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Comment by ultrabenos | Hacker News Reader

> And ~50% of the American voting public chose him over Hillary, because it was a shit sandwich vs giant douche race, you can't reasonably suggest banning all those people from Linux conferences.

That is a very different situation to choosing to wear a MAGA hat. Choosing to wear a MAGA hat at a large event is a conscious decision to broadcast your endorsement of Trump's policies, ideology, and everything else. It means you want people to know you agree with Trump's stance on immigrants, women, and all the other shit.

Maybe such people still shouldn't be banned from a Linux conference, but they absolutely should be considered as racists and misogynists.

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If he wore the MAGA hat at the conference, I would actually be somewhat with you on this, in such a case I think staff should initially politely tell the person to take the hat off and escalate from there. My reasoning for this would be that someone walking around with such a hat at a conference is probably just begging for reactions, and US politics doesn't really fit into a conference environment.

However, you're being disingenuous. He didn't wear it at a large event, he thought it would be a fun idea to put it on in front of Trump Tower and share a picture of it with his friends on social media. That's something I might even do as a fun tourist picture, and I really don't like Trump.

This conference is not banning him for conduct at the event, they are banning him for an innocuous social media post on his personal twitter account, a week before the event has even begun. They are just policing the political views of attendees. That's what people have a problem with.

That’s absurd. Should someone walking around wearing a “Black lived matter” hat be banned as well because it’s potentially controversial?

When did it no longer be okay to express unpopular political views?

I find such reasoning absolutely ridiculous. Personally it brings me great sadness that the ideals of free speech - the ideals, not the legal meaning - have been so happily stomped on.

Yeah, I agree that it's a sad state of affairs. But the US political landscape is currently so torn and people are ravenously defending their own team in a fight away from the center, so much that I can just imagine the shitstorm you'd unleash by wearing a maga hat at a primarily left leaning conference like the Linux foundation conference.

It's not good, it's not healthy for anyone, and I'm wondering how long its going to go on for.

You have to keep in mind, that for the most staunch Trump opponents, any mention of him is likened to a personal attack, they honestly believe that supporting him is on the level of full blown white supremacy and fascism.

And in that climate, even thought it goes against my principles, I would advocate for everyone to just keep their political leanings to themselves at all times in these "professional" gatherings where it shouldn't matter where you stand politically. At least until things calm down.

Man I have to sympathize with you here. It seems no matter the opinion you express people are jumping down your throat. I just want to say that, to me, it appears you’re doing a good job of expressing your opinion in a kind way.

I would love to see hostile tensions like these die out online very soon.

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