8 ms·

It’s fine to accept your mom or your neighbor changing their mind, but I think we should be skeptical of politicians changing their mind and consider what hidde

It’s fine to accept your mom or your neighbor changing their mind, but I think we should be skeptical of politicians changing their mind and consider what hidden, calculated motives they may have for changing it now, when they had plenty of information to reach the same conclusion over a year ago.

carefulfungi 1y ago
Then what does winning actually look like today? Sure. Run against these people and support their political opposition in the next election. But take the win on the short term and get food to Gaza.
- mjevans 1y ago
  Think about it from a logical perspective. Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist. They have taken the innocent civilian's of Gaza / Palistine / whatever you want to call the area hostage. They are also so ingrained into the region that resources are literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like hospitals into deep tunnels beneath; as just one example of reporting I'm inclined to believe is credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sites are carrying out. What would winning look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Return them to a functioning society with social and civic infrastructure. Fully deny major violence and terrorism in the region for LIFETIMES to the point that the hate and anger finally cool off enough for people to move on. ... Winning is going to require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It's going to require the buy in of the people on the ground. It's going to require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from interests in that region who want to raise everyone above the hate. Also the afflicted country will need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time. Membership in the UN peacekeeping organization the only military service allowed (and then likely in other countries). Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular war(s) anywhere else in the world. Don't ask me how anyone could do it, those skilled in the art of diplomacy have tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than your's and NOTHING has stuck.
  - tehjoker 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 1y ago
      Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here. We've had to warn you about this multiple times before. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
      - crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
        What is the officially accepted way to identify genocidal rhetoric on this site?
        dang 1y ago
        The main thing to understand is that we're trying to optimize for one thing on HN and that's curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). When you use a phrase like "genocidal rhetoric", I assume that you consider certain comments to be wrong and bad. From that perspective your question could be generalized to "what's the best way to respond to wrong and bad comments on this site?" Keeping in mind that "bad" here doesn't just mean the comment is badly written—in internet jargon, it means the commenter is bad. Curiosity doesn't exclude wrongness or badness—it's interested in it. How did this comment (or person) get so wrong and bad? Could that change? Is there a response that could pull them out of wrongness and badness into rightness and goodness? Why do most of my (<-- I mean any of us, of course) attempts to do this fail so badly? Is there a more effective way to respond? Might there be something interesting here beyond wrongness and badness? That's the spirit we're trying for on this site, so that's the answer to your question. If I ask myself what other approaches are possible, there's one obvious option, and that is to crush/destroy/defeat the wrong and bad argument (and person) utterly. This is the desire to kill the other person (if only metaphorically (and maybe not always so metaphorically)), and thus establish rightness and goodness over wrongness and badness. So the "accepted way" here is to listen to the other and dance with them, rather than killing them (or their position). Dance rather than war, if you like. Is there a third option? I'm not sure. When I look inside myself, I can find the listen/dance option (or one could say give-and-take), and I can find the kill option. But I'm not sure I can find a third. --- Edit: reading this the next day, I think the word 'dance' could have trivializing associations (e.g. let's just dance rather than deal with violence and tragedy). I don't mean it that way. I mean something like moving and changing in response to each other. If anyone can do that in response to the other, even just a little, then one's self becomes a place for at least a modicum of change.
- asddubs 1y ago
  it's worth noting that joe biden lied about trying to get a ceasefire, as we now know. So it's worth being skeptical, though of course I agree that ultimately what matters are results.
  - aSanchezStern 1y ago
    Cite?
  - webstrand 1y ago
    Do you have a source for your claim? The Biden administration did present a ceasefire plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire>. If not that, then I don't know enough about the situation to find what you're referring to.
    - t-3 1y ago
      https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-administrations-false-history-of-ceasefire-negotiations/ https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-admin... The Biden administration also kept publically decrying the situation in Gaza while also promising full support and increasing weapon shipments to Israel. Saying one thing and doing the exact opposite over and over again.
- rendaw 1y ago
  It feels more likely that if you push the message "yes, this is great" for the short term win they get elected again next term. When do you switch from saying "yes these people are great for flip-flopping" to "no these people are terrible don't vote for them", and how do you say it in a way that gets through people's subtlety filters and doesn't make it look like you're flip flopping yourself?
  - jaredklewis 1y ago
    Well, yea there’s a tension here. If we want to use Gaza as a political tool to achieve some political aim (ie get my guy elected), that will be in conflict with doing something to help Gaza. Because in most countries, doing something meaningful is likely going to require cooperation between politicians from different parties. And it’s hard to get people to cooperate if you don’t plan on sharing the credit.
