As a veteran, I have optimism these active duty military troops will recognize their duty. "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". ICE is the best example of a domestic enemy I have seen.
Law of war training for new troops was eliminated back in April.[1] The core concept that members of the US military have a duty to resist illegal orders is no longer taught to troops.
Recall Trump's comments after several US members of Congress made a video along the lines of "you must refuse illegal orders." Trump called this "seditious behavior, punishable by DEATH!"[2]
The parts of the command structure, Inspectors General and attorneys in the Judge Advocate General's office, that are supposed to enforce that have been gutted.[1] Secretary Hegseth said that the removals were necessary because he didn't want them to pose any "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief."
I wouldn't be so sure. A long time ago an ex-serviceman told me the danger sign isn't when troops from NY state are deployed in NYC, it's when troops from Kentucky are deployed in NYC. In this case they're bringing troops in from Alaska to deploy in Minneapolis, they may as well be occupying forces from another country.
(a) Enlistment Oath.- Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:
I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
Note that the Officer's oath Does not mention the President:
> I ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. (Title 5 U.S. Code 3331, an individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services)
The full text of Title 5 U.S. Code Section 3331 is as follows
5 U.S.C. S: 3331 - Oath of office
An individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath: "I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." This section does not affect other oaths required by law.
Are you sure it's still that and hasn't been changed to "I swear by God this holy oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to the President of the United States and people, Donald Trump, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath"?
Where does this optimism come from? Having worked with many veterans I doubt their actual commitment to the constitution over their commitment to “patriotism”, something which seems to include taking pleasure in hurting their neighbors.
This kind of talk is needlessly optimistic. We’ve already seen how you all are, or there would’ve been more action from you all in stopping us from getting where we are now.
Give us a break from the military worship BS. Most veterans don’t have the gall to stand up against this sort of thing and we all know it.
Can two things not be true at once? There are indeed "illegal immigrants", AND the current methods of enforcement are some straight up gestapo-BS in which themselves also illegal and warrant non-compliance. Why is this an either-or?
The America I grew up in is fervently against kings, as a defining principle, and put the lawmaking powers purposefully in the hands of not the president, but in the representatives of the people. Unless you straight-up buy Nixon's view that "[...] when the president does it… that means that it is not illegal.", and maybe you do, this view doesn't pass any kind of scrutiny what-so-ever...
This and and the previous comment really highlights the true political divide between the Americans. I wonder if it is a flaw of such 2-party system (both that lean to the right-, and thus are inflexible to other political views) where others can't find space for less-extreme political views and ideas, and thus exacerbating the situation as people are forced to bracket themselves to only these two parties?
I certainly feel the two party system has really hampered us and largely contributed to where we are today. I never feel actually represented, yet nearly every candidate has to align themselves officially with one party or the other and tow that party line. Sure there is individual variance between representatives, but it's still mostly within a set of boundaries the party is more or less okay with. It sucks, and is often why the "just go vote" ethos feels about as inept as any other action or non-action I can take...
Both parties had this view even up to a decade ago. It was actually right-wing libertarian fanatics that advocated mass unchecked immigration with a view to cheap labor. The Koch brothers(now singular) and the vast amount of billionaires wanted a complete amnesty. Ronald Reagan did give a complete amnesty to Californians. Even Bernie Sanders warned about this years ago.
Immigration in the US has always been about addressing talent / labour shortage. Today though, whether it be in blue collar or white collar jobs, it is about wage suppression (and both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of that). H1Bs and L1 visa (in IT) are great examples of this - one of my friend nearly doubled his salary after he became a US citizen, and says he now clocks out at sharp 5 / 6 PM whereas his other H1B colleagues feel forced to continue to slog on beyond that. (Interestingly, he is now looking to work for some European or Japanese companies, in the US, as he wants more than the 10-15 days annual leave American firms consider "generous", and also as some of these foreign international firms provide pension too).
I encourage you to read the oath I'm referring to: It's notable compared to other historic officer oaths in that it deliberately does not mention the President. The word constitution is the key distinction.
