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People are experiencing wildly different Americas depending on their circumstances and level of political involvement. If you're a tech worker and you still ha

People are experiencing wildly different Americas depending on their circumstances and level of political involvement. If you're a tech worker and you still have a job and you think AI is pretty cool and you don't follow news very closely, things seem okay...ish. You are maybe dimly aware of some social problems, but they're all somebody else's problems. If you're one of the many many thousands of people who have been abducted by federalized lunatics, or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps, things seem urgently and unimaginably bad. If you're politically involved, things seem tenuous, at best. You likely know someone who either feels justifiably terrified by what's going on, or someone whose life has been seriously impacted by it. I've spent several months successfully combating one of YC's contributions to all this mess. Tonight, federal law enforcement fired pepper rounds, flashbangs, and tear gas into a crowd of protestors who were noisy -- not violent, not even causing property damage, just noisy. One of the officers aimed the tear gas weapon directly at a protestor's head and caused a serious head injury (the kind that causes convulsions and foaming at the mouth after impact). And, they'll get away with that. The local police department was flying half a dozen drones directly over this, but they are only there to surveil and look for an excuse to put on riot gear. There were an assortment of reporters there, but most of them have editors or owners that won't run much of a story about any of it. A few politicians showed up, but they made a short speech and then left immediately. The building where this all happened is in a city center, so, just a block away, life and traffic continues as normal and most people are entirely unaware. So that's also why nobody's really been making an organized 2A effort either. For most people, this isn't "real", in the sense that it isn't something they're experiencing, and for those that are experiencing it, they're trying to walk a tightrope that resists the current administration without spiraling into a widespread civil war.

