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Are you aware that this project shares a name with an extremist group[0]? I'm not sure how concerned you are about that, especially if you're not American, but

Are you aware that this project shares a name with an extremist group[0]? I'm not sure how concerned you are about that, especially if you're not American, but I'd want to know if it were one of my projects. [0]https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...

ibuildoss 8y ago
It is extremely important to be sensitive to extremism of any kind, condemn extremist practices, beliefs, and views and take a stance against extremist ideologies. We do not share nor endorse extremist views nor "values", nor have anything to do with extremist groups whatsoever. We have not heard about them (Oath Keepers) before. We'll discuss a name change internally & with the community. ps: It also shares the name of the sword from Game of Thrones and is a wordplay on OAuth :) edit:// Forgot to thank you for raising awareness on this.
- andymockli 8y ago
  Just to clarify, are you speaking for the team to condemn extremism in general, or the specific belief in upholding the U.S. Constitution within the U.S., or something else? Maybe I should pay attention to the discussion with the community when that occurs, but I'm interested in which "values" you take issue with. Care to share here?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - yarrel 8y ago
    I'd assume they take issue with the racism and the opposition to the rule of law. Although I cannot imagine Americans being happy that racists opposed to the rule of law are cowering behind their constitution.
    - mi100hael 8y ago
      > opposition to the rule of law > organization founded on premise of upholding the Constitution wut? Also, look at this wild display of racism! /s http://www.newsweek.com/oath-keepers-ferguson-blacklivesmatter-michael-brown-black-lives-matter-second-363994 http://www.newsweek.com/oath-keepers-ferguson-blacklivesmatt...
  - bitwize 8y ago
    "Upholding the Constitution", among the far right, is dogwhistle for supporting white supremacy or other regressive policies. There's even a fringe political party called the Constitution Party that draws its planks not from the Constitution, the Federalist papers, or other constitutional scholarship -- but the King James Version of the Bible.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      Upholding the Constitution can be a dogwhistle for various malign ideas. But there are also people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law. There are people who see executive orders (whether by Bush, Obama, or Trump) as not the way the country is supposed to be governed, and worry about the constitutional legitimacy of those orders. Probably the majority of the people who worry about such things are conservatives; my feel is that the majority (at a minumum) are not concerned about such issues as a cover for white supremacy. Note well: I take no position on whether Oath Keepers is using "upholding the Constitution" as a cover for white supremacy.
      - krapp 8y ago
        >But there are also people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law. And those people are incorrect. It's incorrect to believe that all modern Constitutional law and Supreme Court decisions are the result of judges and lawmakers simply making up whatever interpretation they like without any basis in, study of, or respect for the Constitution. The alternative would be to pretend to know in all cases what an eighteenth century philosopher would decide about an issue of law in the context of modern society.
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        If you'll re-read my post a bit more carefully, you'll see that the word "all" is nowhere in it. Nobody (that I know) believes that " all modern Constitutional law and Supreme Court decisions are the result of judges and lawmakers simply making up whatever interpretation they like without any basis in, study of, or respect for the Constitution." I suppose that bit of hyperbole might serve to make my original statement seem less reasonable; if you did it deliberately, you're putting words in my mouth to try to discredit me, which is pretty scummy. > The alternative would be to pretend to know in all cases what an eighteenth century philosopher would decide about an issue of law in the context of modern society. No, the alternative would be to know what they said the rules are. (Now, I will admit that deciding how the rules they agreed on apply in a specific situation can be very complicated. But I trust "let's look at the rules and see how they apply" more than I trust "interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its original meaning or intent is sometimes unacceptable as a policy matter, and thus that an evolving interpretation is necessary"[1]. The former view makes the Constitution the final law; the latter makes policy the master over the Constitution.) [1] From the Wikipedia article on "Living Constitution". The quote was marked "citation needed". If you don't think it's an accurate statement of how some judges view the Constitution, make your case.
- robotrout 8y ago
  Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That oath, mandated by Article VI of the Constitution itself, is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and Oath Keepers declare that they will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as “enemy combatants” in violation of their ancient right to jury trial. See the Oath Keepers Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey for details. https://oathkeepers.org/about/ https://oathkeepers.org/about/
  - mintplant 8y ago
    Oath Keepers is a far-right militia group with a history of racism and conspiracy-theorism (e.g. birtherism, sovereign citizenry) which regularly advocates and defends violent means of asserting these ideas. Pretty words from their mouths don't change that.
    - robotrout 8y ago
      Citation needed. The racist part is pretty amusing as 5 minutes watching interviews with black oath keepers would make obvious.
      - mintplant 8y ago
        SauciestGNU already provided one, full of direct quotes from their leadership.
        robotrout 8y ago
        I read the southern poverty law center's summary of why they dislike the oath keepers. The cases they touch upon in very one-sided ways, the Bundy ranch, the Malheur Standoff, the Oregon miners, are all cases well known to me, where the oath keepers acted commendably. I invite you to read about those events in more detail, from other sources.
- crsv 8y ago
  I would encourage that you not bend to the will of those who would impose upon you what your brand might be or might be associated with. If you make a meaningful product in your space and the origins of the name are easily explained through 1: your aforementioned wordplay and 2: the GoT reference (likely more common), then I think you should fight to keep a name you love and find meaning in. As one of your potential customers / users, I would not base any judgement of your company or product based on some a shared name with a small fringe organization that some people find unsavory which uses a pretty common term or combination of terms.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    If you make a meaningful product in your space and the origins of the name are easily explained through 1: your aforementioned wordplay and 2: the GoT reference (likely more common), then I think you should fight to keep a name you love and find meaning in. Got any examples of this strategy succeeding?
