or the political power (yet).
biophysboy says "Very much opposed to shooting wars. We don't have the firepower or the political power (yet)."
Who is the "We" in your statement? Are you talking about insurrection?
> Personally, I think that needs to be a massive general strike across every major city.
Yes, this tends to be really effective, especially when you're fighting the upper-class, which is more or less what's happening here as far as I can tell.
Get all the cleaners, cooks, hotel workers and other "servants" to strike, pool up to fund a salary-light for them while they strike, and you'll see changes quickly as the upper-class can no longer enjoy their status.
>Yes, this tends to be really effective, especially when you're fighting the upper-class, which is more or less what's happening here as far as I can tell.
You're not fighting the upper class. It's the blue collar workers and the people who hire them who support ICE and strict immigration.
That's true, when workers are not aligned with each others, some get confused who is actually on your side vs against you, and frequently they believe the upper-class will protect them and provide them with support and wealth. I don't think I even have to share examples of how this works out in practice, yet for every revolution it keeps happening with the same results more or less.
You are fighting the upper-class, while some of the working-class people are mislead to fight on the other side. Slowly but surely they'll realize where to go, but often the promises of wealth and what not gets to strong for the individuals to at least try to move up.
Framing this as "literally anyone who works" vs "everyone above that" is a dishonest slight of hand to distract from the fact that the top slice of that category spent decades peddling policy that made things worse for the bottom half (and in many cases kicked them into the non working dependent/welfare class) because it made asset values go up and those whiny blue collar types were just backwards and dumb anyway (or whatever they told themselves to justify it).
I also don’t get why the Democrat leadership is caving in on funding the government. An indefinite shutdown is called for at this point until the train of ethnonationalist authoritarianism is stopped.
> Get all the cleaners, cooks, hotel workers and other "servants" to strike, pool up to fund a salary-light for them while they strike
You mean to try to get them all and find out they're not really against what's happening? There's a reason why socialists, originally fighters for workers' dictatorship, have almost entirely switched to supporting minorities and not workers.
They'll still murder millions of you for not being fascists if you stay passive, you're just making it easier for them.
spain isn’t a great example here. it has some of the most racist fans football has ever seen and yet there’s no action. only italy probably compares. if there was a government agency going after black and brown people (ie non-white) i wouldn’t bet on the spanish population to come to their rescue. lamine yamal, a young footballer of moroccan descent hasn’t been spared the vitriol of the spanish hooligans even though he was top 3 best player at the recent euro (where he helped spain to victory).
point being, given that ice is going after non-whites and is getting by, a spanish ice will get by too, with probably more ease.
I've read multiple comparisons between US groups like Patriot Front and the Proud Boys and hooliganism in terms of the culture and demographics. Similar backgrounds, similar attitudes, similar behaviors (get smashed, go start fights). It's just more overtly political here rather than being organized around a sports fandom.
Sad as it is, I think Spain only barely makes it into the top 10 on the UEFA racism ranking. Serbia, Hungary and Israel are probably the top contenders, with Albania and Poland completing the top 5.
> lamine yamal
Hah, funny you bring up the name of a neighbor :)
I'm not sure that's even in the same class of issues as what's happening in the US and frankly, a bit surprising to hear. Have you seen/been with ultras in the Nordics? Even been to derbies played in Copa Libertadores? Both of those I'd immediately rank as way more violent than what we see here in Spain.
Imo, there is too much of an individualistic culture here. Where I am people live for twenty years and barely even know their neighbors.
We don't have the memory of the end of an authoritarian regime only fifty years in our past.
Yep, in all EU countries, this would lead to country wide protests with the usual result being the fall of the government and new elections. Seems like the US is missing this element of democracy.
You should read James Baldwin. Or read up on the debates post revolutionary war in the United States about the French revolution.
The truth is the land of the free has always been quite conservative. Which frankly, is true of most societies. In many ways that's what a society is.
Worse still, ICE stomping people out in the street is what freedom means to a vast swath of Americans. The rest are scared and leaderless and let down by an opposition that betrays their trust at every turn.
And yes Europeans keep telling Americans how to protest, but really they are little better. "Far right" candidates are already projecting big wins in the UK today. To say nothing of the victories far right parties have already secured in Europe. Spain is more familiar with blatant facisim and totalitarianism than Americans are. So idk... imo Europeans really pat themselves on the back too much... what would you do?
Provoking a riot is of questionable value anyway when he won a pretty convincing national victory at the polls just a year ago... no one has any answers as far as I can see, only empty expressions of anger... protest harder means what? I think a better start would be a coherent, defensible list of demands than anyone from a governor to a street activist can convey intelligently. Then you can try to enforce it.
But ultimately you can't muster more force than the state. If that is your only suggestion then it's a fruitless one.
A broad answer: because America is more violent. The ICE officers are armed and absolutely will use their weapons if given half a chance to. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think any rioters in countries like Spain go to a protest with a bet real chance on their minds that they might die.
> Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think any rioters in countries like Spain go to a protest with a bet real chance on their minds that they might die.
That's the thing, they do, and have in the past too. Some might even recall riots ~70 years ago that kind of spiraled out of control and led to a civil war.
Looking at what's happening in Iran as we speak might be a good idea as well, where they've had enough, know that there is a good chance of their regime literally executing them on the spot, yet they're brave enough to continue fighting, because they realize what's at stake, and have run out of other options.
> The ICE officers are armed and absolutely will use their weapons if given half a chance to
So this was the whole point with the 2nd amendment right, that when/if the government repress you in that way, you have weapons to fight back? Or am I misunderstanding what that part is/was about?
Americans are much more comfy than Iranians are though. As much as Americans might dislike what's going on, they're not fighting got their own survival.
Democracy, authoritarianism are all abstract and vague concepts
(White) Americans of the center and left have long since lost the conviction that you may just need to bleed for your children’s freedom. It’ll come back, hopefully not too late.
The thing is, to most white Americans, their childrens' freedom isn't at stake. The majority of white voters have always supported Trump, and probably support ICE, whereas most of the rest simply don't don't consider it their problem.
And unfortunately that probably won't change until ICE kills more of them and makes it their problem.
> The thing is, to most white Americans, their childrens' freedom isn't at stake.
It absolutely is at stake, they just haven’t realized it yet. (Insert obligatory “first they came for” quote.)
You are right that America isn’t going to fix this problem until Trump supporters feel the pain. It is coming, but I’m afraid of what we will have to go through to get there.
Trump gained more support in 2024 across almost all demographics. To make this only a white issue is misleading and casually racist.
"Trump won 15% of Black voters – up from 8% four years earlier. "
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/behind-trump...
> So this was the whole point with the 2nd amendment right, that when/if the government repress you in that way, you have weapons to fight back?
The point of the second amendment was, in no small part, so that the central government wouldn't deny the states the means to commit genocide against the indigenous population on their own, because the states didn't trust he central government to be sufficiently enthusiastic about it. That was the major security concern alluded to by the “necessary to the security of a free state” bit.
>The point of the second amendment was, in no small part, so that the central government wouldn't deny the states the means to commit genocide against the indigenous population on their own,
What kind of revisionist history is this?
The feds were telling the states "screw off, we do the negotiating" before the ink was even dry on that. Steamrolling the natives was never really a seriously contested job or a point of political contention, the feds were always gonna be the ones to do it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the case of the Cherokee forced relocation from Georgia, the Georgia state government told the federal government (Andrew Jackson) that if the gold-bearing lands weren't depopulated of indigenous peoples then the state would start killing them (after already having terrorized them with armed state militia).
That's 20+yr later and an entirely different generation of politicians though, a far cry from the "we'll just slip this in here so we can harass the red man" that the person above is alleging. And it was done with state backed forces, not like they would have been handicapped by lack of a 2a.
Zero of the Federalist papers corroborate this.
The Federalist papers were campaign ads for ratification of the base Constitution from a faction opposed to adding a Bill of Rights (an opposition explicitly stated in the Federalist Papers; it was, in fact, the central theme of Federalist #84.)
They are neither a reliable summary of the motivations for the provisions they support nor any kind of argument for the provisions in the Bill of Rights.
The opposition to the Bill of Rights was that it was unnecessary. Rights do not originate from the Constitution or the law.
The Bill of Rights was specifically designed to abrogate any possibility of infringement of those enumerated rights by an out of control State.
In Minneapolis and other cities, you do have protests, you have the people following ICE, and it's a valid discussion to have that without the protests and the "mostly peaceful" resistance from Minnesotans is helping the nation see what criminals ICE people are, and what an awful thing they're doing to the country.
Mass resistance movements tend to come at unpredictable moments. The killing or particularly well documented crime of a government, for example. Something acute will trigger it, like George Floyd or Renee Good (whose murder triggered widespread outrage, protests, and despite the bots on Twitter, some shift in the view on ICE from the middle and right).
If, for example, a brigade of soldiers or officers opened live fire on protesters, I think the country would shut down.
Another point, as others have mentioned: It's actually the massive amount of armament on both side of the equation that keeps people from taking the next step. The citizens of Minneapolis could probably take out a hundred ICE agents a day, but now we're in a civil war because the next steps are insurrection act, hundreds of people dead in days, potential of the MN state guard being activated to fight against national forces, and it's already three steps ahead of whatever would happen in Spain.
edit: There are some people already exercising their rights loudly. See: https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1qdnmh...
>The citizens of Minneapolis could probably take out a hundred ICE agents a day, but now we're in a civil war because the next steps are insurrection act,
That is not a civil war.
Just because historians haven't yet given the beast a name, it acts and growls just like like exactly what it is, and "civil war" is exactly what some members of the federal administration want, as you might read in their brazen proclamations about re-interpreting the constitution along a hundred dimensions at once.
https://www.project2025.observer/en
The local and federal authorities are at a complete standoff right now. When's the last time you recall a local government essentially asking the court for permission to deploy its national guard to enforce a restraining order against the federal government? All while said federal government was openly conducting sloppy pseudo-urban-warfare in broad daylight?
I urge you to pay attention.
I'm paying attention, just not buying into administration wanting a civil war.
Won't happen.
Regardless, would you agree that we're watching a constitutional crisis unfold? The stability of case law is being completely undermined.
I won't defend certain current practices, you are trying to shoehorn me into a yes/no answer to fit me into a side. I won't play that game.
I'm not trying to fit you into a side, especially not politically. What I'm pushing back on specifically is any insinuation that this will just blow over. That to me is hypernormalization.
And it's not that "the administration as a whole" wants devastation, but study up on what Stephen Miller wants.
You cut off half the sentence.
The people who love the second amendment are the ones that support the president. Most of them would gladly shoot me or you if their president told them to. In fact, a significant portion fantasize about being able to shoot other Americans and get away with it. This is one half of the country holding the other half hostage. Despite what you think, there are many protests going on. But a lot of Americans simply agree with what is happening.
Democracies are vulnerable to many things: populism, vote-rigging, importing migrants to vote for a given party, and much more. Without a reboot, many democracies slide into autocracy. First, the government bans weapons, then curtails civil rights under the guise of child protection, offending religious sensibilities, blocks websites, and gradually tightens penalties for free speech. It all happens gradually. And suddenly you can't write your opinion online without being arrested. The UK is a case in point. Unarmed people are doomed to change things not only in authoritarian countries, but even in nominally democratic ones. Examples include peaceful and not-so-peaceful protests in Iran, Belarus, and Russia in the struggle against the authorities. Peaceful protests without the support of the army and the elite always end in failure. Another example is the protests in the UK against the influx of Muslim migrants, where the authorities support the latter.
> Unarmed people are doomed to change things not only in authoritarian countries, but even in nominally democratic ones. Examples include peaceful and not-so-peaceful protests in Iran, Belarus, and Russia in the struggle against the authorities. Peaceful protests without the support of the army and the elite always end in failure.
I'd take issue with that, because once it becomes an armed conflict then the full power of the state military will be deployed.
And modern nation-states of mid-size or above all have militaries than can crush any civilian armed resistance, simply because of the lethality and capability gap between civilian and military weapons.
The only winning move for a populace, then, is to try and keep resistance sub-armed conflict (and avoid being bated into armed resistance).
> So this was the whole point with the 2nd amendment right, that when/if the government repress you in that way, you have weapons to fight back?
Not as far as I understand. The 2nd amendment was from a time when we did not have much of a standing army and the country relied on militias for firepower. Some of the proposed language for the second amendment makes this clearer, but it was cut in the final version.
The tyranny bit was probably always someone's fantasy, and the self-defense aspect is basically a shift of interpretation that is much more recent.
This....
But then I still hear people say that this is what the 2nd amendment is for... Meanwhile, to make sure they have the heavier weapons, law enforcement goes absolutely bananas on what they carry.
The second amendment was written in a time when a firearm was a musket.
Then it's useless and should be abroged.
Grandpa's 30-06 from WW2 from 200 yards will penetrate anything but trauma plates.
If it's a hand-carried firearm of any kind (including crew-served weapons like the M249, M240B, M60), it's not a "heavy weapon."
> The second amendment was written in a time when a firearm was a musket.
At the time the Second Amendment was written, there were entire private navies with actual cannons far more destructive than any man-portable firearm available today. No background checks on those ships or cannons, either, btw.
They didn't just have muskets at that time, repeating firearms were just too expensive to outfit entire armies with them. When you can supply 10 guys with muskets for the same cost as 1 guy with a repeating firearm, you pick the 10 men even if the 1 guy can fire just as fast.
Are you sure?
https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/slideshow/Firearms-o...
The Kalthoff repeater was invented in the 1600s. Here's a Forgotten Weapons video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghKrbNpqQoY
There is also the Cookson repeater available in the late 1600s. And in 1756 was advertised for sale in the Boston Gazette.
Multiple founding fathers, including George Washington, were also offered purchase of repeating firearms, some for use in the military, some for personal usage. But of course this is still before interchangeable parts so production is of course still expensive and repairs must be done be a highly skilled gunsmith and not just some apprentice blacksmith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle
> The second amendment was written in a time when a firearm was a musket.
Second amendment was written for children in schools.
sure. but to me it seems like the there was this vain hope that somehow we could thread the needle. that if we would accept to unjustice and stick it out, that eventually the courts and electoral process would be robust enough. that escalation would just lead to where we've already gotten, where peaceful protestors are being killed for 'disrepect'. that somehow pointing out all the obvious falsehood and gaslighting would be enough to convince people that this was going sideways. this was always going to end in martial law, but our complacency is generational.
This is chicken-or-the-egg reasoning. Maybe the reason such violent behavior is unthinkable by a hypothetical Spanish LEO is because past protest has been so strong?
My counter-hypothesis is that America has never really known authoritarianism, religious wars, etc., so Americans are, on average, more supportive of Authority.
Yeah, I think your last point is a good one and something to consider too. Large part of our perspectives are shaped by what we've experienced, and what our predecessors experienced, and if you don't have the experience of walking through mass-graves created by the government executing dissidents, you don't have a frame of reference for that being a possibility.
So, from my perspective, there were in fact a number of "religious wars", but the folks who lost all ended up on reservations or murdered and in mass graves. I mean 650K folks died in the mid 19th century in a single 5-year war. And that's not counting how we might code the Atlantic slave trade or the post-reconstruction violence, or labor violence into that history.
As a person who has been involved with an riot in a small town, I think that, in the deep unconscious of most folks in the US, is something structure:
"well, there wasn't violence in the 19th and early 20th and mid 20th and late 20thC century... well okay, there was violence but they put folks who were resisting into mass graves or incarceration and everyone was better off for it".
That is, consider that the obverse of your claim might be true:
the violence committed by the US has been so totalizing that it's victims have never even counted as victims and that holocaust so complete that it only exists in the subconscious of white US citizens.
I find that idea to be a very easy way to understand why white folks are so passive and pro-authority.
> My counter-hypothesis is that America has never really known authoritarianism
Funny, because the racist authoritarians most people point to as the canonical example were themselves directly inspired by the US example. I think a more realistic reason is that this particular brand of race-heirarchy-based authoritarianism that mostly only affects white folks if they are seen as challenging what it does to everyone else has been normalized in the US since before the founding, varying only in intensity and the degree to which its intent is overly stated.
TL;DR: https://x.com/i/status/1131996074011451392
This is NOT what America is about. America is about opens history book
uh oh
Frantically starts flipping though pages
uh oh. oh no. no no no. uh oh
If you think that America and Europe have similar experiences with authoritarianism, I guess we just don't share basic ground truth. The fact that you are flip about it is just silly, and makes you seem unserious.
Have a good day!
> If you think that America and Europe have similar experiences with authoritarianism
I didn't say the American and European experiences with authoritarianism were the same, or even similar, I said the American experience with a very specific orientation of authoritarianism, with a specific focus, is extremely deep and pervasive, and that that has explanatory power on the relatively mild reaction of the American public to a change in the intensity and overtness of that particular flavor of authoritarianism.
This is, in fact, very different from the European experience.
Just shows that the second amendment is an obsolete idea, and in today's real world it's more likely to oppress people's right to protest than help them fight tyranny.
ICE goons can shoot people because in America, law enforcement officers shooting citizens is thoroughly normalized. It's normalized because law enforcement officers getting shot is thoroughly normalized. It's normalized because the nation decided every village idiot can have a gun and the government can do nothing about it.
I can mill a perfectly working firearm in any highly-restricted legal jurisdiction anywhere in the world and the "government can do nothing about it."
These devices are over a century old: the cat's out of the bag, manufacturing technology has only gotten better and easier.
Sure, as long as you keep the milling machine and its product in your garage and gloat over it, the government will do nothing about it, because it doesn't know (or care).
You so much as walk around with your gun in the streets of Seoul, and you will very quickly find out that the government can, in fact, do something about it, it will do something about it, the general public will side with the government against you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Gun ownership is a social construct. Where guns are banned, even criminals can't afford one, because there's no place to get these guns in the first place. Those who think they can outsmart the government will quickly find that guns out in the wild is considered a matter of national security and handled accordingly.
> You so much as walk around with your gun in the streets of Seoul, and you will very quickly find out that the government can, in fact, do something about it, it will do something about it, the general public will side with the government against you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Only if you're caught - which requires more than magic. Shinzo Abe would disagree.
> Why are Americans so passive?
Because it’s cold? Here in Minnesota it’s 17F / -7C. Factoring in the wind chill it feels like 7F / -14C.
There are other reasons too of course (geography, lack of urban density, distrust of news, apathy, etc etc) but I think the weather is a definite factor right now.
This is anecdotal, America is geographically quite large. For a lot of people, where these events are happening are more than a days drive away (10 hours or more), it's not happening "here".
A lot of people here _enjoy_ the authoritarianism, judging by the votes, the voter turnout, and the private discussions I've had with my neighbors. They believe this is good for the country and that there'll be more opportunities for their kids.
A lot of other people are holding out for the midterm elections, to see if the will of the majority shifts, because otherwise its risks open civil war. And maybe just a touch of American exceptionalism—this can't actually be happening here, it'll all blow over—and distrust in the story that the media is feeding them is accurate.
And some are just fatalistic, this isn't really a surprising turn of events. America has been creeping toward this for more than a few decades, since Regan at the very least.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I count myself mostly in the "holding out for elections" group but a little bit part of the fatalistic group as well. The really sad part of the whole experience is how many people I know that support everything that is going on, and they are not in any way claiming ignorance.
We had nationwide riots for months back in 2020 over a police officer murdering a suspect, and that resulted in approximately zero actual political change. During the recent shutdown over the budget, we had one of the largest protests in the country’s history and massive shifts towards the opposition in elections followed by them immediately folding in exchange for essentially nothing.
The political class is very well insulated from the popular will in this country, and I fear we may be nearing the boiling point.
