12 ms·

The service that hosts the accounts of all branches of the US military, all major weapons contractors, all three letter agencies, and many foreign militaries, g

by shiado 6y ago

The service that hosts the accounts of all branches of the US military, all major weapons contractors, all three letter agencies, and many foreign militaries, governments, and world leaders guilty of all manner of war crimes, and this is where they draw the line for violence. Really interesting.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
doublesCs 6y ago
The president is the most visible face of the government. Of all the ones you mentioned, it's the only one people actually vote for. What he says and does has the most impact. So I don't find it "interesting", I find it entirely reasonable.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  People in the United States do not vote for a president. They vote for an elector who in turn will vote for the president. This is an important and often left out detail in how the American political system works, in theory it could have protected us from the current dumpster fire.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    It’s not actually that important. In many states it’s illegal for the elector to vote for something other than the popular vote and in the others it’s unheard of to go a different way and it would be made pretty quickly illegal if it happened.
    - noobermin 6y ago
      There was hubbub to do this when Trump was going to be elected and they prevented it.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      There's a case before the Supreme Court about this right now, and I can't really guess what the outcome will be.
    - dathinab 6y ago
      But even if illegal it still can happen and as far as I know that flipped vote of the elector would still count.
      - kortilla 6y ago
        Yep, but given that it doesn’t happen, it’s not really relevant as some kind of IAmVerySmart comment claiming that people don’t vote for the US President. They effectively do.
  - djannzjkzxn 6y ago
    My ballot has the candidate’s name on it, not some elector. If electors conspired to change the outcome, the people would rightfully consider it nothing more than a coup, regardless of the 18th-century design of the electoral college.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      That doesn't change the facts.
      - lowwave 6y ago
        Keep in mind. US came into existing through declaration.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        Well sure, but when people are sufficiently annoyed they tend to change the offending facts.
    - salawat 6y ago
      The Founders would fundamentally disagree, and so would I. Our government repeats the motif of filtering down the raw passion and energy of the populace as a whole through a smaller, generally much less numerous group backed with the implicit assumption of good faith and sense. The faithless elector was to the Founder's one of the last bulwarks against bestowing the highest office in the country to someone so repugnant, that an isolated bunch of people, accountable to no one but their own conscience, politely discussing the matter came to the conclusion it just couldn't work out. The idea that a President could get that far by mere populism and charlatanism may seem daft, but in that time, you didn't have background checks. You couldn't sniff out who someone really was, and if you knew the right people it was easy to get paraded in front of a populace that would eat up anything you fed them as long as there was enough spectacle to keep their attention. Odds are, it wouldn't be a problem. Everything would go just fine. However, the Founder's were well read on the ills of Greek and Roman poli, and the traps of demagoguery, and cults of personality. Their solution was the application of well-intentioned moral reasoning. We've all experienced the excitement of an idea that sounds great in a crowd, to later go home and say, "Now wait a minute." Same basic principle. In such an important decision, if it is really the right answer, no one will refuse,yet if it isn't, the stakes are high enough where the presence of that last chance is warranted. The political party system completely undermined the entire intent behind the College, and many people never really try to transplant themselves out of the modern mindset, back to the time period to understand it. Nor do they realize just how important careful consideration of the person holding that post was. Think about it. That President did not have the most capable Armed Forces in the world at his disposal. They did not have the capability to essentially make or unmake law via Administrative law and control of Alphabet soup of national regulatory agencies we have today. That President was not sitting atop the world's largest nuclear arsenal, or at the nexus of arguably one of the most well-funded intelligence and law enforcement apparatus in the world. In comparison to the Presidents of today, Abraham Lincoln was absolutely right. "No man can do any great harm in four years". Nowadays, given the level of interconnectivity between world governments, and the technological capabilities that are at our disposal, it stands to reason they might have balked at having a President in the first place. We don't know for certain. We can only guess. I'm not certain anyone will find any of what I'm saying rhetorically convincing, but the main point I'm making is it is dangerous to dismiss the past without really understanding why what was done was done. The thinking behind the College was completely rational for the time, and arguably, even more rational and relevant today assuming your values and philosophies are more or less consistent with those of the Founders, who were so helpful as to write them down in generous volume that we may benefit from their endeavors today. At least, I think so, and I've spent more time than I like to admit trying to understand the topic myself. Which is kind of silly, after all, to be ashamed of doing so, seeing as it is one of the single most important things to do for those who come after us. To his wife,Joh Adams wrote: >"The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain." These Founders. These visionaries so loft in their ideals, dedicated their intellectual lives to the laying of a Foundational edifice that would stand the test of time. No Internet or easily accessible mobs of fairweather supporters did they have. No refuge in trivial pseudonymity were they blessed with. No instant feedback loops, or access to the happenings of the entire world at once to cherry pick what works and what doesn't. In spite of the vices and and repugnancies of the society of the time (which I will not whitewash or dismiss), these men demonstrated a commitment to the future few of their descendants, and increasingly few nowadays truly demonstrate. The preservation of personal liberty, and national unity unrivaled in degree or ferverence in administering. Abraham Lincoln himself likened it to the closest thing we should have to a National religion[2]. To cherish and preserve the liberties we enjoy do those who come after. Before you toss aside the fruits of the labor of people