6 ms·

The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Dem

by HWR_14 5y ago

The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Democrats.

syshum 5y ago
- joebob42 5y ago
  I think in this instance "democrat" is being used to mean "supporter of democracy". I don't think you aren't an American if you aren't a supporter of democracy, per se, but I do think the principle is a fairly core tenet of what it is, or at least is supposed to be, to be "American". I would be unsurprised if other people said you were un-American for feeling this way.
  - syshum 5y ago
    Sorry no, democracy is not a core tenant of America... Core tenant's of America's founding where Individual rights and self governance. The Founders took great pains to LIMIT the amount of democracy in our system, because they understood the problems with democracy. The house of Representatives was the only democratically elected part of the government for a reason. We ignored them at our own peril..
    - Traster 5y ago
      Yes, a core tenet of the USA was to limit how much democracy black people, poor people and women could have. It's much worse now.... apparently.
      - syshum 5y ago
        quinnjh 5y ago
        Darling, have a tea. Poster commented with a fact. Black humans and women were not included in founders vision of democratic rights. No one said racism or slavery until you did. If you want to die on the hill, come up with a rebuttal, like why you think black and female humans should not have voting rights
        syshum 5y ago
        >No one said racism or slavery until you did hmmm >like why you think black and female humans should not have voting rights So you subtle call me a racist, but no one mentioned it? Really..... No where in any comments ever have a stated or implied support for that. Understanding history, understanding the context of the decisions and no applying modern ethical standards to history is a proper way to learn from history Viewing history with a modern ethical lens like so many people are today destines you to never understanding history and thus never learning from it.
        quinnjh 5y ago
        Maybe because this is text you are failing to properly interpret my words. -The post you replied to did not contain the word racism -The post was calling into question the exclusion of certain classes of humanoids from the framework of rights agreed on at birth of US -No commenter said the words "you are racist" -You failed to offer why the exclusion of black or female people is just In “Notes on the State of Virginia,” Jefferson wrote, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever…” He believed that to keep slaves in bondage, with part of America in favor of abolition and part of America in favor of perpetuating slavery, would result in civil war. Jefferson’s prediction was correct: in 1861, the contest over slavery sparked a bloody civil war and the creation of two nations — Union and Confederacy — in the place of one. Read up on natural law
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      > self governance. This is democracy. You cannot have self-governance without democracy. If not everyone is enfranchised, not everyone has self-governance. You can quibble about representative democracy, but it's still democracy at its core. Now yes, as the other poster mentions, many of the tenets of the founders' approach to representative democracy were intended to limit political participation by people who were not white, male, and landowners. Thankfully, many of those policies [edit: have since been changed]. > The house of Representatives was the only democratically elected part of the government for a reason. We ignored them at our own peril.. Keep in mind that by the definition you're using here, there's a solid argument to make that neither the US senate nor the US presidential elections are "democratic" today due to the inherent undemocratic nature of the electoral college and differing vote values of residents of different states. So this is still the case, and perhaps you've misidentified the problem. (I always wonder why we deify a bunch of mostly 30 year olds from 270 years ago as though they had the perfect ideas about government and we haven't learned anything in the intervening centuries)
      - kelseyfrog 5y ago
        > Thankfully, many of those policies were short-lived. How exactly do you figure? I'm looking at women's suffrage in 1920, Reconstruction era and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and North Carolina's property requirement removal in 1856 and I'm not sure if our ideas of short-lived are similar.
        joshuamorton 5y ago
        True, I actually agree with you, although I've gotten pushback before for saying that they weren't short-lived, because some places (e.g. Boston) did get rid of the property requirement only a year or two after the founding, and women could vote in NJ in 1776, but lost the ability in 1807. So like I think its probably most precise to say that they were usually long-lived, but not universally. I'll reword my prior comment but leave this here.
      - syshum 5y ago
        You can not look history from a lens of our modern ethics. Doing so is fraught with problems and you end up missing the the lessons history has for us, and worse you can never see anything good about history. Slavery was terrible, but when people look at history I have often had people point to the 3/5's clause in the constitution as an example of racism. They don't understand that is was the abolitionist that fought for that, the slave owners wanted all slaves to be counted as whole persons, it would have given them more power and likely could have resulted in slavery lasting longer. You never learn that the original draft of the Declaration Condemned slavery as one of the crimes committed by the King, Jefferson writing "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him". no documented reason has been given for why that was removed but most believe it was because of just 2 colonies, South Carolina and Georgia. To paint history with a modern lens destines you to never understanding and thus never learning from it. >>keep in mind that by the definition you're using here, there's a solid argument to make that neither the US senate nor the US presidential elections are "democratic" The Senate should not be voted on at all IMO, I think that 17th Amendment has been a net negative for the nation. It has take the voice of the states out of the Federal government and has lead to a HUGE consolidation of power, elimination of checks in the system, and over all been bad for the republic. As far as the electoral college, and democracy, if you support federalism, and believe the in the Idea of 50 United States coming together for the common economic and defensive goals then the electoral college is very democratic, however if you are a supporter of "America" where by the States are not really independent and to be treated as sub servant vassals of the Federal government then you would view it as non-democratic. Given the US Constitution allows for the States to come together to overrule the federal government or even abolish it I would say we are a collection of 50 States united under a common set of laws and principles, i.e the United States of America. >>I always wonder why we deify a bunch of mostly 30 year olds from 270 years ago as though they had the perfect ideas about government I dont really think I have done that here, nor do I normally, Infact I am huge believer in the statement of "The US Constitution has either authorized