The politicians on the right are not well insulated -- they are very responsive to what their constituents' popular will is, to a fault. The left still hasn't figured out what the hell they're going to do next. Probably just continue the "we aren't Trump!" chanting and hope that's enough to win elections. Meanwhile their own constituents are just as frustrated with status quo as the right was.
> The left still hasn't figured out what the hell they're going to do next.
They're gonna keep taking money from their donors and attempt to focus on anything that doesn't hurt their donors.
Much like the Republicans were before Trump.
You guys really need to do something about Citizens United.
> they are very responsive to what their constituents' popular will
I don't think this is the case so much as their constituents are very responsive to the messaging from their politicians and media agencies. You can watch almost in real-time as Trump supporters 180 on things that they "really care about" like the Epstein files. Like the "peace" president. Like on inflation being a major issue. You can watch Trump do something outrageous, and the conservatives online act confused for a bit until they get their messaging and then they are all repeating the exact same excuses online.
We're not passive, they would shoot us in the head
-- Martin Niemöller
I think it's something different than "Americans are passive" - rather, many of them/us perceive the context of what you're seeing very differently. I can share some of this perspective though I don't insist it's the only way to feel.
1. Americans on the ground are clearly feeling the effects of illegal immigration. As an example: a an African American janitor in our kids' school voted republican in 2024 for the first time in his life, because the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there. In that election we've seen nearly every demographic move more republican than before, and I think this is the key issue for them.
2. In that context, when ICE does something, even when we don't like it, people can understand it in the context of a larger problem they/we want solved. When you perceive "passivity" - it's because you come in from a perspective of not wanting the underlying problem solved which is fine, but it's different for people who like "what" is happening even if not "how" it's happening.
3. There are plenty of people protesting and violently rioting if that's what they feel like.
I don’t think data supports this. Polling has shown a lot of people who voted Republican in 2024 (Latinos especially) have snapped back again already, at least partially because of what ICE is doing.
ICE are terrorizing a city and its residents no matter what their immigration status is. Even someone who strongly wishes to curb illegal immigration should have a problem with that.
I would bet that's true just on a statistical level - but my point is that plenty of people still feel that way, or at least have felt that way recently enough about the underlying problem that won't cause them to riot.
There's an interesting other angle that I heard about "terrorizing a city" type thing -- there are many million illegal immigrants in the US who entered in just the last few years, when the prior admin did not attempt to limit. The size of the problem basically leaves no "nice" solutions that are perfectly palatable to everyone. Maybe like "nobody wants to hear about an amputation" but unfortunately some situations are bad enough that you have to.
>I would bet that's true just on a statistical level - but my point is that plenty of people still feel that way, or at least have felt that way recently enough about the underlying problem that won't cause them to riot.
Exactly. If people you hate are getting in a fight you're staying right there on the porch and that's how a lot of the country feels right now.
> The size of the problem basically leaves no "nice" solutions that are perfectly palatable to everyone.
Why not? What is it about the presence of illegal immigrants in a place that makes terrorizing the entire population a good tradeoff? The people who live alongside these immigrants are the ones out on the street protesting so it seems to me they don't consider it a price worth paying.
> The size of the problem basically leaves no "nice" solutions that are perfectly palatable to everyone. Maybe like "nobody wants to hear about an amputation" but unfortunately some situations are bad enough that you have to.
Are you volunteering to be part of the bad solution, or is it only OK as long as it happens far enough away from you? I'm curious because when you talk about needing an amputation, you're referring to American citizens getting killed and having their rights taken away for the sake of some nebulous solution. Where have I heard that before?
I am not sure what you're talking about so I can tell you what I meant.
Life is complex and important things are always in tension.
Do I think ICE needs to deport every single illegal from this country? Yes I do. Do I think Americans have a right to protest against ICE if they don't agree with this? Yes I do.
I support both and that's fine, the challenge is what happens when these two things collide. For example, when someone's protest involves them interfering with an ICE operation, striking an officer with their vehicle (unintentionally, I think) and getting shot in the process.
That's impacted by scale. If the US had 1 illegal immigrant to catch and deport, and 100 protestors got hurt in the process, that would seem disproportionate. When we have millions of illegals to deport, 100 protestor getting hurt is still bad but is kinda inevitable in the statistical risk sense.
Do I want that to impact me? Of course not. Ideally that would have been handled years ago so we didn't have the scale of problem that necessitates an aggravated approach. But we do.
> Do I want that to impact me? Of course not. Ideally that would have been handled years ago so we didn't have the scale of problem that necessitates an aggravated approach. But we do.
So you accept the necessity of needing to carry your papers in order to prove your citizenship, or needing to deal with door to door warrentless raids, or potentially getting your property destroyed by overzealous ICE agents with no recourse? That's my point. You are saying that the scale of the problem means it's acceptable for your rights to be trampled on. And I'm asking you personally if you're willing to be one of the sacrifices in the name of this system.
Where is there plenty of people violently rioting?
> it's because you come in from a perspective of not wanting the underlying problem solved
Where is this assumption coming from? Of course I don't want people to break the laws of the country or immigrate illegally, I never argued for that either.
What I don't understand, if Obama managed to throw out more illegals than Trump did for the same duration of time, yet with a lot less chaos and bloodshed, and you truly want less illegal immigrants, should you favor a more peaceful and efficient process? Instead of a more violent and less efficient process?
There is a huge difference between turning people away at the border and tallying a "deportation", and removing people from the interior of the US.
The flow of illegal aliens crossing the border has largely been eliminated. [1]
> should you favor a more peaceful and efficient process? Instead of a more violent and less efficient process?
I want a process that actually works. There has been no serious headway made in the number of illegal aliens for decades until now. [2]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
I saw you were briefly downvoted but you're correct. The number and % of illegal immigrants in the us has shot up in an unprecedented way during the prior administration, meaning whatever techniques could be argued to have worked earlier (although to your point, did they work?) may not be adequate to current scope of problem.
Your sources don’t say what you’re claiming.
The BBC piece is about recorded apprehensions/encounters being very low (still “<9,000/month”), not that the “flow” is “largely eliminated.” Encounters aren’t the same thing as total unlawful entries, and “very low” isn’t “eliminated.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o
The ABC/Brookings story is about net migration turning negative in 2025, mostly due to fewer entries. Net migration is not a measure of the unauthorized population, and the article even notes removals in 2025 are only modestly higher than 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
Also, the claim “no headway for decades until now” is inconsistent with standard estimates: Pew shows a decline from 2007 to 2019 in the unauthorized population. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...
Your pedantry is unnecessary.
"Largely eliminated". I didn't say "completely eliminated". <9,000 per month can be considered "largely eliminated" when the previous flow was often many hundreds of thousands per month. You can see it plainly on the graph.
Yes of course encounters are not total entries. Do you have a better way of estimating?
The net migration is due to several factors. The result of "largely eliminating" the flow of illegal aliens, along with dutiful removal of those in the interior, has made a big dent. There are other factors, including legal immigration, obviously.
There were 12 million (estimated) illegal aliens here in 2007. There are MORE now. No headway has been made.
“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports.
“Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/01/migrant-e...
Also, 58k/month annualizes to ~700k/year. You can argue that’s a big improvement, but calling it “largely eliminated” is rhetorical.
Encounters aren’t total entries, agreed, but that cuts against confidently declaring victory, not in favor of it. If you want “better,” the only “better” conceptually is something like encounters + estimated gotaways, but “gotaways” are themselves estimates and not as consistently published/transparent as encounters. So the honest phrasing is: “recorded encounters are way down.”
“No headway for decades” is false on the standard stock estimates. Pew (and others) show the unauthorized population peaked around 2007 and then declined through 2019 before rising again in the early 2020s. That’s headway, then reversal; not “none for decades.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...
It is fair to say: we’re now above 2007 again (Pew estimates ~14M in 2023), so the long-run problem wasn’t solved. But that’s different from “no headway has been made.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-...
On the ABC/Brookings “negative net migration” point: net migration does not equal unauthorized population, and the article itself notes the change is mostly fewer entries, with removals only modestly higher year over year. So it doesn’t support “dutiful removal has made a big dent” as the main story.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
Again, your post is utter pedantry and seemingly wrong.
Why should I care about the number in August 2024? Why are you annualizing the 58k number? I'm referring to the current numbers at the border.
> During Trump's first eight months in office, there have been fewer than 9,000 illegal crossings recorded each month, CBS reported.
249,000 -> 9,000 encounters = flow across the border is "largely eliminated" to any non-pedant.
We have more illegal aliens in the country today than 2007.
2007 -> 2026 = MORE illegal aliens = no headway has been made. It's as simple as that.
Lastly, your link literally confirms what I said:
> The report attributed the shift to combination of the large drop in entries and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures.
It's so refreshing to finally have someone at least attempt to tackle this issue (likely the main issues in the 2016 and 2024 elections). I just wish it was more widespread and less theatrical.
You’re mixing metrics and then calling the correction “pedantry.”
Your own cited stat (“<9,000/month”) is Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry. CBS is explicit about that, and even gives the recent months: July ~4,600; Aug ~6,300; Sept ~8,400 apprehensions. That’s a major reduction, but it’s not “zero,” and it’s not the same thing as “flow eliminated.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-crossings-immigration-u...
The 249,000 figure you’re comparing it to is typically cited as “encounters” (often BP apprehensions + OFO inadmissibles at ports). That’s a different series than “BP apprehensions between ports.” Apples-to-oranges comparisons are exactly how people accidentally talk themselves into certainty.
“Do you have a better way of estimating?” Not really, that’s the point. Encounters/apprehensions are the best consistently published measure, but they are not total successful entries, and “gotaways” are estimates with their own uncertainty. So the accurate claim is: recorded apprehensions are way down.
On “no headway”: if the unauthorized population fell from 2007 to 2019 (Pew shows that), that’s literally headway, even if it later reversed and is higher now. What you mean is “no net improvement vs 2007,” which is a different claim.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...
If you want to say “huge improvement at the border relative to the peak,” totally reasonable. But “flow largely eliminated” + “big dent in illegal-alien stock” is stronger than what these measurements can support.
What people voted for 14 months ago and how ICE is being used are two different things. Polling shows a majority of Americans do not support how ICE is behaving and do not feel like it is making them safer. There are not plenty of people "violently rioting" at this point. Blowing whistles and yelling at federal agents isn't rioting. If you want to see what violent riots look like, see the Iranian footage.
I think your second part of the most makes my point -- most americans are overall OK with what's going on because of the underlying issue. That's why it doesn't look like Iran.
On the first part, I hope the last few elections made it clear that polling is... unreliable at best. For example, asking the question like "in light of the recent shooting of Renee Good, do you feel ICE is making your city safer" vs asking "Do you feel like having removed X,XXX illegal immigrants with prior convictions has made your city safer" would yield a very different result.
For what it's worth, as an immigrant myself and a typical over-educated NY liberal (at least, formerly) I don't like the details of what's going on but I understand why it is.
> What people voted for 14 months ago and how ICE is being used are two different things.
I'm sure lots of people who voted for Hitler in Germany said the same thing in hindsight. Of course they did absolutely nothing to help stop Hitler after voting for him. They just want to pretend they had nothing to do with all the bad stuff despite the vote clearly being in support of "Bad Stuff". There's a meme floating around that goes something like:
2015: You're overreacting!
2016: You're overreacting!
2017: You're overreacting!
2018: You're overreacting!
2019: You're overreacting!
2020: You're overreacting!
2021: You're overreacting!
2022: You're overreacting!
2023: You're overreacting!
2024: You're overreacting!
2025: How could we possibly have known things would have gone this way?!
I live in Europe, in an immigrant ghetto. Well, I'm not sure whether the word "immigrant" is correct, because most residents are second or third generation and have passports.
The cultural gap is just too much. There are explosions 24/7 and the amount of trash on the street hurts my eyes. A party by my window at 2AM - check. It happens that you have a group of six guys walking down the middle of the road and the fuck are you going to do. There's only so much you can explain by poverty and lack of privilege - especially when they were born in one of the world's richest countries while the country I am from started poor but developed immensely.
When voting, immigration policies are for me #1 issue. I just don't want the entire Europe to look like this.
You got downvoted for stating your experience in a way that feels unpalatable to someone who doesn't have to deal with this. But your story is a perfect example of what I am talking about. If you live in MN or somewhere else that's drastically changed in this way in recent years, you're (a) thrilled that someone is finally doing something and (b) just not gonna be super upset about things that go wrong in the process even though obviously you don't want them going wrong.
> As an example: a an African American janitor in our kids' school voted republican in 2024 for the first time in his life, because the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there.
Okay, first off, I am just very confused by this sentence. How is the "shanty town" preventing him from working? Does he work from his home in Brooklyn? Is the school located in the park? Does he want to work in the park but is force to work at the school? I know this isn't the most important part, but I haven't been able to parse the story. Edit: others explained that this is "work out" there, and not related to being a janitor. Thanks. I feel the rest still stands.
Further, I don't understand how what is happening is supposed to solve the "underlying issue". How does 3000 federal agents breaking windows and shoving people in Minneapolis help a Brooklyn community poor enough to become a shanty town? It would be like if I, in my job, had an backend outage on our website, and I went to the design team and began berating them while I fixed a couple UI issues. Sure, I might solve some real problems, and it could feel good in some cathartic way (especially if I've had unanswered complaints for years). But I wouldn't call it "fixing the underlying issues".
I believe it is most likely that the people who still support this style of enforcement have been hurt much like you, some acutely but many just slowly over time, and have bought into the idea that some "other" is at fault. And they want to see that "other" dealt with in some way, any way. Even if it means people get hurt, because they themselves have been hurt. So why not the "other"?
But I don't believe a shanty town in the most populous city what is supposed to be the richest and most prosperous country on Earth is caused by the poorest few percent of people living here. I don't think an illegal immigrant in Minneapolis is at fault, even if they have a "criminal background" (insidious phrasing that inflates numbers by lumping in people who may have paid their debt to society). I don't want to see people hurt.
> How is the "shanty town" preventing him from working?
Not working; working out.
My bad. Thanks for clarifying.
> > As an example: a an African American janitor in our kids' school voted republican in 2024 for the first time in his life, because the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there.
> Okay, first off, I am just very confused by this sentence. How is the "shanty town" preventing him from working? Does he work from his home in Brooklyn? Is the school located in the park? Does he want to work in the park but is force to work at the school? I know this isn't the most important part, but I haven't been able to parse the story.
So just to clarify, GP said he was being prevented from _working out_, i.e. exercising.
Ah, my bad. That does seem to lower the stakes a bit.
I suspect that these people misattribute poverty and urban decay to illegal immigration when it’s largely a home-grown issue -- in large part due to a concerted effort from right-wing media to slander those immigrants.
And right wing media NEVER blames employers for knowingly hiring illegal laborers.
I wonder why.
And the wealth-extractive effects of those who illegally employ those same immigrants.
A shanty town? In Brooklyn? Yeah, all those hipster trusties who couldn't afford Manhattan (but can still drop 5k a month on a studio in BedStuy or Williamsburg) are really making things bad there.
You ever visited Brooklyn back when it was actually a tough place?
Yes I grew up in Brooklyn.
The black dude I am referring to was complaining about illegals permanently camping out in his neighborhood park.
> the park in his Brooklyn neighborhood has become a shanty town and he can't work out there.
That's probably more to do with homelessness than immigration, so voting Republican is going to make that worse.
> Why are Americans so passive?
Decades of copaganda paired with police brutality. A fairly large portion of americans view anyone with a badge as "the good guy" by default.
But, I think people are also fearful about what happens after the riots start. Nobody is excited about Trump using a riot as an excuse to declare martial law and deploy the military everywhere. There's still some hope that cities and states will step up and do their job. These ICE agents can and should be prosecuted.
> Are people inside the country not getting the same news we're getting on the outside?
They aren't. And unfortunately a LOT of US media is sanewashing. We have dedicated channels like fox news which are basically framing everything as "violent protesters attacking the police for trying to arrest bad guys". But even centrist and slightly left mainstream media is bending over backwards to give excuses and "both sides" this. Doing things like using a lot of passive language or just not reporting on the raids all together. You basically need to be online or tuned in to alternative media to learn about this stuff.
There's also the very simple and real fact that fascists already have the power. People are scared. There's about 30% of the citizenship who could literally drive a car through a protest or open up fire who'd be completely protected by the state for those actions. Most of the people that'd do that are already employed by ICE.
>" But even centrist and slightly left mainstream media is bending over backwards to give excuses and "both sides" this."
Our "leftist" or "centrist" news sources are owned by right wing billionaires. There is no real actual leftist or even centrist news source that has any sort of clout here in the US.
Americans aren't passive. 40% of the people are openly fascist and support this.
Just look at this site as a sample set.
Minneapolis mayor told protestors to remain peaceful. The Democrats always want to follow the rules even when the other side has abandoned them. To be fair to Mayor Frye though, Trump wants to provoke rioting to invoke the Insurrection Act, which he threatened to do today if the Democratic officials don't "fall in line". So there is that.
Americans have had 100 years of stable government and in the past political solutions have eventually been enacted. The Civil Rights bill was passed. Nixon pulled out of Vietnam. I think a lot of people are still expecting sanity to return. I hope they're right.
You've got three groups here. Federal cops, undocumented immigrants and the kind of people who turn out to protest the former acting against the latter. Very few people in this country finds any one of these groups particularly sympathetic and there's wide demographic swaths of the country that actively hate two if not all three of them. So yeah, everyone sees stuff that's very, very, wrong here, but nobody's really in any rush to intervene except the people who already are protesting.
A political solution will likely come of this, as everyone with a brain knows that the preconditions for all this shit are something that need to be prevented in the future.
Edit. To be clear, I'm talking about the people who are actually physically involved here.
There are more than three groups. What about the group of people who are unhappy that masked goons are violently arresting citizens? What about people unhappy that ICE stopped a naturalization ceremony literally minutes before they were to become citizens?
Undocumented immigrants? They’re just violently yanking random nonwhite people off the streets and figuring out who’s who later: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/ice-immigrat...
As well as going door-to-door and forcing entry without a warrant, besieging Spanish language immersion schools, and other dragnet horrors. Meanwhile, official DHS social media accounts are posting literal Stormfront ethnic cleansing memes. I’m not sure how anyone but the most ardent ethnonationalists can be OK with this. Even if you think all undocumented immigrants should be deported, "hunt them down like dogs and to hell with everyone else" is beastial.
Not attacking you OP, but oh look, the top comment again concern trolling the topic to something else less inconvenient. It's wild how common that is on HN.
Basically we Americans have given up on our system. Both on the left and the right. It's why the right elected Trump, and it's why the left silently elected Trump by not voting.
Americans are not passive. Look at the videos of any of these incidents. People are supporting those under attack, collecting evidence, and protesting. The message is clear.
Peaceful protest is the key. Riots, violence, and fighting are not peaceful and only play into the administration's aims.
When Americans resist and protest peacefully, as they have been in the largest numbers ever in the country's history, it exposes the brutality and baseness of those commiting the heinous acts.
Through such peaceful protest as we see, America will overcome this.
The big question is, what next? How to hold people accountable, fairly, while rebuilding the system and rebuilding trust?
Those things work in democratic and ordered societies though, and you need to figure out other approaches when democracy and freedom stops being something the government still cares about. The current leader of the country attempted an insurrection, yet was still allowed to become the leader after that? I think you're beyond being able to change this through just peaceful protests, although it's definitively a part of the answer.
Who are you gonna report this brutality to, when the judicial arm of the government is just following the directions of the administration? How do you hold people accountable, when the system to hold anyone accountable is being undermined?
