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In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope tha
by cwhiz 6y ago
In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails.
The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.
- burlesona 6y agoI would argue it’s coming from the system. The national two party first-past-the-post system naturally leads to hyper-partisanship and constantly escalating stakes, meanwhile fewer and fewer Americans truly feel represented by the choices they have on offer - and very large numbers of people have their vote effectively ignored because their voting precinct is gerrymandered to ensure stable one-party rule. Because the system is broken, people are angry and want to tear down the system and replace it with something else. Unfortunately, history says that authoritarianism is a popular response to broken systems, and that it doesn’t end well. If we don’t want to go down that path we need to quit blaming individuals and get very serious about fixing the system: we need proportional representative multi-party democracy, like almost every other western democracy. For citations and a deep discussion on this, see: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-two-party-doom-loop https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44244963-breaking-the...
- christophilus 6y agoI’m with you. I have voted for an Nth party every presidential election since I was 18. Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. Every single time, I was told that this was the most important election of my lifetime, and just this once, I needed to bite the bullet and vote for a major party. Not doing it. That entire narrative needs to change.
- u801e 6y ago> Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. The refrain essentially is that you must vote for the candidate we say is most likely to win and if you don't, then you're helping the next runner up. I believe that if we no longer reported polling results and had election results reported at the same time, then the problem I describe above would be significantly reduced. The fact that primaries are not held at the same time leads the results of earlier primaries influencing the results of later ones. The fact that election results from the eastern part of the country are reported while the western part is still voting influences the results.
- leetrout 6y agoWe need ranked choice voting nationwide.
- smichel17 6y agoReduced? Probably. Meaningfully? I don't think so. It's baked in to the system: if your equivalent (nth party voter) on the other side of the political spectrum switches their vote to the mainstream party and you don't, then the mainstream party you're more aligned with is disadvantaged. There's nothing subjective here; it's just how the system works. We desperately need a voting system that allows you to express your preferences honestly, and ideally across all candidates, without hurting the outcome. By far, score voting systems are the best at that. Of those, I recommend STAR voting (Score Then Automatic Runoff), because it has some actual momentum[1] (it also has some theoretical advantages, but both it and vanilla score voting, and even Ranked Choice with a Borda count, are such a massive improvement over the status quo that it doesn't matter which we pick). [1]: https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/ -- no affiliation, just convinced by the research (edit: which you can mostly find linked from https://www.equal.vote/ https://www.equal.vote/)
- nrclark 6y agoAgreed that we need voting reform in the US, badly. It's also unlikely to ever happen, because the only ones with the power to do it are the ones that would be displaced.
- whimsicalism 6y agoI think it's funny to see people dismiss those who want to "tear down the system and replace it" as something untenable and hard to achieve, then go on to propose proportional representation. How do you see any sort of path forward for proportional representation being adopted as an amendment to the constitution? I see no path towards 2/3 majority voting for that.
- burlesona 6y agoActually it doesn’t strictly need a constitutional amendment for the president to be elected differently, as every state is allowed to decide how it appoints its electors. Maine and Nebraska come closer to proportional now simply by allocating their electors individually. Any state could choose to go one step farther and allocate its electors by proportional representation. However, there is only one president, so for this to really matter it needs to happen in Congress, which would require an amendment. The rationale that it could happen is simply that it has happened before: women’s suffrage, the direct election of senators, and the conversion from multi-member districts to single member districts, are all examples of major reform in the US process that were all “impossible” until they happened.
- whimsicalism 6y ago> it doesn’t strictly need a constitutional amendment for the president to be elected differently Yeah, I assumed we were talking about the Senate - which would require huge, fundamental changes in order to be made proportional. With the exception of suffrage, I would argue that that is a bigger change than any of the others you mentioned. It would require precisely the people most hurt by the change (small states) to vote for substantially decreasing their voter power. I'm not claiming it's impossible, but I think it is silly to dismiss calls for more radical action in favor of a constitutional amendment with no path to get there.
- noncoml 6y agoEnforcing restrictions for closed spaces or making people wear a mask is not corrosion of democracy. If you think that making you wear a mask attacks your freedom you are a moron. Corrosion of democracy is when these rules are used selectively and for political reasons. So I think you comparison to Sweden in a bit unfortunate. Also the virus was not the reason for the corrosion of the democracy where it happened, it was the good excuse. The problem is far deeper.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoBanning people from traveling, meeting each other, and working to earn a living and support themselves, are very much erosions of liberty, and people have been seriously impacted (particularly the poor). You are right, however, that they are not directly erosions of democracy. However, there are plenty of direct erosions of democracy, even here in the United States. Our democracy in the US is applied through the rule of law, and many mandates have been issued in a manner inconsistent with the law: arbitrary, capricious use of power not authorized by the law. This is why, for instance, a court struck down Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer's extended use of emergency powers.
- maxerickson 6y agoThe court didn't find that Whitmer acted arbitrarily or capriciously, they simply ruled that she lacked the authority for the actions she took. (for instance, the first finding speaks of the initial 28 day declaration being within the authority of the governor) https://courts.michigan.gov/Courts/MichiganSupremeCourt/Clerks/Recent%20Opinions/20-21%20Term%20Opinions/In%20re%20Certified%20Questions-OP.pdf https://courts.michigan.gov/Courts/MichiganSupremeCourt/Cler... I'm being pedantic, but you are implying a narrative that doesn't exist.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> The court didn't find that Whitmer acted arbitrarily or capriciously, they simply ruled that she lacked the authority for the actions she took. Specifically, it found that that emergency powers act under which she acted was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority; the fundamental error the Court found was by the legislature, in not crafting an emergency powers law with sufficiently defined boundaries (or, alternatively, by not availing itself of the process to amend the Constitution to create broad emergency powers.)
