This is governmental overreach and should concern everybody regardless of political affiliation.
I'm cynical enough that I think this is fairly clear evidence that some political affiliations are less sincere than others, but very few people will acknowledge this.
I've had extremely respectful dialog with others who don't embrace my values and I find their reasoning to be specious at best.
I have respect for old school conservatism that advocates for limited government but contemporary conservatives no longer seem to care about that (except if it's programs they don't like).
My initial comment still stands: the governmental action of the OP is intended purely to be oppressive and it will not be wielded with any sense of propriety.
I abhor partisan politics and am more than happy to point out flaws on the Left but we've gone through the looking glass on the Right. It's literally a cult of personality and I take no pleasure in saying that.
While a two party system is not a good thing (George Washington warned us about political parties), having proper debate over policies and ideas is a good thing to have and we no longer have that. I've followed American politics for half a century and can unequivocally state that the situation we have here is not normal.
I can guarantee that the people who argue that the second amendment is more important than keeping people from mass-murdering school children would happily cheer on the government if they started confiscating guns from "the enemy".
Something very close already happened. It wasn't confiscation, but rather with the exact scenario of night time home defense they always trot out. Kenneth Walker lawfully exercised his second amendment right to night time home defense and the government jackboots breaking down the door retaliated by using the place as a shooting gallery, resulting in the death of his partner Breonna Taylor. Rather than realizing the same thing could easily happen to them when exercising our cherished second amendment rights, most of the second amendment fundamentalist types simply rallied around the government agents who committed the murder.
I think the hypocrisy and lack of reasoning ability is strong to begin with, but I think con artist Grump also has an uncanny knack for making gullible people rationalize anything.
So when I see people do math that way, I don't think those folks are hypocritical; rather, I think they are just white supremacists, regardless of how they'd protest about that understanding of their position.
One alternative is maybe they just default to cheerleading government power no matter what (eg authoritarianism), and only understand lofty ideals like Constitutional rights in the context of things they directly experience and don't like.
Let's say Walker/Taylor was a working class white couple, still living in an apartment and unmarried. It seems like more stretching, but there would have still been some reasons to other them and cheer on the murderers. Especially when the media inevitably went to work dredging up other emotionally-laden details. It's always possible to list enough details that someone seems different enough, no?
Personally, I don't feel one way or anther about my reasoning- I feel like I am simply taking folks at their word and trying to understand them in a way that doesn't reduce their position to hypocrisy. There are other tools to understand them, this is just one
I do agree that if Taylor was white-identifying people would have found some other reason to support her murder.
However, I often think of the quote about how "I didn't shoot you because you're a n--, you're a n-- because I shot you".
One fact about white-supremacy culture is that it requires the adoption of very narrow and constantly changing cultural signals. It is, thus, an "empty" signifier: there are both "no white people" and any specific person can theoretically enjoy WS culture if they "act correctly". In that way works very well under conditions of neoliberal capitalism, as someone like Mark Fisher might point out.
In that way, I understand that "whiteness" is about how people are interpolated by the state/community/themselves rather than, say, "skin tone", even if those physical traits are often a hard barrier for the folks doing the interpolation.
That culture is how a lot of folks, as I understand them, square their "love of freedom" with the murder of, say, Renee Cross; she violated XYZ norm (about whiteness) and should rightfully be subjected to the state violence reserved for non-white folks. It's no accident that the current political violence of the state is oriented around "illegal" (to be understood as 'brown') people rather than, say, the world bank or climate justice or student loans or housing.
To be fair, those freedom-loving folks would probably say that their position isn't about "whiteness"- that is certainly my interpolation of their position in an attempt to take them seriously instead of dismissing them as hypocritical idiots. I believe they would, as a short-hand, say that that thy just want people to "act correctly/legally/quietly/with civility" or whatever (not be a lesbian, don't honky your horn, don't color your hair, don't yell at the gestapo, etc).
However, it feels easy enough to unpack their desire for norms into a set of "very narrow and constantly changing cultural signals".
And while there are a lot of tools to analyze how these folks came to believe that their norms are "the" norms, I feel like WS Culture is one easy and useful tool for that work.
