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So if Russian propaganda is "not okay", what does that make the United States's long history of intervention in other country's politics and elections? We have

So if Russian propaganda is "not okay", what does that make the United States's long history of intervention in other country's politics and elections? We haven't stopped at propaganda, though we certainly do plenty of that. We also have a history of military action, both covert and overt, against other countries whose elections and policies we don't like. Complaining primarily about Russia's interference in our 2016 election is willful blindness. Every country tries to influence every other country's elections. Russia (if the allegations are true) may have done it better this time, or used methods that were more detectable, and got more attention because of how shocking the election turned out. At least some of what Russia (allegedly, I'm unconvinced whether it was Russia or Seth Rich like Assange implied) leaked (the hacked DNC emails) was really important political information that the people had a right to know. Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? I don't care if Russia leaked it, Seth Rich leaked it, or some Tuvalu aborigines leaked it. Russian and other countries' intelligence agencies hack everything they can; that doesn't mean they're the source of a particular leak.

ceejayoz 9y ago
> Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? Yes? As a general rule, private organizations should generally be free to keep their private emails sent about privately held preferences and gatherings in private hands. The DNC is not a government agency or body. They're not subject to FOIL. They didn't "rig" the primaries unless you enormously stretch the definition of "rigging". If we have a right to see the DNC's emails, we have a similar right to see the RNC's. Doesn't take much wondering to tell if they expressed private feelings about Trump there - they were publicly telling Trump to drop out.
- harshreality 9y ago
  This is not the general case. This is not about some arbitrary private organization, but rather one of the two major party organizations that select candidates for the general election. To review, the U.S. election system for presidents is single-winner, which game-theoretically pushes the general election toward a two-candidate race. Those two dominant candidates are selected by "private" political organizations called the DNC and RNC. Was it legal for them to do what they did? I guess so, but I'm not a lawyer much less an election law lawyer. Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? I don't think so. It's cronyism or oligarchy or something more akin to that than to representative democracy. So in the Democratic primary we had the DNC (legally, presumably) influencing primary voters to favor Hillary. In the general election, we had Russia, to some extent, influencing voters to favor Trump (or at least hate Hillary enough to stay home). Everyone goes through the roof that a small group of people from another country would influence the general election, but little to no concern domestically that a tiny group of people were influencing the Dem presidential primary results. If you would prefer the term "influence" instead of "rig" in reference to what the DNC did for Hillary vs Bernie, I understand that. But none less than the NYTimes declared (via an editorial by Krugman) that Russia "rigged" the 2016 election when what they really mean is that Russia appeared to have influenced voters, which is the same as what the DNC did to Democratic Party primary voters. If the RNC secretly did the same thing, I'd be complaining about them too, but there's a lack of evidence that they did, and even if they tried, it wasn't successful. As you pointed out, there were some public efforts to bias (against Trump), but they were too incompetent to be successful. The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. If the organizations' leadership is not neutral (or doesn't try hard to be neutral) but pretends to be, primary voters risk being seriously misled. As I said before, the whole notion that such a system has anything to do with democracy is a sham. So this past election was a sham candidate vs an awful candidate who was at least honestly selected by general party sentiment.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? Sure. They're ultimately tasked with winning elections. If a neo-Nazi ran for the party's presidential ticket, I don't think anyone would question their right to oppose that. Sanders was no neo-Nazi (clearly!), but I'm not shocked the Democratic Party leadership flinched internally at the prospect of a non-Democrat jumping into the race and affecting the chances of the most viable candidate in the general election. > If the RNC did the same thing I'd be complaining about them too, but they didn't in this last election. They absolutely did the same thing. I have 100% certainty that a leak of the RNC's emails would show similar internal efforts to prevent a Trump candidacy. > The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. That they failed at it doesn't change the fact that they publicly expressed the preferences you're aghast at the Democrats expressing internally. That's one of their responsibilities. They also have, per their bylaws, responsibilities to win elections for the benefit of their respective parties and their values.
    - harshreality 9y ago
      The RNC may have done the same thing secretly, I don't know and I assume you don't know either despite your subjective 100% certainty, but it also doesn't matter because it's unproveable without a leak, and even if it happened it didn't work. The DNC collusion did happen, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it ended up changing the primary results, given Sanders's early success. So you don't care if a small number of party leaders influence primaries for the good of "democracy" or "the party"? You think it's wrong for that information about secret DNC bias to get leaked, or it's only wrong if it's leaked by a foreign party? How do you know Putin leaked it rather than Seth Rich? What you're outlining for the role of political parties seems to be that they should strongly bias and rubber-stamp frontrunner candidates who are then rubber-stamped by primary voters who have been persuaded by bias and propaganda from the party leaders during the primary campaigns. I don't know what the word democracy means anymore if you think that conforms to its definition.
      - 9y ago
- surfingtheweb 9y ago
  Is it a bad thing for voters to have more information about how the election process really works? Regardless of whether the DNC is a private or public entity, it misrepresented its process to voters. Most voters assumed that the DNC was a neutral third-party arbiter that existed to reflect the will of the voters. It is not naive to assume that your vote means something, even in the primaries. Well, it didn't used to be naive. The DNC destroyed the illusion of choice and wants to restore it by blaming a foreign power. What actions are we okay with the DNC taking and hiding from voters? Would we want to know if the DNC was using foreign funding to push Trump as the Republican nominee? It doesn't sound illegal, but it isn't honest. Voters who appreciated seeing the DNC emails would agree that it would be nice to see RNC emails as well. Is anyone is arguing against that?