I'm 99% we'd have actual riots on the streets
A riot is exactly what they want.
This is all about getting locals upset enough to break things, so the administration can justify sending in the military.
Rioting just gives them what they want.
This is a tried-and-true tactic employed by thugs throughout history.
Works for a while until we string up said thugs.
First, all of what you say is true. I'm going to try to add a little context as someone who is here on the ground, in the city in question.
There is the imminent threat of mass death, and no one here is under any illusions about it.
Every ICE agent is armed, and most have ready access to automatic weapons. These are not well-trained members of an elite organization with a storied, patriotic culture. ICE is a personalist paramilitary organization, and the president has indicated that these ICE agents are immune from consequences, even if they kill people. These are people who volunteered knowing they were going to go into American cities and do violence to people they perceive as their political enemies.
Most of these agents are inexperienced, jittery, poorly trained new recruits away from home. They aren't locals. Their nexus of power and governance isn't local. These are not our community members, they aren't from here, they don't know us or care about us, so they do not empathize with us.
In addition to this, the American citizenry is shockingly well armed. Because everyone involved is so well armed, everybody is slightly touchy about this descending into rioting, because there is a very short path from light rioting to what would essentially amount to civil war. The costs of such any such violence will overwhelmingly be borne by the innocent people who live here, and we know it.
So, people are trying to strike a balance of making sure these people know they aren't welcome here while trying to prevent the situation from spiraling into one in which some terrified agent mag-dumps a crowd of protestors and causes a chain reaction that results in truly catastrophic mass death.
Wish us luck, we're trying.
Thank you a lot for taking the time to share what you see there, I really appreciate it. All we can hope for is that it gets better, and that there are genuine people out there who care about others in their community, who all help each other when needed. It's really sad to hear about the realization of how quickly it could spiral but considering the situation, it's real and make sense. Thank you and good luck!
You put that perfectly, well done. I may bookmark this and show it to every person that says something like "why not just start throwing bricks".
Good luck. Is there anything those that aren't living in ones of these towns can do to help in impactful ways?
Well done, thank you.
Last night a man was shot by ICE agents, who were (reportedly) attacked with shovel(s) while trying to capture the man, injuring one ICE agent.
BEFORE this began we had 7 million people protesting simultaneously nationwide—they are "out on the street". Minneapolis has organized hundreds into rapid response teams against ICE. The killings get more news than the protests, particularly as much of the media has been bought up by republican owners.
In Philadelphia, residents are being filmed patrolling with automatic weapons in advance of ICE supposedly heading there next. Read what @asa400, another local like myself, is saying in another comment to parent.
Many locals on social media are cheering on the shootings. America is incredibly polarized right now. It's not like all the public is against the government. Nearly half of those most likely to vote in past elections support this. “It wasn’t Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me, and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who were given a uniform....” —Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor EDIT: added "(reportedly)" and rearranged sentence
>Last night ICE agents were attacked with shovels, injuring one. A man was shot.
We don't know if the shovel thing is true, video has emerged that doesn't show the shooting but does show the victim's family's 911 call in which they claim the agent shot through the door at the fleeing victim.
This was a really interesting comment and it's definitely made me re-think my outsider perspective. Thanks for posting it and good luck.
>Every ICE agent is armed, and most have ready access to automatic weapons. These are not well-trained members of an elite organization with a storied, patriotic culture. ICE is a personalist paramilitary organization, and the president has indicated that these ICE agents are immune from consequences, even if they kill people.
This is what terrified me: Not that the ICE officer shot the woman in the car. But what happened afterwards. That he muttered "fucking bitch" after shooting her, that he walked nonchalantly after shooting a person, and everybody was recording him. This person goes to his car and drives just like that ...
It's also worth noting that one function of brownshirts and blackshirts is to provoke violence against themselves, seeking to retroactively justify their existence and to justify a further crackdown.
Say all you want about how any protest, no matter how peaceful will be vilified (it will) or about how the entire foundation is built on lies (it is), but we still have some real elections coming up, and the imagery of ICE brutalizing someone who's clearly not an immigrant, not violent, not obstructing is much more rhetorically effective than that of armed clashes between government and non-governmental forces.
And as you said, many of us are still convinced that this can be solved at least partially rhetorically and electorally.
Hence the tactical frivolity Portland approach. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/10/22/trump-ice-port... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_frivolity
It's the social media evolution of non-violent confrontation, with the similar goal of making it impossible for any visual image or recording of a confrontation to seem anything other than ridiculous to the average viewer and laying bare the "violence inherent in the system" (as it were).
> but we still have some real elections coming up,
Unless the president declares a permanent temporary state of emergency for whatever reason that would prevent such elections.
There is no precedent for this. The executive lacks the authority. It would require Congress to enact a law, and this is easier said than done. The states run elections, and while the feds have some input on how elections for federal office are conducted, it is quite limited.
The vast majority of the population is relying on these protections holding.
Ah yes, all of the precedents and lawful authority that this president cares so much about adhering to.
> There is no precedent for this. The executive lacks the authority. It would require Congress to enact a law,
Does this actually matter in practice? It seems like the administration has done a bunch of things that normally requires Congress to do something, yet they were able to and I don't see anyone getting arrested. The executive have lacked the authority for lots of things, yet it doesn't seem to stop them.
I'm not saying you're wrong, in theory. But in practice it seems like those things aren't actually stopping anyone, at least not yet.
> There is no precedent for this
We are well past the point where precedents matter.
> The executive lacks the authority.
The executive lacks the authority to do more than 99% of the things done in 2025. Just about all of it is blatantly illegal or unconstitutional.
But, turns out, there is no enforcement mechanism against any of this. There is nobody that can put a stop to the illegal behavior. The legislative branch and the judicial branch can write sternly worded letters, but they have no army to enforce obedience.
Right, at which point I think many of us would be less concerned with optics.
Well said, thank you, and keep safe.
What I feared would happen appears to be happening on Saturday: anti-immigrant anti-muslim folks from outside the city and outside the state are gathering to rally in the Minneapolis Cedar-Riverside neighborhood and cause trouble.
The federal administration will use this to ratchet up the violence against peaceful protesters like myself, who are simply trying to stand up for our neighbors and friends and our city and our state. We have whistles and cell phones. The federal government has guns and is killing us.
I think the difference with Europe is that many countries have been through a form of this authoritarianism before, Franco in Spain for example, and have fought wars over it. They never want to see it happen again. The US hasn't experienced war on its soil since the Civil War and has no idea what an authoritarian government is really like. So most Americans either 1) believe the propaganda of a "strong" America (just like the Germans who supported Hitler), 2) think it's not that bad so long as they still have their cheeseburgers (so to speak), 3) think that it's pretty bad but there's nothing they can really do or it's not worth risking life and limb over, or 4) are horrified by where we're going and willing to risk life and limb to stop it. The latter are a very small group, whereas in Europe they'd be much larger. Europe already has a history of nationwide worker strikes whereas that has never been done in the US (also much more difficult being such a large country, but even statewide general strikes haven't happened).
Poorly trained police deployed into a volatile crowd with intent to draw an attack, justifying brutal retaliation by military forces. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ghorman_Massacre
eh, it's mostly racism. White america doesn't have to take to the streets with guns.they just have to yell at their peckerwood gop reps to impeach. Not a peep out of the red states though. they all wanted this.
> Why are Americans so passive?
I think it's important to realize how divided the U.S. is right now. Half the country is in favor of what ICE is doing in some form or another. Some people on the right are denouncing the _way_ ICE is accomplishing this. But they are far from outraged.
The other half of the country is as dumbfounded/shocked as the rest of the world.
This isn't like the French revolution where a majority of the country was suffering and rose up against the few.
This is very nearly 50% of the country wants to make the other 50% squirm.
It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.
The channel "The Necessary Conversation" has some good examples of just how radicalized some American's have gotten. It's 2 kids interviewing their MAGA parents. I think it's not uncommon for American's to know people like the parents in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hSysuwHw4KU
> It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.
Yeah, it's been a sharp shift, as someone who've watched/read Fox News (and other news of course) for decades out of the US. Fox News always been a bit strange with it's vitriol, but at one point, I can't remember if it was around the middle of Obama's second term, or later, but it took a really sharp turn further into emotional reporting and partisanship. Again, Fox always been a bit special, and other news channels also did similar turns further into their sides, but I can remember seeing the change as it was happening.
There is another documentary I quite liked in similar vein but on an individual level, called "Dear Kelly", that follows a far-right conspiracy theorist and tries to give some understanding into Kelly's struggles and radicalization. Released independently and can be found here: https://www.dearkellyfilm.com/
The fact that ragebait is the most effective way to drive engagement (and therefore to make money off of a captive audience) feels like the first falling domino that sunk us into our current predicament. Certainly the Murdoch empire made its fortune that way.
If the future has justice, Murdoch heirs will have to deal with the same consequences as the Sacklers.
The crime by Fox News is not that they presented a viewpoint, but that they did so at scale, in a knowingly disingenuous manner, to derive financial benefit, for decades.
The other children are also cowards for not taking the legal fight over the inheritance of Fox equity to the limit.
+1 on the Dear Kelly film! While I don't think it explains everyone's radicalization, in this scenario I can see how Kelly fell down his hole of disillusionment
I know what you mean about the country being split politically, but I think using the 50% number is a misleading illusion. Only 31.8% of the voting-age population voted for Trump, so 68% did not vote for these policies.
I get that we often assume that the non-voting population is as evenly split in their support as those who voted during the election. But I think that is going to be wildly off the mark as well. Why? current presidential approval ratings are net -15%, and 2025 elections showed avg 15% swing in district that he won in 2024. His biggest support %s are from old people, and lowest among young voters.
My prediction is that we will see political ads playing non-stop showing ICE brutalizing main street America, and showing how tariff driven inflation is destroying paychecks. The mid-terms will be a dramatic correction which is why you are seeing the ground work to call everything illegitimate or rigged, and attack our established means of voting.
As someone who was waving a "fuck ice" flag on a street corner in rural Colorado yesterday as part of our weekly protest of their facility, anecdotally I'd say about 60% of the 100 or so cars I watched looked away, with about 30% showing some active support and the other 10% or so showing active opposition.
I don't think that folks are braodly supportive of ICE here, though I think that a) the folks who do support it are loud and b) most of the folks who don't support it have fairly reformist politics and are opposed, for instance, to us protesting while open-carrying.
For the record, I am highly worried that open-carrying by the counter-ICE folks at these events will be the next escalation- I carry a stop-the-bleed kit (and did some formal training). We are more worried about getting shot by counter protestors at this point.
I don't think those percentages matter for a couple reasons
1) Voter turnout is always low, we'll see in 2028 if turnout is higher.
2) It's high enough to extrapolate the rest of the countries viewpoint. Meaning you cannot say that 68% would all fall one side or another.
In other words, 68% voting-age population are OK with the orange-man sitting on the throne
The French revolution was also extremely brutal. People idealize it but it actually sucked. The obscene political betrayal and corruption by "revolutionaries" themselves was awful and abuses lasted for multiple generations.
The French revolution isn't a good revolution to aspire to, no matter how satisfying it might feel to fantasize about it I assure you in hindsight your childrens' children would weep if that's what happened to you in the U.S.
Not saying justice isn't due: on the contrary we need to lean even further into this energy, to metabolize it. Not trying to preach either btw. Your rage is valid, trust me I have my own.
Isn't the same true of in the EU though? Immigrants and refugees from Syria were treated quite harshly and has led to a significant rise in far right parties across Europe. These parties are actively harassing immigrants and non-white groups. But there doesn't seem to be riots in the streets over it.
It's almost flipped how the US and Europe have dealt with threats. The US has a long history of organized hate groups having the run of things. I don't Europe has experienced anything like the KKK for as long. However Europe is not far removed from fascist and authoritarian regimes. So things are more fresh in the minds of citizens and they are more likely to fight them. However when attacked through another method it subverts that and allows tacit approval from the public while their neighborhoods are transformed for the worse.
> These parties are actively harassing immigrants and non-white groups. But there doesn't seem to be riots in the streets over it.
It is true, we have vigilante groups going around sometimes acting violent against people they think are immigrants, it is a real problem. It isn't all across Europe, and it isn't super common, but it happens, and that's enough.
I think the difference is in who is coordinating these efforts, because none of those vigilante groups are the country's own border patrol doing that in "official business" capacity, they're small groups of individuals usually associated with some far-right political groups, rather than tax funded government groups.
If the latter were to happen, you can be pretty sure people wouldn't put up with it, because most of us realize what's coming after that, because we were all forced to study history growing up.
> So things are more fresh in the minds of citizens and they are more likely to fight them
Yeah, this seems to be a big factor, most of us here (Europe) still have parents (and grand-parents) who remember and witnessed a lot of awful shit, and growing up would immediately reprimand you if you just pretended to like that, or carry thoughts in those veins.
We are very weary of that in Europe. I consider it to be the case thag the "Rechtsruck" (sudden movement to the right) is a global phenomenon. Alls the right extremist are orienting themselves after the model of what Trumpism is doing which at least thats true for my personally, is why I am ver y concerned of what is happening kn the US. I grew up to a jazz sax playing father to whom the culture the GI brought here was progressive and related to freedom. It feels loke that idea of the US is dead now. As to why this phenomenon is happening - i would speculate that it has to do with the polarisation that is happening in the face a ever faster progressing disintegration of the social fabric into technology accompanied by the prospect of a scarcity of resources caused by an impeding breakdown of the biosphere and the climate system with which it coevolved plus on a more local scale an extreme increase of inequality of wealth distribution.
man honestly all this stuff pisses me off but I'm just trying to survive over here in my own life. Got friends from all over but no one is really ready to put their life on the line. Like, most disagree with Trump's agenda, many find it offensive, but bottom line is staying healthy, finding work, paying bills, taking care of ppl immediately around you is more important.
Truth is, lots of Americans are really divorced from the reality undocumented immigrants are facing right now. Lots of immigrants from 10-15+ years ago aren't worried if they are law abiding (anecdotal). The online rhetoric rly doesn't match daily life in my most places aside from the active hotbeds.
You need to specify what you mean by "more than". Last night ICE agents were attacked with shovels, injuring one. A man was shot.
BEFORE this began we had 7 million people protesting simultaneously nationwide—they are "out on the street" as you put it. With protests around the country every day. Minneapolis has organized hundreds into rapid response teams against ICE. The killings get more news than the protests, particularly as much of the media has been bought up by republican owners. You seem to be missing the news, and saying it does not exist.
In Philadelphia, residents are being filmed patrolling with automatic weapons in advance of ICE supposedly heading there next. Read what @asa400, another local like myself, is saying in another comment to parent.
Many locals on social media are cheering on the shootings. America is incredibly polarized right now. It's not like all the public is against the government. Nearly half of those most likely to vote in past elections support this.
A shocking number of Americans not only think all of this is great, but they wish it was them out there shooting their neighbors.
There are a lot of differences. Americans are not being passive. For one thing, reasonable or not there is still a lot of faith in the election process and many are expecting all this craziness will put Republicans on a back seat for decades. For another, these ICE groups are well armed and operate in numbers. Many Americans are also armed and have deep misgivings about political violence and where this is headed. Where you see "passive" many of us see "knife edge". Also, many live staying busy and near exhaustion to start with and have trouble coming to grips with just how bad this is as no one has ever shown this much contempt for laws without consequences. There is an expectation that the constitution will hold any test. And those following closely understand that just about everything Trump has done including tariffs are illegal and the courts are closing in.
Worth mentioning that America does not have a protest culture like Europe. Being largely rural makes gathering for political expression impractical, and in this particular case Trump and his militias are deliberately trying to stir up chaos in order to rationalize cranking up the pressure. Protests make noise and get you targeted but what is needed now is real change.
> For one thing, reasonable or not there is still a lot of faith in the election process and many are expecting all this craziness will put Republicans on a back seat for decades.
If only the country wasn't systematically designed to favor conservatives. Low population states have way too much influence on this country. It's one of the reasons we're so fucking backwards compared to the rest of the world. We're held hostage in part by places like Wyoming and Nebraska. Our House representation has been capped so we're getting fucked on representation and the electoral college as well. On top of that, the conservative's willingness to lie and cheat certainly puts them at significant advantage as well. Stunts like convincing someone with the same name as your opponent to run as well in hopes of confusing the voters and splitting up votes to running as a Democrat only to switch as soon as elected.
Liberals just aren't equipped or willing to fight against conservative fuckery. If liberals fought half as hard to support their lip services towards helping people as conservatives fought for fucking people over, we might actually make progress in this country.
Y'all got guns over there?
I'm guessing that the lady laying on her horn protesting ICE doesn't have many (or any) close friends/family
Why then don't people unite against the dominance of not very friendly and culturally alien migrants, Muslims?
Because your premise is untrue.
Do you mean there's no problem? The appalling situation in France, Sweden, Great Britain and Belgium with crime, rapes, harassment of local residents and the associated financial losses on benefits is striking. Perhaps the situation is better in Spain - I haven't visited Spain in a long time.
American here; studied and lived in France and participated in some big protests there. The US just doesn't have the protest/strike culture that Europe has, it's not part of our tradition; the majority of people don't even know how or understand the implications...Also most cities in the US are built for cars , not pedestrians and people on the street.
I remember 5 years ago americans said same things about russian civil unrest. No grand penalty for violent rioting, you can get off with just prison time!
There is a vast difference between believing that your nation would riot hard and having to risk your own life knowing that your loved ones that would be devastated if something happens.
> Why are Americans so passive? You're literally transitioning into straight up authoritarianism, yet where are the riots?
In the same place. You just aren't seeing footage of them on HN.
> Is there more stuff actually happening on the ground
There is, and there is lots of video of it. You only need search elsewhere.
I have seen such footage. It's all over the place. I've cited examples of what I've seen in other comments. You can infer keyword search terms from the descriptions and should be able to find them readily with any search engine.
> Are you not witnessing your government carrying out extra-judicial murders and then being protected by that same government?
They are not "extra-judicial murders". The only people who have died so far have been those whose actions presented a serious threat to the life or safety of federal officers.
Anyone who disagrees with my claim is welcome to provide contradictory evidence.
You're just describing a recipe for agents opening fire into a crowd. The opposition is doing it right: demonstrate to ICE that they're nonviolent, well coordinated, and much more numerous.
If violence is warranted, the time and place for it is not when they're all together, armed to the teeth, and looking for a fight. It's when they're off duty, alone, and not expecting a confrontation.
Where does the Palantir app come into any of these stories?
If you work for Palantir and if you work on these systems: You have blood on your hands. You know that it's not right what is happening on the ground right now. Do something.
The particular problem here is the vast majority of people that are writing this software
1. Don't care, blood is great.
2. Think they are the good guys.
3. Are more worried about their next paycheck and having bad things happen to them related to not paying rent.
Yes, Palantir folks have self selected for the first two over and over - anyone working there for many years now is completely blacklisted from anything I touch, when someone advertises ex-Palantir folks in the job description I know I can safely avoid that company forever.
I would never allow one of them to be hired via any hiring process I have influence over.
The unfortunate converse is there are plenty of other software companies looking for that .gov money that would pick these less than scrupulous employees right up.
Same. I would never allow anyone who has Palantir on their resume to be hired in any company I have influence over. They are the brownshirts of the tech industry, worse even than the people poisoning children's minds at Meta.
> 3. Are more worried about their next paycheck and having bad things happen to them related to not paying rent.
i feel like a broken record: anyone with a resume good enough for Palantir would have no problem finding work for another company/public sector employer. but they stay.
