5 ms·

Perhaps a uniquely American opinion, but employees can opt out quickly and easily by not getting paid by public funds. Most public sector jobs have private sect

by pc86 8mo ago

Perhaps a uniquely American opinion, but employees can opt out quickly and easily by not getting paid by public funds. Most public sector jobs have private sector equivalents. If you want to help people find jobs and your privacy is important enough to make public sector work untenable, get a job with one of the private sector organizations that does that. > elected officials...have to expose their street address to get elected. This generates real risk. Is there an epidemic of local German politicians being harassed and assaulted at their homes? I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live. Elected officials should not be able to hide from their constituents.

anonymous908213 8mo ago
> I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live. I can think of plenty of reasons. Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally, and not the sort of organized political violence that people might use to liberate themselves from the chains of oppressors, but rather the kind of lunatic political violence that is committed by irrational lone actors who are fundamentally mentally unwell. I believe you can have political transparency without involving people's homes and families.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  When an overworked air traffic controller in Germany gave a plane an instruction that happened to be the opposite of TCAS automatic collision avoidance system, and one pilot followed TCAS to avoid a collision and one followed the controller, the planes crashed and everybody died. A family member of one of the passengers looked up, hunted down, and murdered in cold blood the air traffic controller.
  - krisoft 8mo ago
    > an overworked air traffic controller in Germany Actually the air traffic controller in question was Swiss not German. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...
  - fc417fc802 8mo ago
    You left out - was a foreigner, managed to escape, faced zero consequences at home (AFAIK).
    - phainopepla2 8mo ago
      He didn't escape, he sentence was reduced from 8 to 3 1/2 by a Swiss judge. The reasoning was that his mental state was properly accounted for. Who knows if lobbying from Russia played a part in that. Also, not only did he face no consequences at home, he was celebrated and given a high-level job. Maybe it's my American-ness showing, but it's pretty shocking to me that 8 years was considered too harsh for someone who stabbed a man to death in front of his family. On the other hand, I suppose one could argue that the perpetrator was highly unlikely to commit a similar act in the future, if only because his motivation was the death of his own family, who would no longer be around to inspire him to violence a second time.
      - pc86 8mo ago
        Until some other nefarious air traffic controller waits for him to remarry and have another family.
- pc86 8mo ago
  Government employees, including and especially elected officials, are employees of the people and the people have a right to the same information any employer has about their employees. > Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally Citation needed, but even if we say for the sake of argument this is accurate, that doesn't naturally lead to this outcome. What makes violence political? Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't. Is stopping that political violence worth the worst case scenario where we make it harder for the public to get this type of information?
  - anonymous908213 8mo ago
    > Government employees, including and especially elected officials, are employees of the people and the people have a right to the same information any employer has about their employees. I don't think any employer has any right to know their employee's home address, to be honest. > Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't. I think this question is rather besides the point. Random acts of violence are bad, so let's not make anybody's home address public information. In the age of the internet, we routinely observe millions of people fixating on one person for some perceived grievance or another, wherein it only takes one lunatic among those millions having access to private information to result in a tragedy. We don't have to make it so easy for these tragedies to happen.
    - pc86 8mo ago
      > I don't think any employer has any right to know their employee's home address, to be honest. Regardless of whether this should be the case or not, it is the case is every country I can think of. I agree I think we're straying from the point a bit. When is the last time you can point to an act of political violence that would not have occurred had some public servant or elected official's address not been on a website or spreadsheet somewhere? These things simply don't happen enough to warrant further limiting government officials' accountability to the public.
      - 8mo ago
- whattheheckheck 8mo ago
  Its literally the last check of power... rich people will find out exactly where the power people live. The masses also need to know
  - anonymous908213 8mo ago
    The last check on power is murdering politicians in their homes? I beg to differ. If the situation is so bad that violence is truly necessary, the last check is an organized revolution, not an assassination. If the figure is a genuine dictator and important enough to have real power, they would have extensive security surrounding their home anyways. This fantasy of assassinating a would-be Putin or whatever does not justify exposing the addresses of city councilmen or judges or whatever random public servant somebody wants to kill over their grievances.
    - autoexec 8mo ago
      > The last check on power is murdering politicians in their homes? You said murder, but there are plenty of valid reasons that the public should know who holds positions of power and where they live that don't involve violence of any kind. Protest is an essential freedom we have and it's perfectly valid to do it outside of the homes of those we have put in power. It's also useful to have that information when investigating fraud and corruption.
      - anonymous908213 8mo ago
        I don't think there is any reason to protest outside people's personal residences. People can protest at a government building, or a public square, or somewhere intentionally disruptive that isn't implicitly aimed at intimidating a public servant. Especially given that protests can turn violent, having a mob outside a specific individual's house is reckless and can quickly escalate in the wrong way. I think it's worth noting that the people protesting won't always be people you agree with. People protest both sides of a given cause. Perhaps you think it is justified to form an intimidation mob for your cause, but would you feel the same way about the opposing side of the issue doing the same? For a civil society to flourish, I think there needs to be a common understanding that there are limits to how people should conduct themselves. > It's also useful to have that information when investigating fraud and corruption. This is the purview of journalists, police, and independent investigative boards. We do not need random unqualified people stalking politicians to uncover fraud. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a case where that a random nobody ended up uncovering fraud or corruption by stalking, but I have heard of dozens of cases of public servants being targeted and murdered in their homes.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  Are there more lunatics or has the number of lunatics remained unchanged but the frequency of situations and events and availability of information and events that make them act increased? It's not like there's a control earth to compare to.
forgetfreeman 8mo ago
Making it slightly more involved for randos to show up at your literal doorstep hardly seems like hiding from one's constituency.
dTal 8mo ago
Setting aside "elected officials"... government employees are already undercompensated compared to the private sector, making it difficult to attract talent. Eroding their personal rights and exposing them to personal risk on top of that is a recipe for shrinking the government to nothing. Do that and you might as well cut to the chase and hand the whole kit and kaboodle over to the private sector and be done with it.

