Likewise it is worth reading They Thought They Were Free. It describes the mental states of denial and inevitability, the rationalization of inaction, and of realizing it's "too late." If you want the quick read you can start at "Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse." Here is an excerpt: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm

People who have have made it their lives work to study the worst kinds of history have been setting off alarms because they perceive the fires of fascism to be burning here in America right now. Here you can watch such a video (5m) on NYT of world experts on the atrocities of the past warning us: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010157022/yale-c...

I don't think HN mods operate as conservative or liberal (although curiosity is an extremely liberal cause), but I think they will come to understand the cost of neutrality.

If anything I think they have not fully confronted the paradox of intolerance or realized that the times are different than they were in the last 30 years of internet flame wars. In the past when Godwin's law and flame wars were the rule of every forum, there weren't historians at prestigious universities who studied the holocaust/fascism warning us that fascism is happening here in America right now.

These are mental health preserving and physical health preserving until they are not.

Nobody wants to hear that if you don't do something bad things are going to happen and nobody in power, such as mods, wants to have their power challenged or use it to threaten others in power because it is going to make them uncomfortable or their lives harder.

What you are seeing is how Nazi Germany happened. Not this specific thing, but this behavior scaled over an entire population. People with empathy and others subjected to stress enter a state of grief, and the first stages of grief are shock (disbelief) and denial (not asking questions you know the answer to because the answer is too awful to bear), people tell them they are overreacting or that they are "too political." "Protest somewhere else" is a common sentiment for anyone inconvenienced by those who feel unjustly treated, and only once they personally experience harm do they start to change their mind.

It is flagged because most people want to be comfortable, and hearing uncomfortable things in comfortable spaces is something they don't want to tolerate, even if it threatens the existence of their comfortable spaces in the long term because curiosity is not compatible with authority and authoritarianism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_West_Flight_612

Here is an example where a man got a gun on a plane in 2007, which directly disproves the 'equality' if passengers.

People on death marches, in concentration camps, or other similar scenarios have the same math, and yet they get gassed or forced to dig their own graves after which they are shot and buried in them.

So yes, rationally that all makes sense and we should celebrate anyone putting themselves at risk to fight for the benefit of a larger group, but reality is different, especially if the hijackers can guarantee at least one death.

To say a hijack could never happen again is wrong. The doors are a much more reasonable explanation than the courage of men.

History also gets forgotten, such as the history of secret police or mass deportation efforts as is quite clear in this thread.

It takes an exceptional person to act before their fate is sealed and the majority of passengers, if not all of them, will be in a state of denial or shock at the situation they are in preventing them from action. Others who might want to act, but not having been in the situation before, will think about what to do or when the right moment to act is, and the right moment will never come, especially if the hijackers can guarantee the first person who acts dies.

This is the wrong question. The right question is "who will hold them accountable if they violate your rights or try to punish you for lack of obedience?"

That's the problem with not defending Rule of Law. If law is arbitrary and only serves the interests of one person and isn't grounded in some greater objective truth, then it doesn't matter what is officially allowed or not. If judges and enforcers are loyalists then they get to make the call whether your lack of cooperation is obstruction of justice or not. Who is going to punish them for violating your rights? Other ICE agents? The DOJ? You might not even be given standing to fight for your rights in court.

An ICE agent may choose not to believe you are a US citizen and call your documents fake, and put you in a concentration camp or deport you to El Salvador.

As with Kilmar we saw that ICE can act without due process, and due process is what determines your citizenship status.

Trump is also openly talking about revoking the citizenship of citizens.

It's worth a reading about de-naturalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturalization#Human_rights

Any country which did not abuse their citizens or subsidize their businesses became noncompetitive.

And why would you use old school taxis when uber/lyft were offering $5 rides in a 7x7mile area, and how could old taxi companies compete when they are forced to compete with people not bound by market forces?

I am sure it must also be at exactly a 30 degree angle with even a degree off invalidating it as an official nazi salute.

There is definitely no history of deportations, loyalty purges, secret police, cowing of the judiciary and universities, provocations of anti-semitism, big lies, or attacks on institutions that might inform the greater context and there definitely aren't people who have studied fascism at our most respected universities who are warning us that fascism is here: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010157022/yale-c...

Hearing democrats decry Russian foreign influence was also something I was on board with, but much like Nancy Pelosi saying it's not corrupt when she trades on stock with private information, apparently it's not corrupt when the democratic party accepts foreign aid in the form of AIPAC donations, or just as likely threats of the use of Pegasus against them.

It is quite sad to be an American of good conscience right now. It's hard to respect our country in any way when it shows such little moral fiber and such little backbone.

Is the constitution more protected or less protected?

Will trump have a harder time breaking the law or an easier time?

Many in this thread arguing about the legal minutiae of a system that only became problematic in the context of an anti-constitution anti-law president... and I just don't understand. I don't understand what reality you're living in where this is something to defend.