the government we now have, or has been powerless to prevent it, in either case it is unfit to exist" I have massive problems with the US Constitution but I highly doubt we are going to agree with what those problems are, as my problem with the US Constitution is it has given TOO MUCH power to government, has allowed for massive "interpretation" of the text to all the federal government do just about anything it wants. I want a VERY VERY VERY small limited "night watchmen" like government, not this large overarching parental government that we look to for the solution to every problem in our lives I look back to the original constitution, you see racism and an attempt put white men in power, I see a set of principles for limited government that would start the world down the path of the greatest expansion of Individual freedom in world history. Of course the US Constitution did not exist in a vacuum, and was not the sole reason for this expansion, but it was part of it. I wish they would have had the ability to get more individual freedoms for everyone into our founding (many tried) I wish we would have more limited on governmental power, but I also understand the political realities of the day. In the 200+ years since we have done alot of good things to advance those principles and expand individual freedom, some things too longer than they should have. However we have also done alot of things that will in time start to erode those freedoms as government(s) consolidate power, and begin to provide an outsized portion of necessitates of life.
zdragnar 5y ago
I don't know of any American who claims to be a democrat without also claiming to be a Democrat; the terms are synonymous with the political party in the US.
- DoctorOW 5y ago
  While the literal term isn't used the way the parent describes I believe that their comment is trying to communicate "While only half of Americans describe themselves as Democrats, most Americans would say they're "an advocate or supporter of democracy" (the definition of a democrat).
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Thank you for clarifying my post. That is indeed what what I meant.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    Right, but when arguing semantics, then semantics matters. "democrat" as in "someone who advocates democracy" simply isn't in common usage here. Likewise, if I said I donated to BLM, odds are good I am talking about the fund by that name, not an abstract concept of a movement that random people ephemerally belong to.
- guynamedloren 5y ago
  Perhaps they meant: Americans will all claim to be democratic*
charcircuit 5y ago
>Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats I'm not a democrat and I'm American.
- DoctorOW 5y ago
  What's wrong with democracy?
  - marpstar 5y ago
    Not answering your question, but making sure the clarification is made that we (in the USA) do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. I know, I know... some people cringe when someone points this out, but it's true.
    - _kst_ 5y ago
      It depends on how you define "democracy". I'm not inclined to participate in an argument about it here, but there are valid points of view other than the one you assert.
  - _justinfunk 5y ago
  - paisawalla 5y ago
    Purports to be about consent of the governed, will of the people, popular rule etc. In reality, you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes. Basically it transfers power to the most motivated actors, almost regardless of their popularity.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      > you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes. What are you referring to? Also, you can home-school your kids. Or just move someplace where nobody cares. It's not perfect, but name something that gives you remotely as much freedom and power over your government. Many millions have given their lives, physically or temporally, to making it better, to give you and I the historically unequalled freedom, security, and prosperity we were born into. If you see problems - and so do I - how about helping make it better rather than sitting around criticizing while others do the work?
thorncorona 5y ago
In the eyes of most people they are the same. Using obvious words in subtle ways makes it hard to people to differentiate. Just as Republicans don't claim to be democrats, defund the police means removing all funding for police, etc.
- elil17 5y ago
  OP phrased that weirdly (and apparently doesn’t know that no one calls themselves a small d democrat - just not a phrase normal people use). The point though, is that most people who support ending police brutality know that BLM Global Network Foundation is mismanaged. There are many other groups doing work to fight against police brutality which have more support from people involved in that movement.
- plzdontcancel 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    Creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (No, this is not a comment about policing. This is a comment about having an internet forum that doesn't burn itself to a crisp. If possible.)
rvz 5y ago
Well, it seems this 'confusion' has tricked even the biggest companies to not only 'show support' for the movement with their now pointless banners, but also donate to the organisation which basically failed to be held accountable for the missing $60M that was spent on properties. They supported both, including the 'Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation'. So they were supporting fraudsters all this time?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Probably true when they donated money. Certainly not true when they put up posters or claimed to support things. Fraudsters cloaking themselves in the names of things is pretty common throughout hot button political issues, although sometimes it's fraud and sometimes it's unintentionally mismanaging money. I mean, the trucker thing in Canada raised millions of dollars, and while some of it has not been transferred because of the apparent fraud, only $1 million was only ever planned to be spent on the trucker thing and the other $7 million was destined for the organizer's bank account. In general, there are no trademarks on social movements, and it's a tough problem.
  - cudgy 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > the missing $60M that was spent on properties It’s not missing, it's the money they reportedly had on hand at last account. (And if anyone knew it had been spent on properties, it still wouldn't be missing.)
  - rvz 5y ago
    > it's the money they reportedly had on hand at last account. Exactly. Everyone knows that the 'missing' $60M didn't go to their own causes, but was spent on themselves (and everything else unrelated to BLM), just like what fraudsters would do. They were successful at manipulating the emotions of their supporters and executed a magnificent scam that even tricked the largest of companies. So we are still defending fraudsters?
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Democrats. It's more different than that between the BLM movement and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation organization (which, despite the domain name, isn't the sole BLM organization); among the groups at odds with BLMGNF are either a substantial minority or perhaps even an actual majority of the former local chapters, BLMGNF has apparently been leaderless for most of a year after failing to reach a deal with the two people that were supposed to take over last May as coleads to replace the outgoing executive director.

