
What It Looks Like When the President Asks People to Snitch on Neighbors - keitmo
https://splinternews.com/this-is-what-it-looks-like-when-the-president-asks-peop-1819077393
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RcouF1uZ4gsC
[http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2016/12/02/new-hotline-
deals-...](http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2016/12/02/new-hotline-deals-solely-
reports-discrimination-hate-crimes)

Whether it's considered snitching or reporting by concerned citizens depends
on your political views.

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jonny_eh
The line can surely be blurry, but I'd say that reporting people for doing
something that has no effect on you, and harms no one, is snitching.

Being an undocumented immigrant in America is no more harmful to society than
being a jew in 1930s Germany.

~~~
BartSaM
_

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yodon
Wow. The translation of your "How do you know that such an imigrant is not
being a criminal?" to the equivalent statement in 1930's Germany is so direct
and so poignant, I would have thought you were trying to support the parent's
post, but I believe you're using that line to try to fault their thinking
(which I find genuinely frightening in terms of the object lesson it presents
on the ease of vilifying a "them" group, and how easily that kind of rhetoric
can creep into polite conversation)

~~~
BartSaM
This was posted as an opposite to what OP posted, to point out his sided point
of view while fortifying his opinion with pretty much unrelated, emotional
part of history.

I made sarcasm very obvious, especially with exactly saying it was that, in
the second line.

Learn how to read in between lines.

Edited the post so no one else thinks it is the real reply.

~~~
yodon
When talking about potentially inflammatory topics on the web, expecting the
reader to "read between the lines" as you say is probably never a workable
idea as there can be and are enough potential speakers across the entire
spectrum of opinion that any intended meaning could be possible and
potentially valid for "reading between the lines" (hence Poe's Law[0] and
other challenges in the discussion of complex topics on the web when the range
of speaker opinions and audience opinions is large and unknown).

No one ever expects Poe's law to apply to their own sarcasm, but unfortunately
it always does.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

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CptMauli
Anyone surprised? This is exactly how it went in East Germany where everybody
was encouraged to rat out their neighbors to the authorities about
"staatszersetzendes Verhalten", just like what China is doing to its citizens
still.

This stuff is the hallmark of a police state.

~~~
emsy
I loathe the comparison of Trump's presidency with fascism or now eastern bloc
denunciation. I would appreciate it if we could criticize bad policies on
their own merit, without the exaggerated historic comparisons. In my opinion,
this is just fuel for division.

~~~
CptMauli
I don't see that as a Trump specific thing. As mentioned in other comments,
other facilities for the same purpose existed before. VOICE just makes it much
more visible.

I totally disagree that this is an exaggerated historic comparison. As someone
who grew up in East Germany, all the measures which restrict the individual
freedoms, which were put into place, over the years, make me sad and angry.
And having historical examples which show the bad effects of such policies in
a very striking manner is in my opinion a very useful shorthand, instead of
elaborately discussing a policy (with an expected outcome). Especially the
effects of Stasi methods are well researched, so they are a very useful
comparison indeed.

I just wanted to pint out that what the article discusses has very close
parallels to what we know about the "usefulness" of the same methods in e.g.
East Germany.

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voxadam
At the risk of invoking Godwin, I have to say that this frighteningly
reminiscent of the stories that Milton Mayer details in his 1955 book "The
Thought They Were Free: The German's 1933-45" .

~~~
relics443
Other than the fact that the Jews were living there as legal citizens, not
illegal immigrants.

~~~
voxadam
I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. The parallels that I see are related
to the institutionalization of neighbor spying on neighbor. All that's missing
are sanctioned and codified Blockleiters.

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Overtonwindow
This same behavior is why the IRS does not allow for anonymous reporting of
tax violations. I think this article is overreaching in their fear, and
perhaps fear-mongering. If a crime has been committed then a citizen is well
within their rights to report it. You may not like that as a matter of
politics, but it is legal. We should not be afraid to report behavior we feel
might be illegal due to political correctness[0], or politics but at the same
time, retaliatory use of law enforcement for crimes not justified should be
punished.

[0] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3344736/Neighbors-
Sa...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3344736/Neighbors-Saudi-
husband-wife-San-Bernardino-shooters-noticed-acting-suspiciously-did-NOT-
report-fear-racial-profiling.html)

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macawfish
This is just obscene on so many levels.

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fiokoden
This needs to be flooded with legit sounding cases to dilute it out of
existence.

