Hacker News Reader

Comment by redczar | Hacker News Reader

Authoritarianism means oppressing the masses, having an undemocratic government and acting against the will of the people. It happens in Venezuela. It happens in Turkey. It happens in Hungary. It doesn't happen in the US.

We have an undemocrstic government. Thousands of polling stations have shut down since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Voter rolls have been purged in key swing states. As a result of these things millions of people were unable to vote. Trump has unilaterally rescinded monies appropriated by Congress and duly signed into law. That alone is authoritarian.

…therefore a representative of the oppressed majority, is waging a war against their oppression (as masses seems it) by the authoritarian deep state.

Only a delusional person can possibly believe this. There is no oppressed majority in the U.S.

View on HN

>As a result of these things millions of people were unable to vote.

By similizing the American electoral system to those in authoritarian countries, you trivialize the suffering of people oppressed and often physically exterminated by authoritarian regimes around the world. Millions? Seriously? Try talking to any refugee from an authoritarian country about this. Just please be as polite as possible and choose a smaller person, I'm afraid that because of your extremely offensive position towards their suffering, they may try to cause you physical harm.

>There is no oppressed majority in the U.S.

Of course not, the US seems to be a fairly authoritarian-free country. It's just that if we assume that the US has these tendencies and try to be fair with the terms, it is quite obvious from whom they come, and against which majority the attempts at oppression are directed.

What do you call it when people are rounded up and sent to a gulag in El Salvador without due process? What do you call it when monies appropriated by Congress that literally kept starving people alive in other parts of the world, are unilaterally rescinded by an executive with no legal power to do so? The richest man in the world caused the deaths of some of the poorest in the world, and fulfilled not one of the benefits he promised.

What do you call it when people flood into a country without due process?

What do you call it when people supporting an authoritarian deflect to their pet issue because they think it owns the libs?

You don't get to ignore due process just because crimes are alleged. That's the whole fucking point of due process - to ascertain exactly what has happened and not just take some thug's word for it when they want to boost their arrest numbers.

Due process is the wrong term. What you describe is called immigration. Sometimes immigration is illegal.

There’s a spectrum of authoritarianism. Not all instantiations involve mass murder or other forms of mass suffering.

Your argument boils down to: others have it worse therefore you have no right to complain.

Consider that if we don’t stand up now and complain now that the foundation will be set for the infliction of mass suffering. Your reasoning is quite bad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com