solaris2007 9mo ago
> or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps I must be one of those comfortable and oblivious tech workers because I don't know about any concentration camps in the US. So you'll have to tell me what this is about.
- js8 9mo ago
  For example reported on The Majority Report: https://youtu.be/rapv7V78SZo https://youtu.be/rapv7V78SZo
  - Quarrelsome 9mo ago
    I believe this[0] article shows the other side of that door. To clarify, I believe the seeming lack of justice system involvement is what chafes for most. [0] https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/like-handmaids-tale-footage-shows-women-children-pleading-leave-texas-facility-1773862 https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/like-handmaids-tale-footage-shows-...
- HEmanZ 9mo ago
  There aren’t Nazi-style extermination camps in the U.S., but an extermination camp is just a subset of concentration camps. There are large-scale immigration detention facilities, with 60k+ people on any given day, where tens of thousands of people are held without criminal trials. Enforcement often targets identity proxies like race, accent, neighborhood, sweeps up citizens and legal residents, uses expedited deportations with effectively suspended habeas, and operates with extremely limited judicial oversight and blatantly ignores judicial rulings. These are concentration camps, or at least so close that I’m rhetorically OK with it. All of the famous concentration camp programs of history started the same way. And there’s always an excuse for why “no no no, our program is different, these people are illegal, we have to operate like this (suspended legal rights and oversight) to stop the bad people, it’s not targeted by race/religion/etc it’s just the bad people all happen to be like that…” This is not a good place to be. Scope of camps: https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/ https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/ Formal suspension of habeas was enabled en-masse by: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/thuraissigiam-case-ruling https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/thuraissigia...
  - solaris2007 9mo ago
    This may come as a shock to someone stuck in a radical far left bubble but people who are not either a citizen of one of the several states or not a citizen of the federal government (nor both) are not parties to the agreement that is the constitution. "concentration camp" isn't a root command line term to people with critical thinking skills. Anyone who is neither a state citizen or federal citizen and does not have a valid VISA (or some equivalent) is an unlawful invader. Again, this may come as a shock to someone stuck in a radical far left bubble, but most Americans' sentiment, the Americans who are busy raising their families, the ones who actually pay all the taxes that pay to house and feed all of these unlawful invaders stuck in limbo is: they are lucky we don't just kill them all. I know it's shocking to those stuck in a radical far left bubble, but it's the reality. The state governments and federal governments were formed to protect what the founders wrote: "our posterity". Not every third world rando who shows up for the gibs Biden promised rather than fix their own country. If you want to be effective in your activism, try to avoid "rhetorical correct" terms. Those terms only work on a particular lower class and only piss off the people with critical thinking skills because it comes across as trying to bullshit them in a malicious way (which it is). edited: to add "(or some equivalent)"
tuetuopay 9mo ago
> in one of our concentration camps As a European, I find the use of "concentration camp" to be a very strong word. Trump and its administration are often touted as a Nazi and such. How much of this is hyperbole, and how much of this is real? Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US? Note: this is not snark to defend Trump, I'm French and I could not care less. I genuinely want to understand. I feel like the Nazi lexical field is much much weaker in the US, and people are more eager to use it over there than here in Europe.
- einr 9mo ago
  Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US? It is often useful to differentiate between "concentration camps" and "death camps" or "extermination camps". The Nazis had both. Some of their concentration camps were focused on concentrating and detaining people, some of them also systematically killed them -- they are not the same. If you fail to make this distinction, then saying "America has concentration camps" could make it sound like they're running extermination camps. The US does to my knowledge not yet have those, nor as large-scale application of concentration camps as Germany did, and whether you even want to use the term "concentration camp" rather than something more like "detention facility" is up to you, but the federal government certainly has camps where people detained by ICE are being concentrated. Sometimes they are also subject to human rights abuses and/or die there. Here's one of these camps, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_East_Montana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_East_Montana Here is a list of people dying under ICE detention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detentio...
  - tuetuopay 9mo ago
    Thank you for the clarification! I do agree that there are three slight between "concentration", "death", and "extermination" camps when speaking about Nazi Germany. In France virtually only "concentration" is used in history classes as an umbrella term for all three. It's only very recently (less than 5 years) that I've seen people start to use the more nuanced term. (as an example, any French will tell you that Auschwitz is a concentration camp while it was, in fact, a death camp). Yet I stand behind what I said about the word "concentration camp" be a strong and heavy word, since those were integral part in the final solution. I'm not denying that the US has detainment camps akin to the "gentlest" camps from Nazi Germany, far from it. However, I fail to see the difference between e.g. the East Montana one and a large-scale 5k inmate prison, other than it's less regulated than a federal/regular prison thus with more abuse, and filled with regular people instead of criminals. According to the linked Wikipedia articles, the camp has been dubbed after the Alcatraz prison (known for all sorts of violations). I may be wrong, and they may be indeed set up by ICE and the government to torture and kill the immigrants. I have a hard time to believe it though, as making a detainment camp to frighten and push immigrants to "go back" would me much more effective and less controversial. My guess would be the intent is the latter form of facility, but ends up being the former due to being staffed with ICE and not professional prison crew. At any rate, even having detainment camps for non-convicted civilians is already too much. We're quick to point fingers at China and their labor camps for Uyghurs, but this is on the way. (as with the Nazi discussion, this is still far from what china does: ad-vitam detainment, children born in captivity, forced sterilization of people, forced religion, etc).
account42 9mo ago
[flagged]
- 0dayz 9mo ago
  Then you need better reading glasses, unless you killing of two innocent people is actually people guilty or illegals.
  - kreetx 9mo ago
    While one of these seems like an accident where the officer may have some blame, then both of them can be avoided if you don't behave aggressively or don't show up with a gun at a protest. I.e, bad things sometimes happen, but they are not the situation you wish it to be.
    - garyfirestorm 9mo ago
      I’m no fan of guns but showing up with a gun is not illegal or criminal in itself that deserves instant death sentence. So you might want to introspect what you’re saying here.
      - account42 9mo ago
        Neither is showing up to a bank with a gun. Yet a robbery is likely to have much more severe consequences if you are armed.
        kreetx 9mo ago
        It's funny how people use the lawfulness argument for carrying a gun to protest, but don't use the same argument against deporting illegals.
        donkeybeer 9mo ago
        Nobody is stopping illegals from being deported. They just hace to prove illegality first. If you believe otherwise, I am more than happy to recommend you for imprisonment and deportation first before asking questions.
simianparrot 9mo ago
[flagged]
- ga_to 9mo ago
  Are those not people? Right into the 'subhuman' rhetoric?
  - simianparrot 9mo ago
    Criminals have less rights than non-criminals. Especially illegal aliens. Let’s not pretend countries don’t have reasons to protect their borders.
    - sowbug 9mo ago
      Are those not people?
      - simianparrot 9mo ago
        People that broke the law entering the country whom have no right to be there yes, with reduced rights as they are non-citizens. This is internationally universal. What is your point?
        ga_to 9mo ago
        Citizen =!= Human. Even if they might not be citizens, they are humans, people. With human rights. Categorizing one group of humans as being less deserving of basic human decency than others, is, for a lack of a better word, nazi rhetoric.
sowbug 9mo ago
The US has less than 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated. So we're already exceptional in terms of numbness to incarceration.

