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Hacker news are for polite and rational an above intelligent conversation, but some things that are coming from politicians nowadays are so, in lack of more pol

Hacker news are for polite and rational an above intelligent conversation, but some things that are coming from politicians nowadays are so, in lack of more polite words, mindless, that sheer gravity of their actions leaves me speechless. It is like a constant stream of attack on freedom of speech by dictatorship and fascism 2.0 (better, stronger upgraded version, more sneaker and cunning). It begins to look like a rise of condition before second world war. Before you know it, we stand in line and exclaim 'Hail to Y'. Sometimes, I think evil has a game called, attempts, if you try X number of times at the end something corrupt will pass. Interesting enough in the same week in Serbia they want to pass law that will "Forbid people insulting high government official if that could cause deep emotional stress to their family members"

LordDragonfang 6y ago
>fascism 2.0 (better, stronger upgraded version, more sneaker and cunning) I think you're both giving too little credit to the original fascists, and to much credit to the people falling for it a second time. Fascism was plenty good at deception and bending of truths the first time around, and at this point in the second go around, they've stopped being subtle about it. Remember that a) plenty of people supported the Nazis, and that Hitler's party was voted into power, and b) people on the left have been pointing out the proto-fascist rhetoric since Trump's first campaign, and moderate liberals are all acting surprised that the neo-fascists are suggesting fascist things (like subverting a democratic election with military force)
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
  I agree, for now community is vigilant, but I am afraid does'n need much for those same forces to flip a coin. My issue is that I perceive world as accumulation of knowledge and acting upon what is learned for the benefit of all. Then, when what should be considered a serious group of people, proposes a law that is just like introduction of malicious code withing OS, I am left dumbfounded with question "Why?!"
- nightcracker 6y ago
  > Hitler's party was voted into power This is a misrepresentation of what happened. They first tried a coup in 1920. When that failed they tried gathering votes. They won a plurality, not a majority. After that this guy is responsible for the transformation into a dictatorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg > In 1925, Hindenburg returned to public life to become the second elected President of the German Weimar Republic. Despite being personally opposed to Hitler and his Nazi party, he was nonetheless a major player in the political instability that resulted in their rise to power. Upon twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932, Hindenburg ultimately agreed to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 when the Nazis won a plurality in the November elections. In response to the Reichstag Fire allegedly committed by a communist arsonist, he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree in February 1933 which suspended various civil liberties. Later in March, he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave Hitler's regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler combined the Presidency with his office as Chancellor before proceeding to declare himself Führer und Reichskanzler des deutschen Volkes (i.e. "Leader and Reich Chancellor of the German People") and transform Germany into a totalitarian state.
  - SnowProblem 6y ago
    PBS released a great 3-part documentary last month on exactly this called Rise of the Nazis. It focuses on the years 1930-1933. https://www.pbs.org/show/rise-nazis https://www.pbs.org/show/rise-nazis
    - TurkishPoptart 6y ago
      Good to know. I love PBS docs!
  - postingpals 6y ago
    > They won a plurality, not a majority You speak of this as if it's not a legitimate electoral structure in place in many countries today, especially America. When OP says they voted fascists into power it carries the same weight whether it was by majority or plurality, in the former case it means most people 'wanted' it, in the latter it means enough people were okay with letting it happen.
mtgx 6y ago
If the US had a Constitutional Court (like some European countries do) that verified bills for constitutionality after being signed by the President, 90%-95% of these obviously unconstitutional bills Congress passes these days would get rejected. They wouldn't take 10-40 years to reach the Supreme Court and finally be verified for constitutionality. And before anyone says "but the US only has adversarial courts" - well, the US had a secret spy court for more than a decade that rubberstamped anything the NSA/FBI requested, and it didn't seem to be an issue until the Snowden documents leaked and there was major backlash against it. But honestly, a Constitutional Court is what the US needs right now. Something to stop the insanity of politicians in the mid-term. Long-term, you stop their insanity by actually preventing them from getting elected in the first place. You do that by getting rid of money in politics, the FPTP voting system that promotes party a 2-party system and extreme polarization, and gerrymandering (a proportional representation voting system would fix both of the last 2 issues).
- marmaduke 6y ago
  > do that by getting rid of money in politics You forgot how to explain to do that ;)
  - sofixa 6y ago
    It's not that hard to achieve, but the people with the power to do so have no interest. Set fixed spending caps on candidates and parties, or maybe even make their budgets government provided ( so that everyone is on an equal footing), criminalise spending over it and gifts to politicians and family members, and you're decently covered.
    - tertius 6y ago
      So, impossible?
- postingpals 6y ago
  You cannot get rid of money or imbalanced voting structures in politics because people aren't going to write in laws that cut out their own financial and popular gain.
roenxi 6y ago
