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I've witnessed in the last couple of years several politicians arguing vehemently for something their constituency wants, such as safe access to encryption, and

by shakna 7y ago

I've witnessed in the last couple of years several politicians arguing vehemently for something their constituency wants, such as safe access to encryption, and then they're taken aside and briefed on something by the intelligence service, and completely flip their views. The constituency hasn't changed their views. The politician was still elected on the same platform. But they no longer serve the constituency. I can well-understand the feeling that the government is a separate entity, and behaves differently.

ENGNR 7y ago
And most likely what they're told is hey, do you really want to spend political capital on this and risk going against us, or do you want to pursue things you can change enough to get reelected
roenxi 7y ago
It is very hard to put a finger on exactly why though. Politicians discover that their pro-good-ideas stance puts them at odds with powerful forces. Consistently. But it seems unlikely that there is an actual conspiracy afoot. There is some powerful incentive structure at work. Take war for example. It seems that consistently peaceful candidates are voted in then they end up invading somewhere. It may be military lobbying; but even then it seems a little strange that absolutely no progress gets made on issues that seem to have a remarkable amount of support from what must be most voters. People voting for humanity or economic reasons would agree that endless overseas wars are a mistake - that catches most voters. Realistically it should even catch the imagination of the foreign policy people; power projection is one thing, but killing foreigners doesn't put America in a great place for the next generation. It would almost be more helpful for politicians to honestly state why they keep flipping their positions rather than sending another smooth-talking politician in to see if they flip. Surely there must be some equilibrium where less people die but all the insiders are happy.
- shakna 7y ago
  Some of the turnarounds are utterly baffling. I would understand to a certain extent if the national intelligence briefing informs the politician of a dozen programs that are reliant on the premise and have prevented x number of attacks and so on. But I've seen politicians flip completely after a single 20mins meeting. From fiercely against to fiercely for. For those cases, I've held my judgement, because I don't have a non-insane answer for why this happened, but everyone involved is presumably a somewhat-logical human being, and people don't let go of beliefs easily.

by shakna 7y ago

ENGNR 7y ago

And most likely what they're told is hey, do you really want to spend political capital on this and risk going against us, or do you want to pursue things you can change enough to get reelected

roenxi 7y ago

It is very hard to put a finger on exactly why though. Politicians discover that their pro-good-ideas stance puts them at odds with powerful forces. Consistently. But it seems unlikely that there is an actual conspiracy afoot. There is some powerful incentive structure at work. Take war for example. It seems that consistently peaceful candidates are voted in then they end up invading somewhere. It may be military lobbying; but even then it seems a little strange that absolutely no progress gets made on issues that seem to have a remarkable amount of support from what must be most voters. People voting for humanity or economic reasons would agree that endless overseas wars are a mistake - that catches most voters. Realistically it should even catch the imagination of the foreign policy people; power projection is one thing, but killing foreigners doesn't put America in a great place for the next generation. It would almost be more helpful for politicians to honestly state why they keep flipping their positions rather than sending another smooth-talking politician in to see if they flip. Surely there must be some equilibrium where less people die but all the insiders are happy.

shakna 7y ago
Some of the turnarounds are utterly baffling. I would understand to a certain extent if the national intelligence briefing informs the politician of a dozen programs that are reliant on the premise and have prevented x number of attacks and so on. But I've seen politicians flip completely after a single 20mins meeting. From fiercely against to fiercely for. For those cases, I've held my judgement, because I don't have a non-insane answer for why this happened, but everyone involved is presumably a somewhat-logical human being, and people don't let go of beliefs easily.