by HWR_14 5y ago

The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Democrats.

syshum 5y ago

joebob42 5y ago
I think in this instance "democrat" is being used to mean "supporter of democracy". I don't think you aren't an American if you aren't a supporter of democracy, per se, but I do think the principle is a fairly core tenet of what it is, or at least is supposed to be, to be "American". I would be unsurprised if other people said you were un-American for feeling this way.
- syshum 5y ago
  Sorry no, democracy is not a core tenant of America... Core tenant's of America's founding where Individual rights and self governance. The Founders took great pains to LIMIT the amount of democracy in our system, because they understood the problems with democracy. The house of Representatives was the only democratically elected part of the government for a reason. We ignored them at our own peril..
  - Traster 5y ago
    Yes, a core tenet of the USA was to limit how much democracy black people, poor people and women could have. It's much worse now.... apparently.
    - syshum 5y ago
      - quinnjh 5y ago
        Darling, have a tea. Poster commented with a fact. Black humans and women were not included in founders vision of democratic rights. No one said racism or slavery until you did. If you want to die on the hill, come up with a rebuttal, like why you think black and female humans should not have voting rights
        syshum 5y ago
        >No one said racism or slavery until you did hmmm >like why you think black and female humans should not have voting rights So you subtle call me a racist, but no one mentioned it? Really..... No where in any comments ever have a stated or implied support for that. Understanding history, understanding the context of the decisions and no applying modern ethical standards to history is a proper way to learn from history Viewing history with a modern ethical lens like so many people are today destines you to never understanding history and thus never learning from it.
        quinnjh 5y ago
        Maybe because this is text you are failing to properly interpret my words. -The post you replied to did not contain the word racism -The post was calling into question the exclusion of certain classes of humanoids from the framework of rights agreed on at birth of US -No commenter said the words "you are racist" -You failed to offer why the exclusion of black or female people is just In “Notes on the State of Virginia,” Jefferson wrote, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever…” He believed that to keep slaves in bondage, with part of America in favor of abolition and part of America in favor of perpetuating slavery, would result in civil war. Jefferson’s prediction was correct: in 1861, the contest over slavery sparked a bloody civil war and the creation of two nations — Union and Confederacy — in the place of one. Read up on natural law
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    > self governance. This is democracy. You cannot have self-governance without democracy. If not everyone is enfranchised, not everyone has self-governance. You can quibble about representative democracy, but it's still democracy at its core. Now yes, as the other poster mentions, many of the tenets of the founders' approach to representative democracy were intended to limit political participation by people who were not white, male, and landowners. Thankfully, many of those policies [edit: have since been changed]. > The house of Representatives was the only democratically elected part of the government for a reason. We ignored them at our own peril.. Keep in mind that by the definition you're using here, there's a solid argument to make that neither the US senate nor the US presidential elections are "democratic" today due to the inherent undemocratic nature of the electoral college and differing vote values of residents of different states. So this is still the case, and perhaps you've misidentified the problem. (I always wonder why we deify a bunch of mostly 30 year olds from 270 years ago as though they had the perfect ideas about government and we haven't learned anything in the intervening centuries)
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      > Thankfully, many of those policies were short-lived. How exactly do you figure? I'm looking at women's suffrage in 1920, Reconstruction era and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and North Carolina's property requirement removal in 1856 and I'm not sure if our ideas of short-lived are similar.
      - joshuamorton 5y ago