solaris2007 9mo ago

> or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps I must be one of those comfortable and oblivious tech workers because I don't know about any concentration camps in the US. So you'll have to tell me what this is about.

js8 9mo ago
For example reported on The Majority Report: https://youtu.be/rapv7V78SZo https://youtu.be/rapv7V78SZo
- Quarrelsome 9mo ago
  I believe this[0] article shows the other side of that door. To clarify, I believe the seeming lack of justice system involvement is what chafes for most. [0] https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/like-handmaids-tale-footage-shows-women-children-pleading-leave-texas-facility-1773862 https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/like-handmaids-tale-footage-shows-...
HEmanZ 9mo ago
There aren’t Nazi-style extermination camps in the U.S., but an extermination camp is just a subset of concentration camps. There are large-scale immigration detention facilities, with 60k+ people on any given day, where tens of thousands of people are held without criminal trials. Enforcement often targets identity proxies like race, accent, neighborhood, sweeps up citizens and legal residents, uses expedited deportations with effectively suspended habeas, and operates with extremely limited judicial oversight and blatantly ignores judicial rulings. These are concentration camps, or at least so close that I’m rhetorically OK with it. All of the famous concentration camp programs of history started the same way. And there’s always an excuse for why “no no no, our program is different, these people are illegal, we have to operate like this (suspended legal rights and oversight) to stop the bad people, it’s not targeted by race/religion/etc it’s just the bad people all happen to be like that…” This is not a good place to be. Scope of camps: https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/ https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/ Formal suspension of habeas was enabled en-masse by: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/thuraissigiam-case-ruling https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/thuraissigia...
- solaris2007 9mo ago
  This may come as a shock to someone stuck in a radical far left bubble but people who are not either a citizen of one of the several states or not a citizen of the federal government (nor both) are not parties to the agreement that is the constitution. "concentration camp" isn't a root command line term to people with critical thinking skills. Anyone who is neither a state citizen or federal citizen and does not have a valid VISA (or some equivalent) is an unlawful invader. Again, this may come as a shock to someone stuck in a radical far left bubble, but most Americans' sentiment, the Americans who are busy raising their families, the ones who actually pay all the taxes that pay to house and feed all of these unlawful invaders stuck in limbo is: they are lucky we don't just kill them all. I know it's shocking to those stuck in a radical far left bubble, but it's the reality. The state governments and federal governments were formed to protect what the founders wrote: "our posterity". Not every third world rando who shows up for the gibs Biden promised rather than fix their own country. If you want to be effective in your activism, try to avoid "rhetorical correct" terms. Those terms only work on a particular lower class and only piss off the people with critical thinking skills because it comes across as trying to bullshit them in a malicious way (which it is). edited: to add "(or some equivalent)"

tuetuopay 9mo ago

> in one of our concentration camps As a European, I find the use of "concentration camp" to be a very strong word. Trump and its administration are often touted as a Nazi and such. How much of this is hyperbole, and how much of this is real? Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US? Note: this is not snark to defend Trump, I'm French and I could not care less. I genuinely want to understand. I feel like the Nazi lexical field is much much weaker in the US, and people are more eager to use it over there than here in Europe.