You both broke the guidelines badly in this thread. This kind of battle is exactly what we don't want on HN, and the fact that people can't stop themselves from having them is the very reason why we can't often have discussions about politics on HN.
HN is for curious conversation, not this, and the only reason anyone thinks HN is a place for having good discussions is because others make the effort to raise the standards rather than drag them down. If you can't participate on HN without doing it in this style, please find somewhere else to get this energy out of your system.
You both broke the guidelines badly in this thread. This kind of battle is exactly what we don't want on HN, and the fact that people can't stop themselves from having them is the very reason why we can't often have discussions about politics on HN.
HN is for curious conversation, not this, and the only reason anyone thinks HN is a place for having good discussions is because others make the effort to raise the standards rather than drag them down. If you can't participate on HN without doing it in this style, please find somewhere else to get this energy out of your system.
I don’t think there’s any polite way to talk to people who spout bs without any evidence, you consume propaganda without question and expect others to refute you.
This is setting things up for a real conflict. Protesters, National Guard called by Walz, Troops coming in. I am absolutely certain the 1500 soldiers going in are hand-selected MAGA morons. Checkmate ... martial law declared!
In similar situations overseas the dictatorship's troops have sometimes been stopped by civilians blocking their path and putting flowers into their rifle barrels. It really depends on how far the dictatorship has managed to split the troops away from the civilians they're supposed to be protecting. The IRGC is an extreme example of that.
Though they've been seen and photographed in action locally, it's unclear how many are active, how many on standby, what plans are. So "deployed" is not that useful of a designation.
The militias are cosplaying cowards, the actual people of Minnesota are ramping up and succeeding in resisting ICE. There is a nonzero chance there will be a standoff between the national guard and the army in Minneapolis.
Trump is trying to incite an insurrection so he politically gets a free hand to do whatever he wants. If Congress and the courts are too slow or too cowardly to get anything done, he might get what he wants.
The definition of "militias" tends to depend on your political affiliation and the interpretation of that word is often a strong argument determined by how you felt about the 2nd amendment.
The framers certainly didn't think of militias either as the professional standing force that is the national guard nor could they probably even conceive of these little gun enthusiast wannabe paramilitary groups (or maybe if they wondered what if Don Quixote was an enormous asshole and also a small group instead of just a man)
But you get a group of people together, arm them, and give them the goal of being ready to use those arms for one purpose or another... that's a militia. It's a pretty broad term lots of folks want to shove into a pretty narrow definition.
> The Militia Act of 1903 divided what had been the militia into what it termed the "organized" militia, created from portions of the former state guards to become state National Guard units
yes, the present national guard is very much a government entity, and held to the same training standards as federal armed forces. they regularily hold joint training.
the people at large however are not prevented from forming a militia or a posse, or volunteering to be deputized by a local police force.
the common element is that they are responding to a domestic threat originated from government activities.
the original conception of american government insists that the government exist at the consent of the governed, in service of the governed, and this consent is revoked when that government fails to colour inside the lines when interpreting the constitution of the USA
Yes, but these state militia units would not be capable of offering much resistance to any federal forces (I was a trooper in the CT Governor’s Horse Guard. My company did have some guns, and we got a little bit of firearms training, but nothing compared to the National Guard or Army).
Many Americans don't value the 2nd amendment very much. Public opinion in Minnesota in particular, is largely in favour of strict gun laws. Many anti-gun advocates claim that developing a militia against the government is futile and even counterproductive.
You point out the views of anti-gun folks while failing to note that all those loud & proud 2A advocates seem to be pretty happy with the current turn of events and not showing up at all as the government overreaches and repeatedly shits on the Constitution. I imagine there a quite a number of Don't Tread On Me gun lovers in ICE.
> Public opinion in Minnesota in particular, is largely in favour of strict gun laws. Many anti-gun advocates claim that developing a militia against the government is futile and even counterproductive.