who in their time dedicated so much time to trying to think, reason, compromise, and do things well; it behooves you to at least understand their context, and to carry a paltry mockery of what they had to offer forward that you may learn and reap the fruits of a life we haven't had to spend as they did. I'm sorry, but the flippant dismissive nature of your response just really doesn't do the import of the issue justice. I'm not trying to be condescending or patronizing (though that may end up being how it ends up coming off). I'm merely pointing out that it isn't some 18th century foppish hat to be cast aside. If you can't demonstrate an appreciation for why it was there, or show any indication you've put thought into whether or not it's mutation from it's original intent has actually been a net negative, it is difficult to take your assertion seriously. Then again, I can count on both hands the number of people I've met who will even entertain that level of debate or thought, and only one hand is necessary for the number who have straight up admitted they do it out of a personally perceived sense of duty. In short, check your damn history and show your work if you expect to be taken seriously. I can't emphasize it enough. If everyone else's liberties aren't important enough to you to do so, I don't know what else would be. [1]https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17800512jasecond https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L178005... [2]http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/liberty.htm http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/liberty.htm [2a]Also see the The Eloquent President, by Ronald C. White. Read it slowly. [3]Federalist Papers 68 [4]Anti-Federalist Papers 72 Just read them. It's man years of interlocution to make, far less to read and process, and far easier to get a hold of now. These aren't easy or trite issues by far, and if nothing else, you have to work to build empathy and compassion to both sides to be able to have any realistic chance of being able to credibly take a stab at making decent policy. I can forgive a man who decides against me on the grounds he actually did the footwork to understand, but his character lead him to a different conclusion. However I cannot abide by what seems to pass for sound policy nowadays.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    States can apportion their electors however they choose, but generally their votes are cast in a "winner take all" manner. This setup is (in a way) a consequence of the Great Compromise, and would serve to reduce the electoral influence of more populous states even if elector votes were cast proportionally with respected the state's popular vote. It's not accurate to say that people in the US vote for electors.
    - tephra 6y ago
      Worth noting that there are now cases in the Supreme Court about "faithless" electors that didn't cast their vote for the state mandated winner. https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-analysis-in-a-close-case-concerns-about-chaos-from-faithless-electors/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-analysis-in-a-cl...
  - enraged_camel 6y ago
    This is a really, really bad take, along the same lines as "the US is not a democracy, it is a republic!"
- 101404 6y ago
  Only if you think that there are only Americans in this world. Hint: there are non-Americans too. Downvotes? HN really thinks there are only Americans on this planet? Of dear.
  - faizmokhtar 6y ago
    It applies to all presidents. It just that the US president tweets a lot.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
slg 6y ago
This is using past violence as a threat of imminent violence while the other accounts you mentioned will generally reference violence indirectly or in the past tense. That is an important distinction.
- shiado 6y ago
  That's a fair point. I'm not defending Trump's tweet, but it seems defining violence glorification is arbitrary. It would be funny if Twitter adds a rule that says you can be an organization whose whole purpose is to make devices that kill people as long as you don't glorify making devices that kill people.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    I think that's pretty much what they're already saying?
  - celticninja 6y ago
    isn't that any gun company?
  - tehwebguy 6y ago
    Glorification? He is instructing police to shoot protestors as long as there is looting.
- TechBro8615 6y ago
  He is the commander in chief. He has the capability to threaten violence. This tweet, while in bad taste IMO, was a threat to those who are planning to continue looting and burning buildings in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the videos, but there are full scale riots. Rioters completely looted a Target and burned it nearly to the ground. Is “shooting” the answer to that? Probably not. And hopefully the National Guard is not going to do that. But at the end of the day, this is the commander in chief making a public statement, and Twitter is editorializing it. Make of that what you will.
  - DavideNL 6y ago
vowelless 6y ago
Also don’t forget that Hamas has many official twitter accounts in various languages.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Have they posted suggestions of shooting their own citizens and not been sanctioned by Twitter?
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Why draw the line at "their own citizens"? Have they posted suggestions of shooting people who aren't their own citizens?
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Depends on the Twitter regulations, war is generally not illegal. Summary capital punishment usually is unlawful; though there are exceptions. So I was trying to account for that.
crazygringo 6y ago
Well, in political science and sociology, one of the most common definitions of the state is that it possesses a monopoly on legitimate/lawful violence. Violence conducted via the military or police, according to regulation, is lawful. But violence conducted by citizens, or by members of the government or military that is not according to law/regulation, is not lawful. I'm not saying Twitter's drawing the line exactly right, but it's somewhere in the right vicinity.
- lostmsu 6y ago
  Wasn't Trump referring to stand your ground laws?
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    no, it's a clear reference to Walter Headly https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-when-looting-starts-shooting-starts-come-n1217676 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-...
    - lostmsu 6y ago
      Then I don't understand the reasoning in the parent comment at all.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    Minnesota does not have stand your ground laws. Instead, they have duty to retreat laws (basically, you can use deadly force to protect your life, not property).
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      And if a looter is threatening your life?
      - sangnoir 6y ago
        Refer to sentence in parentheses.
sagichmal 6y ago
> Really interesting. Is it "really interesting" that Twitter is paying extra attention to the President of the United States' Twitter account? I don't think so.

