[potatosoup]

Where were all these millionaires and billionaires when we were droning people in some of these countries? They all donated to Clinton's election campaign and under her watch as Secretary of State we dropped thousands of bombs. They supported the pro-war candidate.

Why is restricting our borders considered so inhumane as to cause an Internet-wide outcry, while killing people for years hadn't?

[monfrere]

First, I would point out that bombings, drone strikes etc. have definitely been the target of criticism from sectors of the left. Although I would agree that the outrage has not reached this scale.

I can think of several reasons. I don't necessarily think they are all good reasons.

1) U.S. bombings are seen as a good-faith effort to stop terrorism, based on intel etc.

The current executive order seems more like a rash decision based on xenophobia and poorly implemented (in the early hours, border officials were giving confused and contradictory info on whether green card holders were affected, etc.)

2) The collateral damage from the bombings, added up over a decade, has probably been hundreds of innocent civilians' lives in some of these countries. This is upsetting but distant.

On the other hand, the collateral damage from this executive order is that 500,000 expats living in the US can't leave the country, or are stranded outside the country. For American "coastal elites", myself included, these are not remote people but our friends, coworkers, professors. Everyone in my social circle seem to have at least a second-degree connection to someone from Iran.

3) The current executive order threatens the standing of the communities "coastal elites" are part of: top American universities, Silicon Valley, the medical community, etc. These institutions are world-class due in no small part to how welcoming they are to foreign talent. That could change if the smartest around the world start heading to universities, hospitals, and companies in Canada or Germany instead...

[ivan_gammel]

Collateral damage from foreign policy mistakes is much bigger than from drone strikes, e.g. with "red line" for Assad, when West failed to act, or with the whole adventure in Libya, when Western coalition helped to ignite the civil war, but didn't help to stop it. Millions displaced, hundreds of thousands dead - these people are just not friends, coworkers and professors to care about them loud enough.

[Anderkent]

> Collateral damage from foreign policy mistakes is much bigger than from drone strikes

The core word here is mistakes. No one knows what the right way to react to a international crisis is (though the argument for complete military non-interventionism gets stronger every time a military intervention just makes things worse...).

You have to distinguish between decisions made in good faith that backfire (or perhaps the alternative would have been even worse?), and malicious decisions like what Trump is doing

[ivan_gammel]

What exactly is "good faith" is hard to tell here, so no, I don't want to distinguish between something which only sounds good and something which does not even pretend to sound good. Is it making good to people of another country? Or making good just to people of America and let the world burn in fire? Or making good for the party agenda, so that some politicians will be reelected in next cycle?

How did Obama make that decision not to follow his promise on crossing "red line" by Assad? What were the pros and cons for that decision? How can we be sure that it were not purely U.S. internal politics arguments for giving up? Questions like that do not allow us to forgive mistakes: they force us to hold the governments to account.

[Anderkent]

> How did Obama make that decision not to follow his promise on crossing "red line" by Assad? What were the pros and cons for that decision? How can we be sure that it were not purely U.S. internal politics arguments for giving up? Questions like that do not allow us to forgive mistakes: they force us to hold the governments to account.

And questions like that are asked and answered? Obama had good reasons for not following up on that threat. Read, for example, theatlantic's 'Obama Doctrine' article. It was never obvious that a heavier US intervention in Syria would help the people in Syria at all - in fact, history suggests that the opposite.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine how the US refusing refugees would make the Syrian situation worse.

[rtx]

Forcing a pipeline through a sovereign nation is not in good faith. Alan Kurdi died because Obama wanted to help Saudi Arabia. None of the people on the left or right felt outrage on September 2nd 2015.

[Anderkent]

> None of the people on the left or right felt outrage on September 2nd 2015.

How not? Just the fact that it made news in outlets like nytimes and guardian means that people did care and feel outraged. Things that people don't care about aren't read.

But you're correct the outrage wasn't aimed at Obama. Why? Because there's a difference between a president that acknowledges there's complexities to immigration and refugees, and works on a compromise, and one that seems to treat anyone from the Middle East as of no moral value.

[iaskwhy]

I agree with your points but "The collateral damage from the bombings, added up over a decade, has probably been hundreds of innocent civilians' lives" is not really true. One single drone strike during Bush era killed almost 100 children in a school. There's been much more than 1000 killed civilians and probably 10x that injured (and, as you can imagine, injuries from drone strikes are not usually soft ones).