The US has a well-regulated (= heavily-armed) militia. It's the NRA and it's on the side of the dictatorship. Somehow they completely forgot that their purpose was to stand up to a tyrannical government, not to support it.
regulation of a militia. the apocrypha is that "the people" have uninfringed rights to arms, as a counter to a militia that is conveying tyranny.
i have read, in various places, that the last straw initiating foment of open revolution was when the kings militia began "taking liberties" with the wives and daughters of the colonists. piecemeal resistance, consolidated to a social movement, and the "shot heard around the world" was loosed.
After the Civil War, nearly all states gave up on maintaining their own independent militia and they became the National Guard (a few states maintain poorly provisioned state guards). Ostensibly the Guard is run by the states but can be federalized at any time. Previous presidents only used that to deploy the Guard overseas, with a few exceptions (notably Eisenhower, to enforce the early civil rights legislation and court decisions). Unfortunately those powers were never reformed, so Trump has already deployed them domestically (though there have been court decisions against that), but it effectively means states can't use the Guard to protect against federal aggression (it would simply be immediately federalized). Any attempt to actually deploy state troops against federal law enforcement, even when they're aren't justly enforcing laws, would be met with the Insurrection Act, allowing the deployment of active duty troops against the states, not just the Guard. Trump has been eagerly awaiting that moment, as it would allow him to completely cut the state off from the rest of the country, including Congress (you're in rebellion, you have no representation), and lock their elections in legal limbo.
Nowadays, the 2A is used simply to guarantee gun access to individuals, a movement underway since the early civil rights movement in the late '50s and largely confirmed with the Heller decision in '08. Unfortunately, that movement didn't bring any right to actually resist government overreach, which is why we haven't seen citizen militias form to violently resist ICE's own violence. They'd simply be killed and imprisoned and used to justify an increase in violence.
Personally, these events have really exposed the moral bankruptcy of the modern 2A movement. They want guns, and the attendant increase in shootings that accompany that, but have brought no real ability to resist government violence along with it. So we have the negative without the purported positive.
Obviously the next Congress and President will need to reform how the Guard works and how it can be deployed, otherwise we'll see this again.
Just the possibility of an armed population resisting still gives them pause. But we're not at the level of the theoretical threat becoming realized.
If the people too eagerly exercise it they'll be used as justification for further oppression. Resistance is political. Unfortunately most of our politicians are spineless cowards on both sides.
But it is not at all a mystery about how things got to be the way they were in the 1930s. I've heard people I know advocate for atrocities.
This presidency reminds me a lot this speech from Knives Out: Onion Ring:
“ If you want to shake things up, you start with something small. You break a norm or an idea or a convention, some little business model, but you go with things that people are kind of tired of anyway. Everybody gets excited because you're busting up something that everyone wanted broken in the first place. That's the infraction point. That's the place where you have to look within yourself, and ask: Am I the kind of person who will keep going? Will you break more things? Break bigger things? Be willing to break the thing that nobody wants you to break? Because at that point, people are not going to be on your side. They're going to call you crazy. They're gonna say you're a bully. They're gonna tell you to stop. Even your partner will say you need to stop. Because as it turns out, nobody wants you to break the system itself. But that is what true disruption is, and that is what unites all of us. We all got to that line, and crossed it.‘
It’s like the following this recipe to break the system
Because of the fraud scandal and the concentration of cases among the Somali community there (that those people are generally citizens and not immigrants or refugees is besides the point to the administration). The MN fraud story is a huge big deal in conservative media.
No, but the premise of the ICE/CBP flood to MN is that the fraud is being conducted by deportable people. Note that ICE/CBP has no statutory authority to enforce fraud laws.
My understanding is that the "flood" is due to the state not assisting and arguably impeding ICE, vs states like Florida where the state is cooperating so they don't need as much ICE to do the work. It sounds like the fraud is being used as a red herring by detractors.
AFAIK, committing fraud does not protect illegal immigrants from deportation, which seems to be the implied conclusion here. If ICE deports illegal immigrants who are also committing fraud, I can't see how that is a minus rather than a plus.
