Are you aware that this project shares a name with an extremist group[0]? I'm not sure how concerned you are about that, especially if you're not American, but I'd want to know if it were one of my projects.
It is extremely important to be sensitive to extremism of any kind, condemn extremist practices, beliefs, and views and take a stance against extremist ideologies.
We do not share nor endorse extremist views nor "values", nor have anything to do with extremist groups whatsoever. We have not heard about them (Oath Keepers) before.
We'll discuss a name change internally & with the community.
ps: It also shares the name of the sword from Game of Thrones and is a wordplay on OAuth :)
edit:// Forgot to thank you for raising awareness on this.
Hi, thanks for your reply. I don't mean to insinuate in any way that you or your team support any particular ideology, I merely wanted to make you aware of an unfortunate namespace collision.
For what it's worth, I was unaware of the reference that was used as this project's namesake. That is ignorance on my part.
Furthermore I would like to apologize, as my comment seems to have inspired quite a bit of unproductive ideological bickering.
This is a really unfortunate tangent and not worthy of any time or trouble on your end IMHO. At the very most a footnote somewhere in the site to say that this project is not affiliated with any groups or organizations would be more than adequate.
Any individuals that try to imply that the naming of a proxy server product within a larger software ecosystem indicate an endorsement of the position of an organization with a similar name are displaying pathological behavior and should generally be disregarded.
It's unfortunate but I wouldn't just dismiss it as a tangent. The second result from googling "oathkeeper" is the hate group and it's pretty well known in the US at least.
I doubt anyone will think this product endorses the hate group but it could prove to be an unnecessary distraction.
I would encourage that you not bend to the will of those who would impose upon you what your brand might be or might be associated with. If you make a meaningful product in your space and the origins of the name are easily explained through 1: your aforementioned wordplay and 2: the GoT reference (likely more common), then I think you should fight to keep a name you love and find meaning in.
As one of your potential customers / users, I would not base any judgement of your company or product based on some a shared name with a small fringe organization that some people find unsavory which uses a pretty common term or combination of terms.
If you make a meaningful product in your space and the origins of the name are easily explained through 1: your aforementioned wordplay and 2: the GoT reference (likely more common), then I think you should fight to keep a name you love and find meaning in.
Just to clarify, are you speaking for the team to condemn extremism in general, or the specific belief in upholding the U.S. Constitution within the U.S., or something else?
Maybe I should pay attention to the discussion with the community when that occurs, but I'm interested in which "values" you take issue with. Care to share here?
"Upholding the Constitution", among the far right, is dogwhistle for supporting white supremacy or other regressive policies. There's even a fringe political party called the Constitution Party that draws its planks not from the Constitution, the Federalist papers, or other constitutional scholarship -- but the King James Version of the Bible.
Upholding the Constitution can be a dogwhistle for various malign ideas. But there are also people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law. There are people who see executive orders (whether by Bush, Obama, or Trump) as not the way the country is supposed to be governed, and worry about the constitutional legitimacy of those orders. Probably the majority of the people who worry about such things are conservatives; my feel is that the majority (at a minumum) are not concerned about such issues as a cover for white supremacy.
Note well: I take no position on whether Oath Keepers is using "upholding the Constitution" as a cover for white supremacy.
>But there are also people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law.
And those people are incorrect. It's incorrect to believe that all modern Constitutional law and Supreme Court decisions are the result of judges and lawmakers simply making up whatever interpretation they like without any basis in, study of, or respect for the Constitution.
The alternative would be to pretend to know in all cases what an eighteenth century philosopher would decide about an issue of law in the context of modern society.
If you'll re-read my post a bit more carefully, you'll see that the word "all" is nowhere in it. Nobody (that I know) believes that " all modern Constitutional law and Supreme Court decisions are the result of judges and lawmakers simply making up whatever interpretation they like without any basis in, study of, or respect for the Constitution." I suppose that bit of hyperbole might serve to make my original statement seem less reasonable; if you did it deliberately, you're putting words in my mouth to try to discredit me, which is pretty scummy.
> The alternative would be to pretend to know in all cases what an eighteenth century philosopher would decide about an issue of law in the context of modern society.
No, the alternative would be to know what they said the rules are.
