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Bombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured. These are things that are acceptable, but a

Bombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured. These are things that are acceptable, but a 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries, that's a step too far? Has everyone seriously lost their mind?

levlaz 10y ago
> Bombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured. Who is saying that this is acceptable? > 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries I think the key issue here is that this ban includes valid Green Card holders and people who have Visas. This means that they have already spent up to two years being vetted. This policy makes no sense. If the order was just "stop issuing visas", I don't think that there would have been such an uproar.
- SBCRec 10y ago
  I believe he is referring to the global hate train (media hype?) being run on Trump, magnitudes higher than any directed at the previous administrations responsible for those actions. edit: Are military actions against these countries targeting Muslim communities worse than removing immigration privileges of Muslim communities? I dunno how to approach this question...
  - levlaz 10y ago
    Yeah that makes a lot of sense actually.
  - ctack 10y ago
    Well put. I wonder if this ban would have been as strongly challenged by the media if it was someone else proposing it.
    - kevingadd 10y ago
      Considering the huge parade of Republican and Democrat politicians that condemned the very idea over the last year, what do you think?
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Obama got somewhat of a free pass for simply not being quite as bad as Bush. With Trump we're seeing indications of things getting substantially worse than Bush. That is why. People outside the US are used to the US being far to our right, and it being relatively futile to do more than complain about these things. But Trump is seriously scaring people.
  - polymatter 10y ago
    The media was waiting for anything to crucify Trump. He has done nothing but stoke them. He already has been demonized as a white supremisist. The narrative "Trump will ban all Muslims and turn the US into a fascist state" was already on the press, they just needed an excuse to print it. And there are many who not only disagree with Trump, but are appalled at his persona. There was that big march and that whole "Not my president" thing. They are already primed to believe that Trump will attempt to turn the US into a fascist state. In that light they say this as Step 1 of the "US turns fascist" and they are reacting as though he is suggesting Step 10 Imprisoning political opponents. Because they "see" the path and are doing everything they can to stop it.
    - masklinn 10y ago
      > The media was waiting for anything to crucify Trump. He has done nothing but stoke them. He already has been demonized as a white supremisist. The narrative "Trump will ban all Muslims and turn the US into a fascist state" was already on the press, they just needed an excuse to print it. Of course it helps that "a muslim ban" is quite literally what Trump asked for according to Rudy Giuliani: > So when he first announced it he said “Muslim ban.” He called me up, he said, “Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.” I put a commission together with judge Mukasey [Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge], with congressman McCaul [Texas Rep. Michael McCaul], Pete King [New York Rep. Peter King], a whole group of other very expert lawyers on this, and what we did is we focused on, instead of religion, danger—areas of the world that create danger for us. Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion, it’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.
    - SBCRec 10y ago
      Yeah it is interesting, to me it seems like trump and the protesters are both coming from a place of fear and are trying to prevent something from happening, whether that is terrorist attack on US soil, or Trump turning the US into a fascist state. Very interesting
  - moultano 10y ago
    The people he's targeting now are Americans, which for better or worse people are much less willing to tolerate. Green card and visa holders are Americans.
    - dingaling 10y ago
      Visa holders are not necessarily "Americans". For example holders of G-{1-4} Visas from the proscribed countries are not affected by the ban and remain foreign nationals.
    - kranner 10y ago
      I would have thought one is not American until one is a citizen.
      - moultano 10y ago
        That's not how Americans view it. The notion of belonging to a nation is very different in the New World, as best exemplified by this map. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jus_soli_world.svg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jus_soli_world.svg...
        kranner 10y ago
        This map doesn't say anything about visa holders and green card holders. It is only relevant for persons born in the country, which I'm assuming most visa/green card holders aren't.
        moultano 10y ago
        It was intended to convey the difference in attitudes, not relevant law.
        kranner 10y ago
        I got that, but the attitudes about the relevant 'jus' may well be different. It may be as you say it is, but I'm not sure if that's not just a subjective opinion - at least from this graph.
- geff82 10y ago
