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You sound awfully authoritarian. Just because its lawful doesn't mean it's morally right and that it should be blindly followed no questions asked. In Nazi Ger

You sound awfully authoritarian. Just because its lawful doesn't mean it's morally right and that it should be blindly followed no questions asked. In Nazi Germany it was lawful and mandatory to report on Jews, communists and minorities and the inability to do so or aiding them in any way would often end in the death of the person involved. You can't throw out common sense and basic decency just because something is "the law".

thrownaway2424 13y ago
So you're saying that complying with a pen register order in a federal case is the same as reporting jews to the ss? I ask because there's another guy in this thread who equated pen registers with anti-interracial marriage laws. You guys should get together.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I see no suggestion of equivalency in either post, unless you think such examples represent the lower-bound of how out of line the law must be before you can reject it. Surely you don't think that... These examples establish that there is a limit to blindly pinning morality and the law. These examples to not make statements about where that limit is, nor do these examples serve to equate any of the governments' actions.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    Both of the posts indirectly imply that complying with this specific pen register order would have been evil on the hitler/mlkjr scale, because they are both made in the context of this article. It would be pointless to say "One must not comply with evil laws, but this law isn't evil, so cool, nevermind what I was saying about evil." A comment that implies this specific court order was evil, or even moderately wrong, needs to be accompanied by supporting rhetoric about _why_ it was wrong, some indictment of our system of due process. Without such supporting arguments the comments are just disposable invocations of Godwin.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      > "Both of the posts indirectly imply that complying with this specific pen register order would have been evil on the hitler/mlkjr scale" That is an implication you invented. The person who quoted MLK has in fact already very explicitly and painfully clearly stated that he thinks no such thing[1]. If you continue to think that he was implying that, then you are the one that's got an issue. This "mock offense at historical allusions" shit has no place on HN. It is transparent as hell and does nothing but gum up the discussion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6486091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6486091
      - thrownaway2424 13y ago
        Yeah, but he didn't clarify what he actually meant by invoking the MLK quote. As I said, it was a disposable invocation of a historical quote. I've read every comment in this thread and I don't see anybody making even a semi-cogent argument about how due process was violated in this case. Remember, the US Constitution does not guarantee your privacy. It guarantees that you won't be deprived of it without due process of law. That process appears to have been followed here, by the government at least. People like the Lavabit founder who refuse to comply with the results of due process are as guilty of undermining our system of laws as any corrupt law enforcement agency.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        He could not have possibly given you a more exact and clear response to your request for clarification. I was previously giving you the benefit of the doubt and leaving myself open to the possibility that you simply had not seen it (since it is technically in response to himself) but if you really did read his response, then continued to misrepresent his comment that way, then you are doing nothing but shitposting.
  - alanctgardner2 13y ago
    > I see no suggestion of equivalency Well, there were zero mentions of Nazis before we started. Then you brought Nazis into the picture. I can imagine, based on how you've brought up a completely unrelated topic, you must be drawing some sort of comparison. Otherwise why mention them? Even if you're not saying they're identical, they aren't even on the same order of magnitude. Compare this to Soviet surveillance, or some other oppressive regime if you must. Don't bring the murder of millions of innocent people into the discussion just to prove a point. It trivializes a horrible event.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      > Then you brought Nazis into the picture. I think you need to spend less time writing accusational posts and more time reading the posts that other people have written here. Seriously; take a deep breath, relax, and read.
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      (side note: it was VexXtreme, not jlgreco, that first mentioned Nazis)
    - Sambdala 13y ago
      Soviet surveillance directly and/or indirectly involved the murder of millions of innocent people though.
    - halfninety 13y ago
      I would argue that actively avoiding to mention a horrible event will cause it to be forgotten and wouldn't help prevent a similar event from happening again.
- asdfologist 13y ago
  All he did was provide an example to debunk your notion that something should be obeyed simply because it's the law. I have no idea how you arrived at such an extreme conclusion that he's implying that both laws are equally evil.
  - beedogs 13y ago
    He's attacking the metaphor because his actual argument is too piss-weak to continue.
- halfninety 13y ago
  I feel sick when I see people taking analogies as equations, because I like doing analogies myself. Analogies are intentionally exaggerated (but still being logically valid) to make the point stand out. I thought Hacker News readers were better than that.
username42 13y ago
I would agree with you, but the netiquette rule is: "whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress"
- Sambdala 13y ago
  No, the "Internet Law" is that as an Internet discussion approaches a length of infinity, the likelihood that someone mentions the Nazis approaches 1. It doesn't necessarily mean the mention was unwarranted or inappropriate.
  - username42 13y ago
    This was humour.
    - username42 13y ago
      That caused me to lose 4 points of karma. Seriously ????