        True, I actually agree with you, although I've gotten pushback before for saying that they weren't short-lived, because some places (e.g. Boston) did get rid of the property requirement only a year or two after the founding, and women could vote in NJ in 1776, but lost the ability in 1807. So like I think its probably most precise to say that they were usually long-lived, but not universally. I'll reword my prior comment but leave this here.
    - syshum 5y ago
      You can not look history from a lens of our modern ethics. Doing so is fraught with problems and you end up missing the the lessons history has for us, and worse you can never see anything good about history. Slavery was terrible, but when people look at history I have often had people point to the 3/5's clause in the constitution as an example of racism. They don't understand that is was the abolitionist that fought for that, the slave owners wanted all slaves to be counted as whole persons, it would have given them more power and likely could have resulted in slavery lasting longer. You never learn that the original draft of the Declaration Condemned slavery as one of the crimes committed by the King, Jefferson writing "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him". no documented reason has been given for why that was removed but most believe it was because of just 2 colonies, South Carolina and Georgia. To paint history with a modern lens destines you to never understanding and thus never learning from it. >>keep in mind that by the definition you're using here, there's a solid argument to make that neither the US senate nor the US presidential elections are "democratic" The Senate should not be voted on at all IMO, I think that 17th Amendment has been a net negative for the nation. It has take the voice of the states out of the Federal government and has lead to a HUGE consolidation of power, elimination of checks in the system, and over all been bad for the republic. As far as the electoral college, and democracy, if you support federalism, and believe the in the Idea of 50 United States coming together for the common economic and defensive goals then the electoral college is very democratic, however if you are a supporter of "America" where by the States are not really independent and to be treated as sub servant vassals of the Federal government then you would view it as non-democratic. Given the US Constitution allows for the States to come together to overrule the federal government or even abolish it I would say we are a collection of 50 States united under a common set of laws and principles, i.e the United States of America. >>I always wonder why we deify a bunch of mostly 30 year olds from 270 years ago as though they had the perfect ideas about government I dont really think I have done that here, nor do I normally, Infact I am huge believer in the statement of "The US Constitution has either authorized the government we now have, or has been powerless to prevent it, in either case it is unfit to exist" I have massive problems with the US Constitution but I highly doubt we are going to agree with what those problems are, as my problem with the US Constitution is it has given TOO MUCH power to government, has allowed for massive "interpretation" of the text to all the federal government do just about anything it wants. I want a VERY VERY VERY small limited "night watchmen" like government, not this large overarching parental government that we look to for the solution to every problem in our lives I look back to the original constitution, you see racism and an attempt put white men in power, I see a set of principles for limited government that would start the world down the path of the greatest expansion of Individual freedom in world history. Of course the US Constitution did not exist in a vacuum, and was not the sole reason for this expansion, but it was part of it. I wish they would have had the ability to get more individual freedoms for everyone into our founding (many tried) I wish we would have more limited on governmental power, but I also understand the political realities of the day. In the 200+ years since we have done alot of good things to advance those principles and expand individual freedom, some things too longer than they should have. However we have also done alot of things that will in time start to erode those freedoms as government(s) consolidate power, and begin to provide an outsized portion of necessitates of life.

zdragnar 5y ago

I don't know of any American who claims to be a democrat without also claiming to be a Democrat; the terms are synonymous with the political party in the US.

