The U.S. system of government is deeply rooted in an English common law and constitutional framework. In its U.S. variant, it became a constitutional republic, with the broad idea being that power within the government is divided by design so as to help prevent its abuse. That means a federal system premised on the legal principle that governmental power resides by default elsewhere than with the centralized authority - meaning, the federal authority is strictly limited to the powers expressly granted to it by the constitution, as implemented through three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial) that check and balance each other even with respect to the limited power resident within that federal authority. Any power not expressly granted to the federal authority belongs to the states and to the people. On top of it all, the very notion of government as a compact derived from the foundational principle that it is the individual, not the state, that has inalienable rights that cannot be impaired by any government, no matter how benign its stated motives or noble its stated goals. All in all, this began as a bottom-up system with a tremendous respect for the rights of the individual and a tremendous distrust for the power of the state.
While that was the theory, the practice did not often match and major faults such as the slave system and the legally sanctioned taking of lands from the "pagan" residents who preceded the European migrants led to many convulsions by which, in time, the federal authority itself - which had often been the cause of the abuses - came to be seen as the cure for the problems and therefore came to be seen as an authority that should be given broad, largely unchecked, and very vague grants of power with which to accomplish its newly-defined goals. Couple this with the move from a formerly isolationist America (Monroe Doctrine, etc.) to one that saw its role in the world as that of an exporter of democracy and defender of a democratic system of government around the globe, and you perforce have a massive further expansion of centralized authority via the build up of a massive military, in contrast to the time of George Washington where even the very idea of having a standing army was hugely controversial and defense was handled mostly by loosely formed militias organized by the colonies and then the states.
And so, two-plus centuries later, you have a system in which modern conservatives ask for virtually unlimited authority by which to achieve largely military aims and by which modern liberals ask for virtually unlimited authority by which to achieve social aims. With that massive build up of federal power, we all wake up one day and find that the central government has become rather full of itself, arrogant, and unaccountable, with those in charge - of either of the major parties - now quite comfortable with the idea that the rights of the individual are far subservient to those of the state, at least as seen by those in charge. And we all wonder how this happened.
I see this as a system that is wildly out of control in its expansionist aims at the expense of the individual and, given the historical arc, don't hold out a lot of hope that the problem can be reversed unless people's thinking changes significantly.
Yes, by all means vote, but do vote with discernment and with a sharp eye to those who would protect the rights of the individual and not based on the cliches of the day regarding the modern political parties. Maybe that will in time help to turn it around. In any case, that is how I see it.
I'll defer to your knowledge of law, but what stands out for me is the lack of focus on individual liberties, among both parties. Everything is now couched in the phrase "for the public good", etc. To paraphrase your comment...So, we get liberals saying things like "it takes a village to raise your kids" and conservatives saying "the village must be defended at any cost and spread the democracy." That's over-simplifying things, but my worry has always been that the concept of individual freedom has morphed into some collectivist concept that no one can precisely define and has no limits. It even expresses itself socially within urban areas. Schools are now childcare facilities, and everyone is looking to the government (local, state, federal) to solve the problem.
This is why I vote for those who try to protect the individual's rights. Unfortunately, many times they're looked at as kooks (see Ron Paul, etc.).
When people ask who I voted for they make funny faces. I vote across parties lines because I don't think either party has my allegiance. I disagree with individuals and subscribe to cross cutting concerns of which neither party wholly captures.
"Our carefully constructed system of checks and balances is being negated by the rise of a fourth branch, an administrative state of sprawling departments and agencies that govern with increasing autonomy and decreasing transparency.
For much of our nation’s history, the federal government was quite small. In 1790, it had just 1,000 nonmilitary workers. In 1962, there were 2,515,000 federal employees. Today, we have 2,840,000 federal workers in 15 departments, 69 agencies and 383 nonmilitary sub-agencies.
This exponential growth has led to increasing power and independence for agencies. The shift of authority has been staggering. The fourth branch now has a larger practical impact on the lives of citizens than all the other branches combined.
The rise of the fourth branch has been at the expense of Congress’s lawmaking authority. In fact, the vast majority of “laws” governing the United States are not passed by Congress but are issued as regulations, crafted largely by thousands of unnamed, unreachable bureaucrats. One study found that in 2007, Congress enacted 138 public laws, while federal agencies finalized 2,926 rules, including 61 major regulations.
The judiciary, too, has seen its authority diminished by the rise of the fourth branch. Under Article III of the Constitution, citizens facing charges and fines are entitled to due process in our court system. As the number of federal regulations increased, however, Congress decided to relieve the judiciary of most regulatory cases and create administrative courts tied to individual agencies. The result is that a citizen is 10 times more likely to be tried by an agency than by an actual court. In a given year, federal judges conduct roughly 95,000 adjudicatory proceedings, including trials, while federal agencies complete more than 939,000.
