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Comment by leereeves | Hacker News Reader

I thought Hacker News was above Nazi-comparisons, but if we are sinking to that level, perhaps we should also compare similarities between left-wing groups engaging in politically motivated acts of violence and the Nazi brownshirts.

For example, consider the group UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks called:

> more than 100 armed individuals clad all in black who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent, destructive behavior designed to shut [Milo's speech] down.

http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/02/campus-condemns-violence...

(But I'd rather we avoid Nazi comparisons altogether. They can be an effective way for an author to get attention but they can be used by both sides and they rarely lead to useful discussion.)

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Are you implying that those groups are coordinated with an American Political Party? Which one? Can you provide more information about that?

Tolerated, certainly.

> UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett said Wednesday night [after the incident described above] she wasn't aware of any arrests by the department.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-violence-prompt...

Imagine:

> more than 100 armed individuals clad all in black who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent, destructive behavior

No arrests?

You specifically compared it with Nazi brownshirts (which were a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party). Your reasoning is that "isn't it strange there were no arrests"? Sorry, that's not the level of discussion I'm used to on HN.

It's as relevant as the comparison the author of this article made between a man who committed genocide and a man who restricted entry into the country from 7 nations, between someone who started his political career with an attempted coup and someone who started his political career by winning an election.

But thank you for illustrating another drawback of Nazi-comparisons: they're almost always inaccurate.

If the article was about Trump restricting entry into the country from 7 nations, I would agree 100% with you.

It isn't about that, though: it's about very specific events and the overall relationship between media and government. It's a fairly interesting article that will, unfortunately, be dismissed by a lot of people because Nazi-comparisons are almost always ridiculous.

It's about very specific events:

> the November 1923 Munich “Beer Hall Putsch,”

> the Munich Post found and published a Nazi party document planning a “final solution”

> the Reichstag Fire and Hitler seizing the opportunity to institute martial law and crush electoral democracy

And so on.

It's an interesting history lesson for those who don't already know these facts, but the author fails to make any substantial connection between these events and Trump.

I agree. That's part of what makes the article interesting for me, though (you can draw your own conclusions), and what warranted discussion on HN. Unfortunately, the current climate makes political discussion almost impossible.

What do you mean?

The history is interesting, or the author's unfounded speculation about potential similarities is interesting?

> I thought Hacker News was above Nazi-comparisons

> [makes Nazi-comparison]

Edit: Parent changed

> Downvoted without response? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, groups that resort to tactics like those at Berkeley are hardly above trying to silence discussion here with downvotes.

into

> (But I'd rather we avoid Nazi comparisons altogether. They can be an effective way for an author to get attention but they can be used by both sides and they rarely lead to useful discussion.)

The latter I can agree with.

I'm willing to engage in discussion at any level the community prefers.

I'd rather not have it at this level but c'est la vie.

Response to update:

> The latter I can agree with.

Are we still flagging political posts here?

Perhaps we could agree to flag Nazi-comparisons, at least.

In that spirit, it's fair to downvote my Nazi-comparison, but only if you also flag the main post.

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