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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's hard to argue what people would have been cool with under Clinton given Clinton wasn't elected. If you're determined that those who are protesting now just don't get it, you're absolutely right, you won't be able to work with them. You've already closed off that opportunity before you've even tried.
not even an ability to understand what the problem is
Do you really, honestly believe that so many people are completely unreasonable? If so, what do you think the path forward is? Do you write all of these people off? What do you do with them then?
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I think Trump is the problem. I think the problem is that people aren't willing to look beyond some of their differences to work towards the goals they have in common.
Though from you comment, it's not clear to me what you consider the problem to be. Would you elaborate?
Once you're at the point where you no longer consider others reasonable, you're effectively stuck. You can't reach them, nor are you open to being reached by them. This is a position from which no civil progress can be made. I'm willing to accept such a position with only the greatest reluctance.
"About a little of a year ago, when I worked in a lab, some of my colleagues routinely laughed and mocked Trump and boasted how he had no chance in hell (as well as fueling fire with continued patronage of sites and news that gave them more of the same "entertainment" [in their words]), and no amount of me pointing out to them the environment that enabled a such a persona to exist/rise to fame/power should be the topic of conversation rather than on the team $x circus ring leader de jour."[0]
>Anyone who is out there protesting now but would have been cool with Clinton doesn't get it.
Part of me thinks that, just some (most?) people never will. It seems like there will always be those who are quick to believe those who will pander to them only to be sold out for later tbd date or possibly in the same transaction!
Faux diametric ideological battle field lines are being drawn stateside (and arguably globally) and led by the same people that have benefited and continue to do so from the status quo, and we are expected to Coke and Pespi this and most take up such role willingly…
I'm taking the wait and see approach: if people are as fired up and eventually willing to fight and kill each other, might as well take the practical route as P&G did during the civil war and sell metaphorical glyceryl trinitrate to both sides and wait for the dust to settle while lurking in the shadows of the madness.
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?
Work with the people who are interested in working with you now. Once they're engaged, they're much more likely to stay engaged, don't you think? And more likely to be increasingly politically aware. Not everyone is at the same stage of their political development. No one is perfectly consistent. Humans just aren't built that way. You and I included. Continuing to hew along these binary political lines is doing no one any good.
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.
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.
The mass immigration "problem" started shortly after Columbus discovered the America's, and hasn't let up since. It is not of the USA's making, in fact, it made the USA.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