by shiado 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

doublesCs 6y ago

The president is the most visible face of the government. Of all the ones you mentioned, it's the only one people actually vote for. What he says and does has the most impact. So I don't find it "interesting", I find it entirely reasonable.

jacquesm 6y ago
People in the United States do not vote for a president. They vote for an elector who in turn will vote for the president. This is an important and often left out detail in how the American political system works, in theory it could have protected us from the current dumpster fire.
- kortilla 6y ago
  It’s not actually that important. In many states it’s illegal for the elector to vote for something other than the popular vote and in the others it’s unheard of to go a different way and it would be made pretty quickly illegal if it happened.
  - noobermin 6y ago
    There was hubbub to do this when Trump was going to be elected and they prevented it.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    There's a case before the Supreme Court about this right now, and I can't really guess what the outcome will be.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    But even if illegal it still can happen and as far as I know that flipped vote of the elector would still count.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      Yep, but given that it doesn’t happen, it’s not really relevant as some kind of IAmVerySmart comment claiming that people don’t vote for the US President. They effectively do.
- djannzjkzxn 6y ago
  My ballot has the candidate’s name on it, not some elector. If electors conspired to change the outcome, the people would rightfully consider it nothing more than a coup, regardless of the 18th-century design of the electoral college.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    That doesn't change the facts.
    - lowwave 6y ago
      Keep in mind. US came into existing through declaration.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Well sure, but when people are sufficiently annoyed they tend to change the offending facts.
  - salawat 6y ago
    The Founders would fundamentally disagree, and so would I. Our government repeats the motif of filtering down the raw passion and energy of the populace as a whole through a smaller, generally much less numerous group backed with the implicit assumption of good faith and sense. The faithless elector was to the Founder's one of the last bulwarks against bestowing the highest office in the country to someone so repugnant, that an isolated bunch of people, accountable to no one but their own conscience, politely discussing the matter came to the conclusion it just couldn't work out. The idea that a President could get that far by mere populism and charlatanism may seem daft, but in that time, you didn't have background checks. You couldn't sniff out who someone really was, and if you knew the right people it was easy to get paraded in front of a populace that would eat up anything you fed them as long as there was enough spectacle to keep their attention. Odds are, it wouldn't be a problem. Everything would go just fine. However, the Founder's were well read on the ills of Greek and Roman poli, and the traps of demagoguery, and cults of personality. Their solution was the application of well-intentioned moral reasoning. We've all experienced the excitement of an idea that sounds great in a crowd, to later go home and say, "Now wait a minute." Same basic principle. In such an important decision, if it is really the right answer, no one will refuse,yet if it isn't, the stakes are high enough where the presence of that last chance is warranted. The political party system completely undermined the entire intent behind the College, and many people never really try to transplant themselves out of the modern mindset, back to the time period to understand it. Nor do they realize just how important careful consideration of the person holding that post was. Think about it. That President did not have the most capable Armed Forces in the world at his disposal. They did not have the capability to essentially make or unmake law via Administrative law and control of Alphabet soup of national regulatory agencies we have today. That President was not sitting atop the world's largest nuclear arsenal, or at the nexus of arguably one of the most well-funded intelligence and law enforcement apparatus in the world. In comparison to the Presidents of today, Abraham Lincoln was absolutely right. "No man can do any great harm in four years". Nowadays, given the level of interconnectivity between world governments, and the technological capabilities that are at our disposal, it stands to reason they might have balked at having a President in the first place. We don't know for certain. We can only guess. I'm not certain anyone will find any of what I'm saying rhetorically convincing, but the main point I'm making is it is dangerous to dismiss the past without really understanding why what was done was done. The thinking behind the College was completely rational for the time, and arguably, even more rational and relevant