DoctorOW 5y ago
While the literal term isn't used the way the parent describes I believe that their comment is trying to communicate "While only half of Americans describe themselves as Democrats, most Americans would say they're "an advocate or supporter of democracy" (the definition of a democrat).
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Thank you for clarifying my post. That is indeed what what I meant.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Right, but when arguing semantics, then semantics matters. "democrat" as in "someone who advocates democracy" simply isn't in common usage here. Likewise, if I said I donated to BLM, odds are good I am talking about the fund by that name, not an abstract concept of a movement that random people ephemerally belong to.
guynamedloren 5y ago
Perhaps they meant: Americans will all claim to be democratic*

charcircuit 5y ago

>Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats I'm not a democrat and I'm American.

DoctorOW 5y ago
What's wrong with democracy?
- marpstar 5y ago
  Not answering your question, but making sure the clarification is made that we (in the USA) do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. I know, I know... some people cringe when someone points this out, but it's true.
  - _kst_ 5y ago
    It depends on how you define "democracy". I'm not inclined to participate in an argument about it here, but there are valid points of view other than the one you assert.
- _justinfunk 5y ago
- paisawalla 5y ago
  Purports to be about consent of the governed, will of the people, popular rule etc. In reality, you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes. Basically it transfers power to the most motivated actors, almost regardless of their popularity.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes. What are you referring to? Also, you can home-school your kids. Or just move someplace where nobody cares. It's not perfect, but name something that gives you remotely as much freedom and power over your government. Many millions have given their lives, physically or temporally, to making it better, to give you and I the historically unequalled freedom, security, and prosperity we were born into. If you see problems - and so do I - how about helping make it better rather than sitting around criticizing while others do the work?

thorncorona 5y ago

In the eyes of most people they are the same. Using obvious words in subtle ways makes it hard to people to differentiate. Just as Republicans don't claim to be democrats, defund the police means removing all funding for police, etc.

elil17 5y ago
OP phrased that weirdly (and apparently doesn’t know that no one calls themselves a small d democrat - just not a phrase normal people use). The point though, is that most people who support ending police brutality know that BLM Global Network Foundation is mismanaged. There are many other groups doing work to fight against police brutality which have more support from people involved in that movement.
plzdontcancel 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (No, this is not a comment about policing. This is a comment about having an internet forum that doesn't burn itself to a crisp. If possible.)

rvz 5y ago

Well, it seems this 'confusion' has tricked even the biggest companies to not only 'show support' for the movement with their now pointless banners, but also donate to the organisation which basically failed to be held accountable for the missing $60M that was spent on properties. They supported both, including the 'Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation'. So they were supporting fraudsters all this time?

HWR_14 5y ago
Probably true when they donated money. Certainly not true when they put up posters or claimed to support things. Fraudsters cloaking themselves in the names of things is pretty common throughout hot button political issues, although sometimes it's fraud and sometimes it's unintentionally mismanaging money. I mean, the trucker thing in Canada raised millions of dollars, and while some of it has not been transferred because of the apparent fraud, only $1 million was only ever planned to be spent on the trucker thing and the other $7 million was destined for the organizer's bank account. In general, there are no trademarks on social movements, and it's a tough problem.
- cudgy 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
> the missing $60M that was spent on properties It’s not missing, it's the money they reportedly had on hand at last account. (And if anyone knew it had been spent on properties, it still wouldn't be missing.)
- rvz 5y ago
  > it's the money they reportedly had on hand at last account. Exactly. Everyone knows that the 'missing' $60M didn't go to their own causes, but was spent on themselves (and everything else unrelated to BLM), just like what fraudsters would do. They were successful at manipulating the emotions of their supporters and executed a magnificent scam that even tricked the largest of companies. So we are still defending fraudsters?

dragonwriter 5y ago

> The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Democrats. It's more different than that between the BLM movement and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation organization (which, despite the domain name, isn't the sole BLM organization); among the groups at odds with BLMGNF are either a substantial minority or perhaps even an actual majority of the former local chapters, BLMGNF has apparently been leaderless for most of a year after failing to reach a deal with the two people that were supposed to take over last May as coleads to replace the outgoing executive director.