They pay a lot
Another arm of the murder cult
As would any other job that these devs could get. If you're working at Palantir, it very isn't likely because of of financial desperation.
Guess why
In this job market, nothing is guaranteed. I'm struggling and I talked to devs with double my experience who had networks freeze up. Strange times.
I'd like to invite you to prove any three of your points.
It’s hard to prove without knowing the app devs, but for points 1 & maybe 2, we can look at whether Americans think the raids are justified.
28% of them think they are [0]. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that the devs would be part of that number
Edit: it looks like the poll it’s for the recent incident of the woman who was shot - my mistake. Then I would assume the number for the raids themselves is higher
[0]: https://x.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016
You don't think most people are motivated by their personal paychecks?
People need paychecks. Not everyone is going to get to build and lead their own businesses?
When we stop tying our health insurance to our employment, we'll see a drastic uptick in people starting their own businesses. Working at company Z because their health insurance is fully paid for by the employer vs working at company Y where it costs you 1,400 a month for HDHP but the salaries are the same shouldn't be a thing
At least that's my theory.
> JP Doherty did not want to sign the email. But he knew he didn’t have a choice. His son, Rhys, was scheduled to have strabismus surgery in January, correcting an eye issue that made it difficult for him to walk on his own. The procedure cost $10,000 out of pocket. Doherty discussed the decision with his wife, and while she wanted him to be able to quit, they both knew the kids needed his health insurance. [0]
Regarding Musk's "hardcore" ultimatum at Twitter.
[0]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-ultimatum
Then what, pray tell, is their motivation?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
Getting a worker to understand that their work negatively affects innocent people is a big uphill battle.
That's not my experience from the time I worked for Google. The popular sentiment was actually "We now work for a company that dropped 'don't be evil' and that sucks". See Manu Cornet comics - they are a pretty good reflection of the sentiment I'm talking about, a random example https://goomics.net/387
And it's not like everyone just complained for moral posturing and then continued to wipe the tears of disgust with wads of cash. Many people who left also mentioned the ethics part as why they left.
Due to background, I know a lot of people who work at google, and while many of them will give lipservice to ethical concerns, none of them have made any changes at all because, and this is an exact quote, "the money is too good."
In a thread last year a Palantir employee said most of them were either Indian, East Asians, or laid off and/or unemployable White males. Good luck guilt-tripping any of them.
Note: I'm not American, nor White/WASP, nor Asian.
I don’t think it’s really this simple. Palantir is a major government contractor that enables it to be more tech savvy. It’s embedded through hundreds of teams / agencies. You can’t remain a credible partner if you play morality police on every workflow. Palantir has worked through multiple administrations of both parties and have to support whoever is in power to have a seat at the table.
Ultimately the question is just: would you prefer to have a competent or incompetent government?
Otherwise you can agree or disagree with government policies, but that shouldn’t be directed at tech vendors, it should be directed at politicians and people in government / at the voting booth.
> Ultimately the question is just: would you prefer to have a competent or incompetent government?
Is this a joke? Have you looked at the current administration?
Haha, true, although I meant competent from a tech perspective. The reason Palantir is even in the building is because the government is notoriously bad at technology.
You need to separate government institutions ability to use tech from Trumps obvious buffoonery.
I am thinking that whether I want a technically competent federal government depends entirely on who I think will be running it in the future. Right now the technical incompetence, such that it exists, works to our advantage.
> You can’t remain a credible partner if you play morality police on every workflow
Sure. That's the price to pay for not setting morality aside. One that they're not willing to pay.
Palantir's ICE contract itself is 30 million over 2 years. Thats 15 mil a year, where this past year's total revenue was ~4B. Thats about .00375 of their revenue. I hardly think it's the literal contract money they care so deeply about.
Here's a better question, in line with your positioning... Is Palantir necessary to a "competent government"
I think you know the answer to that.
The government is notoriously terrible at tech. Are you debating that? Out of the top tech talent over the last 20 years, how many of them do you suppose work in FAANG vs the US government?
I'm not saying Palantir specifically is necessary, but I do think finding avenues for Silicon valley to help the US government is necessary for them to be tech competent.
Not surprised. At least 30% of the population voted for the current president. Should be some software developers among those?
A fair number, I assure you, I know plenty.
Wouldn't be surprised if proportionately more software devs supported this. Tech is still a fast track to riches so they would fall for the narrative more than the average worker.
"The most monstrous monster is the monster with noble feelings"
You forgot another point--or it could be related to #3: off-shoring and H1B. Many people are just working the job and working on a small piece of software where they don't know or care about the ramification of project. They're getting paid and even if they know what's happening, they're not incentivized to care about what happens in America.
I assume if someone works for Palantir they're an unabashed Yarvinist and fine with it.
That's a pretty broad generalization, but OK I'll bite.
- I think Yarvin has a lot of good points. No one should be ashamed to admit the truth of a matter. I can't stand his voice, I think he has annoying mannerisms, but nonetheless the man has a point and I'm not ashamed (especially by unknown and strange online personas) to say so.
- Palantir is objectively a profitable job. I've learned a lot here and the people I work with are brilliant.
- I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument.
Let's be honest, simply conjecturing that someone ascribes to a political view isn't discourse. It's a potshot. You're assuming that anyone who reads your comment and leans in your direction is going to agree and vote with you. This is literally the lowest and cheapest form of engagement. It's also the most self serving. It does nothing to advance the conversation or prove your point.
Most importantly, this is the exact type of behavior that is furthering political polarization and discouraging actual discourse.
Really shows the state of things right now tbh.
I'm vouching for this comment (even though I disagree with it) as it's important to hear dissenting views.
Can you elaborate on some of Yarvin's points you think are good?
https://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744
Honest-to-God truthfully, reading Moldbug is what made me realize the speciousness of pure rightism and ushered my journey from a rightist-axiomatic "Libertarian" / ancap to a centrist-qualitative libertarian-without-labels that sees left and right thinking as both necessary parts of a complete whole. But YMMV, apparently!
In general I think whenever you find a "red pill", you also end up confronted with a whole slew of new easy answers. Whether you end up buying into them or not really comes down to who you are as a person.
I will never ever understand the construct of right / left / red / blue / lib / conservative without having to take a really dumb view of the world and its human inhabitants.
The problem is that left/right are highly appealing because they claim to have the world figured out. The strongest manifestation being the authoritarians (of either ilk) that think they just need to implement their chosen top-down policies and every problem will end up being solved by construction.
Can you describe at what point someone would “have blood on their hands” in your view?
The problem in my mind is that these systems are exclusively in service of dishonesty. ICE is clearly being used to further political ends. If it were actually trying to stem immigration it wouldn’t concentrate its officers in a state with one of the lowest rates of illegal immigrants.
Are you saying you agree with that cause or that you bear no responsibility?
It makes perfect sense to concentrate law enforcement in a state that is in defiance. Even if the absolute numbers are low, the state cannot back down from enforcing the law because some people are resisting. Otherwise you invite anyone to disregard any law they don’t like. The state won’t allow this and the only way to overcome this is either to change the law or toss out the government, and only one options is realistic. And btw I am against deportations of people who have committed no felonies unrelated to immigration.
I think most people involved in protests would not characterize the thing they are resisting as merely "law enforcement". What they are experiencing is an occupation by a politically weaponized paramilitary organization which is going door-to-door in their neighborhoods wearing masks, wielding ARs, yelling at people and brutalizing them. How do you think you would react if this was taking place in your community?
Of course the brutality is not desirable, but to stay in perspective, what would you suggest they do to still enforce the law efficiently but without this forcefulness? They can’t do it the normal way when they are constantly watched and their targets are warned beforehand by whistles and apps and they can’t and shouldn’t back down on enforcing the law.
I don't accept the framing that this is about law enforcement in the first place. I believe that this administration is run by xenophobic right wing extremists who care little for the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. They have weaponized ICE against the Somali community in Minneapolis today, the overwhelming majority of whom are legal refugees. As we have seen, they will not hesitate to weaponize ICE against anyone else who crosses them. I believe the organization does not exist to protect or serve the interests of the American public and should be abolished.
The American public has sadly elected this administration. I agree with you in principle, especially when legal immigrants become targets. But again, if the actions of this administration are not just morally wrong but illegal there are courts, and in any case there are elections. The people of one state or one city can not obstruct the will of the Union, it is fundamentally undemocratic way of interfacing with the fairly elected government.
I'm sorry, but if you still have any expectation that this administration will engage in good faith in any democratic process, you either haven't been paying attention or are engaging in willful self-delusion. They do not believe in democracy. They care about free speech only insofar as they can use it to claim they are being victimized, but will gleefully take it away from their opponents. They laugh in your face while they pardon the J6 insurrectionists. The presidential election is not and ought not be a referendum on whether or not we all get to have our rights trampled by gun-toting masked goons. At a certain point you have to stand up for what's right--that is, a reclamation of democracy.
Efficiency has never been a goal of US governance, especially in how it interacts with the People. This is deliberate. Read up on the events around the American Revolution if you want to see why that is. There are actually a lot of arguments being trotted out today that were trotted out back then, by the British.
> what would you suggest they do to still enforce the law efficiently but without this forcefulness
How about not violating the 5th amendment by going door to door through neighborhoods randomly? I don't give a single FUCK if ICE can do their jobs today if they have to violate half the damn bill of rights to do it.
I expect them to enforce the law without breaking the law. I want the job of any law enforcement agency to be hard. Not because I want lawlessness, but because the government has a rightful burden to surpass to prove that it's citizens are in the wrong. The government is supposed to serve the citizenry and not the other way around.
We have a freedom of speech and protest precisely to signal our discontent with our leaders. It is precisely for citizens to harass law enforcement that they view as unjust.
The entire reason we got those freedoms spelt out in the constitution in the first place was because of British occupation and the views that the British governments laws and enforcement were unjust. There is a direct parallel. The spirit of the 3rd amendment is that we should be able to kick out law enforcement that we hate. That we don't have to tolerate their presence.
I mean this idea of defiance is absurd. People here are 99.9% exercising their constitutional rights. The majority of crimes happening at this moment are ICE infringing on people’s constitutional rights. I appreciate you sharing your perspective but that logic exists in isolation from the reality. ICE are so bad at policing they are creating more crimes than they are solving.
Of course with the Trump FBI the message is loud and clear, those crimes will not be investigated
ICE officers are bad at policing because they were a paper pusher/investigative agency which should always be assisted by local law enforcement. Most of the other feds operate like that. The administration dramatically increased ICE workload and in addition to that the local police is not always cooperative, and they are being obstructed by protesters. Of course they are fumbling around and making lots of mistakes, but again, they can not give up on enforcing the federal law.
> It makes perfect sense to concentrate law enforcement in a state that is in defiance
Using the word "defiance" indicates that your perspective is decidedly not American.
Both the States and the Federal government are co-sovereign, mediated by the US Constitution that spells out the rights and responsibilities of each. The Federal government is currently in willful and flagrant default of this founding charter - both overall in terms of how it is supposed to function (offices being executed in good faith forming checks and balances), as well as openly flouting the handful of hard limits outlined in the Bill of Rights. As such, the Federal government has lost the legal authority to dictate anything to the States.
It is of course still prudent to recognize the realpolitik of the "Federal government" having command of a lawless paramilitary force currently unleashing terror and mayhem on civil society. But the point is that we need to work towards re-establishing law and order in terms of the remaining functioning sovereigns.
They are certainly NOT co-sovereign, that is an absurd statement as states cannot leave the Union. Any sovereign party can withdraw from a treaty. The states are represented in their ability to collectively steer the federal government by Congress and the Electoral College. The feds are currently enforcing the ill will of both which sadly is the result of last elections.
I said co-sovereign, not that they're both independently sovereign (required for your treaty example). This is straightforward law, go read up on it. States are considered sovereign themselves, with powers limited by the US Constitution - the same qualification as the Federal government.
It's honestly besides the point. For even if I accept their sovereignty, they have exercised their sovereign will in the Electoral College to elect this administration. And they always have the power to impeach it through their representatives, the administration did not take that away, nor did they suspend the Congress, nor do they appear to be preparing to wrongfully influence the next elections. A state can not go and rebel against the Union because it disagrees with the current administration. Hell, the Union can literally change the Constitution against the will of a particular state if enough other states agree. You can consider states sovereign if you want, and I concede that it's an established tradition, but when the whole agreement on the separation of powers can be changed with a particular state voting against it - that's a mockery of sovereignty of that state.
Sorry, this is a whole ball of post-hoc motivated reasoning.
> For even if I accept their sovereignty, they have exercised their sovereign will in the Electoral College to elect this administration
Simply repeating the word "sovereign" doesn't mean you've applied and fully accounted for the definition.
> A state can not go and rebel against the Union
I'm not talking about rebellion here, but the provision of law and order in spite of the federal government's policies of repeated lawbreaking.
> when the whole agreement on the separation of powers can be changed with a particular state voting against it - that's a mockery of sovereignty of that state.
This subject is not like computer programming where finding some lever you can pull to affect an axiomatic-deductive result invalidates the independent meaning of the original thing. If two-thirds of the states actually wanted to scrap the current Constitution and turn the federal government into an autocracy with two impotent patronage-review councils, then you would have a point. As it stands, you do not - the entire point of these necessary supermajorities is to put the brakes and pull us towards a foundation of individual liberty and limited government when things are close to evenly divided.
As I said, you really need to read up on the founding of this country. It's got all of these dynamics and more - including the "liberal media".
I don't think I would ever "have blood on my hands" in my current position as a software developer because Gotham and Foundry have valid and real world use cases that are being implemented in ways that actually make people safe across the nation. That's honestly just the truth. Can people, or and organizations use any given product for nefarious ends? Absolutely. Do we try to mitigate it? Very much so.
At the end of the day it sounds like the people making this argument don't really like how ICE is using the product. That's unfortunate, but it seems like the response is making a proximation error though. For those taking this view: Do you yell at farmers for planting, growing and packaging strawberries because you're upset about the obesity crisis and people's craving for strawberry flavored products? Do you run out into the fields and grab them by the shoulders saying "This is your fault!". I'd hazard not.
There is a larger epistemological argument to be had there, but needless to say I'm just not convinced that any sober person believes that qualitatively ascribing moral outrage to a single group of people is really that simple.
>I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument.
Yes, yes, the little hands at the gestapo that were just filling up forms for deportation do not have blood in their hands, we know. Tried and failed defense, many times.
>No one should be ashamed to admit the truth of a matter.
Yet supports a regime that is censoring colleges, getting workers fired over their political views, pressuring and shutting down press, and more.
The point clearly only matters for truths they like.
>Palantir is objectively a profitable job
And ICE offering 50k signing bonuses. How much is your soul worth?
>I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument.
Dismissing ethics as a salient argument is exactly why pathos is effective. If you were truly without shame you wouldn't be affected by the argument. Deflecting shows shame. I've meet a few sociopaths and this isn't how they respond.
>Most importantly, this is the exact type of behavior that is furthering political polarization and discouraging actual discourse.
Citizens are being killed on the street as we speak by their government. This is not a time to say "but why can't we just get along". There is literal blood on their hands. Maybe yours, I don't know.
And I'm beyond tired of this because this was warned from day one. But it was dismissed by overly reactionary and dramatic (I can pull up many of the flagged threads here). It's tiring because this wasn't some freak accident we correct, but a year of escalation that was designed by the administration.
If you're fine with that to self preserve your lifestyle, then I hope you are a sociopath. Otherwise, that does indeed eat at your soul, deservedly.
Just saw this. Hope you feel better. It seems you were really going through it when you wrote this.
it's funny how now days you can spot a tool by how they want to make sure the nuance of the fascist prick argument is being heard. I hear it. It sucks.
PLTR stock peaked at $200 last year and has been going back up so far this year. People are investing in CCP style tech and don't care.
A Palantir rep was supporting one of our exercises late last summer, and he said "Knowing what I know about how the military is going all-in on Maven....I recommend buying Palantir stock."
I picked up a few shares, but I haven't checked if Palantir's growth has been unique or part of a general military-industrial complex melt-up.
Free blood money.
Nah, free blood money was when my General Dynamics shares went from $60->$120, then did a stock split and went from $60-> ~$100. I think that was in....2005? The Stryker (a GD product) was coming into service in Iraq, which drove my purchasing decision. I was an E-4 in Korea at the time and thought I was a defense stock-picking genius.
I had to pull out of US stocks/market completely last year after I felt dirty just having money in a country sliding into authoritarianism. Interesting where different people draw different lines :)
Same. I was actually disappointed to find out my "excluding US" fund had 0.93% exposure to the US. I want it to nil.
They're both free blood money, I won't allow these deflections to go uncontested.
Man, back when I was doing Big Consulting (including gov't/defense) I had to affirmatively declare every year to Legal that I wasn't directing any investment purchases or doing anything that could be construed as improper use of nonpublic knowledge. And now Palantir reps just out here pushing insider trading tips like it's nothing, smdh.
The US gov (including ICE) uses all of Microsoft Office for coordination and planning: email, spreadsheets, powerpoint, document generation, etc. Would you say Microsoft employees have blood on their hands too? If not, what makes Microsoft different?
The same difference between a kitchen knife and an AK 47
From the article for context:
> Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address
So essentially, the relevant app here is custom built in order to help ICE raids.
That's substantially different from generic office tech where ICE happen to be one of millions of users.
You're going to have to explain to me why it's a bad thing or immoral for the government to be aware of where immigrants who legally need to be deported live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
That’s not an answer. Please explain why it’s a bad thing that Palantir had produced an application that shows ICE agents the probable addresses of people they’re supposed to deport along with information about them.
If the answer is “I don’t believe in immigration law and the government should not enforce it regardless of what people vote for”, that’s a completely acceptable answer.
I wasn't answering you. I was calling out the vicious sleight of hand where you reduce what ICE is doing to the innocently-sounding "immigrants who legally need to be deported".
That’s what they’re doing, once you peer through the mad filter of propaganda that’s popular in some small circles.
Because these systems are not only used on illegal immigrants. To give you a very clear example: a US citizen was murdered without any due process a few days ago by ICE.
Because surveilling people -- PEOPLE, not citizens -- without probable cause is a violation of the US constitution?
It is a bad thing because it leads to innocent people being brutalized, it's a violation of the constitution, it's very clearly the primary tool of an increasingly authoritarian government?
“Due process” is not a magic incantation. This is emotional, moralizing rhetoric that doesn’t persuade anyone. People who insert themselves into operations involving the state’s actors who have a monopoly on violence are risking their lives and legal jurisprudence has upheld the state’s actions to stop them by whatever means necessary in similar cases many, many times. And it’s obvious things could not operate in any other way. The state cannot give you a free pass to stop the operation of law enforcement and they definitely can’t give you a free pass to run over the agents of the state. “Due process” does not factor in to live situations that have a risk of death or injury. (It also doesn’t mean a court case. People talk about it in this thread as though the administrative orders issued by immigration judges aren’t due process.)
I don’t have a problem if people want to acknowledge this and risk their lives knowingly in protest of whatever they don’t like, but it’s absurd to pretend that’s not what you’re doing. I don’t think that’s what’s happening though when Good’s girlfriend asked why they were using real bullets.
The state having your address is also not surveillance in any meaningful sense.
edit: I'm ratelimited so I can't reply to the reply: no, he didn't answer. These people did get due process. So it's about something else. ICE is being used for its legally authorized purpose, which yes, includes removing people who illegally hinder them.
He answered your question perfectly now you're rolling your eyes at the concept of due process, which has little to do with the original conversation (why is Palantir bad?) Do you just like being contrarian?
That person isjustifying using deadly force on someone who was driving away, by the command of said shooter. This is the exact kind of person who is the reason this regime isn't unilaterally overturned.