today assuming your values and philosophies are more or less consistent with those of the Founders, who were so helpful as to write them down in generous volume that we may benefit from their endeavors today. At least, I think so, and I've spent more time than I like to admit trying to understand the topic myself. Which is kind of silly, after all, to be ashamed of doing so, seeing as it is one of the single most important things to do for those who come after us. To his wife,Joh Adams wrote: >"The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain." These Founders. These visionaries so loft in their ideals, dedicated their intellectual lives to the laying of a Foundational edifice that would stand the test of time. No Internet or easily accessible mobs of fairweather supporters did they have. No refuge in trivial pseudonymity were they blessed with. No instant feedback loops, or access to the happenings of the entire world at once to cherry pick what works and what doesn't. In spite of the vices and and repugnancies of the society of the time (which I will not whitewash or dismiss), these men demonstrated a commitment to the future few of their descendants, and increasingly few nowadays truly demonstrate. The preservation of personal liberty, and national unity unrivaled in degree or ferverence in administering. Abraham Lincoln himself likened it to the closest thing we should have to a National religion[2]. To cherish and preserve the liberties we enjoy do those who come after. Before you toss aside the fruits of the labor of people who in their time dedicated so much time to trying to think, reason, compromise, and do things well; it behooves you to at least understand their context, and to carry a paltry mockery of what they had to offer forward that you may learn and reap the fruits of a life we haven't had to spend as they did. I'm sorry, but the flippant dismissive nature of your response just really doesn't do the import of the issue justice. I'm not trying to be condescending or patronizing (though that may end up being how it ends up coming off). I'm merely pointing out that it isn't some 18th century foppish hat to be cast aside. If you can't demonstrate an appreciation for why it was there, or show any indication you've put thought into whether or not it's mutation from it's original intent has actually been a net negative, it is difficult to take your assertion seriously. Then again, I can count on both hands the number of people I've met who will even entertain that level of debate or thought, and only one hand is necessary for the number who have straight up admitted they do it out of a personally perceived sense of duty. In short, check your damn history and show your work if you expect to be taken seriously. I can't emphasize it enough. If everyone else's liberties aren't important enough to you to do so, I don't know what else would be. [1]https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17800512jasecond https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L178005... [2]http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/liberty.htm http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/liberty.htm [2a]Also see the The Eloquent President, by Ronald C. White. Read it slowly. [3]Federalist Papers 68 [4]Anti-Federalist Papers 72 Just read them. It's man years of interlocution to make, far less to read and process, and far easier to get a hold of now. These aren't easy or trite issues by far, and if nothing else, you have to work to build empathy and compassion to both sides to be able to have any realistic chance of being able to credibly take a stab at making decent policy. I can forgive a man who decides against me on the grounds he actually did the footwork to understand, but his character lead him to a different conclusion. However I cannot abide by what seems to pass for sound policy nowadays.
- totalZero 6y ago
  States can apportion their electors however they choose, but generally their votes are cast in a "winner take all" manner. This setup is (in a way) a consequence of the Great Compromise, and would serve to reduce the electoral influence of more populous states even if elector votes were cast proportionally with respected the state's popular vote. It's not accurate to say that people in the US vote for electors.
  - tephra 6y ago
    Worth noting that there are now cases in the Supreme Court about "faithless" electors that didn't cast their vote for the state mandated winner. https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-analysis-in-a-close-case-concerns-about-chaos-from-faithless-electors/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-analysis-in-a-cl...
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  This is a really, really bad take, along the same lines as "the US is not a democracy, it is a republic!"
101404 6y ago
Only if you think that there are only Americans in this world. Hint: there are non-Americans too. Downvotes? HN really thinks there are only Americans on this planet? Of dear.
- faizmokhtar 6y ago
  It applies to all presidents. It just that the US president tweets a lot.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