There are parallels, but mainly in the political institutions becoming so worm-ridden and disinterested in prosperity that they are at risk of toppling. The conditions right before WWII was a party going from 2% of the vote to plurality in 4 years [0], against a backdrop of economic catastrophe. There is little risk of slow creeping dictatorship - the risk is institutions weakening to the point there is a sudden reform to dictatorship when a large group of people decide to do something different quickly without anyone stopping to design some safeguards against human nature. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925%E2%80%931933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925...
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
> are so, in lack of more polite words, mindless The linked article as well as the criticism here aren't exactly mindful, either. For a start, the article only ever says "Congress" did this or that. Such unspecific language only furthers cynicism and is damaging for democracy. There certainly are lots of members of congress that are against this, from both parties. But they'll get accused of this as well as any other real or imaginary ill. As such, cynicism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: When people literally no longer care about the actual work you do, why bother trying? When they assume you are "corrupt" or "deep-state" or whatever, why shouldn't you start selling your vote to the highest bidder? At least the "CARES Act" also does no such thing as "criminalising meme-sharing", as far as I can tell. It is a civil law establishing a small claims courts pathway for copyright infringement. Both sides need to opt-in to this process. If one side doesn't, exactly nothing changes. Because this is about reducing overhead costs of litigation, it doesn't do much to help Disney. Its stated intend is to help smaller or one-off creators who see their works reused without their permission and do not have the means to pursue claims in federal courts. The merits here are debatable, and I believe some sort of collective rights managements system would be better. But imagine taking the single greatest photo of your life and seeing it used everywhere with people not even bothering to give you credit? The criminalisation targets sites that knowingly and repeatedly stream copyrighted content. Unless you reject copyright altogether, I can't really find fault with that. > fascism 2.0 Congress gets a lot wrong, but at at least they tend to stay clear of Godwin's law. Diminishing the industrial slaughter of millions of people by comparing it with some minor adjustments to copyright law is certainly not raising the level of debate.
- unix_fan 6y ago
  I agree. Reading the article, as well as the comments, it is clear to me that people are predisposed to despise "government overreach" even if it isn't really happening.
  - spacemanmatt 6y ago
    But this is absolutely overreach
- 6y ago
what2build 6y ago
Country by, of, and for the people they say about the US. Plenty of evidence in the historical record that taking a hands off approach to politics has exactly such consequences. Look at the emotional harm avoidant attitudes on display all over the web, and this forums “politics aren’t real, but startup a startup constrained by legal tradition of ownership & debt service!” ... how much more mindless application of agency is there? Politicians are just people and simply reflect the popular memes. I know covid believers into the masks and science who still go to restaurants. To support the workers, they say. Because political effort to support them financially without increasing exposure seems beyond reason to them. They should have to earn those dollars is just as embedded in nice, intelligent people. I don’t really understand how the problem is so easily deflected as “obviously the political minority is the problem.”
commandlinefan 6y ago
Until everybody is willing to admit that both sides are to blame for this, I doubt we’ll see any improvement, either.
- trianglem 6y ago
  Except then people would be lying to themselves. It really, really isn’t both sides to the same extent.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    You should look into whose names are in the "Yea" column for this bill, and what party they belong to. It's publicly accessible. Also should check out who the sponsoring Senator was for the last version of the amendment in question that failed to get yea votes a few years ago, and what party that person belongs to. That too is publicly accessible.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    Narrator: Everyone wasn’t ready.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  But both sides aren't to blame. The law at hand was proposed by Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina.
stevespang 6y ago
US is not a democracy - - it is an AUCTION
afrojack123 6y ago
They are mixing up a stimulus bill with all sorts of other things they want like military foreign aid and freedom of speech. The public thinks this is about stimulus. Not at all and the politicians know this.
IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
congress is and always be inertia towards less freedom. It is truly a bunch of chaos monkeys behind a keyboard. Given enough time, their random strokes will result messy code that , regardless of best efforts at bug work-arounds, it breaks the app. Something as simple as forcing 2 full reads in the physical presence of all YEA votes could end this 6000 page monstrosity. Simple rules like random switching of winning candidates between each other (senator for assemblyman, mayor for health commissioner , etc) would take giant lobby money off the table since it introduces risk to any lobby "investment". What a dream to see lobby money at a big risk ! Make them think twice. Finally, make a hard rule of 99% tax rate on every penny earned above the historical average for any public office holder (pre-election), and you stop the rags-to-riches path by using govt as the path.
minusSeven 6y ago
We probably need to remove conflict of interest in the laws they want to be passed, but how we do that is anyone's guess. A good place to start will be to add regulations on the process of lobbying, but the whole thing can get pretty complicated pretty fast.

