[jokellum]

I'm sorry, like the other comment said you're still both-sides-ing.

States / cities (democrat or republican) sent riot police, which is something they have always done. How they handled protests is worth criticism e.g. I don't like that they use curfews to suddenly make protesters breaking the law. I don't like the use of tear gas on otherwise peaceful protestors. As a note, these are state / city officials not federal guidance typically.

However,

The current administration, Donald Trump, the president of the united states, and the top most members of his cabinet, as a federal, top-down policy will:

- Automatically identify protesters

- Arrest them for simply saying things the admin doesn't like.

- Bypass due-process.

- Will ship them to a gulag outside of the united states.

- Are on track to be found in contempt of court for refusing to bring back a lawful resident.

Both sides are not the same here. Name me a democrat president who has done equal or worse what the trump admin has done.

[morkalork]

I'm going to need a shower after this but Gitmo, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless mass surveillance were still a thing under Obama, no? Still, not even comparable to what we're witnessing now.

[blix]

Obama also created ICE as we know it today. And normalized drone strikes.

[sightbroke]

How are drone strikes any different than a pilot, a warplane, and advanced precision bombs/missiles?

Except they're cheaper to run and don't physically risk a pilot.

[blix]

The issue is not really with the difference in impact between drone attacks and other types of aerial attacks, but with the dramatic increase in scale, resulting from reduced cost and risk.

It probably would have been more accurate to say something like "mass extra-judicial assasination/execution of individuals opaquely labelled as 'militants,' including US citizens, in foreign jurisdictions" instead of "drone strikes," but the latter is shorter and I thought would be understood as implying the former.

[sightbroke]

That appears to be an issue of policy not one of technology.

Because they'd more than likely target those same individuals with less precise weapons if not for the given alternative.

[blix]

The technology enables the policy. If the cost and risk were higher, there would be fewer strikes.

[t-3]

Yep. Trump's taken it to a new level by targeting American citizens while they're physically in the USA, and while immigration courts were always a bad joke he's even skipping the kangaroo court and just shipping people off without even a pretense of due process or legal justification. Rather than an incremental step forward on the path of authoritarianism, this administration has taken a flying leap out the frog-boiling pot, straight into the inferno.

[antifa]

teamwork makes the reamwork

[sepositus]

> Both sides are not the same here. Name me a democrat president who has done equal or worse what the trump admin has done.

I think you might have missed the point. The way I read the comment, and perhaps I'm wrong, is that this sort of power creep was inevitable. Which administration it happened under is likely an influencing factor, but to think it was never going to happen seems a bit far-fetched at this point.

[knowsuchagency]

No, he didn’t miss the point. “Power creep” doesn’t necessitate or justify the behavior of this administration.

[sepositus]

> “Power creep” doesn’t necessitate or justify the behavior of this administration.

Well, neither one of those words showed up in my comment. I said that, based on the growth of this technology, power abuse was inevitable. Not justified, not necessary, simply the natural outcome of such things as history has shown us time and again.

[notjoemama]

The rules state you need to stay on topic. Your reply violates that requirement. If you want to discuss politics instead of the technology of the post, feel free to engage other social media networks, Reddit would be a much better fit for the kind of discussion you are directing people to engage in.

In the interests of fostering better quality dialogue, I think you could have replied something like, “Democrats did (X in relation to technology) where Republicans have done (Y in relation to technology). It would have accomplished the same thing and at least stayed in relation to the topic.