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It’s revealing that you need that little morality-play false dilemma to avoid the actual topic. You’ve used “mentally ill” the way other people use citations:

It’s revealing that you need that little morality-play false dilemma to avoid the actual topic. You’ve used “mentally ill” the way other people use citations: as a substitute for substance. It doesn’t make you the adult in the room, it just makes you look like someone who can’t defend a position without trying to pathologize disagreement. Here’s one fact you can’t hand-wave away: DHS/USCIS is proposing to expand biometrics collection (including DNA) to people merely “associated with” an immigration benefit request (explicitly including petitioners/sponsors/signatories, i.e., often U.S. citizens) regardless of age. So, you can either argue why sweeping citizens into government biometric/DNA collection for paperwork is normal and lawful, or you can keep doing the “everyone who disagrees with me is unstable” routine. One of those is an argument; the other is a tell.

frumplestlatz 9mo ago
Plenty of people disagree with me who aren’t mentally unstable. They’re just not the ones talking about “boots on the throat” and this being the rise of a new Nazi regime. You don’t get to claim wild things like that and then immediately pretend you never did. Nobody buys your uno reverse attempt.
- willmarch 9mo ago
  “Boot on the neck” is a metaphor for state power being applied to people who can’t meaningfully resist it, not a claim that we’re already living in 1933 Berlin. And “history rhymes” isn’t “Trump is literally Hitler”, it’s the (obvious) point that democratic backsliding happens incrementally, and the people enabling it always insist the alarm is “hysteria” right up until it isn’t. Also: notice how you still didn’t touch the substance. One concrete example: DHS/USCIS is proposing expanded biometrics collection (including DNA) for people merely “associated with” an immigration benefit request—explicitly including petitioners/sponsors/signatories (often U.S. citizens), regardless of age. So, answer the actual question you keep dodging: do you think sweeping citizens into biometric/DNA collection as a condition of filing paperwork is normal and lawful, yes or no? If yes, cite the authority and defend the scope. If no, congratulations: you’ve been arguing with my tone because you can’t defend the policy. Your “uno reverse” line is basically an admission that the only thing you’ve got is vibes and insult-work.
  - frumplestlatz 9mo ago
    > do you think sweeping citizens into biometric/DNA collection as a condition of filing paperwork is normal and lawful, yes or no? Maybe. If the proposed rule is adopted as-is after the comment period, it will almost certainly face legal challenges. I don’t know what the result of those challenges would be. I suspect it will very much hinge on the specifics of the rules as actually adopted. None of this is relevant to HN — or deserving of breathless remarks about boots, Nazis, or similar.
    - willmarch 9mo ago
      “Maybe” is doing a lot of work here. A few comments ago you were certain: “They’re not [outside the law]. The deportations will continue regardless of the tantrums of the hysterical and mentally ill.” Now that we’re discussing the actual proposal, you’ve retreated to “maybe… probably litigated… depends.” That’s fine (updating your confidence is what adults do) but it also makes the earlier psych-eval routine look like what it was: posture covering for lack of specifics. And the “not relevant to HN” line is especially rich after pages of (a) armchair diagnoses and (b) violence-bait hypotheticals. If it’s “not deserving of breathless remarks,” you could have tried addressing the policy instead of policing tone. One concrete fact remains: DHS/USCIS is proposing expanded biometrics collection (including DNA) for people merely “associated with” an immigration benefit request, explicitly including petitioners/sponsors/signatories (often U.S. citizens), regardless of age. And this isn’t happening in some vacuum of “everything is fine” vibes: Hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents, including cases where people report being held more than a day. ICE conducts arrests with agents masking/obscuring their identities. DHS labeled people “domestic terrorists” in the Chicago sweeps, and then DOJ dropped the case and it was dismissed with prejudice. This same administration just carried out a military operation that captured Venezuela’s sitting president (Maduro), and publicly refused to rule out using military force to take Greenland. ICE agents shooting and killing a mother on the street and labelling her as a "domestic terrorist" (similar to the pattern in Chicago that was dismissed with prejudice). If you think that scope and pattern are normal and lawful, defend them; quote the authority and explain why it’s appropriate. If you can’t, then what you’re calling “breathless” is just me noticing you don’t actually have an argument, only a vibe and a whistle.

frumplestlatz 9mo ago

Plenty of people disagree with me who aren’t mentally unstable. They’re just not the ones talking about “boots on the throat” and this being the rise of a new Nazi regime. You don’t get to claim wild things like that and then immediately pretend you never did. Nobody buys your uno reverse attempt.

willmarch 9mo ago
“Boot on the neck” is a metaphor for state power being applied to people who can’t meaningfully resist it, not a claim that we’re already living in 1933 Berlin. And “history rhymes” isn’t “Trump is literally Hitler”, it’s the (obvious) point that democratic backsliding happens incrementally, and the people enabling it always insist the alarm is “hysteria” right up until it isn’t. Also: notice how you still didn’t touch the substance. One concrete example: DHS/USCIS is proposing expanded biometrics collection (including DNA) for people merely “associated with” an immigration benefit request—explicitly including petitioners/sponsors/signatories (often U.S. citizens), regardless of age. So, answer the actual question you keep dodging: do you think sweeping citizens into biometric/DNA collection as a condition of filing paperwork is normal and lawful, yes or no? If yes, cite the authority and defend the scope. If no, congratulations: you’ve been arguing with my tone because you can’t defend the policy. Your “uno reverse” line is basically an admission that the only thing you’ve got is vibes and insult-work.
- frumplestlatz 9mo ago
  > do you think sweeping citizens into biometric/DNA collection as a condition of filing paperwork is normal and lawful, yes or no? Maybe. If the proposed rule is adopted as-is after the comment period, it will almost certainly face legal challenges. I don’t know what the result of those challenges would be. I suspect it will very much hinge on the specifics of the rules as actually adopted. None of this is relevant to HN — or deserving of breathless remarks about boots, Nazis, or similar.
  - willmarch 9mo ago
    “Maybe” is doing a lot of work here. A few comments ago you were certain: “They’re not [outside the law]. The deportations will continue regardless of the tantrums of the hysterical and mentally ill.” Now that we’re discussing the actual proposal, you’ve retreated to “maybe… probably litigated… depends.” That’s fine (updating your confidence is what adults do) but it also makes the earlier psych-eval routine look like what it was: posture covering for lack of specifics. And the “not relevant to HN” line is especially rich after pages of (a) armchair diagnoses and (b) violence-bait hypotheticals. If it’s “not deserving of breathless remarks,” you could have tried addressing the policy instead of policing tone. One concrete fact remains: DHS/USCIS is proposing expanded biometrics collection (including DNA) for people merely “associated with” an immigration benefit request, explicitly including petitioners/sponsors/signatories (often U.S. citizens), regardless of age. And this isn’t happening in some vacuum of “everything is fine” vibes: Hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents, including cases where people report being held more than a day. ICE conducts arrests with agents masking/obscuring their identities. DHS labeled people “domestic terrorists” in the Chicago sweeps, and then DOJ dropped the case and it was dismissed with prejudice. This same administration just carried out a military operation that captured Venezuela’s sitting president (Maduro), and publicly refused to rule out using military force to take Greenland. ICE agents shooting and killing a mother on the street and labelling her as a "domestic terrorist" (similar to the pattern in Chicago that was dismissed with prejudice). If you think that scope and pattern are normal and lawful, defend them; quote the authority and explain why it’s appropriate. If you can’t, then what you’re calling “breathless” is just me noticing you don’t actually have an argument, only a vibe and a whistle.