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Comment by pera | Hacker News Reader

I'm not stating a personal opinion here but, for many people wearing a MAGA hat is equivalent to supporting this kind of speech:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best, they’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” - Donald Trump, 2015

If for instance you were from Mexico, it could be discouraging to attend the presentation of someone who believes that your ethnicity implies you are, most likely, a criminal.

I personally wouldn't ask a question to someone who believes I am a rapist based on my ethnicity. Would you?

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Didn't he say "their rapists" not "they’re rapists"?

Subtle difference but it does significantly shrink the group being called rapists from the entire country of Mexico to only immigrants.

"there are rapists"

Weirdest bit of apologetics ever. Making small tactical adjustments that reduces the spread of statements target, but has little effect on its meaning or effect.

Not even immigrants, just the illegal ones.

And yet, for a Republican, he has record high support among the Hispanic population.

What's your point?

That perhaps Hispanic people are not necessarily going to be off put by people in MAGA hats.

Sure, perhaps some wouldn't, but it seems that from the point of view of the Linux Foundation what the majority would provably feel was more important.

Regardless of what they might feel (which, contrary to your assertion, has yet to be proven) the actual threat posed by a middle-aged man who once wore a MAGA is essentially zero.

Protecting participants against actual harm and harassment is a legitimate reason for revoking a person's ticket to an event. Trying to pretend that you don't have to share a country with millions of people who voted for its sitting president is not.

I personally share this sentiment of yours; I particularly dislike how "cancel culture" is increasing divide and lack of dialog in our societies. In my opinion though this was still a dilemma, which was obviously poorly handled (Twitter is in no way the correct place for this sort of things).

My initial post simply attempted to answer your question by explaining the rationality I believe the Linux Foundation followed here.

That last sentence in your post is an incorrect assumption and isn't true. Also wearing a hat is not the same as speech.

All this offense before understanding and flinging crazy associations around does nothing but cause more divide.

> That last sentence in your post is an incorrect assumption and isn't true.

I believe you have misread that last sentence as I didn't make any sort of assumption.

> Also wearing a hat is not the same as speech.

I never said that, but wearing an iconic hat created, used, and sold by a person who said what I previously quoted can obviously be interpreted as supporting such speech. This however, as I have already said, is not my personal view.

Could you clarify what "crazy associations" I made?

> "someone who believes that your ethnicity implies you are, most likely, a criminal"

> "believes I am a rapist based on my ethnicity"

This is your assumption. Nobody said this. Nobody believes this.

The stretched association is then calling anyone who wears a hat to also be a supporter of this incorrect assumption. That's the problem. It's creating outrage against a made-up position that nobody holds.

You are clearly misreading what I wrote, please read it again: I do not believe that all people who wears a MAGA hat believes in those ideas, what I said is that many people do (since that's the sort of rhetoric Trump often uses).

> Nobody said this

Yes, Trump said that Mexican immigrants bring drugs and crime, that's literally what he stated in that speech. In a similar fashion he also wanted "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering" the US:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151208051322/https://www.donal...

It is extremely disingenuous though to say that "nobody" who wears that hat associates Mexican immigrants (and other demographics) with crime.

The statements you are making now are already retreating from your initial position. "Bringing in drugs and crime" is not equivalent to "every immigrant is a criminal", which was your initial interpretation. I think it's reasonable to disagree with Trump on matters of degree and relevance, but not to wholly twist his statements or rely on divining his state of mind.

One, his statement is not qualified wrt other populations. A strong defense against a similar statement about immigrants in Germany was that the crime level of immigrant populations was of a similar magnitude to natives. Trump's argument could easily be challenged the same way.

The second way would be relevance. It's trivially true that some of the immigrants may bring in crime. Is this important to the discussion? Many decisions have adverse consequences but are still taken as a measure of overall good or moral fortitude. An example would be giving free speech to people with reprehensible ideas - while it may lead to offense and actual harm, it is argued as both a net positive good and a show of moral fortitude, that the societ is secure enough in its beliefs that it ia willing to entertain arguments striking against its core. Similarly, one could argue that Mexican immigrants bring in a net positive(it is a common trope that they are hardworking and willing to take on otherwise undesirable jobs). You could also argue that American society should have(within reason) the fortitude to accept immigrants and give them a chance to integrate and enjoy the benefits of Amercian society.

You don't need to strawman Trump to argue against his rhetoric. By far Trump's strongest political weapon has been to bait people into emotional outrage and theb turn around and use that as ammo.

I am not retreating my initial position. It would be generous if instead of just accusing me of doing so, you could point out what exactly made you believe that.

> "every immigrant is a criminal", which was your initial interpretation

If by "every immigrant" you meant "every Mexican immigrant" then yes, that was sort of (and still is) my interpretation: to say that Mexican immigrants bring drugs is equivalent to say Mexican immigrants are criminals. I beg anyone who disagrees with this interpretation to clearly state why. I honestly want to understand how else the aforementioned speech could be interpreted.

Well, lets look at the exact quote that you are referencing.

"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

I got this from RealClearPolitics and I'll ignore the fact that they quoted it as "they're" instead of "their", even though those words sound identical when spoken. His very next sentence is "And some, I assume, are good people."

So my interpretation is that Trump believes that a disproportionate number of the people illegally crossing the US Mexico border are involved in drug or human trafficking, but some are just people trying to find a better life.

I think Trump is a very poor orator and is kind of dumb, so this didn't come off very well and I can see why people were offended by it, but it is also not fair to leave out the context of his very next sentence when it refutes your agenda.

For some people, sure. For some people, support for Bernie Sanders is support for the communist ideology that murdered millions of people, and as a person who personally suffered under a socialist regime I would certainly be uncomfortable in the presence of the socialist or communist symbolics. Does it mean Linux Foundation has an obligation to exclude anybody who ever proclaimed sympathies to Sanders and other socialists, to create safe space for me (in case I'd ever want to visit Linux Foundation sponsored event) and people like me who, personally or through their family and relatives, suffered under socialist and communist regimes?

Of course, singling out communism is not fair - I could name many other ideologies that some people may be very uncomfortable with, especially if you pick out the worst statements you could find, interpret it in worst and most uncharitable light possible and pretend that anybody who have ever agreed with anything in that ideology also fully agrees with that maximally uncharitable interpretation. It would be rather sad safe place if that policy would be carried to its logical conclusion.

But of course it would never happen. I can't imagine anybody being kicked out of a conference for ever wearing (even outside of the conference context) Che Guevara t-shirt or being photographed in presence of hammer-and-sickle flag (and I'm not even talking about religious symbols, most Abrahamic religions at least having very dark pasts and rather ambiguous present). It would be carried out arbitrarily and capriciously, following where current political winds are blowing and what tribal pressure groups happen to be more vocal and scare the organizers the most. That makes it not only a bad policy, but also a hypocritical one.

I am not sure that I understand your point: as you probably know, Bernie Sanders is not a communist, so why would anyone associate his persona with the horrors of authoritarian communist regimes?

The difference between "communist", "socialist" and "democratic socialist" is mostly marketing branding. Same ideology, different wrapping. But my point is not about Sanders but about the fact that people disagree on a lot of things, and if open source organizations start excluding people because somebody could disagree with them on political questions we'll get into a bad place quite fast.

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