ceejayoz 9y ago

> Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? Yes? As a general rule, private organizations should generally be free to keep their private emails sent about privately held preferences and gatherings in private hands. The DNC is not a government agency or body. They're not subject to FOIL. They didn't "rig" the primaries unless you enormously stretch the definition of "rigging". If we have a right to see the DNC's emails, we have a similar right to see the RNC's. Doesn't take much wondering to tell if they expressed private feelings about Trump there - they were publicly telling Trump to drop out.

harshreality 9y ago
This is not the general case. This is not about some arbitrary private organization, but rather one of the two major party organizations that select candidates for the general election. To review, the U.S. election system for presidents is single-winner, which game-theoretically pushes the general election toward a two-candidate race. Those two dominant candidates are selected by "private" political organizations called the DNC and RNC. Was it legal for them to do what they did? I guess so, but I'm not a lawyer much less an election law lawyer. Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? I don't think so. It's cronyism or oligarchy or something more akin to that than to representative democracy. So in the Democratic primary we had the DNC (legally, presumably) influencing primary voters to favor Hillary. In the general election, we had Russia, to some extent, influencing voters to favor Trump (or at least hate Hillary enough to stay home). Everyone goes through the roof that a small group of people from another country would influence the general election, but little to no concern domestically that a tiny group of people were influencing the Dem presidential primary results. If you would prefer the term "influence" instead of "rig" in reference to what the DNC did for Hillary vs Bernie, I understand that. But none less than the NYTimes declared (via an editorial by Krugman) that Russia "rigged" the 2016 election when what they really mean is that Russia appeared to have influenced voters, which is the same as what the DNC did to Democratic Party primary voters. If the RNC secretly did the same thing, I'd be complaining about them too, but there's a lack of evidence that they did, and even if they tried, it wasn't successful. As you pointed out, there were some public efforts to bias (against Trump), but they were too incompetent to be successful. The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. If the organizations' leadership is not neutral (or doesn't try hard to be neutral) but pretends to be, primary voters risk being seriously misled. As I said before, the whole notion that such a system has anything to do with democracy is a sham. So this past election was a sham candidate vs an awful candidate who was at least honestly selected by general party sentiment.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? Sure. They're ultimately tasked with winning elections. If a neo-Nazi ran for the party's presidential ticket, I don't think anyone would question their right to oppose that. Sanders was no neo-Nazi (clearly!), but I'm not shocked the Democratic Party leadership flinched internally at the prospect of a non-Democrat jumping into the race and affecting the chances of the most viable candidate in the general election. > If the RNC did the same thing I'd be complaining about them too, but they didn't in this last election. They absolutely did the same thing. I have 100% certainty that a leak of the RNC's emails would show similar internal efforts to prevent a Trump candidacy. > The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. That they failed at it doesn't change the fact that they publicly expressed the preferences you're aghast at the Democrats expressing internally. That's one of their responsibilities. They also have, per their bylaws, responsibilities to win elections for the benefit of their respective parties and their values.
  - harshreality 9y ago
    The RNC may have done the same thing secretly, I don't know and I assume you don't know either despite your subjective 100% certainty, but it also doesn't matter because it's unproveable without a leak, and even if it happened it didn't work. The DNC collusion did happen, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it ended up changing the primary results, given Sanders's early success. So you don't care if a small number of party leaders influence primaries for the good of "democracy" or "the party"? You think it's wrong for that information about secret DNC bias to get leaked, or it's only wrong if it's leaked by a foreign party? How do you know Putin leaked it rather than Seth Rich? What you're outlining for the role of political parties seems to be that they should strongly bias and rubber-stamp frontrunner candidates who are then rubber-stamped by primary voters who have been persuaded by bias and propaganda from the party leaders during the primary campaigns. I don't know what the word democracy means anymore if you think that conforms to its definition.
    - 9y ago
surfingtheweb 9y ago
Is it a bad thing for voters to have more information about how the election process really works? Regardless of whether the DNC is a private or public entity, it misrepresented its process to voters. Most voters assumed that the DNC was a neutral third-party arbiter that existed to reflect the will of the voters. It is not naive to assume that your vote means something, even in the primaries. Well, it didn't used to be naive. The DNC destroyed the illusion of choice and wants to restore it by blaming a foreign power. What actions are we okay with the DNC taking and hiding from voters? Would we want to know if the DNC was using foreign funding to push Trump as the Republican nominee? It doesn't sound illegal, but it isn't honest. Voters who appreciated seeing the DNC emails would agree that it would be nice to see RNC emails as well. Is anyone is arguing against that?