Might have to do with the size of the city - I've heard through the grapevine that even Minneapolis is too big and they're thinking of shifting to some city in Maine or New Hampshire.
"Too big" supposedly meaning orchestrating something that allows them to have the optics without the potential for fallout. This is really speculation though.
They found a weakness to justify an increase in violence to their base: the day care corruption. Despite the fact that most of that was found and prosecuted years ago, right-wing influencers were successfully able to bring it back to the forefront, and the administration jumped on it to justify an increased ICE presence, naturally leading to the violence we see. They didn't get the same thing in Chicago, where ICE avoided most of the areas likely to see violence in the first place. And they didn't leave Chicago, they just aren't publicizing it like they were.
I'm not especially in the know about such things. Is there a Chicago politician that crossed Trump such that revenge against Chicago would be in the cards? I assume this is about Walz running against him. It would be California (due to Harris) but they're probably in a better position to fight back than Michigan is.
just popping in to say that it is 15° F in Nuuk right now and 1° F in Minneapolis. Currently 26° F in Anchorage. Minneapolis is often colder than the Alaskan Metro areas with Fairbanks being an exception.
It's amazing and sad to watch Republicans so quickly forget what 'Republic' means as they trash State Sovereignty and lick the Federal Boot...MAGA means RINO.
I used to have that perspective, but I actually think it's even simpler than selective application of principles or hypocrisy as the parent commentator put it. It's not so much that they believe in an ideal but struggle to apply it when doing so isn't in their favor and more that their guiding premise is that things should always go their way and they adopt the language, but not the intent, of a deeper principle because it sounds like a better justification.
You may not have meant to excuse the sad state we are in by presenting the "both sides are bad" argument. But it does have a strong whiff of it.
Both sides are bad. No doubt about it. It has always been that way. But, one side takes being bad to a whole new level.
Our choice has always been between bad and less bad. The voters decided to pull the lever for "massively bad" during the last presidential election because they could not tell the difference.
We get to give one bit of feedback to "the system" every four years. After four years of Trump, the feedback was "we don't want that". After four years of Biden, the feedback was "not that, either".
My impression of the US electorate is that they don't want illegal immigration, at least not in the volume and with the openness it was happening. They don't want immigrant trains rolling through Mexico. But they don't want the brutality and violence of the current crackdown, either.
They don't want trans people on womens' sports teams, and they don't want the US taking over Greenland.
And so on.
So after four years, the majority of voters were choosing "not Biden, and not the Biden things we don't like" rather than "yes Trump".
The place where it was "yes Trump" was the Republican primary. If you want to fix US politics, get involved with a political party - either one - and have some influence on who comes out of the primary process.
The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess, the failure to reject both simultaneously and the desire to rule with feelings instead of facts caused it all.
I'm not a "whatabout" guy, I'm actively opposed to both extremes. The far left is just as capable of ruling with violence as the far right, they just haven't got the opportunity in this country yet.
The politics of emotion and absolutism is the cause, which flavor of extremism you pick isn't the core issue.
>The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess, the failure to reject both simultaneously and the desire to rule with feelings instead of facts caused it all.
Pol Pot[0] was a leftist extremist. Chairman Mao[1] was a leftist extremist. As were the Red Brigades[2] and the Symbionese Liberation Army[3], etc., etc., ,etc. Who in the US Democratic Party advocates for the same things as those guys? Let's see. No one.
In fact, the only ones in the US who've shown an interest in nationalizing the means of production (c.f. Intel) or putting down the Intelligentsia and normalizing violence against those who criticize the regime are just one set of extremists. Because extremists end up going full circle -- because for them it's about power and not ideology.
The "far left" statistically doesn't even exist in the USA. Less than 1% of the population and less than 0.01% of elected politicians. Effectively zero. No major national or state politicians call for seizing the means of production, a centrally planned economy, widespread price controls, Great Leaps Forward, and so on. The far right has us all convinced that anything to the left of Reagan is "far left".