Drone strikes stats can be seen at https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...

[monfrere]

Troubling. Thanks for sharing. I wonder how the percent of innocents killed by drone strikes compares to the number for non-drone combat.

[seanmcdirmid]

It is one thing to attack another country.

It is completely another to attack your own country.

Right now American liberties and values are under attack from a rightist presidency. I'm selfish, give me the latter over the former any day of the week.

[thesmallestcat]

I have much more problem with killing so many innocents overseas than I do with some MIT student missing class or a researcher being kept away from their work. So that's why these protests seem really hypocritical to me.

[Cursuviam]

A protest isn't hypocritical just because something worse in the past happened that wasn't protested. Maybe some issues with a human face to rally behind receive disproportionate attention, but that doesn't invalidate the issue.

[adventured]

Failing to stand up against egregious civil liberties abuses for eight years, then immediately springing into action again (on every possible topic) because your party is now out of power, is the definition of hypocrisy politically. This happens with every rotation, I watched it happen from Clinton to Bush, and then from Bush to Obama, and now from Obama to Trump.

At the same time the Democrats wanted my vote for Clinton against Trump (I voted for neither). One of the lesser reasons Trump is President, is that vast hypocrisy by the left on civil liberties. It does matter. Clinton was a war hawk that supported bombing only Muslim countries (she supported bombing something like eight different Muslim nations in the last 15 years; but I'm to believe she's not anti-Muslim) and overwhelmingly anti-privacy, she isn't getting my vote on the argument that she's the lesser of two devils. Sanders by contrast, has historically been very consistent on civil liberties for decades, and I'd have considered voting for him.

[grzm]

You care about civil liberties? You now have a large number of people who will act with you. Take advantage of it. If you truly care about these issues, work with whomever you can ally yourself with while not compromising your own values. Right now, there seems to be a lot of people motivated to change things. Work with them. It doesn't mean you're one of them.

[rorykoehler]

Trump is not the problem, he is the symptom. Whilest I agree with your sentiment, it's hard to work towards solving the problem when there is not even an ability to understand what the problem is from those you suggest working with. Anyone who is out there protesting now but would have been cool with Clinton doesn't get it.

[3131s]

None of us pointing out the hypocrisy are saying that we won't work with everyone else, nor are we trying to legitimize Trump's policies. The point is that if we get someone like Michelle Obama in 2020, we want people to still care about these same issues. Maybe pointing out the hypocrisy isn't the best way to do that, but what is?

[seanmcdirmid]

Look, shit in someone else's yard, I don't care.

Shit in my yard, I care a lot about that. There is nothing hypocritical about expecting your country to look out for your interests, while other countries can look out for the interests of their own citizens and residents.

This is nothing about "party". Bush would have never done this, neither would McCain and Romney have been so stupid if they were elected. No, this transcends republican and democrat to a new level of damaging politics unseen since the 1930s.

[StreamBright]

It is an interesting stand when you walked over to somebody else's garden and took a dump and than you say I do not care about that.

The mass immigration problem is there because of the consistent, bad, misguided, systematic intervention the US committed in the last 30 years in the middle east. Most of the immigrants this executive action is screwing over are leaving their country because of the results of US intervention.

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/us...

[sfifs]

> Shit in my yard, I care a lot about that. There is nothing hypocritical about expecting your country to look out for your interests

Well, from the point of view of Trump's supporters, that's what Trump is doing - making things difficult for people who are not American citizens.

[theWatcher37]

Except Obama himself did this exact same thing, and Carter.

You only care because of who's doing it.

[aaronbrethorst]

This was a Cold War propaganda technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[oculusthrift]

worst part is how disingenuous it is. it's not that they want believe some point but simply want to discredit opposition.

[seanmcdirmid]

See we are different. This is why I can dislike china so much for oppressing their own people even though they haven't killed any non-Chinese in almost 35 years. It is just a different level of bad to screw up your own country rather than others. America shouldn't become china.

I really can't judge why we do stuff abroad, but I can totally see what is happening in front of my face.

[oculusthrift]

always click the profile before responding. can easily see this person does nothing but engage in flamebait posts to incite reactions as a trump supporter.