The term to consider here is >extrajudical killing< As in: Someone wotking for the executive kills another citizen, without 1) a need to do so for selfdefense 2) any justification from the judicary for it, and that without being charged for murder/aggrevated manslaugther. The argument: they are not doing what this law enforcement person wants do do of them (whether that obstruction is legal or not), so they are free to be killed is nothing but the total disregard for the law, any decency and the respect for human life and dignity. In short it is lynchmob mentality.
The argument is that people recklessly driving their vehicles with a total disregard for the lives around them are a danger to the people in front of their car and anyone else on the street, which is recognized by the Supreme Court even when nobody is directly in front of the car. They don’t have to wait until you kill someone and get tried for it. They can legally just shoot you under current law. That’s what the courts say.
Self-defense is, however, an entirely plausible defense in this scenario, even if the agent could have acted differently to not be in the path of someone already behaving erratically, and even if people only with the benefit of slo-mo multi-angle replays don’t think so. That’s why nobody is being charged. This happens all the time, unfortunately. The minute you choose to endanger people around you in the presence of people with guns, you’ve rolled the dice on your life.
So do you have any actual examples of what you’re describing?
What? You know someone in thisbthread made the argument, that it is not smart to shoot at someone driving at you because it won't stop the car. The truth of that can be seen in the recording of the video where renne nicole is being shot by that ICE person. The car is driving right on till it crashes into a mast or post or whatever these things are called. At this point her brain must be blown all over the interior of the car, since he had that gun on her head before the car started. You know. The guy was standing to the side of the car, and that woman must have been scarred for her life. I mean when you're so close, you must feel what is going on. And I think it is clear where the car will be going by the point that man decided to pull the trigger. Watch the video closely again. Imaging standing there with the gun. You would feel the rotation of her boy propagating through the pistol that is elongating your hand. You feel how the car is movjng away from you, even so you want it to stop and want the dooe to open up. You must see the thoughts and emotions of that woman running over her face as she decides to disobey and flee. What I see is someone who wants someone else to obey and to control them and is so entitled to the idea that the woman in the car should do, that when she doesn't do as he wants, the inhibition that a person who is representing the state doesn't work anymore and the impulse to take control and to take power is taking over. And he pulls the trigger. I mean that is what I think I see when I watch the video. You described your perception. (That isn't even to contadicting. You argue that starting the car and (potentially) fleeing, is legitimage reason to kill someone. To me that is insane but so is everybody carrying weapons, so there is that. Especially non police having these privileges that are normally reserved for highly trained and sworn in police (that have in my understanding absolutely have to weigh the risk to their life against the certainty to end that of someone they are there to protect, even if that person acts against there will. Where I live it is assumed that the impulse to flee is and to preserve yourself is extremely strong in every individual so, that attemptimg to do so does not constitute a crime/felony or whatever) Anyways: to get from disagreements in perspective and assumptions about what is right and wrong to something that can be the foundation of a civil society (as opposed to the "lawless wild west" as the sayinf goes) there is written law and independent judical processes in which these assumptions and perspectives are weight againsg each other. So that is what should be happening. People not having to undergo this scrutiny after such an act hat ended someone elses life means and being protected from that is so inlawfull I miss the right terms to qualify it. Something about lynching, mobs, lawlessness and disregard for humaan life and dignity all sanctioned by the highest political authority of your country.
>The argument is that people recklessly driving their vehicles with a total disregard for the lives around them are a danger to the people in front of their car and anyone else on the street
And my argument is that no matter what SCOTUS law one cites, or hand-waving about self-defense that is said, that shooting her in the head from the side of the car was not only tactically unnecessary, but objectively made the situation worse in a way that a competent person should immediately recognize.
One does not need slow-mo to see she wasn't trying to kill anyone.
>The minute you choose to endanger people around you in the presence of people with guns, you’ve rolled the dice on your life.
This is shorthand for "comply or die". Welcome to the free world. I wonder if Europe and Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the world know what they're missing by not having LEO as qualified as ICE running their streets.
> One does not need slow-mo to see she wasn't trying to kill anyone.
She accelerated her car before turning the wheels knowing people were in the path of her car. (Even if you argue that the wheels spinning before the wheels turn doesn't count, cars do not turn rotate on their central axis, so accelerating while turning still endangers people in front of the car.) Nobody can read her mind but the possible consequences of that action are obvious. Legally that constitutes intent, regardless of what we might want to project on her state of mind.
Further, if you do want to talk about state of mind, you cannot argue that any person behaving rationally would choose to commit a felony and flee from LEO in a vehicle in the first place. This is an extremely high-risk move for zero benefit and the video confirms it didn't even take place out of panic, which was my original thought. On the ground in that situation there can be no analysis of "what is she thinking" because she abandoned the reasonable course that anyone there would have expected her to take.
> that shooting her in the head
No confirmed gunshot wound is in her head. Where did you hear this? It appears the ICE officer fired center of mass, as two confirmed gunshot wounds are in her chest and one in her arm.
I realize that arguing these technical issues will not change your mind, because for you the emotion of "people dying is bad" trumps all the reasons it happened. But I hope it will get you to consider what other people are thinking.
> tactically unnecessary, but objectively made the situation worse
That isn't clear at all because you cannot know what the counterfactual is. There were armed people who could have shot James Fields before he accelerated into a crowd. If they had, Heather Heyer would be alive today. If they had shot him, then people would be making the same argument you're making. Hitting the gas while your car is surrounded by people is no different than firing a gun randomly. In the very best case, your are operating a deadly weapon with a total disregard for human life. In some situations (self-defense), that may be justified. But it is not innocent.
The way to stop this from happening is to stop encouraging people to commit crimes by interfering with law enforcement. There are other effective ways to protest. Another good start would be winning elections. Encouraging people to get into violent encounters with law enforcement is risking peoples' lives for nothing. Once you choose violence you don't know where it's going to go.
I highly disagree with your analysis. And yes, some of my perspective is based on the ideology that the ICE agents are largely incompetent, racist, hateful human beings led by people of the same quality.
You are correct, she didn't get shot in the head, she was shot in the chest and lived for 20 minutes while she was denied medical attention.
Any resistance to tyranny will involve disobedience of varying levels of severity. This administration is fascist in the true meaning of the word. A woman blocked the street, got killed then called a f*cking b*tch by the cop after he shot her, and a domestic terrorist before her body was cold by the DHS secretary and president and vice president.
You say she shouldn't have been there. I say ICE shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have issued conflicting orders, shouldn't have gotten in front of her car, and should have kept going around her like they had been. I say her demeanor before she left meant she clearly was not trying to harm anyone. Period.
Authority is not ipso facto moral.
> shouldn't have issued conflicting orders
There were no conflicting orders, unless you mean ICE telling her to get out of the car while Good's partner yells "drive, baby drive!"
> shouldn't have gotten in front of her car,
It certainly would have been smarter for the ICE agent on a personal welfare level, but the idea that the cops have to leave you an escape route is silly. It's policy mostly for police safety; from everyone elses' standpoint, you don't get to say "the cops have stopped me and I don't have a way out so I have no choice but to run them over."
> Any resistance to tyranny will involve disobedience of varying levels of severity. This administration is fascist in the true meaning of the word.
Right, well, I think it's pretty clear that anyone who is out protesting and resisting the incompetent, hateful, and violent thugs of a fascist regime should absolutely, 100% expect to be killed. I mean, that's what fascist thugs do. Instead, Good and her partner appear to have been caught totally off guard, with her partner demanding to know why they had real bullets. There's a disconnect somewhere.
Anyway, I guess one of my overarching points is that this is not actually unusual police behavior, even by international standards. It's getting so much attention because of its political salience. I don't know (and doubt) there is any coordination going on, but in these situations I think people should always ask themselves why: a) this event, like many others, is incorrectly being treated as unprecedented or beyond the norm and b) why it is so emotionally charged when similar past events were not, c) whether the emotionality is productive at all personally and d) whether the outrage is likely to lead to desirable political consequences. For a closely related example in the lattermost question, I am no lover of cops, but it appears the actual political results of the BLM protests were highly mixed, at best, and in some cases made things worse. So, for example, returning to a situation where we have immigration laws and minimal enforcement is clearly not a desirable end for anyone except maybe some classes of businessmen.
>There were no conflicting orders
Factually incorrect. Now then,
It got a lot of attention because it is death, because it was avoidable, because it was the responsibility of ICE to make it avoidable, and because popular tension breaks at unpredictable moments. Hers happened to be on video from a thousand different angles.
Your rhetoric waffles between support of the actions of the authorities, and you seem to drift between satire and reality. "I'm no lover of cops" while you victim blame a woman for getting killed.
>I think it's pretty clear that anyone who is out protesting and resisting the incompetent, hateful, and violent thugs of a fascist regime should absolutely, 100% expect to be killed
Given the amount of energy you are expending to defending the actions of officers in this instance, I assume you are a supporter of this administration and their actions.
> Factually incorrect
Feel free to post a video showing the conflicting orders. As best I can determine, this was just early (and very typical) misinformation. I could be wrong!
> responsibility of ICE to make it avoidable
I disagree. I don't see that LEOs have some sort of moral responsibility to make sure they aren't standing where they can be run over. People have a moral responsibility to not drive recklessly.
> "I'm no lover of cops" while you victim blame a woman for getting killed.
It is certainly an unfortunate situation, but if you can set aside your moral outrage, looking at the chain of cause-and-effect, she definitely took actions that had a very high probability of leading to being shot. Do you disagree? I don't see how looking at this shooting from a moral framing is sensible or likely to be productive in any way regardless of which side "wins" and is able to execute policy based on it.
> It got a lot of attention because it is death, because it was avoidable, because it was the responsibility of ICE to make it avoidable, and because popular tension breaks at unpredictable moments
See, I don't think it's actually unpredictable at all. There are very good reasons there aren't mass riots in Canada over police not in any particular danger shooting up someone driving a stolen truck, and there are for Americans ICE shooting a woman who, at best, disobeyed clear instructions and operated her vehicle with a reckless disregard for human life.
Too late to edit, but:
> I wonder if Europe and Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the world know what they're missing by not having LEO as qualified as ICE running their streets.
"Europe" is of course not a place, but maybe you'd be surprised to know this does happen in "Europe" and other countries. In fact France specifically legalized police shooting vehicles fleeing traffic stops even if the police themselves are not in danger, and about a dozen people are killed that way every year.
Heck, here's a video of a shooting in Canada where the police fired at someone just trying to get away:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lbqjBauouE
>This is emotional, moralizing rhetoric that doesn’t persuade anyone.
If the constitution is now just "emotional rhetoric", then we are lost. No point showing you the article breaking down every bit of conduct in this situation if you dont care aboht law.
This will be a civil war with the only winner being China. Good luck.
I'll engage.
First: I do not believe immigration laws should be enforced in their entirety vis-a-vis mass deportation. Decades of flawed immigration laws, flawed employment laws and flawed enforcement have led to the current situation where millions of people are in this country undocumented, who are otherwise law-abiding, decent people who contribute to their communities and love the US. The rhetoric about immigrants being a drain on society are flawed at best, and hatefully wrong and bad faith at worst.
Second: If we want to get a handle on immigration volume and change the system so fewer people are undocumented, the correct response logistically and morally is to create a path to legal status (not citizenship) for those currently here, who have been here for a long time, who have families and who have not committed violent crime.
Third: If someone wanted to maximize the effectiveness of immigration enforcement resources for the purpose of safety using deportation, they would still be doing targeting of violent offenders. They clearly are not. Stephen Miller wants all undocumented people out of this country because he is a white supremacist. When "moderating forces" in the administration tried to push back on raids at farms and factories, Miller angrily protested and got Trump to change his mind back to indiscriminate mass deportation.
Third, pt 2: If Republicans were serious about measured but effective reforms to reduce immigration, they would have accepted the 2024 legislative package that capped asylum volume and vastly increased border patrol and border judiciary resources to expedite cases and get people back out of the country in a fraction of the time the current system requires. Instead, they wanted to win the 2024 election with immigration as a wedge issue, and they want to pursue a maximalist position of fear and mass removal.
Fourth: The US federal government is a semi-democracy. We have a single-choice, no-runoff election system in most of the country that forces an extremist-friendly two party system, and the presidential election is further removed from popular choice by the electoral college. The president is the least "democratic" elected position in the nation. I do not think most people support the extent of the violence and maximalism of the administration.
Fifth: The surveillance technology being adopted by the government is not being used solely on undocumented citizens.
Finally: If I were in charge and wanted to take a stance on immigration, I would do largely what was in the 2024 bill, I would set up a work visa program for industries that heavily utilize undocumented labor, and I would target recent arrivals and criminals for deportation - not all undocumented residents.
---
TLDR: We're arresting and deporting veterans, PhD students critical of US policy, and people who have lived here for decades as part of the "American Dream" who have done no harm to our country. What is being done is not in the name of safety nor does it even indirectly improve the lives of Americans. Surveillance and tracking tools are being deployed against all citizens. In the broader context of the behavior and statements of Miller/Trump/Vance et al, this is part of a multi-pronged attack on democracy and the freedom of citizens from government intrusion.
Edit: and all of this debate is without the context of an administration that has declared itself above the law domestically and internationally, that has invaded a country for oil and is currently preparing to invade a treaty member of our strongest military alliance to steal their natural resources. So if the parent wonders why some people are hostile at debating this, it's because to debate the point at all is to ignore obvious truths.
>The rhetoric about immigrants being a drain on society are flawed at best, and hatefully wrong and bad faith at worst.
Ironically all the big wealthy GOP donors all hire illegal laborers to clean their homes and mow their lawns, and to maintain the golf courses at clubs they belong to. But we can't actually have the conversation about illegal immigration get to the root causes of why immigrants are actually here, now can we?
> Stephen Miller wants all undocumented people out of this country because he is a white supremacist.
Another point of irony - most of the ardent white nationalists from the heartland of America would be aghast to learn that Miller is a rich Jew from Southern California whose grandparents were immigrants. For a lot of them, Jews are explicitly NOT white nor are they American.
> If Republicans were serious about measured but effective reforms to reduce immigration, they would have accepted the 2024 legislative package that capped asylum volume and vastly increased border patrol and border judiciary resources to expedite cases and get people back out of the country in a fraction of the time the current system requires.
Or, even earlier, they could have backed e-Verify as federal minimum standard for all employment as far back as the 1980s. But no, let's not go after the businesses hiring illegal laborers.
> Or, even earlier, they could have backed e-Verify as federal minimum standard for all employment as far back as the 1980s. But no, let's not go after the businesses hiring illegal laborers.
Strong borders are entirely about making easy to exploit cheap labor. That's entirely the reason why neither democrats nor republicans have addressed immigration. It's also entirely the reason why the only lever being pulled is deportation.
Businesses simply love being able to say to workers "Do what we say or we'll have you deported".
This is why undocumented workers pay taxes and can get jobs, even in the reddest of states. It's not some sort of "flaw" or "impossibility" that couldn't be fixed pretty quickly.
Rightly targeted law would penalize businesses hiring undocumented workers and would protect the workers regardless of documentation status. Doing that would immediately fix any perceived problems with immigration.
You were arguing that the use of Microsoft office vs the bespoke Palantir app were equivelent, and I'm simply pointing out that they are very different.
I'm a stranger on the internet, if you don't already think that the USA's immigration raids and camps are a bad thing, I'm probably not going to be the one to convince you otherwise.
There's a lot of good journalism and commentary on the topic, so if you want to have your mind changed, do a web search and read from people much smarter and more knowledgable than me.
IBM made custom software and hardware to process Jews that legally needed to be in camps. I'm sure that was equally not a 'bad thing' or 'immoral'.
Whataboutism, much?
Office can be used for things that aren't objectively evil?
All things done with office must be evil by association.
(Except clippy, he's just a guy)
Maybe, but Office is evil itself.
Taking your argument in good faith: I think selling a tool with a narrow use case tailor-made for ICE is categorically different.
Considering that Microsoft is also providing services to the Israeli government with the explicit intent of storing and cataloging all of the phone calls made by Palestinian citizens so that they can be analyzed by AI for potential bombing targets...yes I would say Microsoft also has blood on their hands. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they have deep partnerships with Palantir for compute services.
Yes, absolutely. These are criminal scum, on par with pedos. Just look at how they are helping a people getting wiped out from their own territory in the Middle East.
Microsoft is a modern IBM holocaust tabulation machine. Yes, many of the people who work for Microsoft should be prosecuted and put in prison for war crimes, with varying degrees of culpability. There are people in MS who knowing negotiated deals that aided and abetted war crimes, and those who wrote morally repugnant military surveillance software that was used to automate mass murder in the Gaza holocaust.
Hopefully John Connor is one of them. Deeply embedded, slowly implanting backdoors and kill switches into the Skynet system they are building.
Palantir does not work in a vacuum - it requires other technology, platforms and systems to operate and succeed - many of which are designed and maintained by the users of Hacker News.
Take a look at Palantir's trust center: https://palantir.safebase.us
Schellman did their audit and compliance - do they have blood on their hands?
How about AWS, GCP, Azure cloud resources used by Palantir - are they stained, too?
You can’t minimize the damage Palantir is doing with simple whataboutism.
It is in fact the contrary: I am trying to maximize it by pointing out how big tech platforms makes it possible.
No you literally went the what about route.
Palantir is built explicitly for surveillance, in a way the other companies you listed are not. There is no comparison here. It's like saying the City of Minneapolis is complicit because they maintain the roads ICE is driving on.
Except that the owners of AWS (Amazon) GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) are all defense contractors for the Department of War.
All of them work directly / indirectly with ICE.
Not really. Palantir is data integration and analysis software that in some cases (like ICE) can be used for surveillance. There are also thousands of commercial clients who use Palantir for completely non surveillance workflows, as well as many other government teams who use Palantir for non surveillance things. This is all public information.
From the article
> Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.
Is ICE using a general purpose app for surveillance or is Palantir making a deportation-centric app for ICE?
Certainly you must be aware that there are not just binary values of morality in life. The obvious answer is yes they are stained, as we all are through our participation in various systems, but with vastly varying amounts.
Is the manufacturer of the bomb responsible for when Israel drops it on a family home in Gaza? Yes. Is it the same responsibility as the general who gave the order? No. Is it the same as the pilot who followed the order? No.
Does that make it useless to hold people accountable? Of course not.
Respectfully, this is cheap cope. The bomb maker didn't know when he made the bomb, maybe. Now he knows, as do all the people turning the gears on this meat grinder, including a bunch of people here.
If you value your comfy life over the well being of others and the future of not only the country, but without an ounce of hyperbole, the human race, then keep your head down. If you don't, fuckin DO SOMETHING.
You know all those times you've said or heard others say "well if I was in Germany in the 30's...." well, guess what, games fuckin real now. So act like the person you want to be.
>If you value your comfy life over the well being of others and the future of not only the country
For people who think borders are just lines, our country as geography doesn't even exist. It's just lines. For people who think that all people are the same, everywhere, and deserve to go where they please, our country as a people doesn't exist either.
So if that's your conception of a country, why should I care about it at all? It's just a random place I happened to be born, and its disloyalty to me outweighs any I might show it. I inherited a house jointly with the rest of you, and you keep letting squatters live here for free. Once they're here, you screech if anyone tries to evict them. If I complain about them punching holes in the drywall and shitting in the kitchen sink, you tell me I'm racist. Whatever else, you and I are incompatible, and I am out of options.
I don't believe borders should exist, but they do. If you say otherwise you are simply in denial. Borders are promises of violence made by nation-states, which I also don't believe in, which nevertheless exist and are harming people.