These agency proceedings are often mockeries of due process, with one-sided presumptions and procedural rules favoring the agency. And agencies increasingly seem to chafe at being denied their judicial authority.
Of course, federal agencies officially report to the White House under the umbrella of the executive branch. But in practice, the agencies have evolved into largely independent entities over which the president has very limited control. Only 1 percent of federal positions are filled by political appointees, as opposed to career officials, and on average appointees serve only two years. At an individual level, career officials are insulated from political pressure by civil service rules. There are also entire agencies — including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission — that are protected from White House interference."
And some reflections from a government worker[2]:
"The most fascinating thing about working for the government for the last 6 or 7 years has been learning how government really works. Almost no one has any idea how government actually functions.
We spend inordinate amounts of time and money determining who will occupy short-term elected positions in government. Once there, people make a living thinking about what these politicians should be doing. On the other hand, we spend almost no time thinking about who will permanently occupy the bureaucratic positions that are actually responsible for implementing governance.
The vast majority of the employees of the government, like me, are unelected and – for all intents and purposes – cannot be fired. Focusing on the 0.0001% of government employees that get elected (obviously!) misses the remaining 99.9999%. Virtually everyone thinks that its possible to "change" government while maintaining 99.9999% of its employees. This belief is obviously retarded.
I should also note that people are not used to thinking about working environments in which employees cannot be fired. This situation changes the employment dynamic in many ways. Outside of the government, a "boss" is in charge. However, once the power to fire employees is removed, how is it possible for a boss to really be in charge? In a sense, this creates a situation in which the employees are – in reality – in charge.
When we are taught how laws are made, we’re told something like: someone writes a bill, both houses of Congress vote on the bill, if it passes it’s signed by the President and then it’s law at which point it might be interpreted by the courts.
This is correct as far as it goes. However, have you ever asked yourself who that "someone" is who’s writing the bills? Seems like a powerful position, no? That someone is generally unelected and cannot be fired.
The common story also doesn’t go far enough. Regulations are now, by any serious metric, more important than laws. Regulations are written and implemented by agencies, often with little or no judicial oversight. Modern laws aren’t even really laws anymore, they’re just lists of regulations that Congress hopes agencies will implement.
In ancient Rome, the Senate governed until Julius Caesar took power. However, emperors kept the Senate around for a few hundred more years (at least until Diocletian). Are you so sure that the system of government that you believe in hasn’t already been overthrown? Are you like a Roman in the 200s AD who believes in the power of the Senate to appoint an emperor?"
[1]http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-24/opinions/39495...
[2]http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government-employm...;
182 million :2.5million in 1962 vs 312 million:2.8million in now. Granted you don't need to double the size of government when the population doubles but you do need significantly more people.
If you don't vote you have done nothing to even try to elect someone who you, in good faith, believe will do what you deem the right thing. Yeah, politicians are fucjing scum a lot of the time and lie to the point where its easier to trust the devil himself rather than a politican. That said, totally dismissing the system as one big huge scam is the lazy, cheap, and easy way out of your duty as a citizen. It's a total copout that lets you feel superior but in reality makes you completely inneffectual. The electorate may or may not have much power but it still has some. Voting is just one method of exercising your will over your government. It's important but we also need to be active in lobbying our government in other ways too.
Those in power want you not to vote. To take on this "I don't vote because its a sham" mentality is to play right into their little game. When enough people fall for it that's when it becomes a reality. I'd say its close to being a reality but it isn't too late to turn the tide. It's going to take some time which requires patience, something Americans don't have much of.
If you vote you always have the right to complain. If your guy loses you get to complain about how the other guy would've done things differently. If your guys wins and doesn't fulfill all his promises you still get to complain about how you were sold a bill of goods. If you don't vote, you're still entitled to complain but I personally won't take you as seriously because you haven't tried to affect change. This is supposed to be government for by and of the people but if you believe that Carlin joke (its a JOKE by the way) then it will no longer be that.
No, those in power very much want you to vote. Voting is a great feel-good process that gives the illusion that the people are sovereign when in reality we have practically no power and the government can do whatever the hell it wants as long as both parties agree on it. If this wasn't a democracy it would be quite clear where the power really lies, but since it is a democracy, this problem is obscured quite nicely. A thought-provoking thread from a few days about about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5801276
Some students were probably 'sucking up'. But nearly every student?
Being able to get a substantial number of votes is a HUGELY BIG DEAL for third parties, as at some point (I can't remember the number exactly, I think it's 4%) they start getting federal funds to aid in future elections.
A viable third party, or even better, a variety of parties would provide the electoral market place more competition, potentially stop all politicians from positioning themselves in the middle, and free politicians with real views from needing to pander to party lines.