    - rendaw 1y ago
      I do think cooperation and letting bygones be bygones for the sake of progress are important. But I don't think it's right to frame it as "get my guy elected" vs "help Gaza". Does decrying them on social media mean they will flip flop again and be pro-gaza massacre? Even if that's the case, it's "get someone elected who will avoid Gaza-like tragedies in the future" vs "help Gaza now" which isn't black and white. Also, these people cooperated to enable the massacre in the first place...
- kn0where 1y ago
  My concern is the politicians are suddenly flip flopping because they realize in the short term Israel is close to exterminating the entire population of Gaza. Perhaps they will let a pittance of food aid through to prolong the genocide so Netanyahu can stay in power. I have little confidence in US leadership actually having a change of heart now.
  - sixQuarks 1y ago
    Exactly. We are dealing with demons, anyone who thinks they’re actually changing is delusional
tbrownaw 1y ago
Would it help to think of them as partially being mirrors rather than people? Needing to win elections means they can't push too hard against whatever's popular just because they might not like it.
- t-3 1y ago
  I would buy that argument if they followed the popular will more often than the "monied will". Most of the western ruling class having financial interests in weapon production through investments in the MIC drives government-level support for Israel's war on Gaza, while Palestine has had popular support for much longer than the current conflict.
chris_wot 1y ago
I think when a politician takes a principled stance, we should applaud them and encourage them to continue on this path.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  It's not principled in the least. Politicians knew what they were supporting from the onset, but society at large was supposed to act like they ostensibly usually do and just start putting Israeli flags in their social media profiles after the media spammed out 'they're just defending themselves' and ran appeals to emotion enough. That didn't work, so politicians are swapping their public positions. And this is important because what usually then happens in these scenarios is that there will be some token vote about ceasing shipping bombs to Israel which are then being dropped on civilians en masse, and it'll fail by 51/49, but the Senators who voted for it will be the ones who are up for elections in 2026. And as soon as they get back in power, they'll go back to cheering on Israel, while the next group up for election in 2028 will suddenly start taking a 'principled stance', with the net result that we can just manage to fail the next vote by 51/49 again as well. Now - if these sort of motions start actually passing, then I'll happily eat crow. But, in general, this scenario has played out repeatedly in various forms, and it never changes.
  - atoav 1y ago
    So let's make the assumption that all politicians flip-flop in their opinions, depending on what the popular opinion is these days. Given that assumption: If our goal is to get politics to take a tougher stance on a foreign government does it really matter that much how they arrived there? I get it, I too would love my politicians to hold principled humanitarian values and I know it doesn't feel good and it is certainly not ideologically pure, but those are the politicians we got now, if they come over at our side we could just welcome them with a knife hidden behind our back. We can always vote them out of office next time anyways, what we need now is their representation and vote. IMO this mixes up two issues (genocide in Gaza and the wrong people in political office) and tries to solve both. But one of the issues has a different urgency than the others and I am afraid by purity-testing too hard a broad movement against Netanjahu is delayed. If you don't want a specific politician vote for someone else next time and ensure there is a viable alternative when you do. That means you have lists who flip-flopped and try to tackle those who can be easily replaced first. But it is a separate problem.
myvoiceismypass 1y ago
Flip Flopping! Thank the FSM we have a stupid term for this, a critique that only seems to apply to people with a (D) next to their name.
blast 1y ago
Politicians respond to pressure.
atoav 1y ago
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Cane and stick. Politician who come over to your site get the cane, those who continue to support Netanyahu get the stick. Always give cornered animals a way out unless you want to have them put up more fight than you want. This is the smart thing to do if your goal is to build a broad movement that achieves effective change in the real world. When serving emotions and looking edgy to your viewers online is more important than stopping the genozide then you should go the vindictive route and purity-test each person joining your side. Pragmatism is not selling well online, the crowd wants to see blood. That means usually ot serves well to take such unappologetic stances with a grain of salt, while they sound strong, they are not usually effective positions for a broad societal movement. That btw. doesn't mean you have to forget any politicians positions earlier in this conflict. That's what I meant with "We can walk and chew gum at the same time". Makw the movement broad and keep track who was on your side early on.
- tdeck 1y ago
  I know this is a trivial thing to point out in the context of such a discussion but the expression you want is "carrot and stick". A cane is a kind of stick that you can also hit with, the verb "to cane" means to hit someone with a stick.
  - atoav 1y ago
    Thanks for the correction. English is not my first language, in German the equivalent is "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" (sugar-bread and whip) I must have somehow made the mental leap from "sugar" via "sugarcane" to "cane" and completely forgot about the carrot.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pegasus 1y ago
But in the scenario above, is this necessarily flip-flopping? Saying "Israel deserved a chance to protect itself, but now that they are going way overboard, it's time for some tough love instead" seems reasonable to me, and doesn't imply any kind of changing one's mind.
austhrow743 1y ago
Politicians represent your mum and neighbour.