Whatever ideological differences we may have, need to be shelved. We can bicker about that later. For now, the border of the U.S. exists, and it's killing people.
> Whatever ideological differences we may have, need to be shelved. We can bicker about that later. For now, the border of the U.S. exists, and it's killing people.
The ideological differences are, in no small part (directly or implicitly) over whether the border should exist and whether it killing the people it kills is a good or a bad thing. Can’t really just shelve that.
Well I figured that case was already covered in the previous comment.
I believe in borders; my taxes fund my government, and not someone else's. However, there is no US-American "people" aside from the indigenous people who have been massacred. Ever since, it has always been whoever has been here.
Why do you believe in borders?
As I said: I fund the government; I don't think my government should be beholden to the entire population of the planet.
If there were a world government that I funded, then borders would be unnecessary, but that is not the world in which we live.
Is this metaphor or did you actually experience this?
We are all experiencing this, just at a larger scale. To call it a metaphor is to deny the reality, nothing about this is metaphorical.
It hurts all of us, but those on the left are willing to endure the torment if it they think it hurts their opponents more. They're willing to endure it if they think that tihs will swing voting numbers in their favor in the coming decades. The right to live within the United States, as an actual inalienable right and not just some temporary privilege is called citizenship, and those without it have no such right.
When those of you vote me down so you can pretend that everyone disagrees with me, you're setting yourself up for failure in the future. You will believe your own echo chamber and be sure that the Democrats will inevitably win, once and for all, because how can they not when they never hear anyone disagreeing with them? The numbers aren't on your side at all.
The ironworker making steel plates for tanks and ships has a hell of a lot less moral culpability than the engineer designing shells.
> If you work in technology, you are part of this force, whether you like it or not.
Disappointing to see you downvoted. I agree with this partially, but only because I think it applies more broadly.
I work in tech (although not in Big Tech/Mag 7/FAANG/whatever they're called now), and I feel quite acutely that anyone in the field is culpable in part for the enabling the absolutely massive dump that the capital-adjacent class is taking on the world to have their power play fantasies play out.
To the extent that I've started apologising on behalf of the field/profession to non-technical folks when they complain about yet another dark pattern/"growth hack" designed to steal their attention and money.
Yes, they all are. Profits and shareholders value trump anything else. So yes, they are accomplices in the destruction of American democracy.
Yes, this is how market economy works. For every organization doing horrible things, literally everyone is a small number of payment-handshakes from it.
No, it doesn't mean that "mr gotcha"[1] argument is valid. You don't have to isolate yourself from society Kaczynski-style to either criticize society or to do something smaller (like choosing who you work for).
[1] https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
Sure, but in that case your rage should be directed at ICE / the federal government. Not a third party software vendor.
The rage should be dependent on the contribution. You mention a third party software vendor who produces tools that aren't even "dual-use" with respect to the abuse by ICE, they are specifically tailored. That's not the same as, say, providing electricity to them.
They are dual use. Palantir creates platforms (Foundry, Gotham) which are used by ICE but also thousands of other companies. Are you saying that just because ICE tailors these platforms to their workflows they’re not dual use? That feels akin to saying some super complicated excel workflow used by a company means excel is not dual use.
Palantir does a ton of customization and consulting for specific use cases. This isn't like Microsoft Excel being used to track uranium enrichment in Iran, it is a direct, explicit part of their business.
Even if you do nothing else of impact in your life, you can stop defending the bad guys.
So because they show people how to use their software they’re evil?
They aren't just showing people how to use their software. Stop defending the bad guys.
I’m not defending the “bad guys”. The original argument was about moral culpability based on distance from the bad deed. Microsoft could have just as easily refused Azure for the ICE contract, but they didn’t, yet somehow they are just far enough away to not be culpable.
In general, if you're working for Palantir, you're unlikely to find yourself in the right side of history. Whenever you hear of tech being used for questionable purposes, Palantir seems to have their fingers deep in the pie.
Siemens, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Krupp all seem to be doing just fine today.
All generalist businesses.
Palantir is solely a surveillance business. Like, maybe some day in the future they branch out into something that's not explicitly evil, but that seems unlikely.
Wouldn’t it be even more fair to say that the people who allowed or even encouraged illegal immigration have blood on their hands because they know what they were doing and how the government would have to respond under the law? If we are going to use the line of reasoning you suggest then this should easily be on the table also.
This rests on the assumption that the government has to respond with violence.
the government uses force for everything it does, it doesn’t need to resort to violence if you comply, (and yes it feels gross to type that) I hate to appear to defend something I hate but it’s because I understand the nature of it not because I approve of it: the point still remains that the people who facilitated the illegal entry knew without a doubt that this was going to happen afterwards, however far you want to extrapolate that onto their motives I don’t intend to speculate on here
Everything you write here assumes that the world is far more rigid and full of inevitability than can be justified.
it only assumes that the government is aware of their own laws and has half a brain to realize what that means, what I wrote is being proved true right now
* It assumes that the government's priorities are malleable enough that it will eventually decide to prioritize these laws, but not malleable enough that they could change them. This is self-contradictory.
* It assumes that a person's immigration status is not malleable and cannot be normalized. This is strictly false.
* It assumes that immigration laws are static. Again, strictly false.
* It implies that all force is equal in violence, which is something I usually only hear from high schoolers who have just encountered libertarianism and love it
* It suggests that there is no moral agency in acting on behalf of the government, only in acting against the backdrop reality of this monolithic slab of granite.
* It suggests even that the violence currently taking place is for the purpose of enforcing laws. This isn't true for the U.S. citizens by birth or naturalization who are being unlawfully detained, it isn't true for the thousands of non-citizens with legal status who are being detained and moved across state lines. It isn't true for the non-citizens who are being arrested literally while attending the process of maintaining their legal status. It isn't even true for those without legal status who are having their doors kicked in without warrants, and it isn't true for those without legal status who are being detained and tortured. None of this is actually according to the law, it's just what they can get away with and make a spectacle of violence.
I'm not even exactly clear who the nebulous group of people is that you want to blame for getting people caught up in the government's violence. I guess if you're mad at coyotes, sure, be my guest? If you're mad at anyone involved in the process of asylum you're mad at people following the law. If you're mad at people helping their neighbors you've lost the plot. If you're mad at state or city governments not enforcing federal laws for then either you don't like federalism or you don't understand it, but at best your assumption is historically contentious.
People like... Donald Trump, prominent employer of illegal labor for decades?
If you want to go after prominent employers of illegal labor (and others who profit from it) I shan't shed a tear. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening.
Meh, I blame social media specifically and media generally for the state of our country. Why call out just Palantir. The US, maybe the world, would be better off if companies like Meta (and others) didn't exist....
A guy I grew up with that works at Palantir.
Here's his thinking:
1. He's white and lives in a blue state. Doesn't affect him. Oh, and money. 2. The attention on Palantir and their customers makes his stock and options go up. He's happy, because money. 3. His GOP-worshipping parents get to brag to their GOP-worshipping friends that their son is helping God's Gift to Humanity - Donald Trump. And making bank while doing it. 4. He believes that Palantir is doing good work, and that's the end of it. He believes himself to be a genuinely good guy, so if he's doing something, it must be good.
It looks like their CTO is an Indian or Pakistani: https://investors.palantir.com/governance/executive-manageme...
I wonder how he feels about what the administration is doing and how his own work is directly helping them. Surely he is aware of all of the supremacist rhetoric coming from the official Twitter accounts of various government agencies or Elon Musk or Stephen Miller. Surely he has seen the kind of racist abuse that Vivek Ramaswami endured on Twitter, which led to him recently quitting social media.
Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next?
> Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next?
People are often remarkably good at this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...
Palantir has been doing awful shit since it started, so you have to presume that anybody that works there is on board with it.
You can apply similar arguments to many companies including Facebook. The programmer community as a whole is not ethical.
I've been on the receiving end of federal enforcement (DOJ, high-profile "cybercrime"). When they want you, they don't need a confidence score. There is no quota—they take time to build a case. The existence of these tools tells you this isn't targeted enforcement, it's industrial-scale population processing dressed up in an algorithm.
I live in Minnesota. This is my backyard.
The Palantro CEO, Alex Karp, is on the record that he approves of what the president is doing in regards to immigration enforcement and the striking of boats in international waters.
This type of behaviour from Palantir is old news: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...
And in 2016 he was a Clinton supporter and a self described progressive. Vance was also a never trumper by his own admission.
It’s quite clear to me that these elites are just grabbing power by any means necessary. It won’t end after Trump. He’s just providing the cover in the current moment.
When the transition to authoritarianism starts elites have a choice to make.
History show most will choose authoritarianism.
Larry Ellison wants constant surveillance so everyone will be 'on their best behavior'.
With a little asterisk on the word "everyone".
Some animals are more equal than others after all.
Somebody is taking advantage of the tens of thousands of children that have been disappeared by ICE. I wonder who the most likely suspects are.
I'm not sure why the down votes, I'm not being glib.
Go read the work of historians who study this. The transitions in Russia, Hungary, etc are well documented. There is a pretty solid consensus understanding of the dynamics, the typical playbook, etc.
They will take the country down in death throes if there's a progressive movement, but will happily kiss the shoes of a dictator in an authoritarian regime.
I do hope I live to see the day we properly oust this mentality of "a single person deserves a billion dollars". But that's a big "if"
It will just be a matter of time when the "authority" turns its back on the elites.
Why would he object to illegal acts by the US when they are so profitable.
We need to expect more from our business leaders.
They have more power than you. The only way to induce accountability is to reduce the power gap.
These people want lords who they can petition for charity
i don't think we can expect that. but we should demand, require and enforce it.
Palantir would be evil even if Karp was, like, woke or something.
"The Palantir CEO is currently the 142nd richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $18.2 billion..."
https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/alex-karp...
900 million in federal contracts this year will do that
Terrorizing everyone indiscriminately is not immigration enforcement.
This is a man that has never been punched in his mouth.
And ppl were worried about China's 1984 style use of Ai, lol. In the end it was greedy software developers that enable this.
This is what happens when one allows oneself to hide in "safe spaces" (like HN) where there's a "no politics" rule enabling people to hide and avoid being confronted with the ramifications of their actions.
The entire world runs on technology now. It's all inherently political.
This exactly hits in on the head. You're trying create a forum absent of politics. In fact, you're just enabling one political view over another. This hides social issues and in the end comes back to undermine your pure "technical view". It's not apolitical, it's disassociation from reality.
Exactly. Declaring that there must be no discussion when confronted with situations in which one party is doing harm to others, is an implicit endorsement of the harms being perpetuated.
Thank you all in this thread! I couldn't have put it better. I cannot stand "no politics rules". Politics divides and it is personal. But it shouldn't be either of those. We should be attacking policy and not people. No politics rules just deny reality because software doesn't exist in a vacuum without policy and money. Heck most people want to use software to get money which is a product of policy.
HN isn't even absent of politics, just the front page is really.
Everything we do is political. When we are making software and publishing it, whether or a company or ourselves, for sale or for free, there are political implications to those actions.
>"no politics"
No politics is a privilege that many do not have.
It's a privilege that many people working in tech have, who then create and populate forums where discussion of that privilege is considered political and therefore forbidden.
Exactly my point
I didn't mean to counter your point, but to highlight it.
Ah okay, I misunderstood, my bad
But chatting with absolute strangers about random tech-adjacent topics is an inherently privileged activity. So let's just say the privilege needed to do that is large enough that it also gives you the privilege to not talk about politics.
"My children are starving. Militants have surrounded our village. But let me pop into HN for a bit and drop my hot take on the San Remo Pasta Measurer."
Thank you! Everytime you interact with government, it is politics. Filing taxes is politics. TurboTax lobbying against free self filing and government filing is politics and technology. It goes on and on. You cannot avoid politics because politics is about people.
You can see in this threat that confronting people with the ramifications of their actions causes them to double down. They'll just come up with more and more justifications of why the victims deserve it. Same as every mass atrocity.
Yes, HN is my safe space. I have enough politics in my daily life, I don't need it when I'm with phone in my bed trying to wind down.
And which politics? American internal politics are foreign and distant to me. How much do you care about my country internal affairs? Probably not much. And it's OK, you can't fix every country in existence, and if you tried to care you would get insane.
Pro-tip: when you see a headline on the main page, you don't have to click on it. Just keep scrolling.
While I completely agree in principle, these threads get very very heated so I can kinda see why HN/dang/our reptilian overlords are trying to keep them from becoming a majority of the site (which they easily could be, absent the flagging of these stories).
Sure, within reason.
Also, I totally understand pruning back discussion that is political, and way off the topic of the actual post/story. People should reasonably be able to read and discuss a non-political story without big political discussion springing up.
Yeah, I don't know where you draw the line. Like, I personally have often gotten a lot of value from HN political threads, but they have been getting worse and worse since about 2016 (I wonder what happened then?) so I can see why other people might just be sick of dealing with the noise.
> How much do you care about my country internal affairs? Probably not much.
Oh how I wish this were true of non-Americans.
There’s a shockingly large amount of the population that doesn’t want politics period. And that’s how we got here.
Yup!
I'm going to defend the HN "no politics" rule here.
The reason "no politics" zones exist is because there are enough people going out of their way to shout at everybody, everywhere, in every corner of the internet and enough people are tired of it that they flock to...no politics zones. In real life, a person like that confronts you...you remove yourself from the situation, because that person who can't stop shouting at everybody comes across as nuts.
I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil. So banning political discussion is political in and of itself.
I'd agree with your no politics preference if we were in a functioning society that wasn't actively spiralling towards fascism. I recognize that this line is blurry, and that's exactly the reason why no politics zones exist, there is always someone yelling about fascism. He might be a crazy guy on the corner who yells about everything.
I think the difference here is that there is a big critical mass of people who have recognized that the pillars on which our country sit are being actively sabotaged. It's not that everyone wants to be talking about politics all of a sudden, it's that the frog is finally boiling.
> I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil.
But this simply isn't the case. The fact that "no politics" zones exist is a response to the fact that politics is everywhere else.
People here aren't blissfully unaware, they're just tired of it and many realize that arguing about it on the internet won't accomplish anything other than wasting time. As I sit here writing this, I'm thinking that I'm probably wasting my time.
We all have this idea in our head that if people are confronted with enough evidence, they'll change their minds. But that doesn't happen. People rationalize.
My goodness, people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier. Every point he's made, every plan he's had and every policy he has advocated for have been totally logically sound. There's been nothing extreme in any of it. Every young parent I know is so relieved with what he's doing and frustrated that it took so long to do what seemed obvious.
But it's not that. It's inflammatory headline after inflammatory headline. It's putting words in his mouth, saying things he didn't say, making statements he didn't make, berating him in front of Congress for click bait video nonsense reading from a script.
It's exhausting. We're all tired of it. If you show me something that you think will convince me of something, I will look at it. And then I will look deeper. I will look to see if any information has been left out. I will look to see if editing has happened.
Because almost every time I invest the time to look into something, I find that it's exaggerated internet nonsense that only plays well in echo chambers. When you do that enough times, your skepticism meter goes to 11.
Are you ever going to actually circle back to the people actually providing you proof from earlier?
Sure. Most likely later tonight.
>people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier.
My man, the dude is a former heroin addict that has admitted to eating roadkill. He's pushed the vaccines cause Autism narrative.
Trying to make the country healthier while taking huge gifts from lobbyists who work for industrial scale meat producers? Come on.
I was going to remove myself from this conversation, but then I had to shout it out, so.
Same, you wouldn't criticize a woodworking forum for not having politics.
I would, if people on that woodworking forum did critical work for DOGE, or Palantir, or Facebook, or Sam Altman.
Most of us don't work at those places.
And besides, what does discussing technology itself have anything to do with it? If you work at big tech you're not allowed to particpate in tech forum as a hobby?
We already discuss politics here as it has to do with tech (privacy is a pretty common topic here for example).
>Most of us don't work at those places.
Right, but we should be able to shame, ostracize, and criticize the people that do work at those places because if we don't then it's a tacit approval of what they do.
You know that saying about how if you have three people sharing a bench with a Nazi, you actually have four Nazis? Tech has social and political ramifications, the discussion of which is artificially suppressed on HN.
Most of the time you can't do that here. Try saying something negative about Sam Altman, for example. dang has certain topics he just won't permit and then hides behind the excuse of "if everyone is upset with you, you must be doing something right".
>If you work at big tech you're not allowed to particpate in tech forum as a hobby?
I don't understand what you mean, can you please clarify?
I just disagree. I don't think you're entitled to shame people because you don't agree with the place they work at all. And I don't agree working at Google or whatever means you're not allowed to privately have a forum where you can talk about tech as a hobby.
>And I don't agree working at Google or whatever means you're not allowed to privately have a forum where you can talk about tech as a hobby.
As far as I can tell nobody's advocating this. Anyone is free to spin up a private instance of a hackernews clone (e.g. [0]) or a phpbb instance, or a discord.
But working at DOGE or Palantir or whatever doesn't mean you're entitled to the freedom from consequences of your actions.
Oh, so we can peacefully ask for some advice from the guy that says "I'm proud to have made the wooden doors in Auschwitz" ?
There's a vast difference between tribal partisan politics and discussing policy as a system of governance (hacking society). I do my best to avoid the former and embrace the latter.
That said, there's a disappointingly significant number of HN members who hew to the latter and embrace the current regime. I consider this to be a forum of intellectual engagement, and that those people walk amongst us is quite distressing.
The “those people” comment is kinda the issue though isn’t it?
I generally try to assume that everyone has good intentions, but we’re all being fed massive amounts of different information. I learned years ago that it wasn’t an issue of people reporting things that were factually inaccurate, it was an issue of people leaving out details to frame the story in the context that supports your readers/viewers belief system.
And then there are the Stanford studies like this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553818
That's why I prefaced it with "That said" as an acknowledgement of calling out a different tribe.
There's a nuance to this -- the current political environment is not normal and cannot be emphasized enough. The GOP is now a cult of personality and there is no allegiance to country by its members. Its all to one man, who many believe is wholly unqualified for the job.
Its a well-documented phenomenon that millions of people have joined this cult -- many coming from the other side of the aisle. There is no possible reasoning, dialog, or engagement that can make them reconsider.
I would be classified as a "Lefty" if evaluated on my values, but I actually believe in the value of old school conservatism as of "limited government", the value of families, and the ability to have their own personal relationship with God (I am an atheist but I get it).
One of the things that makes America great is the Constitution -- that we are ostensibly a nation governed by law. The current regime does not share those values and is actively hostile to all who do not worship or pay tribute to their leader.
I've been following US politics for half a century and what's happening now would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.
I live in the southeast so I'm friends with a lot of the people you describe and nothing could be further from the truth of your description.
Most people I know who voted for Trump this time around did it specifically because of what a train wreck the Biden administration was, the terrible candidate that the Democrats tried to put up to replace him and that Trump ran on essentially fixing all of it. Cult of personality and/or hero worship had nothing to do with it.
The man is absolutely abrasive, there's no question about that. But the stock market is at all time highs, the trade deficit is the lowest it's been since 2009, GDP is up 5.5%, inflation has leveled off, gas prices are the lowest I've seen in many years (I just filled up for $2.39 / gallon), the border was closed on day 1 despite years long calls that it couldn't be helped without legislation and today I saw that drug overdose deaths have been cut in half nationally in a single year.
People voted for him to clean up a mess. The cult of personality stuff has been the algorithm at work from everything I've observed to this point.