[mc32]

But the administration isn't directly affecting Americans -it's affecting some people who had legal residency (green cards) in the US and will for the time being affect potential visitors from select countries for 30 to 90 days.

When he ran, he ran on a platform to do good by America and Americans --none of the world shaping vision other presidents had (which then led them to foreign interventions which then lead to people calling America imperialistic and other tangling messes). So, it should be of little surprise he does not care very much about non-Americans (I think he takes that belief literally) and will try to deliver on it.

When the ACLU gets involved, I don't even see the "American" part of the civil liberties in there. I mean, good on them for caring, but at the moment it's doing work on behalf of foreign nationals, rather than Americans, directly.

While this may affect some friendships and relationships for Americans the impact is indirect.

Where is this policy affecting the civil liberties of American citizens? Obviously it's affecting some foreign nationals negatively.

[cplanas]

ACLU defends the American civil liberties, not only the American civil liberties of American citizens. You seem to assume that the American civil rights apply only to citizens. That's a peculiar interpretation, and openly against Supreme Court doctrine. The Supreme Court, on the 14th amendment (Plyler v. Doe (1982)):

> "The last two clauses of the first section of the amendment disable a State from depriving not merely a citizen of the United States, but any person, whoever he may be, of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or from denying to him the equal protection of the laws of the State."

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

In that particular case the court was referring to illegal aliens, not permanent residents, who logically would be at least as protected.

[hugelgupf]

Except, of course, those green card holders that hold a green card because they're married to American citizens. Sure, "indirect."

[mc32]

So, if I'm accused of something, the fist thing I should do is get married so my case will go away, I mean a prosecutor surely would not want to affect a spouse, right?

[belltaco]

Only if you're accused of legally obtaining a green card.

[potatosoup]

(deleted)

[ajmurmann]

I thought this immigration ban was taking place independent of the visa process. I understood this ban to happen even for people with valid visas and even valid green cards. If this was "just" about visas not being granted the process would be much less of an issue. People would have found out long before they got to the border and people with existing green cards, etc. would be fine. But for some reason that couldn't happen and we had to rush into this half thought through mess.

[seanmcdirmid]

Again, that happened in a far away land to people I don't know. The issue at hand is about people with green cards and H1Bs not being able to enter the country because Trump had a bad hair day. Completely different, I work with the latter people, while the former I don't know.

[nerfhammer]

Does anyone think Obama did any of these things because "Muslims, bad!"?

[theWatcher37]

American "values" aren't under attack, immigration from 7 countries known to harbor terrorists are.

Arguably Saudi Arabia and Pakistan need to be added to this list.

[seanmcdirmid]

Wait, only one of those countries harbored one terrorist who was unsuccessful in killing anyone.

This order wouldn't have prevented 9/11 or any of the recent attacks. This order isn't designed in any way to protect our security. Frankly, I have no idea what it was meant for, but our country feels like it is under attack from the Trump administration.

[jpttsn]

This order shows Trump voters who are afraid of muslims, that Trump delivers. Meanwhile, it shows world leaders that Trump is prepared to change the rules governing immigration.

I don't think Trump is doing stuff at random here.

[tombh]

I completely agree. It's embarrassing to see how superficial our 'compassion' is. It always reminds me of Baudelaire's chilling poem, "To The Reader", where he so uncomfortably spells out ennui as the worst of all monsters. The last 3 verses;

  >But among the jackals, the panthers, the bitch hounds,
  >The apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,
  >The yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,
  >In the filthy menagerie of our vices,
  >
  >There is one more ugly, more wicked, more filthy! 
  >Although he makes neither great gestures nor great cries, 
  >He would willingly make of the earth a shambles 
  >And, in a yawn, swallow the world;
  >
  >He is Ennui! — His eye watery as though with tears, 
  >He dreams of scaffolds as he smokes his hookah pipe.
  >You know him reader, that refined monster,
  >— Hypocritish reader, — my fellow, — my brother!

(Of course not to advocate Trump, blah, blah, blah)

[Swizec]

SFO is much closer than Syria. Anyone can go protest, anyone can go take pictures and post on social media.

The trouble that strikes at home always feels more important than the trouble that strikes far away.

Many people have friends who are immigrants or are immigrants themselves. Few people have friends living in those countries.