carefulfungi 1y ago

Then what does winning actually look like today? Sure. Run against these people and support their political opposition in the next election. But take the win on the short term and get food to Gaza.

mjevans 1y ago
Think about it from a logical perspective. Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist. They have taken the innocent civilian's of Gaza / Palistine / whatever you want to call the area hostage. They are also so ingrained into the region that resources are literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like hospitals into deep tunnels beneath; as just one example of reporting I'm inclined to believe is credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sites are carrying out. What would winning look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Return them to a functioning society with social and civic infrastructure. Fully deny major violence and terrorism in the region for LIFETIMES to the point that the hate and anger finally cool off enough for people to move on. ... Winning is going to require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It's going to require the buy in of the people on the ground. It's going to require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from interests in that region who want to raise everyone above the hate. Also the afflicted country will need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time. Membership in the UN peacekeeping organization the only military service allowed (and then likely in other countries). Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular war(s) anywhere else in the world. Don't ask me how anyone could do it, those skilled in the art of diplomacy have tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than your's and NOTHING has stuck.
- tehjoker 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 1y ago
    Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here. We've had to warn you about this multiple times before. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
    - crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
      What is the officially accepted way to identify genocidal rhetoric on this site?
      - dang 1y ago
        The main thing to understand is that we're trying to optimize for one thing on HN and that's curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). When you use a phrase like "genocidal rhetoric", I assume that you consider certain comments to be wrong and bad. From that perspective your question could be generalized to "what's the best way to respond to wrong and bad comments on this site?" Keeping in mind that "bad" here doesn't just mean the comment is badly written—in internet jargon, it means the commenter is bad. Curiosity doesn't exclude wrongness or badness—it's interested in it. How did this comment (or person) get so wrong and bad? Could that change? Is there a response that could pull them out of wrongness and badness into rightness and goodness? Why do most of my (<-- I mean any of us, of course) attempts to do this fail so badly? Is there a more effective way to respond? Might there be something interesting here beyond wrongness and badness? That's the spirit we're trying for on this site, so that's the answer to your question. If I ask myself what other approaches are possible, there's one obvious option, and that is to crush/destroy/defeat the wrong and bad argument (and person) utterly. This is the desire to kill the other person (if only metaphorically (and maybe not always so metaphorically)), and thus establish rightness and goodness over wrongness and badness. So the "accepted way" here is to listen to the other and dance with them, rather than killing them (or their position). Dance rather than war, if you like. Is there a third option? I'm not sure. When I look inside myself, I can find the listen/dance option (or one could say give-and-take), and I can find the kill option. But I'm not sure I can find a third. --- Edit: reading this the next day, I think the word 'dance' could have trivializing associations (e.g. let's just dance rather than deal with violence and tragedy). I don't mean it that way. I mean something like moving and changing in response to each other. If anyone can do that in response to the other, even just a little, then one's self becomes a place for at least a modicum of change.
asddubs 1y ago
it's worth noting that joe biden lied about trying to get a ceasefire, as we now know. So it's worth being skeptical, though of course I agree that ultimately what matters are results.
- aSanchezStern 1y ago
  Cite?
- webstrand 1y ago
  Do you have a source for your claim? The Biden administration did present a ceasefire plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire>. If not that, then I don't know enough about the situation to find what you're referring to.
  - t-3 1y ago
    https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-administrations-false-history-of-ceasefire-negotiations/ https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-admin... The Biden administration also kept publically decrying the situation in Gaza while also promising full support and increasing weapon shipments to Israel. Saying one thing and doing the exact opposite over and over again.
rendaw 1y ago
It feels more likely that if you push the message "yes, this is great" for the short term win they get elected again next term. When do you switch from saying "yes these people are great for flip-flopping" to "no these people are terrible don't vote for them", and how do you say it in a way that gets through people's subtlety filters and doesn't make it look like you're flip flopping yourself?
- jaredklewis 1y ago
  Well, yea there’s a tension here. If we want to use Gaza as a political tool to achieve some political aim (ie get my guy elected), that will be in conflict with doing something to help Gaza. Because in most countries, doing something meaningful is likely going to require cooperation between politicians from different parties. And it’s hard to get people to cooperate if you don’t plan on sharing the credit.
  - rendaw 1y ago
    I do think cooperation and letting bygones be bygones for the sake of progress are important. But I don't think it's right to frame it as "get my guy elected" vs "help Gaza". Does decrying them on social media mean they will flip flop again and be pro-gaza massacre? Even if that's the case, it's "get someone elected who will avoid Gaza-like tragedies in the future" vs "help Gaza now" which isn't black and white. Also, these people cooperated to enable the massacre in the first place...
kn0where 1y ago
My concern is the politicians are suddenly flip flopping because they realize in the short term Israel is close to exterminating the entire population of Gaza. Perhaps they will let a pittance of food aid through to prolong the genocide so Netanyahu can stay in power. I have little confidence in US leadership actually having a change of heart now.
- sixQuarks 1y ago
  Exactly. We are dealing with demons, anyone who thinks they’re actually changing is delusional