  Stopping issuing visas in itself would be bad for US reputation. I know many Iranians who really work hard to get a visa for the USA to visit the country they long for at least once in their life. As there is no US embassy in Iran (for good reasons, by the way), they usually have to travel to Turkey at least twice. One couple I know came to Germany for two weeks just to get their visa from the American consulate here. They were so freaking happy to visit the USA for two weeks (they just got home a week before inauguration).
  - levlaz 10y ago
    Totally agree that it is not the right move. But that policy at least would not have been so strongly contended.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >As there is no US embassy in Iran (for good reasons, by the way), Yeah, the Iranian government tends to get a little "clingy" with US citizens that have good leverage power for bargaining.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Who is saying that this is acceptable? A few, but this is irrelevant to the parent's point. Which is that whether people say it is acceptable or not, much fewer numbers complained about it when other administrations where doing it, and much less visibly than people do today . Which gives one the impression that if in 2 or 4 years some democrat or another republican gets into office and does the same or worse, things will be silent again (except for few consistent protestors), and hence that it's all about ousting Trump rather than justice in general. Case in point: Obama halted people coming in from Iran in 2011 (for 6 months) and nobody said much of anything. Or how about this: Trump said he'll get rid of 3 million illegal immigrants and all went crazy. Well, Obama has the record thus far with 2.5 million deportations, but nobody seemed to care back then.
varjag 10y ago
You are arguing strawman. Most people who are anti-ban were also against Iraq war and waterboarding.
- YarickR 10y ago
  Where's 8 year long trail of posts shaming and blaming previous administration and personally pres. Obama for those actions ? I see hypocrisy reigning supreme since Jan 20, from both sides.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Four pages of results right here on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?query="drone%20strikes"&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query="drone%20strikes"&sort=byPopul...
    - XzetaU8 10y ago
      Four pages of mostly zero comment threads.
      - hkailahi 10y ago
        FYI most HN posts don't have comments
        hueving 10y ago
        Because they didn't get enough votes to make it to the front page long enough for attention.
    - 3131s 10y ago
      13 pages in the last week for 'Trump': https://hn.algolia.com/?query=trump&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=trump&sort=byPopularity&prefix... I do however think that Trump is an extreme problem, but also a foreseeable one. I think it's revisionist history to say that Obama's terrible presidency got due attention on HN or anywhere else. Democracy Now! was one of the few outlets that did though, so kudos for posting them.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Patient0 10y ago
It's not just "a 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries" - the fact that Christians from those countries are exempt makes it explicitly a "muslim ban".
- dingaling 10y ago
  > makes it explicitly a "muslim ban". No, 'explicitly a Muslim ban' would say 'this is a ban on Muslims'. Do consider that the list of proscribed countries is compiled between the Departments of Homeland Security and State, not by the President, and is published in the Federal Register. The fact that the majority on that list currently coincide with dominant Muslim populations might have been useful for Mr Trump's intent but is not guaranteed to persist. The list was last updated in February 2016.
  - imron 10y ago
    It's also worth pointing out that none of the top 5 most populous Muslim countries in the world are on the list. In fact, you could argue it's just as much a ban on countries the US is currently bombing, as it is on Muslim countries.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  They've actually inadvertently included a bunch of Mizrahi Jews in the ban, too.
verbify 10y ago
Iran is not a war-torn country. And this doesn't just ban immigrants, it bans green-card and visa holders too.
- coldtea 10y ago
  So just like Obama did back in 2011 for 6 months and nobody batted an eyelid?
  - pwinnski 10y ago
    This claim is untrue.[0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/29/trumps-facile-claim-that-his-refugee-policy-is-similar-to-obama-in-2011/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >“Immigration authorities soon began rechecking all Iraqi refugees in America, reportedly comparing fingerprints and other records with military and intelligence documents in dusty archives. About 1,000 soon-to-be immigrants in Iraq were told that they would not be allowed to board flights already booked. Some were removed from planes. Thousands more Iraqi applicants had to restart the immigration process, because their security clearances expired when the program stalled. Men must now pass five separate checks, women four, and children three.” Sounds pretty similar to me, including a 60% drop in incoming immigrants from Iraq the year that took place compared to the previous and next year. Let's see how WP differentiates the two cases: First, they say that Obama "responded to an actual threat" whereas Trump "issued his executive order without any known triggering threat". So being pro-active in this case is bad? Isn't that the whole idea behind threat prevention? It's not like Trump invented a threat in a new domain where there is known to be none -- we called for potential threats in the same domain (immigration from certain regions) where actual threats have been discovered previously, including under Obama. And ISIS wasn't even a thing back then, nor several big attacks have happened yet in France and Germany. 