What worries me personally is what if this border closing stuff escalates further and further. I'm here on a visa and my country is not on the list, but who knows what they might come up with.

Especially considering the rumors that they're asking questions about allegiance to the regime and checking social media.

Hello future border agent waves

[potatosoup]

(deleted)

[grzm]

Please stop. It's not a binary issue, but unfortunately the elections are effectively a binary choice. And sometimes it takes a while for people to wake up. Encourage them to be consistent. Continually calling out hypocrisy isn't going to make people more likely to agree with you. Quite the opposite. Do you think the Executive Order should be opposed? If so, let people feel their oats now and engage. Once engaged, it's even more likely they'll be politically reflective and active in the future.

If you're fine with the Executive Order, fine, but please engage more constructively and civilly.

[rdtsc]

There is nothing wrong in pointing out hypocrisy. It is a pretty reasonable rhetoric technique.

I think his point stands, these refugees didn't appear in a vacuum. It is not a natural disaster or act of God. It was mostly due to destabilization efforts from the West. Wonder what the historical record is of these CEOs lobbying Obama to stop bombing or supporting "rebels" in those parts. I think it is worth having that discussion...

Now I think it a pretty bad decision to prevent Green Card holders to re-enter. I was one for many years, I can imagine how it feel being denied entry.

[emcq]

Why is it that people like scratching the hypocrisy itch? It's not even a logical fallacy. In fact, pointing out hypocrisy as a way of negating the merits of an argument _is a logical fallacy_: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

I think we as commenters on HN should hold ourselves to a higher bar.

Pointing out hypocrisy changes the conversation in a way that avoids discussing the relative merits of an argument. It doesn't invalidate the original argument - it's just that, rhetoric.

For example, I'm sure there were other hypocritical posts today. Isn't it hypocritical to try and fight hypocrisy by commenting on specific political points in a discussion but not others? (please dont take this argument seriously as I'm just offering it as an example of rhetoric)

[jpttsn]

Thing is, what guarantee does your opponent have that you will care about muslims when there is a democrat in the White House?

It's like a game theory problem. Rhetoric becomes meaningless: there needs to be a track record that shows that you cooperate.

That's why hypocrisy is invoked in the debate; rather than an argumentative tool, I see hypocrisy accusations as "flags" that say "I can't cooperate because of your low credibility"

If this sounds harsh, I sincerely apologize.

[rdtsc]

People don't talk in first order predicate logic, it is just not how it works. Insisting on it is silly I think. Once in while mentioning "Ha! got ya, you just committed logical fallacy ${Latin_term}!" works. And is certainly very useful in rigorous arguments, but how fun is to converse with someone who throws that around after every sentence?

[grzm]

I agree with all of your points. 'potatosoup has been making essentially the same comment throughout the day without engaging further in any nuanced way. It's one thing to point out inconsistencies in a constructive manner. It's quite another to repeatedly spout the same tired line. I'm not out to score rhetorical points. I don't think HN is a place for that.

As for the historical record, we can't do anything about what has happened in the past now. We can learn to do better. I know I'm not perfect and have things I can improve, which means I'm going to have to change and as a result be inconsistent with my past actions. It's true that some people are insincere and continue to be inconsistent and fair weather civil libertarians or what-have-you, but it's also the case that sometimes it takes a serious kick to mobilize people, and once mobilized they remain so. And if those that aren't consistent happen to align with me on an issue I care about, I'm not going to turn them away if it means that a temporary alliance helps a cause I care about. I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt as long as is reasonable.

[tomp]

You (and others) keep dismissing accusations of hypocrisy as "non-constructive", "non-arguments", "logical fallacies" or "rhetoric techniques". By deflecting this (perfectly valid) criticism, you're only confirming their (our?) point. Yes, the accusation of hypocrisy avoids debating the argument that immigration ban is immoral, but the point is, when someone accuses you of hypocrisy, they don't even believe your arguments - they think you're making the arguments in bad faith, making them up just to support your "side" (Democrats), as if you were truly moral, you would have been protesting for 8 years already. So, people see this protest merey as virtue signalling, protesting against Republicans that would have happened regardless of the issue at hand.

You might disagree with the logic above, but I don't think you'll be winning any arguments by pointing out that it's just "a rhetorical technique".