tbrownaw 1y ago

Would it help to think of them as partially being mirrors rather than people? Needing to win elections means they can't push too hard against whatever's popular just because they might not like it.

t-3 1y ago
I would buy that argument if they followed the popular will more often than the "monied will". Most of the western ruling class having financial interests in weapon production through investments in the MIC drives government-level support for Israel's war on Gaza, while Palestine has had popular support for much longer than the current conflict.

chris_wot 1y ago

I think when a politician takes a principled stance, we should applaud them and encourage them to continue on this path.

somenameforme 1y ago
It's not principled in the least. Politicians knew what they were supporting from the onset, but society at large was supposed to act like they ostensibly usually do and just start putting Israeli flags in their social media profiles after the media spammed out 'they're just defending themselves' and ran appeals to emotion enough. That didn't work, so politicians are swapping their public positions. And this is important because what usually then happens in these scenarios is that there will be some token vote about ceasing shipping bombs to Israel which are then being dropped on civilians en masse, and it'll fail by 51/49, but the Senators who voted for it will be the ones who are up for elections in 2026. And as soon as they get back in power, they'll go back to cheering on Israel, while the next group up for election in 2028 will suddenly start taking a 'principled stance', with the net result that we can just manage to fail the next vote by 51/49 again as well. Now - if these sort of motions start actually passing, then I'll happily eat crow. But, in general, this scenario has played out repeatedly in various forms, and it never changes.
- atoav 1y ago
  So let's make the assumption that all politicians flip-flop in their opinions, depending on what the popular opinion is these days. Given that assumption: If our goal is to get politics to take a tougher stance on a foreign government does it really matter that much how they arrived there? I get it, I too would love my politicians to hold principled humanitarian values and I know it doesn't feel good and it is certainly not ideologically pure, but those are the politicians we got now, if they come over at our side we could just welcome them with a knife hidden behind our back. We can always vote them out of office next time anyways, what we need now is their representation and vote. IMO this mixes up two issues (genocide in Gaza and the wrong people in political office) and tries to solve both. But one of the issues has a different urgency than the others and I am afraid by purity-testing too hard a broad movement against Netanjahu is delayed. If you don't want a specific politician vote for someone else next time and ensure there is a viable alternative when you do. That means you have lists who flip-flopped and try to tackle those who can be easily replaced first. But it is a separate problem.

myvoiceismypass 1y ago

Flip Flopping! Thank the FSM we have a stupid term for this, a critique that only seems to apply to people with a (D) next to their name.

blast 1y ago

Politicians respond to pressure.

atoav 1y ago

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Cane and stick. Politician who come over to your site get the cane, those who continue to support Netanyahu get the stick. Always give cornered animals a way out unless you want to have them put up more fight than you want. This is the smart thing to do if your goal is to build a broad movement that achieves effective change in the real world. When serving emotions and looking edgy to your viewers online is more important than stopping the genozide then you should go the vindictive route and purity-test each person joining your side. Pragmatism is not selling well online, the crowd wants to see blood. That means usually ot serves well to take such unappologetic stances with a grain of salt, while they sound strong, they are not usually effective positions for a broad societal movement. That btw. doesn't mean you have to forget any politicians positions earlier in this conflict. That's what I meant with "We can walk and chew gum at the same time". Makw the movement broad and keep track who was on your side early on.

tdeck 1y ago
I know this is a trivial thing to point out in the context of such a discussion but the expression you want is "carrot and stick". A cane is a kind of stick that you can also hit with, the verb "to cane" means to hit someone with a stick.
- atoav 1y ago
  Thanks for the correction. English is not my first language, in German the equivalent is "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" (sugar-bread and whip) I must have somehow made the mental leap from "sugar" via "sugarcane" to "cane" and completely forgot about the carrot.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pegasus 1y ago

But in the scenario above, is this necessarily flip-flopping? Saying "Israel deserved a chance to protect itself, but now that they are going way overboard, it's time for some tough love instead" seems reasonable to me, and doesn't imply any kind of changing one's mind.

austhrow743 1y ago

Politicians represent your mum and neighbour.