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I am not sure that correcting "the US government betrayed us" to "the American people betrayed us" is quite fair. For instance, the last time the American peopl
by mcherm 13y ago
I am not sure that correcting "the US government betrayed us" to "the American people betrayed us" is quite fair. For instance, the last time the American people elected a new president they elected a candidate who promised the most open government ever, who defended the need for whistleblowers, and who criticized his predecessor for warrantless wiretapping. The elected representatives of the American people held hearings in which they asked the head of the NSA whether his agency was engaging in certain activities and he said, on record, that they were not. (He lied.)
Perhaps the will of the people actually IS being subverted.
- rayiner 13y agoObama's approval rating among democrats, the people that voted for him, is 75-80% depending on the poll. Obama might have lied about transparency and whatnot, but people don't seem to have elected him on that basis. They elected him for his views on healthcare, social welfare, abortion, etc. Thought experiment: look at the tiny number of democrats complaining about the NSA issue, then think about what would happen if Obama instead had done a 180 on Social Security, abortion, etc. You think his approval rating among democrats would be 75-80% if he had signed legislation to dismantle Social Security?
- nitrogen 13y agoWhy do you come to Hacker News and repeatedly remind everyone how insignificant their opinion is, how ostracized they truly are, and how much more right the "churchgoing middle-aged woman" is than the dirty nerds? If you like it here so much, why don't you stop insulting your audience and start proposing solutions?
- rayiner 13y agoNobody should be insulted to hear that they're not special and that their political opinion doesn't count any more than those of middle aged women in Des Moines. That's a beautiful thing. That's democracy. Note that I generally only point out that HN-ers have minority views in response to comments along the lines of "the USG doesn't represent the people" or "the US is not a democracy" or similar hyperbole. Finally, understanding your insignificance is part of the solution. Politics is about building coalitions. Echo chamber nerd rage will have zero impact on the status quo. Reaching out to groups with votes might.
- nitrogen 13y agoDemocracy is not a beautiful thing. Democracy is tyranny of the unsympathetic majority.
- rayiner 13y agoAnd everything else is the tyranny of some minority, which is worse. Monarchy - Tyranny of the hereditary minority Oligarchy - Tyranny of the rich minority Communism, libertarianism - Tyranny of the philosophic minority Anarchy/tribalism - Tyranny of the physically strong minority
- nitrogen 13y agoWhy should everyone have to live by the same rules? In a country the size of the US, a 1% minority (as a random unrelated example, the percentage of Linux desktop users) is still more people than several of the states. Why not let that minority become its own majority in its own political sphere? That makes a lot more sense than forcing the same rules upon everyone whose birth left them in a particular geographic location.
- rayiner 13y agoBecause the last time we did that, the minority decided we should have have segregation, Jim Crow, etc. Federalism was killed in the U.S. by states tying their own sovereignty to the losing side of the civil rights war.
- nitrogen 13y agoI'm not saying that the hypothetical 1% to which I referred should decide things for anybody else, or that they should all be isolated in one geographic area.