[einarvollset]

So.. your thesis is: supporting Clinton (against Trump) is somehow anti muslim (how exactly? Never mind, let's just grant you that for arguments sake)

But demonstrating against Trump when he proves their worst fears (including being anti Muslim in the dumbest of ways possible) is "virtue signaling" somehow?

I think you need to take a break and work on your Logic 101.

[adventured]

Clinton's support of bombing numerous Muslim countries in the Middle East as Secretary of State and prior to that, would blatantly be considered anti-Muslim if it were Trump doing it, just as it was considered anti-Muslim under Bush. Hillary was an extremely aggressive supporter of the Iraq invasion, the war in Afghanistan, the US involvement in Libya, the bombing of Syria, and the drone programs that bombed numerous Muslim nations including Pakistan.

[robryan]

Not supporting Clinton would have been effectively supporting Trump. Wouldn't it be greater hypocrisy to support Trump then protest?

[inopinatus]

Sounds like you're inventing principles for yourself and then complaining that others don't conform to them.

[F2]

"Trump wants us to stop fighting these wars."

Proof?

[aaronbrethorst]

Here's some evidence to the contrary. http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/01/24/trump-iraq-oil

"...If we kept the oil you probably wouldn't have ISIS because that's where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil, but OK. Maybe we'll have another chance."

[grey-area]

The US is still droning, that policy of assassination has not changed. It was wrong under Obama, and is wrong now (plenty of people condemned it), but is nothing to do with immigration policy.

This is whataboutery, and you're also trying to reduce serious issues to the shallow dichotomy of American political parties. Don't do that.

[akamaka]

Because the people who had bombs dropped on them were bad people, but the people being held at the border are good immigrants.

We could spend endless hours debating the the gray areas of warfare, but that discussion aside, that is essentially the answer to your question.

[Steko]

This, grandparent post is textbook whataboutism.

[jpttsn]

It's not textbook whataboutism. It's a tu quoque.

[parthdesai]

So more than 500,000 Iraqi's killed were all bad people?

[sampo]

I don't think US has killed 500,000 Iraqis. Most of them were killed by other Iraqis in sectarian violence.

[Amezarak]

I can't speak for GP, but telling a guest that they are no longer welcome doesn't seem like a moral issue at all, while killing someone definitely is, regardless of how good or bad the people are.

[wtetzner]

Greencard holders aren't guests. Telling them they're not welcome means kicking them out of their homes.

[Amezarak]

If you're not a citizen, whatever the country, you're a guest. It would be absolutely terrible to be a resident for years and then told you're no longer welcome, but I don't think it is a moral issue.

If I invite someone to live with me and they stay for ten years, it is not evil for me to kick them out afterwards.

[wtetzner]

A "Permanent Resident" is permanent. That's not a guest any longer. And if kicking someone out of their home isn't a moral issue, I don't know what is.

> If I invite someone to live with me and they stay for ten years

If you sign a contract saying they're allowed to live with you for ten years, and kick them out after 3 years, I would argue that it is evil (not to mention illegal).

[blazespin]

Well, at least they're doing something. I agree though, it's a horrible crime to see how nobody expresses any outrage at some of the horrible things the US has done before. Like all those 100s of thousands of people who died in Iraq.

[mythrwy]

And that is the real point. Seizing on humanitarian issues to make political hay while ignoring the much larger humanitarian issues being caused by people you support is just unsavory.

[adventured]

edit: I'm being very aggressively downvoted in every thread that I point out the hypocrisy of only supporting civil liberties when your party is out of power, and suggesting that liberals should become consistent in their support of civil liberties. Fascinating echo chamber here.

---

Where were they during the 2006 Secure Fence Act? [1] Where were the vast protests when Obama pushed through the NSA data sharing policy during his last days in office? Violate the liberties of hundreds of millions of people, and they don't bat an eyelash.

It's not very productive of course, to only point out that so many liberals are extreme hypocrites on civil liberties. Democrats won't get my vote until they can act consistently on such, including against their own President. The effort now should be on encouraging the left to remold itself strictly when it comes to protecting civil liberties again, rather than turning a blind eye when it's convenient. There needs to be consequences for Dem politicians that support/ed the abuse of civil liberties, whether now or in the recent past (as so many of them have).

[1] https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2017/01/27/in-2006-demo...