Or, at least that tool feels like an easy handle to start to dig out why WS culture is a death cult, harmful to the folks who lean into it: there is no one who is really white enough to survive getting murdered by the state, yet that culture's adherents have decided that somehow that culture won't harm them (and, further, that anyone who can't adopt that culture really isn't a human anyhow).
I used to be a Marxist but at some point I've become a kind of race-reductionist instead of a class reductionist:
for the same reason that if the police can't summarily murder black folks, they probably would have a hard time murdering me,
if WS culture has a hard time operating, then all the other class conditions which operate through it (here I am thinking about subject-ifying people into an authoritarian state through cultural hegemony or, if you prefer, the ISAs, or if you prefer the main tools of "Capitalism") will have a hard time operating against me and my fellow humans.
That is to say, I find the math a lot easier when I just examine these kinds of state-sanctioned murders through the lens of White Supremacy culture; other tools I've found helpful have required me to work out the psychology of a bunch of idiosyncratic cultural practices that end up expressing themselves as internal contradictions and hypocrisy, and I am too old and tired to do that kind of comparative literature any more.
As for this one, overall I find it compelling but I'm left with two main questions: First, is it a good idea to call it white supremacy culture. And second, is it really more useful to wrap the topic up under one label rather than calling out each individual specific dynamic that makes it up (eg hypocrisy, othering, dishonesty, lack of analysis/forethought, and so on)
I can agree that it seems to be centered on some imagined archetype of a white, rural, "real American". I can also see that it descends from slavery, and white supremacy in general. But it still feels needlessly divisive.
Furthermore, defenders of it would also point out aspects of white European culture that are industrious and have made our society very wealthy (despite non-uniformly). I'm not looking to make those arguments, as they're adjacent to or even directly in support of the fascism, but I do think they do contain some truth that needs to be acknowledged in any synthesis.
And then balling it all up in one "WS culture" label rather than focusing on the individual dynamics. I get it, having a straightforward touchstone that explains all of these behaviors rather than trying to wack-a-mole with the surface manifestations. Every time a fascist has bitten on my argument that Breonna Taylor is a second amendment issue, I've always been greeted with some excuse of why 2A magically isn't applicable - so it's not like directly pointing out the hypocrisy is productive. And reading your essay did feel like it "fit" in that it was talking about a whole iceberg rather than the few parts poking out of the water. It was certainly felt much nicer and positive-sum to be reading this than arguing with the umpteenth fascist booster falling back on "but it's legal" arguments to justify the murder of Renee.
Still, I worry about alienating too many people by confronting the topic head on too hard. Maybe this worry is moot at the point we're at though, and we really do need a hard line in the sand and full-on frontal assault to stop what is now being done to our country. I don't know.
(also, define "ISAs" ? It feels like it's going to be obvious but I'm drawing a blank)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403842 . You had missed the mark on where I was coming from, making most of it inapplicable, but there was one thing in particular that perhaps had some fleeting insight that I wanted you to elaborate on more.
Call your Congress critters and let them know how you feel. This is just institutional creep that, like an invasive plant, needs to be pruned back from time to time.
If topics like this make you too emotional to participate, you can just ignore it. Nobody is forcing you to respond to things that make you upset.
Regardless, I already flag articles like this to hide them from my front page. I sometimes comment because I’d prefer a world where I didn’t have to do that.
Like I said, there are already plenty of sources for this kind of content. We don’t really need HN to be yet another Reddit or Bluesky.
> You may not hide behind "It's just a different opinion" when you want to be evil. If you for example want to tell a lie and say that Renee Good was not innocent, then we will permanently ban you. Or if you want to show everyone you're evil and you support Trump's secret police which exists to kidnap innocents and terrorize citizens, then we will permanently ban you.
This is /r/comics, of all places, but this is the norm across Reddit.
Nothing you read on that site is in any way representative of actual public opinion. It is a carefully curated cesspit of manufactured consensus.
I can't really comment on Bluesky because I don't spend much time there at all. Although every time I view an X link I see a whole bunch of reactionary simplistic not-even-wrong red team comments, so if it's the blue-flavored equivalent of that I can see where you're coming from.
As a libertarian, I personally sit somewhere in the "middle" as I think left and right are fundamentally just ways of thinking about a situation, and if you're not doing both and synthesizing between them then you're only using half of your brain.