einr 9mo ago
Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US? It is often useful to differentiate between "concentration camps" and "death camps" or "extermination camps". The Nazis had both. Some of their concentration camps were focused on concentrating and detaining people, some of them also systematically killed them -- they are not the same. If you fail to make this distinction, then saying "America has concentration camps" could make it sound like they're running extermination camps. The US does to my knowledge not yet have those, nor as large-scale application of concentration camps as Germany did, and whether you even want to use the term "concentration camp" rather than something more like "detention facility" is up to you, but the federal government certainly has camps where people detained by ICE are being concentrated. Sometimes they are also subject to human rights abuses and/or die there. Here's one of these camps, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_East_Montana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_East_Montana Here is a list of people dying under ICE detention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detentio...
- tuetuopay 9mo ago
  Thank you for the clarification! I do agree that there are three slight between "concentration", "death", and "extermination" camps when speaking about Nazi Germany. In France virtually only "concentration" is used in history classes as an umbrella term for all three. It's only very recently (less than 5 years) that I've seen people start to use the more nuanced term. (as an example, any French will tell you that Auschwitz is a concentration camp while it was, in fact, a death camp). Yet I stand behind what I said about the word "concentration camp" be a strong and heavy word, since those were integral part in the final solution. I'm not denying that the US has detainment camps akin to the "gentlest" camps from Nazi Germany, far from it. However, I fail to see the difference between e.g. the East Montana one and a large-scale 5k inmate prison, other than it's less regulated than a federal/regular prison thus with more abuse, and filled with regular people instead of criminals. According to the linked Wikipedia articles, the camp has been dubbed after the Alcatraz prison (known for all sorts of violations). I may be wrong, and they may be indeed set up by ICE and the government to torture and kill the immigrants. I have a hard time to believe it though, as making a detainment camp to frighten and push immigrants to "go back" would me much more effective and less controversial. My guess would be the intent is the latter form of facility, but ends up being the former due to being staffed with ICE and not professional prison crew. At any rate, even having detainment camps for non-convicted civilians is already too much. We're quick to point fingers at China and their labor camps for Uyghurs, but this is on the way. (as with the Nazi discussion, this is still far from what china does: ad-vitam detainment, children born in captivity, forced sterilization of people, forced religion, etc).

account42 9mo ago

[flagged]

0dayz 9mo ago
Then you need better reading glasses, unless you killing of two innocent people is actually people guilty or illegals.
- kreetx 9mo ago
  While one of these seems like an accident where the officer may have some blame, then both of them can be avoided if you don't behave aggressively or don't show up with a gun at a protest. I.e, bad things sometimes happen, but they are not the situation you wish it to be.
  - garyfirestorm 9mo ago
    I’m no fan of guns but showing up with a gun is not illegal or criminal in itself that deserves instant death sentence. So you might want to introspect what you’re saying here.
    - account42 9mo ago
      Neither is showing up to a bank with a gun. Yet a robbery is likely to have much more severe consequences if you are armed.
      - kreetx 9mo ago
        It's funny how people use the lawfulness argument for carrying a gun to protest, but don't use the same argument against deporting illegals.
        donkeybeer 9mo ago
        Nobody is stopping illegals from being deported. They just hace to prove illegality first. If you believe otherwise, I am more than happy to recommend you for imprisonment and deportation first before asking questions.

simianparrot 9mo ago

[flagged]

ga_to 9mo ago
Are those not people? Right into the 'subhuman' rhetoric?
- simianparrot 9mo ago
  Criminals have less rights than non-criminals. Especially illegal aliens. Let’s not pretend countries don’t have reasons to protect their borders.
  - sowbug 9mo ago
    Are those not people?
    - simianparrot 9mo ago
      People that broke the law entering the country whom have no right to be there yes, with reduced rights as they are non-citizens. This is internationally universal. What is your point?
      - ga_to 9mo ago
        Citizen =!= Human. Even if they might not be citizens, they are humans, people. With human rights. Categorizing one group of humans as being less deserving of basic human decency than others, is, for a lack of a better word, nazi rhetoric.

sowbug 9mo ago

The US has less than 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated. So we're already exceptional in terms of numbness to incarceration.