slg 6y ago

This is using past violence as a threat of imminent violence while the other accounts you mentioned will generally reference violence indirectly or in the past tense. That is an important distinction.

shiado 6y ago
That's a fair point. I'm not defending Trump's tweet, but it seems defining violence glorification is arbitrary. It would be funny if Twitter adds a rule that says you can be an organization whose whole purpose is to make devices that kill people as long as you don't glorify making devices that kill people.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  I think that's pretty much what they're already saying?
- celticninja 6y ago
  isn't that any gun company?
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  Glorification? He is instructing police to shoot protestors as long as there is looting.
TechBro8615 6y ago
He is the commander in chief. He has the capability to threaten violence. This tweet, while in bad taste IMO, was a threat to those who are planning to continue looting and burning buildings in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the videos, but there are full scale riots. Rioters completely looted a Target and burned it nearly to the ground. Is “shooting” the answer to that? Probably not. And hopefully the National Guard is not going to do that. But at the end of the day, this is the commander in chief making a public statement, and Twitter is editorializing it. Make of that what you will.
- DavideNL 6y ago

vowelless 6y ago

Also don’t forget that Hamas has many official twitter accounts in various languages.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Have they posted suggestions of shooting their own citizens and not been sanctioned by Twitter?
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Why draw the line at "their own citizens"? Have they posted suggestions of shooting people who aren't their own citizens?
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Depends on the Twitter regulations, war is generally not illegal. Summary capital punishment usually is unlawful; though there are exceptions. So I was trying to account for that.

crazygringo 6y ago

Well, in political science and sociology, one of the most common definitions of the state is that it possesses a monopoly on legitimate/lawful violence. Violence conducted via the military or police, according to regulation, is lawful. But violence conducted by citizens, or by members of the government or military that is not according to law/regulation, is not lawful. I'm not saying Twitter's drawing the line exactly right, but it's somewhere in the right vicinity.

lostmsu 6y ago
Wasn't Trump referring to stand your ground laws?
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  no, it's a clear reference to Walter Headly https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-when-looting-starts-shooting-starts-come-n1217676 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-...
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    Then I don't understand the reasoning in the parent comment at all.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  Minnesota does not have stand your ground laws. Instead, they have duty to retreat laws (basically, you can use deadly force to protect your life, not property).
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    And if a looter is threatening your life?
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      Refer to sentence in parentheses.

sagichmal 6y ago

> Really interesting. Is it "really interesting" that Twitter is paying extra attention to the President of the United States' Twitter account? I don't think so.