thrownaway2424 13y ago

So you're saying that complying with a pen register order in a federal case is the same as reporting jews to the ss? I ask because there's another guy in this thread who equated pen registers with anti-interracial marriage laws. You guys should get together.

jlgreco 13y ago
I see no suggestion of equivalency in either post, unless you think such examples represent the lower-bound of how out of line the law must be before you can reject it. Surely you don't think that... These examples establish that there is a limit to blindly pinning morality and the law. These examples to not make statements about where that limit is, nor do these examples serve to equate any of the governments' actions.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Both of the posts indirectly imply that complying with this specific pen register order would have been evil on the hitler/mlkjr scale, because they are both made in the context of this article. It would be pointless to say "One must not comply with evil laws, but this law isn't evil, so cool, nevermind what I was saying about evil." A comment that implies this specific court order was evil, or even moderately wrong, needs to be accompanied by supporting rhetoric about _why_ it was wrong, some indictment of our system of due process. Without such supporting arguments the comments are just disposable invocations of Godwin.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    > "Both of the posts indirectly imply that complying with this specific pen register order would have been evil on the hitler/mlkjr scale" That is an implication you invented. The person who quoted MLK has in fact already very explicitly and painfully clearly stated that he thinks no such thing[1]. If you continue to think that he was implying that, then you are the one that's got an issue. This "mock offense at historical allusions" shit has no place on HN. It is transparent as hell and does nothing but gum up the discussion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6486091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6486091
    - thrownaway2424 13y ago
      Yeah, but he didn't clarify what he actually meant by invoking the MLK quote. As I said, it was a disposable invocation of a historical quote. I've read every comment in this thread and I don't see anybody making even a semi-cogent argument about how due process was violated in this case. Remember, the US Constitution does not guarantee your privacy. It guarantees that you won't be deprived of it without due process of law. That process appears to have been followed here, by the government at least. People like the Lavabit founder who refuse to comply with the results of due process are as guilty of undermining our system of laws as any corrupt law enforcement agency.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        He could not have possibly given you a more exact and clear response to your request for clarification. I was previously giving you the benefit of the doubt and leaving myself open to the possibility that you simply had not seen it (since it is technically in response to himself) but if you really did read his response, then continued to misrepresent his comment that way, then you are doing nothing but shitposting.
- alanctgardner2 13y ago
  > I see no suggestion of equivalency Well, there were zero mentions of Nazis before we started. Then you brought Nazis into the picture. I can imagine, based on how you've brought up a completely unrelated topic, you must be drawing some sort of comparison. Otherwise why mention them? Even if you're not saying they're identical, they aren't even on the same order of magnitude. Compare this to Soviet surveillance, or some other oppressive regime if you must. Don't bring the murder of millions of innocent people into the discussion just to prove a point. It trivializes a horrible event.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    > Then you brought Nazis into the picture. I think you need to spend less time writing accusational posts and more time reading the posts that other people have written here. Seriously; take a deep breath, relax, and read.
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    (side note: it was VexXtreme, not jlgreco, that first mentioned Nazis)
  - Sambdala 13y ago
    Soviet surveillance directly and/or indirectly involved the murder of millions of innocent people though.
  - halfninety 13y ago
    I would argue that actively avoiding to mention a horrible event will cause it to be forgotten and wouldn't help prevent a similar event from happening again.
asdfologist 13y ago
All he did was provide an example to debunk your notion that something should be obeyed simply because it's the law. I have no idea how you arrived at such an extreme conclusion that he's implying that both laws are equally evil.
- beedogs 13y ago
  He's attacking the metaphor because his actual argument is too piss-weak to continue.
halfninety 13y ago
I feel sick when I see people taking analogies as equations, because I like doing analogies myself. Analogies are intentionally exaggerated (but still being logically valid) to make the point stand out. I thought Hacker News readers were better than that.

username42 13y ago

I would agree with you, but the netiquette rule is: "whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress"

Sambdala 13y ago
No, the "Internet Law" is that as an Internet discussion approaches a length of infinity, the likelihood that someone mentions the Nazis approaches 1. It doesn't necessarily mean the mention was unwarranted or inappropriate.
- username42 13y ago
  This was humour.
  - username42 13y ago
    That caused me to lose 4 points of karma. Seriously ????