LordDragonfang 6y ago

>fascism 2.0 (better, stronger upgraded version, more sneaker and cunning) I think you're both giving too little credit to the original fascists, and to much credit to the people falling for it a second time. Fascism was plenty good at deception and bending of truths the first time around, and at this point in the second go around, they've stopped being subtle about it. Remember that a) plenty of people supported the Nazis, and that Hitler's party was voted into power, and b) people on the left have been pointing out the proto-fascist rhetoric since Trump's first campaign, and moderate liberals are all acting surprised that the neo-fascists are suggesting fascist things (like subverting a democratic election with military force)

NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
I agree, for now community is vigilant, but I am afraid does'n need much for those same forces to flip a coin. My issue is that I perceive world as accumulation of knowledge and acting upon what is learned for the benefit of all. Then, when what should be considered a serious group of people, proposes a law that is just like introduction of malicious code withing OS, I am left dumbfounded with question "Why?!"
nightcracker 6y ago
> Hitler's party was voted into power This is a misrepresentation of what happened. They first tried a coup in 1920. When that failed they tried gathering votes. They won a plurality, not a majority. After that this guy is responsible for the transformation into a dictatorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg > In 1925, Hindenburg returned to public life to become the second elected President of the German Weimar Republic. Despite being personally opposed to Hitler and his Nazi party, he was nonetheless a major player in the political instability that resulted in their rise to power. Upon twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932, Hindenburg ultimately agreed to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 when the Nazis won a plurality in the November elections. In response to the Reichstag Fire allegedly committed by a communist arsonist, he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree in February 1933 which suspended various civil liberties. Later in March, he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave Hitler's regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler combined the Presidency with his office as Chancellor before proceeding to declare himself Führer und Reichskanzler des deutschen Volkes (i.e. "Leader and Reich Chancellor of the German People") and transform Germany into a totalitarian state.
- SnowProblem 6y ago
  PBS released a great 3-part documentary last month on exactly this called Rise of the Nazis. It focuses on the years 1930-1933. https://www.pbs.org/show/rise-nazis https://www.pbs.org/show/rise-nazis
  - TurkishPoptart 6y ago
    Good to know. I love PBS docs!
- postingpals 6y ago
  > They won a plurality, not a majority You speak of this as if it's not a legitimate electoral structure in place in many countries today, especially America. When OP says they voted fascists into power it carries the same weight whether it was by majority or plurality, in the former case it means most people 'wanted' it, in the latter it means enough people were okay with letting it happen.

mtgx 6y ago

If the US had a Constitutional Court (like some European countries do) that verified bills for constitutionality after being signed by the President, 90%-95% of these obviously unconstitutional bills Congress passes these days would get rejected. They wouldn't take 10-40 years to reach the Supreme Court and finally be verified for constitutionality. And before anyone says "but the US only has adversarial courts" - well, the US had a secret spy court for more than a decade that rubberstamped anything the NSA/FBI requested, and it didn't seem to be an issue until the Snowden documents leaked and there was major backlash against it. But honestly, a Constitutional Court is what the US needs right now. Something to stop the insanity of politicians in the mid-term. Long-term, you stop their insanity by actually preventing them from getting elected in the first place. You do that by getting rid of money in politics, the FPTP voting system that promotes party a 2-party system and extreme polarization, and gerrymandering (a proportional representation voting system would fix both of the last 2 issues).

marmaduke 6y ago
> do that by getting rid of money in politics You forgot how to explain to do that ;)
- sofixa 6y ago
  It's not that hard to achieve, but the people with the power to do so have no interest. Set fixed spending caps on candidates and parties, or maybe even make their budgets government provided ( so that everyone is on an equal footing), criminalise spending over it and gifts to politicians and family members, and you're decently covered.
  - tertius 6y ago
    So, impossible?
postingpals 6y ago
You cannot get rid of money or imbalanced voting structures in politics because people aren't going to write in laws that cut out their own financial and popular gain.

roenxi 6y ago

There are parallels, but mainly in the political institutions becoming so worm-ridden and disinterested in prosperity that they are at risk of toppling. The conditions right before WWII was a party going from 2% of the vote to plurality in 4 years [0], against a backdrop of economic catastrophe. There is little risk of slow creeping dictatorship - the risk is institutions weakening to the point there is a sudden reform to dictatorship when a large group of people decide to do something different quickly without anyone stopping to design some safeguards against human nature. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925%E2%80%931933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925...