So sorry, "summary executions of American citizens in the street" comes from my own analysis of the events of the past few days. If you do not see the situation as an American citizen exercising her first amendment natural right to heckle government agents and then being retaliated at with a high-stakes escalation that led to her being needlessly killed, then you really have no comprehension or appreciation of our country's foundational ideas of individual liberty and limited government.
(As for your edit tone policing about "fascist" that now makes up the bulk of your comment - I am open to referring to your movement by another name, especially if it facilitates having productive discussions where we can flesh out your actual values and their implications. But first you have to come up with an honest label and stop trying to hide behind "conservative" to mask a wildly radical agenda)
I saw the situation as (1) an American citizen moving far beyond her first amendment rights and into active violence towards and obstruction of law enforcement, (2) refusing a lawful and reasonable order, after an incredible degree of patience and grace extended to her by law enforcement despite her unlawful behavior over days and weeks, and (3) her ill-considered decision to use her vehicle in the manner she did, accelerating towards and hitting a law enforcement officer -- a provocation to which he responded with reasonable force, given the circumstances.
Planting your car perpendicular to the road isn't protected speech, and accelerating into a human while refusing a lawful order especially isn't.
I don't think she intended to hit him, but she accelerated towards him to evade a lawful order, and she did hit him. An SUV is absolutely a deadly weapon, and once acceleration occurs toward an officer:
- The threat becomes imminent
- The decision window collapses to seconds
- De-escalation is no longer a viable option
> I am open to referring to your movement by another name, especially if it facilitates having productive discussions where we can flesh out you actual values and their implications. But first you have to come up with an honest label and stop trying to hide behind "conservative" to mask a wildly radical agenda
I don't have a name for it other than conservative, all of my "political compass" tests place me pretty firmly in the center, and I don't see how actually enforcing immigration law is a "wildly radical" agenda. However, I also think invoking “fascism” here is a category error; modern political movements do not map cleanly onto those early-20th-century categories. There are points of overlap, divergence, borrowing, and recombination across parties and ideologies.
Please describe what "active violence" or physical "obstruction" you are specifically referring to, that she was engaging in before the situation escalated. I have seen many allusions to this as if it must be obvious, but never anything concrete. Modulo her political message, what I see is someone being an asshole stopped in the middle of the street and laying on her horn. But these are issues for local PD at best.
> refusing a lawful and reasonable order
I am only aware of an order given to move along, which was questionably unlawful if issued in retaliation for Constitutionally-protected observation and protest. If you want to elaborate on the specific order and what fundamentally necessitated it, I'm open to changing my mind. But what I see is ICE already starting to escalate the situation. At which point the question becomes why it was necessary for them to escalate this situation - we expect government agents to minimize harm in good faith, not to rules-lawyer to increase harm for their own personal reasons.
> after an incredible degree of patience and grace extended to her by law enforcement despite her unlawful behavior over days and weeks
Why I should empathize with the government agents rather than my fellow citizen? "Patience and grace" aren't elective niceties, they're firm requirements of the job. If an agent gets emotionally overwhelmed doing their job, it's time to take a step back and hand off to someone fresh. They unfortunately do not have a mandate from the communities they are working amongst. We have seen how corrosive this dynamic is to the rule of law under the "drug war". I'm sure it makes the job extra tiring, but that is on them to manage rather than taking it out on citizens.
(also that was another reference to "unlawful" behavior without pointing to anything specific)
> accelerating towards and hitting a law enforcement officer -- a provocation to which he responded with reasonable force, given the circumstances
This particular agent had previously fucked around and found out about moving vehicles. In this light, his approach positioning should be viewed as fully deliberate, and his subsequent reaction as pre-planned. Both also deviated significantly from agency procedures.
His alternative was to not box her in with his fleshy body, and if she ended up driving away either open a case and confront/arrest her elsewhere, or just pass the complaint off to local PD. That would be basic straightforward deescalation, so once again the critique of generally minimizing harm applies.
> I don't see how actually enforcing immigration law is a "wildly radical" agenda
I didn't claim that it was, and I personally have no problem enforcing immigration law in a just, equitable, and humane manner. The problem is the manner in which it is being enforced. This manner is so far outside acceptable government activity in a society based around individual liberty and limited government, that it makes me see the whole call of "enforcing immigration law" as a mere pretext for something much more sinister.