- starfallg 6y agoPeople aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you don't want a lockdown, the government has to do a better job of coordinating measures to lower the R rate, which they (here in the UK but also in the US) failed to respond promptly with measures that anybody with a bit of common sense would agree with. Why did it take months for the government to be recommending face masks? Don't say it's because of the shortage of PPE for health care workers because a friend made around 40 cotton masks over a weekend for all of her friends and family back in early April. The Japanese government was giving out 2 fabric masks for every resident at that time while we were arguing over whether they were effective or not.
- krona 6y ago> we have no choice but to shut things Genuinely curious; where is the evidence and statistical analysis that shows the variance of infection rates across the world can be explained solely (or overwhelmingly, as you suggest) by lockdowns?
- cmeacham98 6y agoWhere do you think starfallg's comment makes that claim, especially considering the section you quoted?
- Nuzzerino 6y ago> People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead -- We're already doing this. > because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. Until when? The shutdowns were supposed to be about making sure that hospitals have time to prepare, research has time to be done, society has time to adapt. This has already taken place. > which they (here in the UK but also in the US) failed to respond promptly with measures that anybody with a bit of common sense would agree with Should a layman be expected to know what a common sense response is for a pandemic? If such knowledge were that ubiquitous, we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of issues, so calling it "common sense" serves only to insult people who don't agree with you here. > Don't say it's because of the shortage of PPE for health care workers because a friend made around 40 cotton masks over a weekend for all of her friends and family back in early April. Except the virus was thought to be much more deadly at first, and the efficacy of cotton masks has been and is still a controversial subject. If you truly believe it is "common sense" to do things differently, you might be inclined to think there's some kind of conspiracy going on. I assure you that the more likely scenario is you just haven't taken the actual circumstances into account and are guilty of playing armchair general.
- mechnesium 6y agoI agree with you completely. I get regularly downvoted here for promoting free speech and denouncing all forms of web censorship. Websites and their obscure “Terms of Service” and “Community Guidelines” are eroding those rights and should be fully compliant with the first amendment if operating in the United States, similar to how websites operating in the EU must comply with the GDPR. I forgot how the United States is just about the only country with virtually unlimited free speech, so the downvotes must come from a place of envy. Edit: Downvotes have proven my point :-)
- sokoloff 6y agoIt’s trivially easy for any non-government website to be fully compliant with the First Amendment for there is no obligation to grant someone a part of your platform or other property to enable them to speak.
- doktrin 6y ago> Websites and their obscure “Terms of Service” and “Community Guidelines” are eroding those rights and should be fully compliant with the first amendment This makes me think you misunderstand the first amendment. It concerns freedom of expression from government interference. Free amplification on private platforms is not covered.
- mechnesium 6y agoYeah, that’s the common interpretation. If we need an amendment to extend that to all entities and forums, public and private, then I’m all for it.
- notahacker 6y agoI'm not sure a Supreme Court ruling that I'm prohibited from deleting blog comments actually represents an extension of my freedoms...
- doktrin 6y ago> that's the common interpretation Hardly an interpretation, it's stated in black and white : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
- notherthrowaway 6y ago==People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails.== What I see is the opposite, lots of people who want to copy Sweden’s plan regardless of the toll it took on human life. Others want to put mask orders in place to protect more people. Meanwhile, we have unmarked federal agents roaming cities, a President who fires Inspector Generals and ignores subpoenas without punishment, and a sitting Senator calling for “no quarter” for protestors. Those are all pretty authoritarian moves and they come straight from the top. If you think “everyday citizens” are the authoritarian threat, your risk analysis might be off.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- troughway 6y ago>In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. Wait til you start to pick up on the undercurrent of jealousy and resentment this board accrued from hearing about successful startups.
- geofft 6y ago> The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens. Is that not democracy, then?
- cptroot 6y agoI would say that, at least in current US politics, it's more like a tyranny of the minority, abusing the system to increase the relative disparity of power.
- geofft 6y agoSure, tyranny of the minority is one of the reasons to be cautious about listening to loud voices and saying "Well, it's democracy, what can you do?" - you want to make sure the mechanisms you've chosen for implementing democracy actually do represent the will of all the people. However, the loudest voices against lockdowns, masks, and other measures in the US seem to be associated with the minority-but-ruling party in this country. It is true that the US is a federation of states, and it's a majority party in several states. In those ones, sure, I agree that a respect for the principles of democracy means that the people could choose differently. But if you've come to the point of arguing, "The real problem here is that anti-democratic policy X is being enacted with the support of the people," it's worth taking a moment to ask if policy X actually is democratic, and if saying "We should avoid policy X even if the people support it" is the actual tyranny of the minority.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- coffeefirst 6y agoThis is basically impossible to parse out because HN is global, includes people from countries with various levels of trust and cultural acceptance for intrusive public health mandates. If you look locally, where we’re at least disagreeing about the same things, I saw a lot of anxiety and a fierce debate about what measures were appropriate, but it was a lot more around whether it was premature to open indoor dining. Nobody is rooting for the virus.
- flarg 6y agoWhatever anyone else says here, you're on the money. In the UK we overreact to almost any issue and no longer just in the red top newspapers, but also on radio and TV. It's been like this for decades and it's messed up.
- noncoml 6y agoSweden you say? https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-shifts-away-no-lockdown-strategy-amid-growing-case-numbers-2020-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-shifts-away-no-lockdo...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]