    - crsv 8y ago
      Got any examples of it not?
      - rhizome 8y ago
        Blackwater.
      - Semirhage 8y ago
        Phillip Morris
    - DanBC 8y ago
      Stormfront computers? They appear to be ignoring the very large far right Stormfront. https://www.stormfront.co.uk/about https://www.stormfront.co.uk/about
- 11011011011 8y ago
  When they say "extremist" they mean "white people", goys.
  - youdontknowtho 8y ago
    The Oath Keepers are more extreme than nearly all other white people. Just a fact. Read up on them and I think you will agree.
    - 11011011011 8y ago
      They literally are just a bunch of ex-cops and military who want to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The fact that this seems so threatening to some says more about them than the Oath Keepers.
    - pdx 8y ago
      > The Oath Keepers are more extreme than nearly all other > white people. Just a fact. Read up on them and I think ? you will agree. Are they more extreme than nearly all other non-white people as well? Or just more extreme than white people? ;-) For non-americans, the idea of a group of people who do not instantly submit to individual figures in authority, but instead, resist those in authority if they believe that those in authority are infringing on rights that are protected by the constitution, may seem really bizarre. To condemn an organization because their raison d'etre is such resistance, would be normal in other countries, but it's a little frightening how a quick google search shows that condemnation here in America (assuming the people who wrote those pages were American). I know a lot of HN readers are not American, so just wanted to clarify that we do have a slightly less submissive culture over here.
      - rhizome 8y ago
        For non-americans, the idea of a group of people who do not instantly submit to individual figures in authority, but instead, resist those in authority if they believe that those in authority are infringing on rights that are protected by the constitution, may seem really bizarre. Completely ahistorical.
- jcims 8y ago
  This is a really unfortunate tangent and not worthy of any time or trouble on your end IMHO. At the very most a footnote somewhere in the site to say that this project is not affiliated with any groups or organizations would be more than adequate. Any individuals that try to imply that the naming of a proxy server product within a larger software ecosystem indicate an endorsement of the position of an organization with a similar name are displaying pathological behavior and should generally be disregarded.
  - verylittlemeat 8y ago
    It's unfortunate but I wouldn't just dismiss it as a tangent. The second result from googling "oathkeeper" is the hate group and it's pretty well known in the US at least. I doubt anyone will think this product endorses the hate group but it could prove to be an unnecessary distraction.
    - jcims 8y ago
      It has already been an unnecessary distraction, so you're right about that. I hope for a future where ideas are toxic, not sequences of letters.
- bitwize 8y ago
  I thought it was a reference to the keyblade from Kingdom Hearts, and was awaiting the distributed cloud-based keystore called "Oblivion". :)
  - qop 8y ago
    I Ctrl+F'd for "Oblivion" to find this... There definitely needs to be a series of libraries named after keyblades.
- SauciestGNU 8y ago
  Hi, thanks for your reply. I don't mean to insinuate in any way that you or your team support any particular ideology, I merely wanted to make you aware of an unfortunate namespace collision. For what it's worth, I was unaware of the reference that was used as this project's namesake. That is ignorance on my part. Furthermore I would like to apologize, as my comment seems to have inspired quite a bit of unproductive ideological bickering.
- jcims 8y ago
  Could be worse, you could be this guy - https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/8xn9ta/using_rope_physics_to_simulate_cabling_a_data/e25sy76/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/8xn9ta/using_rope_... :P
robotrout 8y ago
The oathkeepers are not an "extremist group". I would humbly suggest that splcenter.org is wrong in this instance. https://oathkeepers.org/about/ https://oathkeepers.org/about/
- mmilano 8y ago
  If we were living in the colonial days, only the British would be calling them "radical" or "extremists". :D Men of authority pledging not to bow to unconstitutional orders against citizens. Actually seems noble. I suspect they get the "radical" and "extremist" label from our culture where those who aren't on the "correct" political side are labeled a Nazi or Communist.
  - mintplant 8y ago
    It's more the rampant racism, conspiracy theorism, and calls to violence. Ironically their leadership engages in both of the labeling behaviors of which you complain. This is all documented in the link SauciestGNU provided.
    - robotrout 8y ago
      There are only 2577 words on that page you linked, and most of them talk about the oathkeepers protecting businesses in Fergusson, the oathkeepers forming a buffer around the Malheur protestors in Oregon, and the oathkeepers responding to the Bundy and Oregon gold miner situations. You did not read your own link, or you are putting all your eggs on the "McCain is a traitor" quote, which since McCain is a republican, you should love, and the Hilary rant about house to house confiscation of guns, which she has never outright advocated publicly, but has strongly suggested in speeches. That quote may be a bit paranoid, which is why it was selected from thousands of quotes to be included on that web page. EDIT: Sorry, but there are a pretty small universe of reasons for your dislike on the page linked. I listed them. That's not mind-reading, that's just deduction.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
mmilano 8y ago
FWIW, I knew it was a clever reference to the GOT sword after reading the title. It's obvious the project isn't based on or associated with a group using the same common words. Whether they are actually "extremist" is a different matter.
nodesocket 8y ago
Not only is suggesting that this project change its name, but that the oath keepers are a racist extremist group are both absurd. From a little reading and watching of YouTube news clips it was quite easy to see that 2nd amendment and constitutional politics are not the same as racsim and extremist groups. The oath keepers have African American members. It's the same smear campaign that real extremist groups (the Marxist identity politics left) do to Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.
c1yd3i 8y ago
SJW
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

