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Comment by xupybd | Hacker News Reader

Best friends are not the ones being targeted here. You have examples such a Don Lemon trying to tar all Republican voters as being in league with the neo Nazis https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6223009033001 .

Loose associations don't mean you are in agreement with people on every possible issue. I agree with Hitler that public sanitation is important but consider him to be one of the most evil men to ever exist.

It's just not a good way to make a judgement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

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So would you vote for Hitler because of his public sanitation policies, while overlooking his other evil policies?

Because this is what Republican voters seem to be doing: they vote for Trump because they like some of his policies (e.g., lower taxes) while overlooking his other policies (open racism, open misogyny, anti-science, etc.).

Well I would agree that voting for someone with racist or misogynistic policies would be a problem, however I've not seen any policies or laws that were. You are welcome to prove me wrong.

As such I can excuse people for voting for Trump. Especially in a two party system. I suspect many simply always vote Republican and despite Trump's brash public persona they thought he was their best option.

One example of many:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/29/north-caroli...

> A federal court on Friday struck down North Carolina voting laws it said were enacted with “discriminatory intent”, targeting African Americans “with almost surgical precision”.

> Plaintiffs in the suit welcomed what one called “a stinging rebuke” to the Republican-controlled state government, representatives of which questioned the political affiliations of the judges involved and said they would appeal the decision to the US supreme court, because it “ignores legal precedent”.

How is this an example of Trump being racist? Wasn't this even before he was elected?

A Muslim travel ban comes to mind:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769

> his other policies (open racism, open misogyny, anti-science, etc.).

The vast majority of people who vote for him do not think he has policies with these traits. Describing his policies as "open racism", "open sexism", etc requires definitions of those terms so broad that most of the American population (and the vast majority of the world population) would also be guilty of them.

Looking at his public statements about women I think it's clear he is a misogynist but mainly in his personal dealings. It's not really a feature of his politics.

As for racism I think the Muslim Ban was a case of explicitly racist policy. I know the Supreme Court disagreed, but frankly they are wrong on this.

Being a Muslim has nothing to do with a race. You have people of all races who are Muslims.

I don't see that it makes any difference. Is discrimination based on either acceptable? If not why does it matter?

1. You're moving goalposts

2. If discrimination by religion is not acceptable by your standards, why should discrimination based on politics be?

Goal posts? Maybe, but I don't think enough that it actually matters. I note you didn't answer my question.

Nobody is being discriminated against based on politics. They are being penalised for their personal actions as individual citizens.

I have commented on this in more detail elsewhere on this discussion.

It matters a lot, because words have meanings. Can religion (ideas) be changed? Can you change your race? Did Trump discriminate against Muslims or against specific countries? Does a sovereign country have the right to refuse entry to whom it pleases within the laws?

Looking at his public statements about women I think it's clear he is a misogynist but mainly in his personal dealings. It's not really a feature of his politics.

As for racism I think the Muslim Ban was a clear case of explicitly racist policy.

But there is a correlation wrt race and religion, so how do you distinguish?

Most neo-Nazis and white supremist are white, isn't any action targeting those groups also racist? of course not; but what's the difference between that argument and the so-called "muslim ban"?

I don't really distinguish, there are technical differences but it's not as though one is ok and the other is not. Would a religion-ist ban really be any more acceptable? Either you accept that each person should be treated equally as individuals irrespective of such characteristics, or you don't.

Neo-Nazis are not targeted under the law for being Neo-Nazis. They are targeted for individual criminal acts they perform personally, or conspire to perform together. Some small groups have been outlawed in some countries, but only in the same way that criminal gangs such as the Mafia or other terrorist organisations are targeted. That is in no way comparable to targeting "Muslims".

The mistake you are making is to conflate the criminal act with the motivation for that act. Setting a bomb or shooting someone because you are a Neo-Nazi does not mean that if someone prosecutes you they are doing so because you are a Neo-Nazi. They are doing it because of the bomb or the shooting.

This is the mistake the MAGA crowd on the Capitol were making when they were surprised and shocked that the police didn't come over to their side. It's a characteristic of racism that it conflates group identity with individual identity, and it's also why I am vehemently opposed to far left identity politics which makes exactly the same mistake.

They may be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but wing nuts generally are susceptible to the same cognitive failure modes.

> Would a religion-ist ban really be any more acceptable?

I don't really see religion as any more than personal/group belief; I understand America sees it differently, and privileges religious belief.

Is a religion-based ban more acceptable? yes, race is an immutable characteristic that does not determine or prescribe a persons actions or motivations - "religion" is a systems of belief that absolutely does.

> Neo-Nazis are not targeted under the law for being Neo-Nazis

If the metric for hate speech is guilt-by-association with acts of violence, any ideology that promotes violence is hate speech. Neo-Nazi ideology falls under this category, and I believe "refusing entry" has a lower bar then outright bans on freedom of expression.

> That is in no way comparable to targeting "Muslims"

The Muslim ban was so-called by Trumps opponents. The ban targeted specific countries, and was not an exhaustive list of all Muslim nations.

> The mistake you are making is to conflate the criminal act with the motivation for that act

I'm not sure they are so different. Thought-policing ones own citizens is chilling, but I'm less certain about doing the same to refuse entry - we already filter based on a persons character.

>The Muslim ban was so-called by Trumps opponents.

Er, and Trump himself. Many times. It was really important to him that people understood that. He explicitly and frequently said it was his attempt to implement the explicit Muslim ban he promised in the campaign.

https://www.cato.org/blog/dozen-times-trump-equated-travel-b...

I agree religion is a choice, but 'Muslim' is simply a massively broad category. It includes many groups that are implacable ideological and religious opponents of each other, and says practically nothing about a person's actual likely behaviour or actions. As with all racism and other-ism the belief otherwise is nonsense on stilts.

Looking at his tendency to switch wives for a newer model is clear evidence that he has a lack of respect for the women in his life. But there is little evidence that his policy positions disadvantage women.

The travel ban was not something I see as racist. It was nationalistic and popularist. There was a terror threat and Trump actioned a broad travel ban to make his voters feel protected from that threat. Did it actually protect anyone, probably not. Did it unfairly disadvantage huge numbers of primarily Muslim people, yes it did. But the intent had nothing to do with them being Muslim, it had to do with their perceived link to terrorism. You could argue that it was racist to ignore the rights of all these foreign nationals but I think Trump's position was that he only cared about Americans. He was a strong nationalist but in my opinion not a racist.

I would usually agree that everyone who votes for a party that I consider to be evil, isn't necesseraly evil.

But if someone voted for trump 2020, it is very reasonable to say that that person is against democracy.

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