Trying to decide how to categorize those giant first page threads from 2022 where Brian Armstrong would complain about activist employees or Google employees would stage walkouts about their employer doing contracts with the Department of Defense, the comments would be chock full of "yeah, actually a company should fire those employees, because business isn't about politics" then a few years later Coinbase drops $150M on the elections and Google is happily working with Palantir to build dragnet surveillance of US citizens.
[flagged]
I don't think you can really blame HN specifically here. It's much wider than that; pretty much the tech industry as a whole actively discourages any kind of philosophical reflection on technology, at least the kind that says you shouldn't build something, even if it's profitable.
That is a fair take. Everybody wants to say "it is just a tool" and get away with it
There have been some insane politics (especially "culture war" stuff) that got laundered through the HN "reasonable discussion" filter, especially from 2021 through 2024. They still come up all the time. HN loves talking about politics when the commenters can get critical mass to grind the libertarian or "anti-woke" axe.
Not to mention every leader of YCombinator has had some kind of wild politics that come from having money that separates you from any kind of consequence.
> This is what happens when one allows oneself to hide in "safe spaces" (like HN) where there's a "no politics" rule
HN does not have, and never has had (except for a very brief experiment that failed spectacularly and was very quickly aborted) a “no politics” rule, and, in fact, politics is usually all over the site.
This comment is wrong and/or malicious along every dimension.
> "safe spaces" (like HN)
HN is not a "safe space". Saying that most politics is off-limit most of the time for very good reasons (that only either insane or malicious people would deny) does not make this a "safe space". Go look up how Wikipedia defines it and it's easy to see that your statement is literally false.
> where there's a "no politics" rule
This is false. There is no "no politics" rule.
> enabling people to hide and avoid being confronted with the ramifications of their actions.
This statement is just insane. The direct logical conclusion of this statement is that if every site on the internet is not blasting out political news all the time, that it's enabling people to "hide" from something. That's not just false - that's a deranged position that 99.999% of people will disagree with.
> It's all inherently political.
False. Deciding your backend architecture (microserves vs monolith) is not political. Picking a text editor is not political. Helping a friend install Linux is not political. Not everything is political - the fact that you is means that something is wrong with the way that you view the world.
And even for the things that are political - only a crazy and/or evil person would take the fact that emacs is made by GNU and vim is not as a reason to incite political flamewars on the internet and try to inject politics into every online forum.
People like you are the main reason that modern American culture is so toxic and politically polarized and that democratic discourse is breaking down.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_space
> And ppl were worried about China's 1984 style use of Ai, lol.
Came here to say the same...
> In the end it was greedy software developers that enable this.
Nope. First is a failing govt system (not upholding the constitution) that's enabling this.
Second it's not the devs but the business men (that are so much in bed in govt that they have become indistinguishable).
Look, there are software devs (and probably business men) that are equally greedy in, say, Finland/Iceland/etc. But it's not happening there: they simply have a govt that's better for the people at large.
GP didn't say greedy devs caused it, they (we?) are only enabling it.
Obviously there's always the cop out of "someone else would have done it anyway" but it doesn't really change the (un-)ethical side of your choices. I'm not saying it's black and white either - if the other choice is to leave your kids without proper medical care then it's a different thing than just being intentionally blind to ethics.
Some guy on X recently commented on how “dystopian” Flock’s nationwide surveillance is.
Response by Garry Tan (CEO of YC)[1]
“You're thinking Chinese surveillance
US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims”
[1] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955
Surveillance does not prevent victims. Precrime would, but who wants that?
Amazing. I have a hard time believing that comment isn't sarcastic, its just too perfect. Its hard to tell these days
If its not, it sounds like the output of an LLM if prompted "You are a toddler. Write the most naive and illogical ideological propaganda possible. Offer no rational justification for your thoughts"
1. By now, reality is indistinguishable from satire.
2. If you thought VC mercenaries have any scruples, you were in error.
Worth reminding everyone in the EU and UK that this is not a 'them' problem.
Palantir is the main software vendor for Europol. Equally pretty much all the 1984 proposals for age or id online verification that are being massaged into existence (both in the UK and pushed by the European Commission) have their fingers all over them.
They sell pre-crime and opinion control to our democratic leaders and apparently everyone in Davos loves it.
For some reasons I think europol officers (the ones taking decisions, at least) are loving ice. They didn't have issues when proposing to expand chat control, which would meant large scale surveillance, so they'd appreciate whatever palantir can come out with
Speaking of UK, they also run the NHS data warehousing.
As always, I like to point out that someone here is probably very proud of their work on this.
And, if you criticize them for building these systems, they'll trot out the usual excuses:
- Well, I'm working on interesting technical problems at massive scale. Leave it to the business guys to figure out how to apply it--not my problem.
- Well, I just move protobufs from one middleware API to another. I don't even talk to the application guys.
- Well, I just write the code my boss tells me to write. I don't want to be fired!
No, actually at least one person in this comment section is outright happy to say they like what is going on.
These people don't care what harms "deporting illegals" means, because they aren't really attached to reality and are utterly lacking empathy.
"Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man imprisoned" is clearly not something they consider acceptable.
These losers are everywhere on HN, 10+ replying to the top comment. No surprise considering who runs the site.
Great time to bring up the Imperial Boomerang[1]. My paraphrasing: the weapons and technology that imperial and colonial powers develop or use to control subjugated populations will inevitably be used to also control its own population.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang
I keep thinking about https://neveragain.tech
3 people from Palantir on that list of signatories
A decent chunk of people on that list are working at the companies that are actively harming society. At what point does it become a joke? It's not like the millionaire devs working at big tech couldn't take a stand, but I guess their addiction to money is more preferential than sacrificing something to better society.
Law and order and bureaucracy is a seductive, all encompassing, crushing force.
I have never heard of this site but find it confusing that there is no information on the date this was started or which administration they are referring to.
I am all for criticizing and pointing fingers at trump and this entire administration.
But it does say they have been working with ICE for “years” in the article. What is not really clear to me is was the app made worse recently, was it originally commissioned under trump?
Nothing about that changes that they should not be working with ICE and they deserve any pressure they get to cut ties. But there is some history here I am very curious about.
All of that being said, I am concerned about how this will be turned around and used in more than just ICE and targeting everyone. Especially since we can be sure this will be used in largely blue big cities.
They've definitely using tools like this for a while. It's been true under all administrations, and it's always been a problem. Privacy advocates have been alerting on this for a while.
Physically attacking citizens takes it to another level.
It's one thing for tech companies to be complicit in eroding privacy, it's quite another to be complicit in overt fascism.
ICE is already targeting everyone.
It was a boring database product in 2011. It expanded in scope over many years, and now has a much larger budget.
"That changed in the second Trump administration, with Palantir now working on ICE’s deportation efforts."
https://www.palantir.com/newsroom/press-releases/homeland-se...
"...Since 2011, Palantir has partnered with HSI"
"I am all for criticizing and pointing fingers at trump and this entire administration"
I don't believe you or you wouldn't have bothered to muddy the water in the face of repeated violence and dehumanization.
We get absolutely nowhere if we just blindly blame trump for everything. All it does is give the other side ammunication to paint us as just “anti trump” when they can poke holes in our information. We have to be better than them.
We have to have all of the information and actually inform people instead of the half and twisted “truths” that is all that ever spew from this administration.
It doesn’t change or diminish what is going on right now, but it changes some of the conversation around this particular contract.
I guarantee you that if this contract started under the Obama or Biden administration and we just conveniently ignore that, it will come back and bite us in the ass. This app existing before this administration, what form did it exist, and how much use did it get is critical information.
You are a fool if you can't see what's right in front of your nose. Every single person I've talked to outside of the US sees that Trump is working towards a genocide. I'm very concerned about my family and friends over in the US.
But I do agree that all the other administrations have paved the way
Not entirely sure where you get that I am not seeing what is happening.
All I am saying is that we need to be better than them and not twisting information to fit what we want to say.
That doesn’t remove or diminish any criticism of trump and this administration but let’s actually fight lies with facts instead of stooping to their level.
It would not be a good look at all (hypothetically since I don’t know) if we go after Palentir for this app and its all trump this, trump that. And it comes to light that the contract started under Obama for example. That doesn’t mean we don’t criticize them, it doesn’t mean we don’t criticize trump, it doesn’t mean we don’t protest ICE. But it means that we don’t try to say that ALL of this is under trump.
We are constantly calling them out for lying, half truths, twisting truths, etc. We must be better than them or we look like hypocrites and all that does is make it harder to get people to actually come out and vote for our side when it matters.
Your reply brings to mind the phrase "useful idiot"
> is not really clear to me is was the app made worse recently, was it originally commissioned under trump?
I think it's pretty clear that we've slidden into this situation for years.
This is what privacy advocates have been shouting about a long time. When the systems are in place all you need is a trigger for everything to go to hell.
I have a message to all Palantir employees. You can quit, you don't have to make this technology. Palantir cannot function without you.
Let me tell you a story. When I was young, just out of college, I worked for a tech startup. The tech startup was a mapping company. At some point I overheard the company CEO talking about how the software I built was being used. I thought it was being used to help track miners and equipment working in mines so that if there is an accident, they know where all the people and equipment are so they can be saved.
I learned by overhearing him that the software was being used in the Iraq war to track people to kill. I wasn't supposed to know since I didn't have a security clearance to know.
I quit that job over this.
I told this story because there are certainly employees there that don't have the clearance to know what is happening. But the reporting is making it clear. You can quit your job. They can't function without you.
I remember hearing the "imagine if Stasi/Gestapo had the data Facebook and Twitter have on us" argument for years. Turns out they were right to be worried.
Why would you think they wouldn't be right? Even on paper, doesn't that sound like a bad thing?
the past 15 years of my life feels like a bus full of people yelling at the driver to not hit the wall he's speeding towards and he's just ignoring them saying "it will be fine." and here we are!
Reading comment sections for news like this makes one understand better how it is possible that widescale horrible things happen.
At first you'll learn about something horrible in the past and think, How could people let that happen, yet alone participate in it? Well, its spelled out pretty neatly here.
Some people don't care - its "them" being targeted (jews, tutsi, immigrants), not "us". Some people care, but not in the way you'd think - they agree with the actions. Some people just wash their hands - I was only following orders, I was only working for Palantir. Some will be dismissive or downplay what is happening: its no big deal, its overblown, its being exaggerated and distorted by Radical Left-Wing Terrorists™.
This is how bad things happen.
Per the WSJ, as of January 10th this year, ICE has identified 13 instances of agents firing at or into civilian vehicles, leaving eight people shot with two confirmed dead. Five of those shot were citizens. According to court records, only one of these civilians was armed and never drew his weapon.
There is a sickness curdling in the dark corners of Silicon Valley. These people need to be humiliated for being the sniveling, authoritarian toads that they are.
There are reports that ICE threw a flash bang into a vehicle last night that contained a father trying to leave with his children to get them to safety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbMO7u44LGM
"humiliating" folks might not be the proportional response when innocent people are dying
people cannot yet be held accountable; this is an important first step, however.
Ah ok, we'll hold people accountable. Sweet!
Hopefully the number of people who die stays low until that happens, which always happens, at least.
2nd person was just executed, with multi-angle clear video footage of the wrong doing. White House is defending the murderer and posting memes on twitter.
Sure hope that we start holding people accountable before more innocent people are executed in the streets
Your downvotes are a signal of how lost we are
How else are we supposed to deter tech people from working for Palantir? What is a good polite method?
The govt contract with them should be voided. That's the way.
But in the US no one believes they can meaningfully influence govt for real issues. And they are right.
Sure you can get them to paint a rainbow zebra crossing. /s
But not stop/prevent a (civil) war. Democracy dies and lobbyism (what we call corruption in "modern western democracies" -- because we dont do corruption, that's for poor countries!) takes over when the power is consolidated at a high enough level.
In the meantime, between now and the elections, what is a good method for deterring tech people from working for ICE? They are administering an authoritarian state today.
You don't.
As a vegan I want to deter people from working in slaughter houses etc. I feel it's urgent. But they make their living.
As an intactivist I want people to stop genital mutilation of minors: both male and female. I feel it's urgent. But those baby cutting doctors and "priests" make their living.
That's why it is so easy to make a war when people are hungry. You need little money to convince them to turn to the dark side.
I am pretty sure the implication was not a polite method. GP is suggesting extrajudicial violence
https://archive.ph/9UPzF
Can someone tell me three things, please! - is ICE illegal or immoral ? Or it is a good tool used wrong ? - can people vote and make ICE stronger / weaker depending on their choice ? - are non registered people breaking the law or not ? Is it basically bad law or bad people ? I am sure US is republic and democracy together, but everyone here pretends ICE is a tool of dictatorship and should be stopped immediately.
If you ask about my personal opinion - it is an internal problem of US citizens, and they need to fix it.
> Or it is a good tool used wrong
This. ICE serves a necessary function. It is intentionally being wielded with malice. The target is not immigrants, they are just the face of the brawl, the real target is democratic voters.
> can people vote and make ICE stronger / weaker depending on their choice
This question is easy to answer. The citizens could easily vote in a new president in 2028 who defunded ICE altogether. We already know that cutting funds is way easier than granting them.
>The citizens could easily vote in a new president in 2028 who defunded ICE altogether.
You think that after two more years of this regime that any such candidate would be allowed anywhere near whatever pretense of an electoral system still exists?
I need you to understand that the United States is already no longer a democratic republic in anything but name. The system of government you're assuming will fix the mess will have been entirely dismantled by then. The time to fix this within the system was in 2024.
That rhetoric is popular online, but I have not heard any convincing argument for how it plays out in practice.
Your ability to be convinced by arguments, or refusal thereof, is not an objective measure of the likelihood of future events.
If anyone had described to you the timeline of this administration from 2024 to now, prior to it happening, you probably would have dismissed it as ridiculous. Yet here we are, this is already normal.
The way it plays out is they have two more years to lay groundwork and entrench their power, dismantle systems and burn alliances which will take decades to rebuild, declare martial law because someone twitched at an ICE goon the wrong way, and possibly start a war in Europe, and no one stops them because people like you think they'll just get to vote the baddies out and everything will just go back as it was.
I hope you're right, I don't think you are but I hope you are. But if you think everyone is just engaging in "online rhetoric" then I think you're naive.
> Your ability to be convinced by arguments, or refusal thereof, is not an objective measure of the likelihood of future events.
Okay but that just makes both of us crazy speculators.
> If anyone had described to you the timeline of this administration from 2024 to now
I would have said it was a plausible but terrible misuse of the executive branch's authority that I hoped not to see. After the first administration, I definitely would not call it ridiculous. Basically everything he has done so far is exercising power we've been delegating to the executive branch.
> declare martial law
That's easier said than done. And even using actual law, in the form of the insurrection act, would not give him the power to undermine elections. This country had elections during the civil war, and we are not quite there yet.
> But if you think everyone is just engaging in "online rhetoric" then I think you're naive.
I am trying to be charitable. A lot of the rhetoric is over-the-top spinning everything for maximum doom. What is really happening is bad enough without trashing our credibility through easily disprovable statements.
And sure, maybe I'm just naive. We should chat about it again in late January 2029.
Thank you all for detailed answers! As I see, if all goes well the problem will be solved in two years (more or less).
Again, no comments regarding if it is good to hunt "illegal aliens" and kick them away - US citizens must decide this themselves.
Blue cities should have local citizen backed militias under the control of the mayor.
The national guard exists for this purpose (state level) but is mostly captured by federal interests.
Local PD's could in effect do something similar but have shown to back the authoritarian-aligned party.
Propaganda has aligned nearly every single level of law enforcement to authoritarianism. I can't see a scenario where this is undone.
Some states also have a “state defense force” which is explicitly under the control of the state. But they tend to be pretty small I think, and lots of them are inactive or purely ceremonial.
How would that be different from current municipal police forces?
The "under the control of the mayor" bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Assoc...
> Approximately 4,000 NYPD officers took part in a protest that included blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and jumping over police barricades in an attempt to rush City Hall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_San_Francisco_P...
> The ACLU obtained a court order prohibiting strikers from carrying their service revolvers. Again, the SFPD ignored the court order. On August 20, a bomb detonated at the Mayor's home with a sign reading "Don't Threaten Us" left on his lawn.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/nyregion/chiara-de-blasio...
> Among the hundreds of protesters arrested over the four days of demonstrations in New York City over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, only one was highlighted by name by a police union known for its hostility toward Mayor Bill de Blasio. The name of that protester? Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daughter.
Ah, Rudy Giuliani. I see he was always a creep.
“Under control of the mayor” would be different from many current municipal police forces.
I mean, they are militas so at the end of the day they will protect the people even if they are told not to..
I suspect they are using it in this encounter, where someone just out for a walk is harassed by armed men…
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qbawlr/minnea...
Can anyone explain a user flow for how a Palantir product enables ICE to go from app launch to ‘target arrested’?
Here's an example. One of my friends works for a manufacturing company. He attended a protest. The next day ICE called his employer and he was informed that if he attended another protest he would be fired. All this b/c he had a small company logo on his jacket.
The ability to en-mass record, lookup and intimidate citizens is unprecedented and while I have no hard proof that this is due to Palantir, it sure smells like it
Firing due to political activity outside of work? That sounds super illegal.
Some states protect political activity broadly. Some states protect voting solely.[1]
[1] https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/politics-...
ICE employees working to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same”, such as exercise of 1st Amendment rights, is itself super-illegal (not just “outside their authority” but a federal criminal violation of the KKK Act), whether or not the employer’s response to the resulting pressure is also illegal.
My understanding (and I couldn't get past the app paywall) is that Palantir is joining databases from many different federal and state agencies, including passport and driver license photos. The app then allows you to scan a phase and it finds a match. It returns information on the person found, including citizenship.
The existence of this technology means that ICE can grab anyone they want, scan their face, and instantly have (or not have) probable cause to arrest them. Without the app, there would be hours before probably cause could be established which makes justifying the detainment legally much harder. I.e without the app, ICE has to actually build a case or see something suspicious for each target. With the app, ICE can just mass sweep people.
</i> Which should be illegal, but thanks to the shadow docket order on Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, is happening anyway.
NGL this sounds like pretty basic technology
Eh, joining these datasets can be challenging. Names can be spelled differently or changed, dates of birth can be off, people can share names and dates of births, addresses change and are can be expressed in multiple ways, databases may store names as a single string or separate fields, middle names may be missing or initials, databases might not share IDs etc. So it's kinda hard to do well although nothing really exciting technology wise.
This, incidentally, is why the "confidence score" is needed. And why the app frequently gets data (including citizenship) wrong.
CBP has been taking photos of all legitimate foreign visitors to the US for over 20 years. I presume any catch-and-release border apprehensions are subject to the same photographs.
How hard is it to do facial recognition on just this dataset in real-time?
You can be fairly certain that database also uses data from the US social media companies.
> “Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets
What constitutes this "high value"? & valuable to who, ICE agents with an itchy trigger finger?
> What constitutes this "high value"?
It's pretty simple[1].
1: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/family-guy-skin-color-chart
Anyone who works for Palantir or this corrupt administration should be blacklisted from the industry
Maybe we can form the Silicon Valley Un-American Activities Committee?
ADL would like to have a word with you….
> confidence score
Is this the new social credit?
Make no mistake, the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are only a training ground for how to undermine civil rights for us all. Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality. But eventually these same tools will be used against us.
Along the same lines, anyone who thinks this is just about immigration should ask themselves what all these tens of thousands of ICE agents are going to do when all the immigrants are finally deported.
Are they just going to go home and go back to their old jobs? Or do you think the Administration is going to find something else for them to do.
Deportations aren’t all that high. The raids are theater.