2) Second, they say that "Obama did not announce a ban on visa applications". And then they excuse that the effective result was similar anyway: "There was certainly a lot of news reporting that visa applications had slowed to a trickle. But the Obama administration never said it had a policy to halt all applications". 3) Third, they say that "Obama’s policy did not prevent all citizens of that country, including green-card holders, from traveling to the United States". Which is probably the main point they get that can stand on its legs -- though government spokespersons deny that this is the case (even if that was the intention or unintended consequence of the command as issued). That said, the people accepted as immigrants into the US, either under Obama (and even less now with Trump's order) the last 3 years from Iraq and Syria are an insignificant amount. And that from a region where millions fled to escape, and have been asking for asylum all over Europe etc.
pjc50 10y ago
Note that, due to the two-party system, complaining about bad Democrat policy on these issues was always somewhat muted at elections because the likely alternative wasn't some better Democrat but a Republican with a far worse policy. Which is pretty much exactly what's happened. (The same applies to British politics: yes, the Labour party were wrong over the Iraq war, but does anyone think the Conservative party were in the right, or would have been less keen to support the US in that situation? Especially given the May-Trump summit.)
- iuguy 10y ago
  > The same applies to British politics Your example is a poor one, and the British electorate have very different motivations when it comes to voting for very different parties with very different backgrounds, in very different elections with a very different governmental structure.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    I've seen people arguing that, since Clinton was the "pro-war" candidate (due to her work at the State Department), one should vote for Trump. It's true that the governmental structure is different; the ability of an incoming administration to sweep away the civil service and security services is much less in the UK. However, the recent R (Miller) -v- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union case has a useful parallel: to what extent is the executive able to deprive people of rights by simple order?
    - iuguy 10y ago
      It's hard to say and would depend on the rights in question. Parliamentary sovereignty would mandate consulting parliament, but our parliament is representative, not direct. It would also be necessary to consult devolved kingdoms, but the extent to which required is not clear. We don't really have the same segregation of powers. Primary legislation can come from various sources and apply in various ways to various parts of the UK. The judiciary is independent and is generally relied on to determine how those laws are to be interpreted. In order for laws to come into force nationally, they need royal assent from the Queen. If memory serves correct this relies on the Queen literally saying the word "Approved" at a certain point in the reading of a law. It might've changed, but might still be in effect. As such we don't really have the same concept of Executive Orders. We do have written guidance on laws, but this can be overridden through the courts.
noelwelsh 10y ago
Imagine you're a person who was strongly against "[b]ombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments[,] and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured". Now imagine that the US has just elected a president far more conservative (and volatile!) than his predecessor, and a result there is a widespread movement for progressive political change, in line with your beliefs, from people who are normally not engaged in the political process. Do you: a) bitch and moan at the johnny-come-latelys climbing onto your bandwagon; or b) accept that society reacts in a non-linear way and use the opportunity to actually achieve something meaningful.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Why does it have to be a and b only. Why not both or add c and d to the list. He brought a valid point it seems but it was "bitching and moaning". And gave him a binary choice to pick between.
  - imgabe 10y ago
    What is the outcome of accepting that point? "You didn't complain when the government did worse things, so now you can't complain ever about anything?" The implication of accepting that logic would seem to be that we just give up. How does that help?
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      > The implication of accepting that logic would seem to be that we just give up. How does that help Not necessarily it could be also "pay attention harder from now on not to make the same mistake", "this is jumping on the outrage bandwagon more than actual outrage", "let's see what happened before so we don't make the same mistakes", "let's hear what others think about this" (as this is a public discussion forum).
    - SBCRec 10y ago
      It is possible that this situation would add frustration for on lookers who notice that a large group of people accepted (or did not SEEM to care) about the killing and torturing of people, but all of a sudden are taking the high ground against a 90 day ban on immigration. For SOME people it would be hard to accept the opinion of such people? I find myself falling into this sometime... Is it a cognitive bias? edit: Its hard for me to think about these issues with large fear based reactions from both sides and the hysteria the media is putting out.