ibuildoss 8y ago

It is extremely important to be sensitive to extremism of any kind, condemn extremist practices, beliefs, and views and take a stance against extremist ideologies. We do not share nor endorse extremist views nor "values", nor have anything to do with extremist groups whatsoever. We have not heard about them (Oath Keepers) before. We'll discuss a name change internally & with the community. ps: It also shares the name of the sword from Game of Thrones and is a wordplay on OAuth :) edit:// Forgot to thank you for raising awareness on this.

andymockli 8y ago
Just to clarify, are you speaking for the team to condemn extremism in general, or the specific belief in upholding the U.S. Constitution within the U.S., or something else? Maybe I should pay attention to the discussion with the community when that occurs, but I'm interested in which "values" you take issue with. Care to share here?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yarrel 8y ago
  I'd assume they take issue with the racism and the opposition to the rule of law. Although I cannot imagine Americans being happy that racists opposed to the rule of law are cowering behind their constitution.
  - mi100hael 8y ago
    > opposition to the rule of law > organization founded on premise of upholding the Constitution wut? Also, look at this wild display of racism! /s http://www.newsweek.com/oath-keepers-ferguson-blacklivesmatter-michael-brown-black-lives-matter-second-363994 http://www.newsweek.com/oath-keepers-ferguson-blacklivesmatt...
- bitwize 8y ago
  "Upholding the Constitution", among the far right, is dogwhistle for supporting white supremacy or other regressive policies. There's even a fringe political party called the Constitution Party that draws its planks not from the Constitution, the Federalist papers, or other constitutional scholarship -- but the King James Version of the Bible.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    Upholding the Constitution can be a dogwhistle for various malign ideas. But there are also people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law. There are people who see executive orders (whether by Bush, Obama, or Trump) as not the way the country is supposed to be governed, and worry about the constitutional legitimacy of those orders. Probably the majority of the people who worry about such things are conservatives; my feel is that the majority (at a minumum) are not concerned about such issues as a cover for white supremacy. Note well: I take no position on whether Oath Keepers is using "upholding the Constitution" as a cover for white supremacy.
    - krapp 8y ago
      >But there are also people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law. And those people are incorrect. It's incorrect to believe that all modern Constitutional law and Supreme Court decisions are the result of judges and lawmakers simply making up whatever interpretation they like without any basis in, study of, or respect for the Constitution. The alternative would be to pretend to know in all cases what an eighteenth century philosopher would decide about an issue of law in the context of modern society.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        If you'll re-read my post a bit more carefully, you'll see that the word "all" is nowhere in it. Nobody (that I know) believes that " all modern Constitutional law and Supreme Court decisions are the result of judges and lawmakers simply making up whatever interpretation they like without any basis in, study of, or respect for the Constitution." I suppose that bit of hyperbole might serve to make my original statement seem less reasonable; if you did it deliberately, you're putting words in my mouth to try to discredit me, which is pretty scummy. > The alternative would be to pretend to know in all cases what an eighteenth century philosopher would decide about an issue of law in the context of modern society. No, the alternative would be to know what they said the rules are. (Now, I will admit that deciding how the rules they agreed on apply in a specific situation can be very complicated. But I trust "let's look at the rules and see how they apply" more than I trust "interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its original meaning or intent is sometimes unacceptable as a policy matter, and thus that an evolving interpretation is necessary"[1]. The former view makes the Constitution the final law; the latter makes policy the master over the Constitution.) [1] From the Wikipedia article on "Living Constitution". The quote was marked "citation needed". If you don't think it's an accurate statement of how some judges view the Constitution, make your case.
robotrout 8y ago
Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That oath, mandated by Article VI of the Constitution itself, is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and Oath Keepers declare that they will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as “enemy combatants” in violation of their ancient right to jury trial. See the Oath Keepers Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey for details. https://oathkeepers.org/about/ https://oathkeepers.org/about/
- mintplant 8y ago
  Oath Keepers is a far-right militia group with a history of racism and conspiracy-theorism (e.g. birtherism, sovereign citizenry) which regularly advocates and defends violent means of asserting these ideas. Pretty words from their mouths don't change that.
  - robotrout 8y ago