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

> are so, in lack of more polite words, mindless The linked article as well as the criticism here aren't exactly mindful, either. For a start, the article only ever says "Congress" did this or that. Such unspecific language only furthers cynicism and is damaging for democracy. There certainly are lots of members of congress that are against this, from both parties. But they'll get accused of this as well as any other real or imaginary ill. As such, cynicism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: When people literally no longer care about the actual work you do, why bother trying? When they assume you are "corrupt" or "deep-state" or whatever, why shouldn't you start selling your vote to the highest bidder? At least the "CARES Act" also does no such thing as "criminalising meme-sharing", as far as I can tell. It is a civil law establishing a small claims courts pathway for copyright infringement. Both sides need to opt-in to this process. If one side doesn't, exactly nothing changes. Because this is about reducing overhead costs of litigation, it doesn't do much to help Disney. Its stated intend is to help smaller or one-off creators who see their works reused without their permission and do not have the means to pursue claims in federal courts. The merits here are debatable, and I believe some sort of collective rights managements system would be better. But imagine taking the single greatest photo of your life and seeing it used everywhere with people not even bothering to give you credit? The criminalisation targets sites that knowingly and repeatedly stream copyrighted content. Unless you reject copyright altogether, I can't really find fault with that. > fascism 2.0 Congress gets a lot wrong, but at at least they tend to stay clear of Godwin's law. Diminishing the industrial slaughter of millions of people by comparing it with some minor adjustments to copyright law is certainly not raising the level of debate.

unix_fan 6y ago
I agree. Reading the article, as well as the comments, it is clear to me that people are predisposed to despise "government overreach" even if it isn't really happening.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  But this is absolutely overreach
6y ago

what2build 6y ago

Country by, of, and for the people they say about the US. Plenty of evidence in the historical record that taking a hands off approach to politics has exactly such consequences. Look at the emotional harm avoidant attitudes on display all over the web, and this forums “politics aren’t real, but startup a startup constrained by legal tradition of ownership & debt service!” ... how much more mindless application of agency is there? Politicians are just people and simply reflect the popular memes. I know covid believers into the masks and science who still go to restaurants. To support the workers, they say. Because political effort to support them financially without increasing exposure seems beyond reason to them. They should have to earn those dollars is just as embedded in nice, intelligent people. I don’t really understand how the problem is so easily deflected as “obviously the political minority is the problem.”

commandlinefan 6y ago

Until everybody is willing to admit that both sides are to blame for this, I doubt we’ll see any improvement, either.

trianglem 6y ago
Except then people would be lying to themselves. It really, really isn’t both sides to the same extent.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  You should look into whose names are in the "Yea" column for this bill, and what party they belong to. It's publicly accessible. Also should check out who the sponsoring Senator was for the last version of the amendment in question that failed to get yea votes a few years ago, and what party that person belongs to. That too is publicly accessible.
- zaroth 6y ago
  Narrator: Everyone wasn’t ready.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
But both sides aren't to blame. The law at hand was proposed by Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina.

stevespang 6y ago

US is not a democracy - - it is an AUCTION

afrojack123 6y ago

They are mixing up a stimulus bill with all sorts of other things they want like military foreign aid and freedom of speech. The public thinks this is about stimulus. Not at all and the politicians know this.

IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago

congress is and always be inertia towards less freedom. It is truly a bunch of chaos monkeys behind a keyboard. Given enough time, their random strokes will result messy code that , regardless of best efforts at bug work-arounds, it breaks the app. Something as simple as forcing 2 full reads in the physical presence of all YEA votes could end this 6000 page monstrosity. Simple rules like random switching of winning candidates between each other (senator for assemblyman, mayor for health commissioner , etc) would take giant lobby money off the table since it introduces risk to any lobby "investment". What a dream to see lobby money at a big risk ! Make them think twice. Finally, make a hard rule of 99% tax rate on every penny earned above the historical average for any public office holder (pre-election), and you stop the rags-to-riches path by using govt as the path.

minusSeven 6y ago

We probably need to remove conflict of interest in the laws they want to be passed, but how we do that is anyone's guess. A good place to start will be to add regulations on the process of lobbying, but the whole thing can get pretty complicated pretty fast.