(Now, I will admit that deciding how the rules they agreed on apply in a specific situation can be very complicated. But I trust "let's look at the rules and see how they apply" more than I trust "interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its original meaning or intent is sometimes unacceptable as a policy matter, and thus that an evolving interpretation is necessary"[1]. The former view makes the Constitution the final law; the latter makes policy the master over the Constitution.)
[1] From the Wikipedia article on "Living Constitution". The quote was marked "citation needed". If you don't think it's an accurate statement of how some judges view the Constitution, make your case.
>No, the alternative would be to know what they said the rules are.
Problem is, parts of the text are maddeningly vague, and they didn't exactly agree in their politics, so a single, simple, objective and provably correct interpretation of those rules is not always possible.
>If you don't think it's an accurate statement of how some judges view the Constitution, make your case.
I do think that's an accurate statement. I disagree with 'people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law.'
One can disagree with the doctrine of a 'living Constitution' but there is more nuance and thought put behind the rationale than some conservatives want to admit. Both sides believe, in good faith, that what they're doing is upholding the Constitution.
>The former view makes the Constitution the final law; the latter makes policy the master over the Constitution.)
I prefer to see it as the former making the Founding Fathers the master over the Constitution, the latter making the people the master over it. The Constitution is a legal document, not the word of God, and nothing in the Constitution explicitly requires that it be interpreted according to strict originalist intent, so interpreting it either way is equally valid, and equally a matter of politics.
Well, the former makes the people of the Founding Fathers' generation the master over the Constitution (they ratified it). The latter makes the people of this generation the masters over it.
> Problem is, parts of the text are maddeningly vague, and they didn't exactly agree in their politics, so a single, simple, objective and provably correct interpretation of those rules is not always possible.
True.
>>If you don't think it's an accurate statement of how some judges view the Constitution, make your case.
I do think that's an accurate statement. I disagree with 'people who see, for example, the "living Constitution" jurisprudence as not actually upholding the Constitution, but rather just saying what you want and calling it the law.'
The original statement was "interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its original meaning or intent is sometimes unacceptable as a policy matter, and thus that an evolving interpretation is necessary". Deciding that "the original meaning is unacceptable" is exactly "deciding what you want and calling it the law". It's deciding, on the basis of what you think policy should be, what the Constitution should have said.
Let me put it this way: Trump may, before he's done, nominate three Supreme Court justices. Do you want those justices to decide based on what they think is "acceptable as a policy matter"? Or do you want them to be bound by what the text says?
> One can disagree with the doctrine of a 'living Constitution' but there is more nuance and thought put behind the rationale than some conservatives want to admit.
I will admit that - for at least some of those who hold that position. Others... their behavior seems to indicate that they want to rule over the Constitution, not to faithfully interpret it.
> so interpreting it either way is equally valid
Is it? We don't accept that reasoning with contracts, why should we with the Constitution?
(That is, if you have a contract, and you try to interpret the terms in ways that are outside the bounds of the words of the contract, a court isn't going to care how much you see the contract as a living document. They also aren't going to care how much you care about original intent. They're going to care about the words on the paper. I've seen it happen in court, with one side arguing creative meaning plus intent, and the other destroying them with the actual words.)
Nice discussion. I'll leave you the last word; I'm out for the next two days.
>Let me put it this way: Trump may, before he's done, nominate three Supreme Court justices. Do you want those justices to decide based on what they think is "acceptable as a policy matter"? Or do you want them to be bound by what the text says?
If I support decisions by previous courts, such as Roe V. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges, then the intellectually honest position would be to concede that whomever Trump nominates has the right to do the same. I may not like it, but I do believe that is the Court's prerogative.
I don't think it's harmful to consider updated interpretations of the Constitution per se, although particular decisions can do harm even when they correctly reflect the attitudes of the time (as with Plessy V. Ferguson and segregation.) But then, obviously wrong interpretations can also be reversed. I think that we're a stronger democracy for being able to ask these questions, and consider the Constitution as evolving philosophy as much as a legal document, than if we were prevented from doing so.
>Is it? We don't accept that reasoning with contracts, why should we with the Constitution?
Well... the Constitution isn't a contract. If it were, it would be far more precise and verbose in its language, and you wouldn't have entire bodies of scholarship around the meaning of a comma.