Of course they want you to vote. Only they don't vote. They just prepay all politicians so that whichever of them wins the election is already in their payroll. Units of power are not people, are cents. When did this start?
If that's the case, the amount of resources candidates spend trying to get people to vote is peculiar.
> If you don't vote, you're still entitled to complain but I personally won't take you as seriously because you haven't tried to affect change.
The only way I could even begin to see any validity to your point is if an election were a tie or decided by a single vote.
Usually, there are several millions of single votes working together to make it happen. But it's not like anyone's voting in aggregate.
Agreed. There are plenty of ways to affect change without voting.
> the amount of resources candidates spend trying to get people to vote is peculiar.
It's not that simple. Candidates are not the only people involved in politics and voting and influencing voters.
1. It's very often just a pseudo-intellectual justification for not bothering to educate yourself about any of the issues, politicians or policies at hand, or to actually define your own philosophical/policy position and have it subjected to possible challenge and critique. It's laziness and cowardice masquerading as superiority.
2. It's also very popular as a defense mechanism for fantasists and fundamentalists who refuse to accept that: reality is messy, none of us has all the answers, none of us has quite the same experience or expertise and thus even those disagreeing with us have much value to bring to the table, that there's no rational reason to expect 300 million people with different experiences with different policies and different parts of the country to ever agree on where the problems are nor how to fix them, and -- most of all -- that we ourselves might actually be wrong about some of our fundamental assumptions and the people disagreeing with us might not only have a point, but that we might be standing behind the wrong policy.
If you can accept these things, you can accept that compromise is not awful or evidence of failure in and of itself and that democracy is very rarely about 'right' and 'wrong' choices. You would recognize the messy process of compromise and politics is itself a feature.
Progress is a messy, irregular march not from A to B, but from A[n] to B[n], where not every path is straight, or known, or necessarily moves forward on each tick of the clock. Much of the time the destination isn't even known when we have to decide a course (whether it exists, where it is, whether it's fixed or floating -- even whether it's fundamentally knowable) and sometimes we're not even sure where it is that we're starting from.
Now, if you want to argue that there are problems (primarily, that money has corrupted the system) I will enthusiastically agree. But there's no solution to those problems that hinges on not voting.
There are things that we can do other than and in addition to voting. But they don't in any way preclude voting or benefit from our abstaining from voting.
If you so choose not to give your mandate to anyone, that is up to you.
It is the only political power I have, and even though the statement is ignored or interpreted as apathy, the statement that you don't believe in any of those arseholes is just as valid as the statement that you do.
I, personally, cannot stand the "then vote for the least worst because at least the other guy won't get in" argument either. To me that's the root of the terrible politics we have in the UK and the US now.
In practice, it is hard to take power from the established parties. It is hard to get past the local level without being well-connected. Hard, but not impossible.
Your duty as a citizen is to support the other members of your society, whether it be by voting in politicians you think will lead the country towards better times for everyone or just following the laws and not interfering with the rights of others. The state and political structure is only a means of choosing organized leadership towards that end.
If voting inevitably leads to a government that blatantly disregards the overall interests of its society, what purpose does voting serve in your "duty as a citizen?"
I personally think that none of us have a right to complain for our own complacency is to blame, but I take issue with the idea that voting is somehow a citizen's duty, even if it's inevitable result is explicit support for violence and corruption.
(yes, "inevitable" is a gross exaggeration, although with these last two presidents it looks quite bleak)
This could apply to the opposite perspective just as well.
>This is totally backwards and you have to do some mental gymnastics to believe it.
Dr: You're going to get testicular cancer. Would you prefer it in the left testicle or the right?
Me: I don't want cancer in either testicle.
Dr: You don't understand, if you don't pick a nut then you don't have the right to complain about having testicular cancer.
Me: I don't want cancer in either testicle.
Dr: Congratulations. You are no longer at risk of cancer.
Seriously, if this were a real conversation and given that I'm going to get cancer (per first line), I'd pick one testicle and then have them remove it.
Meanwhile, you'd 'choose' not to get cancer and get it anyway, but without any control whatsoever.
That is the superior answer to the mythical doctor visit, as well.
I would further argue that refusing to be involved may have resulted in cancer in both the left nut and right nut.
Unfortunately the analogy may be a bit too applicable for comfort, eh?
Actually, it's not. The US election process operates under the Electoral College[1], so a state majority vote changes all votes to that majority vote (eg: Democrats win majority in Illinois, so all votes in that state end up voting for Democrats in the presidential election).
The disparity between the electoral vote and the popular vote is usually not wide enough to cause controversy, however it's still offensive to realize that your vote changes without your consent.
Gerrymandering[2] is a whole different topic, however it is just as galling.
The result were more Perot like ideas being pushed into both parties to prevent that from happening.
Protest voting, even in rigged elections like Putin's election in Russia, are very effective political action.
