4 ms·

Why is congress trying to pass an obviously unconstitutional law?

27 points by wallace_f 8y ago

wallace_f 8y ago
2 courts have ruled against this already: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/laws-targeting-israel-boycotts-fail-again-court https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/laws...
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Two courts have already ruled against states trying to do this. This article is about the Federal government trying to do the same thing. Obviously, that doesn't make it any better. What it does make it is more stupid. Yes, the states ought to know better, but the US Congress really ought to know better. Do members of Congress not know what the First Amendment says? Do they not see how it applies to this proposal? Or do they simply not care? All those options are bad; I'm not sure which one is worse.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Why would so many people downvote this comment? Akso HN just dropped the hammer and removed this submission from the front page (cant be found on 2nd, 3rd, 4th pages either)
  - yodon 8y ago
    The "hammer" is probably algorithmic, not a human conspiracy. The few comments already on this submisson strongly suggest there is large amounts of upvoting and downvoting going on without a similar amount of good commenting. HN's algorithms are designed to promote good conversation, not pile on the voting wars around contentious topics. It happens that politically charged topics frequently drive large amounts of knee-jerk angry voting responses not associated with equally rich conversations, so they tend to get algorithmically pushed down the ranking.
kyrieeschaton 8y ago
Disappointingly, the article never even attempts to answer the question, which really has a concise answer - the Jewish lobby in the US has an incredible amount of influence, and they are attempting to avoid their ethnostate being South Africa'd. Astonishingly, the word "Jewish" never even appears in the article.
- Armisael16 8y ago
  The majority of American Jews are pro-two state (https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-comparative-surveys-of-israeli-us-jews-show-some-serious-divisions https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-comparative-surveys-of-israeli-...). The pro-Israel lobby is mostly christians.
  - kyrieeschaton 8y ago
    The first claim has nothing to do with anything I said. The second is false; organizations like AIPAC and the ADL have by far the greatest influence on US Israeli policy and fighting BDS in particular, and are overwhelmingly Jewish dominated. This was thoroughly documented by Mearsheimer and Walt more than a decade ago, and it's not like their influence has waned.
    - Armisael16 8y ago
      Mearsheimer and Walt disagree with you: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/books/review/Letters-t-1.html?ref=review https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/books/review/Letters-t-1....
      - kyrieeschaton 8y ago
        No, Mearsheimer and Walt are very careful to not use particular words. They choose to not use "Jewish lobby", with the fig leaf that at least some Christian Zionists are on the same page and not literally every Jew is, despite the objective content of their book supporting the contention that Jewish organizations are both the most prominent and have the core agenda-setting function.
wtfrmyinitials 8y ago
Congress hasn’t cared about the constitutionality of new laws for a long time
metacritic12 8y ago
Wow I didn't know that -- that's ridiculous. Imagine if it were any other country, friend or foe. A law against a person making his own financial decision against Canada, or China, or England, or Germany, or Turkey.
metacritic12 8y ago
Why did this post get flagged? I though free speech issues were very pertinent to Hacker News. A post below by kyrieeschaton critiquing the Israel lobby was also flagged. Her/his post just suggested the Israel lobby was involved in the process, and had nothing I'd consider offensive.
- compsciphd 8y ago
  where in the post did kyrieeschaton mention Israel. they didn't. they only used the phrase "Jewish Lobby". and in fact doubles down on it in their responses.
- s9w 8y ago
  Without being inflammatory: HN is one of the most anti-free speech place on the net. Comments and articles pro free speech are regularly downvoted, flagged, deleted or shadowbanned.
- singularity2001 8y ago
  good question. Also how much karma does one need to vote for 'unflag'?

27 points by wallace_f 8y ago

2 courts have ruled against this already: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/laws-targeting-israel-boycotts-fail-again-court https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/laws...

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
Two courts have already ruled against states trying to do this. This article is about the Federal government trying to do the same thing. Obviously, that doesn't make it any better. What it does make it is more stupid. Yes, the states ought to know better, but the US Congress really ought to know better. Do members of Congress not know what the First Amendment says? Do they not see how it applies to this proposal? Or do they simply not care? All those options are bad; I'm not sure which one is worse.
wallace_f 8y ago
Why would so many people downvote this comment? Akso HN just dropped the hammer and removed this submission from the front page (cant be found on 2nd, 3rd, 4th pages either)
- yodon 8y ago
  The "hammer" is probably algorithmic, not a human conspiracy. The few comments already on this submisson strongly suggest there is large amounts of upvoting and downvoting going on without a similar amount of good commenting. HN's algorithms are designed to promote good conversation, not pile on the voting wars around contentious topics. It happens that politically charged topics frequently drive large amounts of knee-jerk angry voting responses not associated with equally rich conversations, so they tend to get algorithmically pushed down the ranking.

kyrieeschaton 8y ago

Disappointingly, the article never even attempts to answer the question, which really has a concise answer - the Jewish lobby in the US has an incredible amount of influence, and they are attempting to avoid their ethnostate being South Africa'd. Astonishingly, the word "Jewish" never even appears in the article.

Armisael16 8y ago
The majority of American Jews are pro-two state (https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-comparative-surveys-of-israeli-us-jews-show-some-serious-divisions https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-comparative-surveys-of-israeli-...). The pro-Israel lobby is mostly christians.
- kyrieeschaton 8y ago
  The first claim has nothing to do with anything I said. The second is false; organizations like AIPAC and the ADL have by far the greatest influence on US Israeli policy and fighting BDS in particular, and are overwhelmingly Jewish dominated. This was thoroughly documented by Mearsheimer and Walt more than a decade ago, and it's not like their influence has waned.
  - Armisael16 8y ago
    Mearsheimer and Walt disagree with you: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/books/review/Letters-t-1.html?ref=review https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/books/review/Letters-t-1....
    - kyrieeschaton 8y ago
      No, Mearsheimer and Walt are very careful to not use particular words. They choose to not use "Jewish lobby", with the fig leaf that at least some Christian Zionists are on the same page and not literally every Jew is, despite the objective content of their book supporting the contention that Jewish organizations are both the most prominent and have the core agenda-setting function.

wtfrmyinitials 8y ago

Congress hasn’t cared about the constitutionality of new laws for a long time

metacritic12 8y ago

Wow I didn't know that -- that's ridiculous. Imagine if it were any other country, friend or foe. A law against a person making his own financial decision against Canada, or China, or England, or Germany, or Turkey.

metacritic12 8y ago

Why did this post get flagged? I though free speech issues were very pertinent to Hacker News. A post below by kyrieeschaton critiquing the Israel lobby was also flagged. Her/his post just suggested the Israel lobby was involved in the process, and had nothing I'd consider offensive.

compsciphd 8y ago
where in the post did kyrieeschaton mention Israel. they didn't. they only used the phrase "Jewish Lobby". and in fact doubles down on it in their responses.
s9w 8y ago
Without being inflammatory: HN is one of the most anti-free speech place on the net. Comments and articles pro free speech are regularly downvoted, flagged, deleted or shadowbanned.
singularity2001 8y ago
good question. Also how much karma does one need to vote for 'unflag'?