    Citation needed. The racist part is pretty amusing as 5 minutes watching interviews with black oath keepers would make obvious.
    - mintplant 8y ago
      SauciestGNU already provided one, full of direct quotes from their leadership.
      - robotrout 8y ago
        I read the southern poverty law center's summary of why they dislike the oath keepers. The cases they touch upon in very one-sided ways, the Bundy ranch, the Malheur Standoff, the Oregon miners, are all cases well known to me, where the oath keepers acted commendably. I invite you to read about those events in more detail, from other sources.
crsv 8y ago
I would encourage that you not bend to the will of those who would impose upon you what your brand might be or might be associated with. If you make a meaningful product in your space and the origins of the name are easily explained through 1: your aforementioned wordplay and 2: the GoT reference (likely more common), then I think you should fight to keep a name you love and find meaning in. As one of your potential customers / users, I would not base any judgement of your company or product based on some a shared name with a small fringe organization that some people find unsavory which uses a pretty common term or combination of terms.
- rhizome 8y ago
  If you make a meaningful product in your space and the origins of the name are easily explained through 1: your aforementioned wordplay and 2: the GoT reference (likely more common), then I think you should fight to keep a name you love and find meaning in. Got any examples of this strategy succeeding?
  - crsv 8y ago
    Got any examples of it not?
    - rhizome 8y ago
      Blackwater.
    - Semirhage 8y ago
      Phillip Morris
  - DanBC 8y ago
    Stormfront computers? They appear to be ignoring the very large far right Stormfront. https://www.stormfront.co.uk/about https://www.stormfront.co.uk/about
11011011011 8y ago
When they say "extremist" they mean "white people", goys.
- youdontknowtho 8y ago
  The Oath Keepers are more extreme than nearly all other white people. Just a fact. Read up on them and I think you will agree.
  - 11011011011 8y ago
    They literally are just a bunch of ex-cops and military who want to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The fact that this seems so threatening to some says more about them than the Oath Keepers.
  - pdx 8y ago
    > The Oath Keepers are more extreme than nearly all other > white people. Just a fact. Read up on them and I think ? you will agree. Are they more extreme than nearly all other non-white people as well? Or just more extreme than white people? ;-) For non-americans, the idea of a group of people who do not instantly submit to individual figures in authority, but instead, resist those in authority if they believe that those in authority are infringing on rights that are protected by the constitution, may seem really bizarre. To condemn an organization because their raison d'etre is such resistance, would be normal in other countries, but it's a little frightening how a quick google search shows that condemnation here in America (assuming the people who wrote those pages were American). I know a lot of HN readers are not American, so just wanted to clarify that we do have a slightly less submissive culture over here.
    - rhizome 8y ago
      For non-americans, the idea of a group of people who do not instantly submit to individual figures in authority, but instead, resist those in authority if they believe that those in authority are infringing on rights that are protected by the constitution, may seem really bizarre. Completely ahistorical.
jcims 8y ago
This is a really unfortunate tangent and not worthy of any time or trouble on your end IMHO. At the very most a footnote somewhere in the site to say that this project is not affiliated with any groups or organizations would be more than adequate. Any individuals that try to imply that the naming of a proxy server product within a larger software ecosystem indicate an endorsement of the position of an organization with a similar name are displaying pathological behavior and should generally be disregarded.
- verylittlemeat 8y ago
  It's unfortunate but I wouldn't just dismiss it as a tangent. The second result from googling "oathkeeper" is the hate group and it's pretty well known in the US at least. I doubt anyone will think this product endorses the hate group but it could prove to be an unnecessary distraction.
  - jcims 8y ago
    It has already been an unnecessary distraction, so you're right about that. I hope for a future where ideas are toxic, not sequences of letters.
bitwize 8y ago
I thought it was a reference to the keyblade from Kingdom Hearts, and was awaiting the distributed cloud-based keystore called "Oblivion". :)
- qop 8y ago
  I Ctrl+F'd for "Oblivion" to find this... There definitely needs to be a series of libraries named after keyblades.
SauciestGNU 8y ago
Hi, thanks for your reply. I don't mean to insinuate in any way that you or your team support any particular ideology, I merely wanted to make you aware of an unfortunate namespace collision. For what it's worth, I was unaware of the reference that was used as this project's namesake. That is ignorance on my part. Furthermore I would like to apologize, as my comment seems to have inspired quite a bit of unproductive ideological bickering.
jcims 8y ago
Could be worse, you could be this guy - https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/8xn9ta/using_rope_physics_to_simulate_cabling_a_data/e25sy76/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/8xn9ta/using_rope_... :P