You can pretend all you want. The proof is in the reality of what we see. Mass illegal immigration is not a center-right or even left position. It's a "far left" position that has had enough political power to be enforced for years now.
That's the most disingenuous argument yet, that completely ignores reality.
The libertarian party does NOT advocate for illegal immigration today. Only once NAP-violating governments are abolished, do they contend that the harmful effects of unconstrained immigration are non-existent. They argue that if you want complete freedom of movement, you must first give up all claim to nonconsensual government force, including taxation and redistribution of wealth. And even the most radical of libertarians include a "non-aggression" exception. They support screening to exclude violent criminals, security threats, and health risks. All of which are impossible if there is no monitoring or reasonable enforcement.
You know _damn well_ that in the context of actual politics in America as they stand TODAY, open immigration is a FAR LEFT position. It's undeniable to anyone arguing in good faith.
The Libertarian Party does not put all of those caveats on their stance and you sure as hell didn't in your polemic post.
Your argument is nothing but pedantry anyway. The libertarian stance is that most immigration laws should be abolished. Whether or not the books on the laws reflect their stance doesn't change that is their stance. They advocate for open boarders and migration free from government interference.
Except that the 'radical left' part of the electorate holds ~0 sway over the people who actually get elected. The 'radical right', on the other hand, has fully purged the GOP of anyone who isn't with their program through either primaries, or the fear of getting primaried.
The "radical left" stayed home in the presidential election, 9 million of them decided Harris wasn't radical enough for them so they would rather not vote, giving Trump the 2.3 million vote popular margin. Of course electoral analysis would be a lot more complex, I'm not doing that.
Elected democrats are stuck between trying to appease the radical left and trying to actually govern along with republicans and those two are very incompatible goals because the radical left knows very little about actual government policy and just has a couple of very narrow issues that most of the country opposes that their social bubble convinces them are the only important issues in this country.
Democrats lost the last election because of the radicals AND didn't get any of their goals done. Democrats needed a more centrist charismatic leader and instead they keep nominating candidates who "deserve" the nomination opposed to the actual will of the people OR continue nominating ancient relics who needed to retire a decade earlier... 6 of whom died in office over a period of 13 months in a period where every vote counted.
In short, I blame stupid leftist radicals and corrupt self-interested Democratic cowards in office for our current situation.
Every accusation is a confession, rules for me not for thee, it's been like that for many years. Hell, 'member Clinton and the blowjob? The problem wasn't the blowjob, the problem was that Clinton let himself get caught and exposed.
Or, specifically to the situation at hand, there's yet another famous quote applicable: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
It's completely obvious what ICE and the ordinary citizens of all blue regions are, respectively.
They blame immigrants (something the Nazis also did) and liberals (Nazis were very anti-left and killed lots of communists, homosexuals, etc…in addition to Jews).
Genuine question to US folks: Why do you guys seem to be hell bent on keeping and welcoming large number of illegal immigrants in your country? Almost no other country does that except western ones. From an outsider’s viewpoint, current approach of letting almost anyone in does not seem to work that well.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
> From an outsider’s viewpoint, current approach of letting almost anyone in does not seem to work that well.
By what metric do you make this determination?
From a crime perspective, legal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens, and illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes still.
From an economic perspective, immigrants of all stripes tend to work harder than native-born citizens so they can establish themselves here. They contribute to society, pay their taxes, and in the case of illegal immigrants, aren't even afforded its protections and services.
The only metric by which I could see an argument that immigration has backfired is in political unrest, but that's mostly due to the fact that the right-wing media has been stoking panic over immigration for decades - anything to distract from how easily we're being fleeced by the wealthy and powerful.
The US is a huge country with a massive economy and large borders. There are many jobs for migrants to do. It's why at times Trump has appeared to backtrack on hardline deportation stance, saying undocumented farm and hotel workers are hard working and needed. Likely because businesses called him worried they would lose too many workers.