levlaz 10y ago

> Bombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured. Who is saying that this is acceptable? > 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries I think the key issue here is that this ban includes valid Green Card holders and people who have Visas. This means that they have already spent up to two years being vetted. This policy makes no sense. If the order was just "stop issuing visas", I don't think that there would have been such an uproar.

SBCRec 10y ago
I believe he is referring to the global hate train (media hype?) being run on Trump, magnitudes higher than any directed at the previous administrations responsible for those actions. edit: Are military actions against these countries targeting Muslim communities worse than removing immigration privileges of Muslim communities? I dunno how to approach this question...
- levlaz 10y ago
  Yeah that makes a lot of sense actually.
- ctack 10y ago
  Well put. I wonder if this ban would have been as strongly challenged by the media if it was someone else proposing it.
  - kevingadd 10y ago
    Considering the huge parade of Republican and Democrat politicians that condemned the very idea over the last year, what do you think?
- vidarh 10y ago
  Obama got somewhat of a free pass for simply not being quite as bad as Bush. With Trump we're seeing indications of things getting substantially worse than Bush. That is why. People outside the US are used to the US being far to our right, and it being relatively futile to do more than complain about these things. But Trump is seriously scaring people.
- polymatter 10y ago
  The media was waiting for anything to crucify Trump. He has done nothing but stoke them. He already has been demonized as a white supremisist. The narrative "Trump will ban all Muslims and turn the US into a fascist state" was already on the press, they just needed an excuse to print it. And there are many who not only disagree with Trump, but are appalled at his persona. There was that big march and that whole "Not my president" thing. They are already primed to believe that Trump will attempt to turn the US into a fascist state. In that light they say this as Step 1 of the "US turns fascist" and they are reacting as though he is suggesting Step 10 Imprisoning political opponents. Because they "see" the path and are doing everything they can to stop it.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > The media was waiting for anything to crucify Trump. He has done nothing but stoke them. He already has been demonized as a white supremisist. The narrative "Trump will ban all Muslims and turn the US into a fascist state" was already on the press, they just needed an excuse to print it. Of course it helps that "a muslim ban" is quite literally what Trump asked for according to Rudy Giuliani: > So when he first announced it he said “Muslim ban.” He called me up, he said, “Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.” I put a commission together with judge Mukasey [Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge], with congressman McCaul [Texas Rep. Michael McCaul], Pete King [New York Rep. Peter King], a whole group of other very expert lawyers on this, and what we did is we focused on, instead of religion, danger—areas of the world that create danger for us. Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion, it’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.
  - SBCRec 10y ago
    Yeah it is interesting, to me it seems like trump and the protesters are both coming from a place of fear and are trying to prevent something from happening, whether that is terrorist attack on US soil, or Trump turning the US into a fascist state. Very interesting
- moultano 10y ago
  The people he's targeting now are Americans, which for better or worse people are much less willing to tolerate. Green card and visa holders are Americans.
  - dingaling 10y ago
    Visa holders are not necessarily "Americans". For example holders of G-{1-4} Visas from the proscribed countries are not affected by the ban and remain foreign nationals.
  - kranner 10y ago
    I would have thought one is not American until one is a citizen.
    - moultano 10y ago
      That's not how Americans view it. The notion of belonging to a nation is very different in the New World, as best exemplified by this map. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jus_soli_world.svg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jus_soli_world.svg...
      - kranner 10y ago
        This map doesn't say anything about visa holders and green card holders. It is only relevant for persons born in the country, which I'm assuming most visa/green card holders aren't.
        moultano 10y ago
        It was intended to convey the difference in attitudes, not relevant law.
        kranner 10y ago
        I got that, but the attitudes about the relevant 'jus' may well be different. It may be as you say it is, but I'm not sure if that's not just a subjective opinion - at least from this graph.
geff82 10y ago
Stopping issuing visas in itself would be bad for US reputation. I know many Iranians who really work hard to get a visa for the USA to visit the country they long for at least once in their life. As there is no US embassy in Iran (for good reasons, by the way), they usually have to travel to Turkey at least twice. One couple I know came to Germany for two weeks just to get their visa from the American consulate here. They were so freaking happy to visit the USA for two weeks (they just got home a week before inauguration).
- levlaz 10y ago
  Totally agree that it is not the right move. But that policy at least would not have been so strongly contended.
- hueving 10y ago
  >As there is no US embassy in Iran (for good reasons, by the way), Yeah, the Iranian government tends to get a little "clingy" with US citizens that have good leverage power for bargaining.
coldtea 10y ago
>Who is saying that this is acceptable? A few, but this is irrelevant to the parent's point. Which is that whether people say it is acceptable or not, much fewer numbers complained about it when other administrations where doing it, and much less visibly than people do today . Which gives one the impression that if in 2 or 4 years some democrat or another republican gets into office and does the same or worse, things will be silent again (except for few consistent protestors), and hence that it's all about ousting Trump rather than justice in general. Case in point: Obama halted people coming in from Iran in 2011 (for 6 months) and nobody said much of anything. Or how about this: Trump said he'll get rid of 3 million illegal immigrants and all went crazy. Well, Obama has the record thus far with 2.5 million deportations, but nobody seemed to care back then.