On terminology, "fascism" seems appropriate to me based on Eco's Ur-Fascism. But as I said I'm open to other terms.
As far as "conservatism", Moldbug plainly called his thinking "reactionary" as he explicitly disclaimed conservatism as not far enough right. My rejection of "conservative" is not based on just this topic - this movement has destroyed or subjugated so many disparate US institutions that I think it's patently absurd to call it "conservative".
She was ordered to exit her vehicle. She then accelerated into a law enforcement officer after her wife told her to “drive baby, drive”.
I suggest you find the unedited videos, that have not been cut or misleadingly had their audio replaced with reporter voice overs.
It’s cut and dry. Then I suggest you look into why you only received a curated and biased representation of the facts.
> She then accelerated into a law enforcement officer
I'm sure it does seem "cut and dry" when you start your analysis at the point the government agents had already set themselves up to kill her if she did not stop protesting and respect their authorituh.
I made several points about how the situation was needlessly escalated to that point you're focusing on, but you've just ignored them. You're complaining about the media editing videos and omitting facts, but you're effectively creating an edit in your own head that starts after the situation had been needlessly escalated multiple ways, which absolves the government agents of responsibility for those escalations.
The sky isn’t falling, chicken little. However, your emotional disregulation is still being used as a convenient political tool, even after all these years.
Also, history might not repeat, but it certainly does rhyme. :)
> The rise of Nazi Germany took roughly 14-16 years, so I'd say we're about right on schedule based on the current timeline.
I appreciate you trying to save face, but this is what you were posting just a few messages up.
Pretending to be reasonable works better when we can’t read the detached-from-reality things you were literally just posting.
If we were really on the cusp of a new post-Weimar NSDAP Germany, almost any form of resistance would be ethically justified. Is that what you’re claiming?
I'm guessing you struggle to keep longterm relationships because you blame all of your issues on other people rather than being able to self-reflect on your own flaws and, because of your own supreme confidence in your own flawed judgement, it drives everyone away that might care about you. Is it hard to be that miserable and unlikeable? I'm sure it is, but the good news is that you can work on yourself and you can improve your relations with your fellow humans. It is possible to change and grow.
Let me repeat. If we were really on the cusp of a new post-Weimar NSDAP Germany, almost any form of resistance would be ethically justified. Is that what you’re claiming?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This particular issue is a proposed rule moving through the standard administrative process. I’m not claiming every proposed rule is beyond challenge or immune from litigation. Proposed rules are debated, challenged, revised, and sometimes struck down — that’s the system working. What I reject outright is the idea that the existence of a proposal justifies breathless talk of “boots on the neck,” “Nazism,” or violent “resistance.” That rhetoric is unhinged, and it gets people hurt.
This is what voters chose, lawful policy will proceed, and those who choose to accelerate or encourage attacks on law enforcement, or to cheerlead those who do, will carry responsibility for the predictable consequences that follow.
... and so, while I have no obligation — and no interest — in responding to every item in your gish-galloped grievance listicle, I will address one claim:
> 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).
“Mother on the street” is doing an extraordinary amount of rhetorical work. This person repeatedly obstructed federal law enforcement as part of an organized group. She ignored a lawful order to exit her vehicle, then accelerated toward and struck a federal officer with her car. She was shot in self-defense during that act.
This was not peaceful protest. It was sustained violation of federal law, escalation toward violence, and a deliberate choice to endanger officers. That chain of bad decisions ended predictably.
Many call this a tragedy. It is tragic, but only because it was so trivially avoidable. There were innumerable off-ramps available, including compliance with the final lawful order to exit her vehicle. Instead, she chose confrontation. Her wife shouted "drive baby, drive!", and she did: straight into an armed federal agent.
This scenario has never happened to me or anyone I know, for the simple reason that most people do not repeatedly obstruct law enforcement, ignore lawful orders, or attempt to use a vehicle against armed officers. Consequences follow actions.
People like yourself, who launder incidents like this through misleading language — while simultaneously invoking “boots on the neck,” “Nazism,” or calls for “resistance” — are not engaging in reasoned analysis. You're encouraging, justifying, and incentivizing reckless, self-destructive lawlessness.