Thinking that they’re going to deport all the immigrants isn’t realistic or supported by the numbers. Immigration control is a constant ongoing operation in every country. This administration is just making a big show out of it for political points.
I don't think it is just political points. Illegal Mexican border crossings crashed on the run up to Trump taking presidency. Signaling you'll get captured and deported wherever you are, I'm sure if keeping a lot of people who would be illegal immigrants away.
My point still stands. The country will obviously not be permanently swarming with ICE agents violently grabbing immigrants off the street. There is going to be mission creep. If this isn't obvious then I don't know what to else I can say to convince you. Immigration is clearly just a pretext to establishing a national police force.
Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.
It looked like your jeans might be knock-offs. Customs violation. Time to flashbang your kids.
>Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.
And when it doesn't, will you remember the wild accusations you made or off making others with no accountability?
Hitler's regime didn't start out making death camps for Jews. The initial plan was to deport them, with camps for holding and processing. That was unrealistic given the volume of people to process, which led to the detention and work camps converting to death camps.
This is relevant to mention because the number of people in ICE detention right now is spiking: https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/detention.htm...
Just saying, similar outcomes could occur here. It's happened before. Their goals being unrealistic doesn't mean they'll stop, and may be part of their justification for doing even worse things than they're already doing.
They might "look for immigrants" near polling stations in November?
Would be very bad if "immigrants" (i.e. not wearing a fair face with a matching MAGA hat) could vote, amirite?
They could monitor the midterm elections /s
Palestine was the training ground, now it is being deployed back at home. Turns out it is a small world and you shouldn't have selective empathy.
"First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me"
I have a hunch most people recognize this, but many are ok with it. I have hope (But not confidence) people will see this in the upcoming US elections and more broadly. This is transparent authoritarian behavior.
Edit: Challenge: If you downvoted the parent post here (It's currently grey), I would love to hear why you think this doesn't match the pattern. Are you living in the US? I in general am struggling to understand my fellow US citizens, given the history of our nation.
I expect masked ICE agents to be deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)
Bet. Lets see if we can get this up on polymarket, bet on it.
You already lost your own bet.
"A pair of armed and masked men in tactical gear stood guard at ballot drop boxes in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 21 as people began early voting for the 2022 midterm elections."
They might be "off-duty" but this is during Biden's admin. They're immensely more emboldened now and local LE will absolutely not enforce any laws restricting this.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/06/election-officials-facing-ar...
So the goal post moved from ICE or Federal agents being stationed at polling stations to any individual at all?
The goalposts moved when ICE's hiring standards fell to "any individual at all".
> deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)
MOST states (purple, blue, red) have mail-in voting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting_in_the_United_St...
For now. The tyrant controls the post office.
They're working on that.
Challenging the rules: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-revives-...
Changing the rules at USPS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-this-new-mail-rule-c...
And I'd fully expect some fuckery via executive orders closer to the election, and SCOTUS to use the emergency docket to let them "temporarily" be enforced.
It is being restricted. My red state has gone from allowing mail-in ballots that were allowed if they were postmarked by election day, to requiring them to be in by election day. When the postmaster general is a Trump appointee, and the mail has slowed down over the last few years, it makes me wonder if this is deliberate.
They're targeting that too. e.g. recent change to postmark dates.
Correct, which the administration is also trying to remove.
I would start with this, because it's a flat out lie
> Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality.
People have been complaining about the attack on immigrants for a good, long while. And the complaining has been getting louder, more frequent, and from more people with every day. When they kidnapped workers and suddenly the price of everything went up, there was a lot of "see?!? this is what we're talking about"
So no, "everyone" isn't ok with the targeting of immigrants.
They should have said "enough are ok" instead of "everyone is ok".
Unfortunately, there are still enough people who are fine with the Trump / Miller / Noem / Bovino approach to immigration enforcement, or they're not impacted personally enough to make them speak or act.
I hope the cartoon villain responses coming from the administration when they're challenged on any of this will get more people to stand up against it all.
> I hope the cartoon villain responses coming from the administration when they're challenged on any of this will get more people to stand up against it all.
I don't think we should expect people to stand up against all of this. Even if most of them don't like it, let's be honest, it's not a dealbreaker for them. Especially if the next election other party puts forward some deliberately hypocritical, racist, out-of-touch elitist like Kamala Harris.
> hypocritical, racist, out-of-touch elitist like Kamala Harris.
Gee I wonder what side of the political spectrum you align to...
I like rule of law and due process. I like the Constitution and its balance of powers. I think that a good chunk of Americans also like these things. I believe the current administration is acting in extremely contrary ways to those things. So yes, I expect more Americans to stand up and speak out.
> I like rule of law and due process.
Many people like this. It's just that the choice, as far as I understand, is not between rule of law and authoritarian dictatorship.
> I like the Constitution and its balance of powers.
And here, frankly speaking, I'm unfamiliar with the American Constitution in these aspects. How does it work? Does it only protect citizens? Or residents too? Does it protect illegal aliens too? Does it protect everyone in the world? Or does it operate on territorial principles, and begin to protect any person who sets foot on American soil, but does not protect everyone else?
There's extensive case law on most of those points, just do a bit of research.
This is standard right wing hate-filled drivel, like that peppered throughout your comment history.
Your ilk really are hoping that Trump's authoritarian takeover of the US succeeds, through provocation, apathy or by whatever means, because you're driven only by the pursuit of power to turn your hate into violence against your perceived enemies.
> Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations
No, we're not.
I think the GP means the collective "we" is OK with it, evidenced simply by the fact that it is happening.
Yep, and from the outside, the rest of the world is watching you all just let it happen.
How can you watch the protest and organization in MN and conclude people are "just letting it happen". Quite the opposite.
Sorry, bad wording. I was using the "you all" in the same context as the parent's "collective we". Yes, there's tens of thousands out in the streets protesting, but also yes there's tens of millions who aren't.
I think it's millions, not tens of thousands protesting.
I hate that the online world is so polluted with America Bad that we cannot even have a good discussion. There is literally nothing American citizens could be doing right now that would meet with approval from outsiders.
Hello. I posted the above comments before I'd read asa400's amazing insight right at the top of this discussion, that post has given me the perspective I was clearly missing when I posted these. I was never coming from an "America Bad" position, but I was definitely failing to appreciate the nuances of protest in such a heavily armed country.
A lot of the world would not tolerate the amount of illegals that the US has within its borders.
You are getting downvoted, but this is a fair point. The only other country with a higher estimate for illegal immigrant population is Russia. The next closest Western European country is France, with barely over half the rate of the US. [0]
[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/percentag...
In the poorer parts of the world, people absolutely detest illegal immigrants (or basically most working migrants as well) because they are taking jobs from the locals. They hate refugees because there's not enough resources to go around to use in feeding and housing them.
Welcoming people in because "no-one wants to do those jobs" is very much a luxury belief of the well off.
I think the number of people who welcome immigrants for this reason is actually quite small, and is mostly business owners. And to be fair, they are not entirely wrong -- all evidence we have suggests that many of the jobs are so hard that getting citizens to do them would require bumping the wage 3, 4, 5 times, and even then it is a tough sell.
What I think has happened culturally is that Americans see us as the shining beacon on the hill, where everyone wants to be, and so we feel sympathetic to those who will do whatever it takes to come here. There are lots of cultural references historically that reinforce this mythology. Call it American Exceptionalism or whatever, but the mythology is real.
Between our own loss in confidence and the onslaught of 'America Bad' inundating the online dialogue, this mythology is dying in a hurry. Makes me a little sad, honestly, because I am of the opinion that a nation benefits from a strong mythology. Sometimes that is served by religion, but in the US it has for a long time been 'Land of Opportunity' and associated beliefs. I dare anyone to go to the US Capitol tour and watch that 15 minute intro video about the founding of the country and not come away with a tear in their eye. It's quite moving, even if it is largely a fabrication.
It's always the land of opportunity for those who want to come in and displace the existing inhabitants. Fun when you're the one displacing until you are on the other side.
Yes, thank you.
I meant "we" in the sense that our country has yet to put an end to it and there is still a majority of people either actively in support of ICE or remaining silent.
Then argue for democratically changing the law to make them unambiguously legal.
Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.
> Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.
That's what the OP is saying.
Congress has been neutered and there's been efforts to ensure that it stays that way.
It isn’t new though. The whole reason it is such a mess now is it was equally deliberately ignored for decades.
No. One old man and a bunch of malicious zealots at his side are introducing a tremendous amount of instability into the country and the world at large; just like they did with his first term, only now less inhibited.
The problem is the old man and his enablers have zero respect for the law, whereas the other team does (they are not above reproach but in this regard they are distinctly different).
This makes the fight unfair, as without law all we have is unbridled violence as a tool and that is a path to ruin for all.
> have zero respect for the law
They are simply enforcing a law that people have had every opportunity to democratically change in the decades since it just stopped being enforced properly, and yet they failed to secure a democratic mandate to do so.
Complaining from that position is far from being on a moral high ground.
Obama was "Deporter in chief"
You are just wrong.
America didn't even really have borders for most of it's existence, as the very idea of a Nation wasn't really a thing until into the 1800s.
We had a purposely pourous border with Mexico until relatively recently.
How many mexican immigrants do you happen to think live in Minneapolis?
While a pan-US national awareness is widely seen as emerging during the civil war the rest of what you are saying is disingenuous. Prior to that it was a selection of colonies etc. which very much had borders because skirmishes over taxation rights was a thing.
There was significantly more inter ethnic strife in the US pre WW2 than most people seem to appreciate, much of it relating to if encountered (by whatever means) people should be settled/assimilated/rejected. There were riots/protests of this type in major cities at least between the civil war and the 1930s, and state policy reflected this, such as with the Chinese exclusion act which would hardly have been possible without a border.
It’s the literal plot of Star Wars
Congress hasn't been neutered, they can reclaim their power at any time. Republicans in power simply refuse to act at all.
That they neutered themselves doesn't make them any less neutered.
I'm skeptical about their ability to reclaim it, too. Lots of them remember being terrified and running away Jan 6, even if many now pretend not to... and SCOTUS has been on a tear wiping out long-standing legislation Congress was quite clear about like the Voting Rights Act.
To extend the analogy, Congress hasn't had their balls removed, they simply aren't humping other dogs right now.
I'm not an expert, but while many of SCOTUS' rulings have been against the plain letter of the law, few of the decisions ruled out Congressional power in those areas categorically. Congress could pass a new Voting Rights Act, or redefine the EPA's powers over wetlands, or any number of things, they just choose not to. And of course, even with a Democratic Congress, getting past the veto may be impossible.
> Congress could pass a new Voting Rights Act, or redefine the EPA's powers over wetlands, or any number of things, they just choose not to.
They could, and SCOTUS could toss it, like they did bit by bit to all the important parts of the first.
Or just invent a new legal standard, like the "history and tradition" one they used in Bruen, Dobbs, and Bremerton.
> Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.
Like expanding Presidential immunity specifically for a President with 34 existing felony convictions?
Or the admin refusing to even investigate the agent in the Good shooting (https://www.axios.com/2026/01/14/ice-trump-minneapolis-inves...) while going after her widow (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/prosecutors-doj-resign...)?
Current ICE/Homeland Security actions are unambiguously illegal.
The problem is that without an independent congress the US system is able to descend into authoritarianism. The court has (reasonably) decided that on many broad issues regarding presidential actions and abuse of authority only congress (via impeachment and removal) is able to constrain the president.
The current congressional majority has, for now, decided to allow the president to do almost anything he wants, regardless of the law and constitution.
> Everyone is ok targeting the immigrant populations
To echo another commentor, we're not. And even if we were, this is not how it should be done. Enforcing the laws is one thing, but we have to have due process. Without due process, we have no rights.
Due process for EVERY person in the legal territory regardless of who or what they are. Otherwise it's way to easy to say, "they're the other, and have no rights", and they are already using this line.
Which is absolutely unconstitutional. The constitution says the 4th amendment protects all people, not just citizens. It's been upheld many times by the supreme court. This administration is knowingly and willingly trampling the constitution. The midterm elections can't come soon enough. And in the meantime we all need to get in the streets. Anyone can manipulate social media. But you can't manipulate the narrative when there is an overwhelming number of brave people in the streets clearly and peacefully protesting.
Citation needed.
Musk tweeted yesterday that speaking hate against the country should be considered treason and lead to being locked-up.
It's not hard to shift "anti-American" speech to mean "anti-ICE", anti-current-administration, etc.
He should be allowed to say that.
But it should not be enforced, or the constitution became toilet paper. I think we are arriving at the latter.
Mr "free speech" Musk (/s)
If it is this tweet you are referring to, it's about _teaching_ hate, which is only a slight nuance and still a terrible point to make for a self-labeled "free speech absolutist"
> Teaching people to hate America fundamentally destroys patriotism and the desire to defend our country.
> Such teachings should be viewed as treason and those who do it imprisoned.
https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2011519593492402617#m
> it's about _teaching_ hate
Which is free speech, unfortunately.
And a very difficult thing to define, and very clearly not the sort of thing that'd be enforced against, say, the current President no matter how clear the violation.
>the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota
If you think this is only immigration enforcement you haven't been paying attention. That was ostensibly what Trump campaigned on. That is not what is happening in Minnesota and other previously safe places. What is happening is a massive terror campaign against all US citizens who don't happen to be the right color. And increasing, against everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
Does anyone else think that the biggest reason for ICE and the National Guard deployments is to normalise such situations?
It seems most likely to me this is being done in preparation for the ending of democracy. If the midterms become mired in controversy, for example, there will be protests on the streets. And these deployments will be ready to crush dissent. This is why deployments are mostly focused on the likely flashpoints.
There's a clear difference in the premises behind the thinking of the "right" vs. the "left". One side sees "evil officers acting too aggressively towards fellow humans", and the other side sees "patriotic police catching criminal aliens, and leftists attacking the police".
Those are the two ways of thinking I've noticed.
To the eventual detriment of the latter, I expect. There are plenty of people currently on the "evil officers" side who would be much more willing to support the mass deportation effort if the ICE officers were calm, unmasked, not using violent SWAT tactics just to apprehend an undocumented immigrant. This intentional violence turns away a lot of people who'd otherwise be sympathetic to the goals.
It's not really a good ad for their software as they appear to be grabbing brown skinned people at random.
Appears based on what? What percentage of detainees do you think are illegal vs legal residents?
Well the idea is that you grab brown people en masse and then scan them with the app. In fact the entire point of the app is to enable grabbing brown people en masse, so it's probably looking pretty good to Noem and the like.
We were worried about China using force over Uyghurs. non-white Americans are the Uyghurs now.
Congress and Supreme court ought to be reigning the executive branch and enforcing citizen rights according to constitution and bill of rights.
I am pretty underwhelmed by what this tool does.
There is a list of suspects. It does not say this is sourced by Palantir, but it is at least consumed. [1]
It puts flag on a map where the list says the persons(s) may be. Based on addresses listed in government documents.
It indicates the lists ranking of importance. And whatever links to crimes done or crimes suspected of.
ICE leadership can add priority meta data to the list.
This is not 2026 hyper advanced software. And the government paying huge money for it well that is just public procurement.
I mean imagine
[1] The list itself being pulled from several data sources.
Mods are going to boot this off the front page.
Mostly flagging from individual pro-ICE HN accounts.
How did this fell off the homepage so fast?
ratio of comments to upvotes is the usual reason
I don't know how much people outside of MN know about what's going on, but it's fucking dire here. However bad you think it is, it's worse.
There are more Feds running around then state and local police
As bad as Chicago?
Much worse
Here's a recent write-up by a local: https://wburdine.substack.com/p/letter-from-an-occupied-minn...
How do we get this read by more people this is crazy.
It's crazy that anybody who has read books could learn about the company "Palantir," know where the name comes from, and join it thinking it's anything other than evil.
The thing is, I know palantir engineers are well paid. Money warps people's brains. It's much easier enable evil if you can go back to a home you own in Silicon Valley.
> know where the name comes from
This is a wild point to me, yeah.
The Palantir is literally a cautionary tale on the risks of thinking you can use the enemy's tools without being corrupted by it.
I've lost count of people who have read Tolkien's work and never dug deeper than "cool fantasy story" level. I was no different when I read the Lord of the Rings as a teenager. Unlike C. S. Lewis, Tolkien does not shove his message down your throat.
We have technofascists trying to bring AI into the military and saying it's Star Trek. Star Trek! One of the most clearly socialist, "woke" tv series! Media literacy is not a conservative value while illiteracy and ignorance is.
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/pentagons-arsenal-of...
I think they know exactly what they were doing with the naming. They were and are absolutely ok with the evil connotations and uses
Silicon Valley started with hippies and will end with fascists.
No one ever joined palantir thinking they were a good person. You join palantir because you've done enough drugs to believe that "good" and "evil" don't exist and you've "evolved" beyond that. You know, sociopaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Wasn't there a meme called owl really?
This is extremely relevant for the current conversation. All this has happened before.
IBM and the holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Every single engineer who works on this should be in prison for life. Nuremberg trials are coming. Be careful associating yourself with techno-fascists, history will not forget your git commits on evil technologies.
I remember in the 2010s when Silicon Valley was full of founders who genuinely wanted to use technology to make the world a better place, and now it's just fascists who want to use technology to kill brown people more efficiently
> Silicon Valley was full of founders who genuinely wanted to use technology to make the world a better place
No, it wasn't, it was full of people who said they wanted to use technology to make the world a better place because saying you would use technology to make the world a better place was viewed as the path to investment and success.
Now, as soon as feigned empathy is no longer required for $$$, the mask comes off. It was never about anything other than profit.
And yet their base ate up the claim that DOGE was about getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse.
To be fair DOGE was the ultimate SV neo-libertarian power fantasy. Just get a bunch of hackers together, screw the rules, get root on the government and start deleting shit. Doubly so after a "leftist" administration.
Same thing happened to Sears.
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/4385-failing-to-plan-h...
> He radically restructured operations, splitting the company into thirty, and later forty, different units that were to compete against each other. Instead of cooperating, as in a normal firm, divisions such as apparel, tools, appliances, human resources, IT and branding were now in essence to operate as autonomous businesses, each with their own president, board of directors, chief marketing officer and statement of profit or loss. An eye-popping 2013 series of interviews by Bloomberg Businessweek investigative journalist Mina Kimes with some forty former executives described Lampert’s Randian calculus: “If the company’s leaders were told to act selfishly, he argued, they would run their divisions in a rational manner, boosting overall performance.”
Correct! The reason so many Silicon Valley types love Trump is they can finally stop pretending to care about people.
SV was always full of limp wristed callous nerds who hate those they consider to be beneath them. Back them they called themselves libertarians or ancaps or something along those lines, but fundamentally nothing has changed.
This take is so wrong it qualifies as delusional. The valley was all about money and nothing but money by any means by no later 1996 when the dotcom got under way. In 2001 I was at a company actively engaging in meetings with a certain three letter agency wanted us to build a secret project to tap oc192 cables at various service providers while talking about how the internet was bringing freedom and openness to society.
Tech has been a cesspool for thirty years.
Frick Trump and frick all the pieces of dump that vote red! I hope you and all your loved ones de a horrible deth. You are ruining the entire world!
Why am I being downvoted? Has HN been invaded by Trump's scum too?
Why is this allowed to reach the front page, but any technical talk relating to the slaughter of Iranians gets quietly removed?
It's possible that different people flag the discussions you're referring to. That said, it looks like there have been ~7 threads with over 100 points on Iran in the last week alone: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=tru...
If anything, it appears that Minnesota/Minneapolis are under-discussed relative to Iran, no?
Good question. But a lazy parsing of your comment might imply you want this post also flagged.