Prevalence of masked gangs (ostensibly a Gestapo, but without uniform or id) kidnapping people in government buildings without police intervening appears (as an outside observer) to be ~100% higher than under recent USA administrations.

Are you saying this was already happening, just as much, under Obama, say?

Of course it didn't happen as much, but the fact that we already had active black sites and people getting pulled off the streets and abused at all paved the way towards apathy about its expansion now. If city or state police forces can do such things to random citizens for decades before now, why would we expect federal agencies under the direction of the president and his cabinet to not be able to get away with it too?

But they just kidnap you. In china, there is a murder wagon with a crematory. Nobody ever finds you.. And that is still a level up from islamic places where they inflict gruesome death on you in public by the public.

Right, other places also have evil people in charge and lack of rule of law. Agreed.

>In china, there is a murder wagon with a crematory. Nobody ever finds you..

In China there are portable vans to serve as execution places for executions that are ordered by court - in lieu of having special buildings. No crematory and no 'nobody finds you' nonsense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van

Still bad, but same for the "land of the free" that still has and carries the death penalty (for comparison, no EU or European country has it).

We've banned this account for abusing HN for political, ideological, and religious flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>Are you saying this was already happening, just as much, under Obama, say?

Are you saying that only this particular type of government abuse matters, so if prior governments didn't do this particular thing, then they're A-OK no matter whatever else they did?

As for your strawman:

--

According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data from fiscal years 2009 to 2016, more than 3 million individuals were formally removed from the country during the Obama administration. Annually, between 58% and 84% of these removals were so-called "summary removals" carried out through legal procedures such as "expedited removal" and "reinstatement of removal," which do not involve a hearing before an immigration judge. On average, about 74% of removals during this period fell into these categories. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deportations-court/

--

No police intervened for those 3 million people either (except to deport them summarily).

But the guys that took them didn't wear masks (maybe), so that's ok.

Yes, due process is important. Habeus corpus is important. Rule of law is a cornerstone of democracy. People acting for the state, such as border police, should act lawfully; they should identify themselves, wear the proper uniform, get the proper warrants and so on.

Why? Because you're breaching innocent peoples rights and removing their ability to get justice.

The fact that prior administrations did this on a large scale without the need to have gangs of thugs shows that the lawlessness of the administration is unnecessary to meet the ends of managing immigration.

Could you explain why you consider this a strawman? It sounds like you're onboard with the dismantling of USA democracy?

This is the same argument from Mussolini's facists - "at least the trains run on time".

I'm unmoved by the argument. If the choice comes down between "the trains run on time" and "I can arbitrarily imprisons for my speech", I'd happily live with trains that don't run on time.

Setup a site to stream Pixar's latest movie, or post some CSAM, and see if you don't get imprisoned. It's not like totally arbitrary, just don't criticize dear leader. Where the US is though, is that Trump wants to make criticizing him online a crime. We know this is true because of the actions taken by him against people who are immigrants who have been critical of him online. So I'll let a tiny bit of doom out, but he way the US is headed, the trains won't run on time and you can't run your mouth about shit the people in power don't like as well.

>This is the same argument from Mussolini's facists - "at least the trains run on time"

No, it's an added argument that "and everyday life is the same, if not improved".

Many people would prefer living in an orderly state like Singapore, than in a place they fear for their safety, public order is deteriorating, their cities are dying, public works are crap, politics are a circus, and so on, even if they don't get to vote one of two parties that do mostly the same things in favor of billionaires while their life worsens.

That's no 1920s fascist Italy. Nor is China for that matter.