4 ms·
perhaps that democracy is not effective when the state organs are unelected bureacrats with guns
by calvinmorrison 3y ago
perhaps that democracy is not effective when the state organs are unelected bureacrats with guns
- Clubber 3y agoI'm not sure why you're being downvoted. That's been a common charge against our vast unelected bureaucracy, most of whom hold qualified immunity. We're trillions of dollars in debt, maybe it's time to peel some of it back a little.
- gowld 3y agoDownvotes are possibly because the unelected bureaucrats with guns are overseen by the elected Executive and Legislature.
- Clubber 3y agoAre they though? How about the FDA getting most of its funding by the companies they are supposed to regulate? It's comforting to just trust that bureaucracies are doing what's good for the country, but also naive. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/e4a7910607c0dd76c40aa61151d154f9/FDA-User-Fee-Issue-Brief.pdf https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/e4a791060... How about the NSA spying on congress? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/nsa-spying-bernie-sanders-members-congress https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/nsa-spying-ber... How about the ATF making up laws? https://nclalegal.org/2019/09/atf-admits-it-lacked-authority-to-issue-legislative-rule-ncla-condemns-the-agencys-attempt-to-ban-bump-stocks-anyway/ https://nclalegal.org/2019/09/atf-admits-it-lacked-authority... The only teeth congress has with these bureaucracies is the power of the purse.
- JohnFen 3y ago> The only teeth congress has with these bureaucracies is the power of the purse. Not true. Congress can make laws defining what those agencies are and are not allowed to do.
- Clubber 3y agoAnd if the agencies go outside the bounds of those laws like some currently do?
- JohnFen 3y agoThen those who are victimized take it to court. If the agency committed an actual crime, then there's a path for that to be prosecuted as well. It's certainly not a perfect system, but it's successfully done all the time.
- Clubber 3y ago>> The only teeth congress has with these bureaucracies is the power of the purse. >Not true. Congress can make laws defining what those agencies are and are not allowed to do. >And if the agencies go outside the bounds of those laws like some currently do? >Then those who are victimized take it to court. Right, the court isn't congress. My point was the only teeth congress has in regards to the bureaucracies is the power of the purse. >successfully done all the time. It depends on how you define successfully. I mean they employ people, is that good enough? Do you think they would be more or less effective with a 20% haircut? I don't really know, but members congress probably don't either. Plus, it's bad politics to cut jobs come election time, right? Seems like a perverse incentive for the people charged overseeing the bureaucracies.
- patmorgan23 3y agoCongress can impeach the appointed officers that allowed those violations to happen. Congress can create new criminal/civil remedies and then create an office tasked just with enforcing them.
- frumper 3y agoCongress created these agencies, they can write laws that fundamentally change how they work, what they do, and what they focus on. They can even just disband these agencies. Congress has all of the power it needs. If they don't use it, maybe what you think should happen doesn't align with the majority of Congress.
- calvinmorrison 3y agoYou're assuming that the shadow government can't or won't institute regime change when it's threatened. The US Government killed a president, why wouldn't it blackmail congress as well?
- frumper 3y agoWith this belief, does anything really matter?
- calvinmorrison 3y agoyou're right.... The CIA and, by extension, the US government as a whole (or any subgroup thereof) have never altered the outcome of elections anywhere for regime change, and have never instigated color revolutions for regime change.
- frumper 3y agoIf your belief is correct in that the Congress and President are coerced into doing what the shadow government wants, then they would have zero need for a revolution or regime change in the United States.
- Clubber 3y agoThe CIA and FBI definitely didn't like Trump. You see this same thing with police departments at the local level. They don't like what a mayor says (like de Blasio), they get the blue flu and cause crime to increase and the mayor takes the heat for the increase in crime. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2020/07/17/fridays-headlines-blue-flu-edition https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2020/07/17/fridays-headlines-blu...
- briffle 3y agoWould you prefer elected bureacrats with guns? That scares me more. Perhaps we just go with rock solid transparency laws...
- calvinmorrison 3y agoIt's a sad day when HN is defending the Patriot Act.
- electrondood 3y agoIt's more that your parent comment was disingenuous.
- wl 3y agoAt least elected bureaucrats are theoretically accountable to the electorate. The gripe comes from things like the unelected bureaucrats at the US Department of Justice deciding that as part of implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are only two limited and inadequate questions you can ask of someone with an apparently bogus service dog or else. That rule didn't come from the people who wrote the law.
- JohnFen 3y agoThose unelected bureaucrats play by the rules set by elected bureaucrats, though. > That rule didn't come from the people who wrote the law. But lawmakers can write a law to address that.
- kec 3y agoIn practice that shouldn’t matter, as the law states that any service animal can be turned away so long as the business provides accommodation to the human (which is the point of the limited questions). The fact this rarely happens is more due to people not actually knowing the law and typically wanting to avoid potential conflict.
- gosub100 3y ago
- mistrial9 3y agohistory has shown that clumsy bureaucrats with slow erosion of rights is still superior to belligerents with guns in a mob
- titzer 3y agoNine times out of ten, the person saying this will turn around and complain about all the "political hacks" running things, referring to political appointees with no experience or background in the area of government they are tasked to run. The term "unelected bureaucrats" applies to people like...I dunno, the director of the NIH and field office managers. Heck, even a police captain is an "unelected bureaucrat". Sheesh.
- explaininjs 3y agoThe director of the NIH is a prime example of a position the people should have direct control over. As is the police captain. Are you claiming otherwise? Have we really forgotten about 2020 so soon?
- metabagel 3y agoPeople are already overwhelmed by having to vote for the superintendent of their sanitation district
- explaininjs 3y agoThat’s part of the ploy. Give people a million menial jobs to elect so they feel exhausted by the process instead of demanding to have control over the real power. See also the California senators, which have at this point been unilaterally appointed by Gavin rather than elected by the people. If that wasn’t bad enough, he appointed this latest one based on a personal promise made to put a Black woman in the seat, in exchange for some union to aid in his personal election campaign. If anyone cared about civics, separation of power, or indeed democracy itself, there’d be rioting in the streets.
- frumper 3y agoYou’re saying part of the problem is people overwhelmed by menial job elections yet say people should elect police captains. Should they then also elect deputy police chiefs, police chiefs? Also, anyone that knows their civics would know that what Newsome did is covered in the US Constitution.