varjag 10y ago

You are arguing strawman. Most people who are anti-ban were also against Iraq war and waterboarding.

YarickR 10y ago
Where's 8 year long trail of posts shaming and blaming previous administration and personally pres. Obama for those actions ? I see hypocrisy reigning supreme since Jan 20, from both sides.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Four pages of results right here on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?query="drone%20strikes"&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query="drone%20strikes"&sort=byPopul...
  - XzetaU8 10y ago
    Four pages of mostly zero comment threads.
    - hkailahi 10y ago
      FYI most HN posts don't have comments
      - hueving 10y ago
        Because they didn't get enough votes to make it to the front page long enough for attention.
  - 3131s 10y ago
    13 pages in the last week for 'Trump': https://hn.algolia.com/?query=trump&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=trump&sort=byPopularity&prefix... I do however think that Trump is an extreme problem, but also a foreseeable one. I think it's revisionist history to say that Obama's terrible presidency got due attention on HN or anywhere else. Democracy Now! was one of the few outlets that did though, so kudos for posting them.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Patient0 10y ago

It's not just "a 90-day ban on immigrants coming from war-torn countries" - the fact that Christians from those countries are exempt makes it explicitly a "muslim ban".

dingaling 10y ago
> makes it explicitly a "muslim ban". No, 'explicitly a Muslim ban' would say 'this is a ban on Muslims'. Do consider that the list of proscribed countries is compiled between the Departments of Homeland Security and State, not by the President, and is published in the Federal Register. The fact that the majority on that list currently coincide with dominant Muslim populations might have been useful for Mr Trump's intent but is not guaranteed to persist. The list was last updated in February 2016.
- imron 10y ago
  It's also worth pointing out that none of the top 5 most populous Muslim countries in the world are on the list. In fact, you could argue it's just as much a ban on countries the US is currently bombing, as it is on Muslim countries.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
They've actually inadvertently included a bunch of Mizrahi Jews in the ban, too.

verbify 10y ago

Iran is not a war-torn country. And this doesn't just ban immigrants, it bans green-card and visa holders too.

coldtea 10y ago
So just like Obama did back in 2011 for 6 months and nobody batted an eyelid?
- pwinnski 10y ago
  This claim is untrue.[0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/29/trumps-facile-claim-that-his-refugee-policy-is-similar-to-obama-in-2011/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >“Immigration authorities soon began rechecking all Iraqi refugees in America, reportedly comparing fingerprints and other records with military and intelligence documents in dusty archives. About 1,000 soon-to-be immigrants in Iraq were told that they would not be allowed to board flights already booked. Some were removed from planes. Thousands more Iraqi applicants had to restart the immigration process, because their security clearances expired when the program stalled. Men must now pass five separate checks, women four, and children three.” Sounds pretty similar to me, including a 60% drop in incoming immigrants from Iraq the year that took place compared to the previous and next year. Let's see how WP differentiates the two cases: First, they say that Obama "responded to an actual threat" whereas Trump "issued his executive order without any known triggering threat". So being pro-active in this case is bad? Isn't that the whole idea behind threat prevention? It's not like Trump invented a threat in a new domain where there is known to be none -- we called for potential threats in the same domain (immigration from certain regions) where actual threats have been discovered previously, including under Obama. And ISIS wasn't even a thing back then, nor several big attacks have happened yet in France and Germany. 2) Second, they say that "Obama did not announce a ban on visa applications". And then they excuse that the effective result was similar anyway: "There was certainly a lot of news reporting that visa applications had slowed to a trickle. But the Obama administration never said it had a policy to halt all applications". 3) Third, they say that "Obama’s policy did not prevent all citizens of that country, including green-card holders, from traveling to the United States". Which is probably the main point they get that can stand on its legs -- though government spokespersons deny that this is the case (even if that was the intention or unintended consequence of the command as issued). That said, the people accepted as immigrants into the US, either under Obama (and even less now with Trump's order) the last 3 years from Iraq and Syria are an insignificant amount. And that from a region where millions fled to escape, and have been asking for asylum all over Europe etc.