robotrout 8y ago

The oathkeepers are not an "extremist group". I would humbly suggest that splcenter.org is wrong in this instance. https://oathkeepers.org/about/ https://oathkeepers.org/about/

mmilano 8y ago
If we were living in the colonial days, only the British would be calling them "radical" or "extremists". :D Men of authority pledging not to bow to unconstitutional orders against citizens. Actually seems noble. I suspect they get the "radical" and "extremist" label from our culture where those who aren't on the "correct" political side are labeled a Nazi or Communist.
- mintplant 8y ago
  It's more the rampant racism, conspiracy theorism, and calls to violence. Ironically their leadership engages in both of the labeling behaviors of which you complain. This is all documented in the link SauciestGNU provided.
  - robotrout 8y ago
    There are only 2577 words on that page you linked, and most of them talk about the oathkeepers protecting businesses in Fergusson, the oathkeepers forming a buffer around the Malheur protestors in Oregon, and the oathkeepers responding to the Bundy and Oregon gold miner situations. You did not read your own link, or you are putting all your eggs on the "McCain is a traitor" quote, which since McCain is a republican, you should love, and the Hilary rant about house to house confiscation of guns, which she has never outright advocated publicly, but has strongly suggested in speeches. That quote may be a bit paranoid, which is why it was selected from thousands of quotes to be included on that web page. EDIT: Sorry, but there are a pretty small universe of reasons for your dislike on the page linked. I listed them. That's not mind-reading, that's just deduction.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

mmilano 8y ago

FWIW, I knew it was a clever reference to the GOT sword after reading the title. It's obvious the project isn't based on or associated with a group using the same common words. Whether they are actually "extremist" is a different matter.

nodesocket 8y ago

Not only is suggesting that this project change its name, but that the oath keepers are a racist extremist group are both absurd. From a little reading and watching of YouTube news clips it was quite easy to see that 2nd amendment and constitutional politics are not the same as racsim and extremist groups. The oath keepers have African American members. It's the same smear campaign that real extremist groups (the Marxist identity politics left) do to Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.

c1yd3i 8y ago

SJW

dang 8y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.