This woman would still be alive if she hadn’t been whipped into a frenzy by the outrage pipeline of news and social media, misled into believing that law and consequences no longer apply once you’re sufficiently imbued with self-righteous indignation.
Peaceful protest is an American right — but that is not what this was. More people will be hurt if they continue to violate federal law, threaten federal law enforcement officers, and place both officers and themselves in harm’s way.
Lawlessness and violence will not deter lawful enforcement.
“idiot woman” “better than fine” (about a woman being killed) "we voted for this" “not a tragedy” “she f-ed around and found out” plus the usual “mentally ill” drive-by accusations
I’ve got screenshots, so don’t bother pretending that tone-policing is your principle rather than your tactic.
You’ve pivoted from “this isn’t illegal” to “your rhetoric is unhinged and causes violence.” That’s not an argument about lawfulness; it’s an attempt to make dissent morally punishable.
A liberal system doesn’t work by outsourcing “truth” to whoever has a badge and the first press release. It works by evidence, due process, and oversight (especially when force is used). So when you write up a killing as a fully-adjudicated morality play (“self-defense,” “lawful order,” “predictably”) before the investigation is even meaningfully complete, you’re not defending the rule of law, you’re defending the rule of narrative.
Same with the “domestic terrorist” inflation: labeling people that before adjudication, and then hand-waving when the case collapses, isn’t “the system working.” It’s the state’s most severe rhetoric being used as a substitute for proof.
And none of this is “not relevant to HN.” Expanding biometric/DNA collection to people merely “associated with” an immigration benefit request (including petitioners/sponsors/signatories, often U.S. citizens) is a concrete expansion of state power. So are U.S. citizens being detained by immigration agents, and agents obscuring identity during arrests. Those are governance-and-technology questions, not “breathlessness.”
If you want to defend the scope and authority, do it: cite the statutory basis and explain why compelled biometrics/DNA for citizens in a civil process is appropriate. If you’d rather keep litigating tone and assigning responsibility for hypothetical violence to your political opponents (while excusing actual state violence with “FAFO”), then you’re not arguing policy; you’re trying to delegitimize criticism.
“Law and order” isn’t obedience to enforcement; it’s power restrained by law, and you keep arguing for the power while scolding anyone who asks about the restraint.
> you’re trying to delegitimize criticism.
Violence isn't criticism. And yes, if you try to run over law enforcement, that's violence from which one will absolutely "FAFO".
If you choose to support the kind of lawless violence that led to that women's death, any culpability for the obvious and natural consequences doesn't fall on our heads.
> Congratulations, you saw my earlier versions. They were much less kind, because you're frankly rather a dishonest and unlikable human being of a particular sort that I think our country and society would be better without, and my lesser nature originally won out. Post the screenshots if you like, I can't imagine why you think I'd care.
> Violence isn't criticism. And yes, if you try to run over law enforcement, that's violence by which one will absolutely ‘FAFO’.
> Dress up your extremism however you like. We're not engaging in debate on the battlefield of your choosing, we're enacting and enforcing the law on our terms. If you don't like it, vote.
> If you choose to instead support the kind of hysteria and lawless violence that led to that women's death, the obvious and natural consequences are on your head.
For the record: saying things like “society would be better without people like you” and “we’re not engaging in debate… enforcing the law on our terms” is not a defense of the rule of law, it’s contempt for pluralism dressed up as seriousness.
The American project (very explicitly influenced by Enlightenment liberalism) doesn’t rest on “our terms,” loyalty tests, or treating dissent as culpable. It rests on the opposite: argument, equal rights, due process, and state power constrained by transparent rules and oversight. When someone’s instinct is to skip debate and sanctify enforcement, that isn’t “law and order.” It’s the anti-Enlightenment impulse the Constitution was designed to restrain.
If you want to defend policy, do that: cite the authority and justify the scope. If you want to argue that disagreement itself is illegitimate and that enforcement answers to “our terms,” then you’re not defending America, you’re arguing against the principles it was founded to protect.
And no, we're no longer engaging in debate with those who do not engage earnestly or honestly, but who instead foment violence and call it protest. On that note, have a nice day and next few years.
Which sections in particular should I go re-read?