by pc86 8mo ago

anonymous908213 8mo ago

> I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live. I can think of plenty of reasons. Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally, and not the sort of organized political violence that people might use to liberate themselves from the chains of oppressors, but rather the kind of lunatic political violence that is committed by irrational lone actors who are fundamentally mentally unwell. I believe you can have political transparency without involving people's homes and families.

direwolf20 8mo ago
When an overworked air traffic controller in Germany gave a plane an instruction that happened to be the opposite of TCAS automatic collision avoidance system, and one pilot followed TCAS to avoid a collision and one followed the controller, the planes crashed and everybody died. A family member of one of the passengers looked up, hunted down, and murdered in cold blood the air traffic controller.
- krisoft 8mo ago
  > an overworked air traffic controller in Germany Actually the air traffic controller in question was Swiss not German. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...
- fc417fc802 8mo ago
  You left out - was a foreigner, managed to escape, faced zero consequences at home (AFAIK).
  - phainopepla2 8mo ago
    He didn't escape, he sentence was reduced from 8 to 3 1/2 by a Swiss judge. The reasoning was that his mental state was properly accounted for. Who knows if lobbying from Russia played a part in that. Also, not only did he face no consequences at home, he was celebrated and given a high-level job. Maybe it's my American-ness showing, but it's pretty shocking to me that 8 years was considered too harsh for someone who stabbed a man to death in front of his family. On the other hand, I suppose one could argue that the perpetrator was highly unlikely to commit a similar act in the future, if only because his motivation was the death of his own family, who would no longer be around to inspire him to violence a second time.
    - pc86 8mo ago
      Until some other nefarious air traffic controller waits for him to remarry and have another family.
pc86 8mo ago
Government employees, including and especially elected officials, are employees of the people and the people have a right to the same information any employer has about their employees. > Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally Citation needed, but even if we say for the sake of argument this is accurate, that doesn't naturally lead to this outcome. What makes violence political? Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't. Is stopping that political violence worth the worst case scenario where we make it harder for the public to get this type of information?
- anonymous908213 8mo ago
  > Government employees, including and especially elected officials, are employees of the people and the people have a right to the same information any employer has about their employees. I don't think any employer has any right to know their employee's home address, to be honest. > Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't. I think this question is rather besides the point. Random acts of violence are bad, so let's not make anybody's home address public information. In the age of the internet, we routinely observe millions of people fixating on one person for some perceived grievance or another, wherein it only takes one lunatic among those millions having access to private information to result in a tragedy. We don't have to make it so easy for these tragedies to happen.
  - pc86 8mo ago
    > I don't think any employer has any right to know their employee's home address, to be honest. Regardless of whether this should be the case or not, it is the case is every country I can think of. I agree I think we're straying from the point a bit. When is the last time you can point to an act of political violence that would not have occurred had some public servant or elected official's address not been on a website or spreadsheet somewhere? These things simply don't happen enough to warrant further limiting government officials' accountability to the public.
    - 8mo ago
whattheheckheck 8mo ago
Its literally the last check of power... rich people will find out exactly where the power people live. The masses also need to know
- anonymous908213 8mo ago
  The last check on power is murdering politicians in their homes? I beg to differ. If the situation is so bad that violence is truly necessary, the last check is an organized revolution, not an assassination. If the figure is a genuine dictator and important enough to have real power, they would have extensive security surrounding their home anyways. This fantasy of assassinating a would-be Putin or whatever does not justify exposing the addresses of city councilmen or judges or whatever random public servant somebody wants to kill over their grievances.
  - autoexec 8mo ago
    > The last check on power is murdering politicians in their homes? You said murder, but there are plenty of valid reasons that the public should know who holds positions of power and where they live that don't involve violence of any kind. Protest is an essential freedom we have and it's perfectly valid to do it outside of the homes of those we have put in power. It's also useful to have that information when investigating fraud and corruption.
    - anonymous908213 8mo ago
      I don't think there is any reason to protest outside people's personal residences. People can protest at a government building, or a public square, or somewhere intentionally disruptive that isn't implicitly aimed at intimidating a public servant. Especially given that protests can turn violent, having a mob outside a specific individual's house is reckless and can quickly escalate in the wrong way. I think it's worth noting that the people protesting won't always be people you agree with. People protest both sides of a given cause. Perhaps you think it is justified to form an intimidation mob for your cause, but would you feel the same way about the opposing side of the issue doing the same? For a civil society to flourish, I think there needs to be a common understanding that there are limits to how people should conduct themselves. > It's also useful to have that information when investigating fraud and corruption. This is the purview of journalists, police, and independent investigative boards. We do not need random unqualified people stalking politicians to uncover fraud. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a case where that a random nobody ended up uncovering fraud or corruption by stalking, but I have heard of dozens of cases of public servants being targeted and murdered in their homes.
cucumber3732842 8mo ago
Are there more lunatics or has the number of lunatics remained unchanged but the frequency of situations and events and availability of information and events that make them act increased? It's not like there's a control earth to compare to.

forgetfreeman 8mo ago

Making it slightly more involved for randos to show up at your literal doorstep hardly seems like hiding from one's constituency.

dTal 8mo ago

Setting aside "elected officials"... government employees are already undercompensated compared to the private sector, making it difficult to attract talent. Eroding their personal rights and exposing them to personal risk on top of that is a recipe for shrinking the government to nothing. Do that and you might as well cut to the chase and hand the whole kit and kaboodle over to the private sector and be done with it.