But here we are in 2018, in the age of the internet, global surveillance, 3d printed guns, genome sequencing and a thousand other things the Founders would probably never have conceived of. If we remain bound only by the original intent of the original definition of the words of the Constitution when interpreting challenges and questions of Constitutional law, then I'm afraid the result is going to be that Constitution becoming less and less relevant to modern society.
> The Oath Keepers are more extreme than nearly all other
> white people. Just a fact. Read up on them and I think
? you will agree.
Are they more extreme than nearly all other non-white people as well? Or just more extreme than white people? ;-)
For non-americans, the idea of a group of people who do not instantly submit to individual figures in authority, but instead, resist those in authority if they believe that those in authority are infringing on rights that are protected by the constitution, may seem really bizarre.
To condemn an organization because their raison d'etre is such resistance, would be normal in other countries, but it's a little frightening how a quick google search shows that condemnation here in America (assuming the people who wrote those pages were American).
I know a lot of HN readers are not American, so just wanted to clarify that we do have a slightly less submissive culture over here.
For non-americans, the idea of a group of people who do not instantly submit to individual figures in authority, but instead, resist those in authority if they believe that those in authority are infringing on rights that are protected by the constitution, may seem really bizarre.
Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That oath, mandated by Article VI of the Constitution itself, is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and Oath Keepers declare that they will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as “enemy combatants” in violation of their ancient right to jury trial. See the Oath Keepers Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey for details.
Oath Keepers is a far-right militia group with a history of racism and conspiracy-theorism (e.g. birtherism, sovereign citizenry) which regularly advocates and defends violent means of asserting these ideas. Pretty words from their mouths don't change that.
I read the southern poverty law center's summary of why they dislike the oath keepers. The cases they touch upon in very one-sided ways, the Bundy ranch, the Malheur Standoff, the Oregon miners, are all cases well known to me, where the oath keepers acted commendably. I invite you to read about those events in more detail, from other sources.
I am hardly the peanut gallery here. An accusation was flung at an honorable organization from out of the blue, and I responded to that accusation. Since this is your first appearance in the thread, I would suggest you are the peanut gallery here.
I will post a motherjones (not exactly conservative friendly site) that, while not complementary, at least highlights that oath keepers is composed of individuals of diverse backgrounds and beliefs, and that they do strive to weed out bad actors when they are identified, just like any other group would do. I found the reporting to be relatively unscathing, considering it's source, and I learned from it myself.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/02/oath-keepers/
FWIW, I knew it was a clever reference to the GOT sword after reading the title. It's obvious the project isn't based on or associated with a group using the same common words. Whether they are actually "extremist" is a different matter.
Not only is suggesting that this project change its name, but that the oath keepers are a racist extremist group are both absurd. From a little reading and watching of YouTube news clips it was quite easy to see that 2nd amendment and constitutional politics are not the same as racsim and extremist groups. The oath keepers have African American members.
It's the same smear campaign that real extremist groups (the Marxist identity politics left) do to Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.
If we were living in the colonial days, only the British would be calling them "radical" or "extremists". :D
Men of authority pledging not to bow to unconstitutional orders against citizens. Actually seems noble.
I suspect they get the "radical" and "extremist" label from our culture where those who aren't on the "correct" political side are labeled a Nazi or Communist.
It's more the rampant racism, conspiracy theorism, and calls to violence. Ironically their leadership engages in both of the labeling behaviors of which you complain. This is all documented in the link SauciestGNU provided.
There are only 2577 words on that page you linked, and most of them talk about the oathkeepers protecting businesses in Fergusson, the oathkeepers forming a buffer around the Malheur protestors in Oregon, and the oathkeepers responding to the Bundy and Oregon gold miner situations.
You did not read your own link, or you are putting all your eggs on the "McCain is a traitor" quote, which since McCain is a republican, you should love, and the Hilary rant about house to house confiscation of guns, which she has never outright advocated publicly, but has strongly suggested in speeches. That quote may be a bit paranoid, which is why it was selected from thousands of quotes to be included on that web page.
EDIT: Sorry, but there are a pretty small universe of reasons for your dislike on the page linked. I listed them. That's not mind-reading, that's just deduction.
[0]https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...