pjc50 10y ago

Note that, due to the two-party system, complaining about bad Democrat policy on these issues was always somewhat muted at elections because the likely alternative wasn't some better Democrat but a Republican with a far worse policy. Which is pretty much exactly what's happened. (The same applies to British politics: yes, the Labour party were wrong over the Iraq war, but does anyone think the Conservative party were in the right, or would have been less keen to support the US in that situation? Especially given the May-Trump summit.)

iuguy 10y ago
> The same applies to British politics Your example is a poor one, and the British electorate have very different motivations when it comes to voting for very different parties with very different backgrounds, in very different elections with a very different governmental structure.
- pjc50 10y ago
  I've seen people arguing that, since Clinton was the "pro-war" candidate (due to her work at the State Department), one should vote for Trump. It's true that the governmental structure is different; the ability of an incoming administration to sweep away the civil service and security services is much less in the UK. However, the recent R (Miller) -v- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union case has a useful parallel: to what extent is the executive able to deprive people of rights by simple order?
  - iuguy 10y ago
    It's hard to say and would depend on the rights in question. Parliamentary sovereignty would mandate consulting parliament, but our parliament is representative, not direct. It would also be necessary to consult devolved kingdoms, but the extent to which required is not clear. We don't really have the same segregation of powers. Primary legislation can come from various sources and apply in various ways to various parts of the UK. The judiciary is independent and is generally relied on to determine how those laws are to be interpreted. In order for laws to come into force nationally, they need royal assent from the Queen. If memory serves correct this relies on the Queen literally saying the word "Approved" at a certain point in the reading of a law. It might've changed, but might still be in effect. As such we don't really have the same concept of Executive Orders. We do have written guidance on laws, but this can be overridden through the courts.

noelwelsh 10y ago

Imagine you're a person who was strongly against "[b]ombing predominately Muslim countries, overthrowing governments[,] and covert black sites where Muslims get tortured". Now imagine that the US has just elected a president far more conservative (and volatile!) than his predecessor, and a result there is a widespread movement for progressive political change, in line with your beliefs, from people who are normally not engaged in the political process. Do you: a) bitch and moan at the johnny-come-latelys climbing onto your bandwagon; or b) accept that society reacts in a non-linear way and use the opportunity to actually achieve something meaningful.

rdtsc 10y ago
Why does it have to be a and b only. Why not both or add c and d to the list. He brought a valid point it seems but it was "bitching and moaning". And gave him a binary choice to pick between.
- imgabe 10y ago
  What is the outcome of accepting that point? "You didn't complain when the government did worse things, so now you can't complain ever about anything?" The implication of accepting that logic would seem to be that we just give up. How does that help?
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    > The implication of accepting that logic would seem to be that we just give up. How does that help Not necessarily it could be also "pay attention harder from now on not to make the same mistake", "this is jumping on the outrage bandwagon more than actual outrage", "let's see what happened before so we don't make the same mistakes", "let's hear what others think about this" (as this is a public discussion forum).
  - SBCRec 10y ago
    It is possible that this situation would add frustration for on lookers who notice that a large group of people accepted (or did not SEEM to care) about the killing and torturing of people, but all of a sudden are taking the high ground against a 90 day ban on immigration. For SOME people it would be hard to accept the opinion of such people? I find myself falling into this sometime... Is it a cognitive bias? edit: Its hard for me to think about these issues with large fear based reactions from both sides and the hysteria the media is putting out.