This is where gaming the voting system hurts democracy. Simply voting for the biggest bloc that is not your vision of pure evil is short-sighted, and causes the voters lose their independence - important for a voting system to arrive at an optimum result [1], and it also destroys the only credible method of communicating the lack of confidence in the system to each other [2]. Everybody knowing that everybody else knows that everybody have lost faith in the main blocs is not sufficient to create real change, but it certainly is necessary.
Yes it is.
>The US election process operates under the Electoral College[1]
No, the US presidential election process works that way; that's one election for one office, there are many more offices you vote for than just president and all that voting matters and is absolutely worth more than a no vote.
But your missing broader picture. This is not just about the presidential election. You also have a senator, a representative, a state representative, at state governor, a mayor, a sheriff, a town council leader, a school board leader, (maybe not all at once,) for whom you can vote. Too much power is concentrated in the presidency and this is a result people neglecting the importance of other elected offices, most of which have more of a direct influence on your life anyway.
Even beyond that, if you believe that your vote is so worthless that you may as well not cast it, that's a sign that you should get more involved in politics, not less. It's not hard to join your local party chapter and to start making changes as an 'insider.'
If say 90% of the population didn't vote, plus there were public demonstrations of discontent, officials would be so afraid of a revolution (or other radical action) it would in theory temper their ambitions.
Tocqueville touches on this in Democracy in America.
If 90% of the population refuse to vote then you would end-up with one of two outcomes:
1. A minority government governing with a mandate from <= 10% of the population. Cue politician saying 'look, I got 80% of the votes cast'. Expect: extreme social unrest, dictatorship by minority, authoritarianism.
2. No government. Not as great as some might think. Expect: nothing-gets-done, social collapse, power vacuum, enemy nations sharpen their knives.
First-world politicians in this century won't have their ambitions "tempered" by large scale withdrawal from voting - all this would do is remove the main mechanism that restrains them. Even in a society that has backed itself into this kind of local minima, politics and politicians would still exist.
... that they would set up a security apparatus to prevent one from ever happening.
Actual liberatory politics begins the day after the election, and involves things like pressure groups, petitions, protests and lobbying.
You see a status quo where neither major party cares about electronic privacy. Is it because there is a vast conspiracy between media and government to only present these two viewpoints? Is it because huge amounts of money go into getting people to support NSA surveillance? Or is it because opposing NSA surveillance is not an issue that reliably yields votes?
Which voting bloc can you capture by supporting the scaling back of NSA surveillance? Angry nerds? Not a big demographic. If your issue doesn't get old people, blacks and hispanics, religious conservatives, teachers, union workers, small business owners, or one of the other big demographics like that to go out and vote based solely on that issue, then there is not enough votes in that issue for any politician to care about it.
And the thing is, that's arguably how democracy should work. Why should politicians in a democracy cater to the pet issues of an ideological minority?
That's just silly, it most certainly is. The word democracy does not mean only direct democracy.
Local elections are a more worthwhile, due to the increased influence of even a single voice and the fact that they are usually decided by popular vote.
And this might really be the place to put most of your political thought and effort. Getting good people into local offices can be a first step to getting those same good people into regional, state, national offices. If we want until the presidential election to care, it's likely too late.
As far as spending time on the major elections... I don't watch the news 24/7. I spend maybe ten hours during "election season" watching debates and reading articles, and a lot of that is done socially with friends and family. I enjoy it, and do not consider it time wasted. My polling place is about two blocks from my home. It takes me ten minutes to go vote. I do not see elections as a worthless drain on my time, even if my one vote, by itself, doesn't matter.
The people who strongly oppose the security measures taken after 9/11 are in the minority. They were part of Obama's coalition, but were almost certainly outnumbered by teachers or blue collar factory workers. I bet if you polled the public, "NSA surveillance" wouldn't rank among the top 3 concerns of even a sizeable minority of the people.
So when the government engages in legal (at the edge of legality, to be sure, but at least colorably legal), and the people don't strongly oppose the measures, why do we treat it as some sort of failure of democracy?
Left out a few parties there ray. What about the military-industrial complex? Don't they get a vote? (Maybe two or three?) What about all of those whose paychecks appear magically from "black" appropriations? How about LEOs? Are they not voting now? That would be a pretty sizable class to which to deny the franchise. You think the people who make house payments based on subverting the general welfare of the nation might be a bit more focused on what horrible program they can impose next than is "rural middle America"?
"Let's be clear" though. The current embarrassment is a paragon of "democracy".
You are not solving the problem you just ignoring it. And I am not sure what's worse...
At least voters are trying. They're trying to make the best of what they have. These people with day jobs, barely scraping by to support a family, take the time out of their day to try to make the country better instead of giving up and going home to avoid blame, like Carlin. And then he criticizes them. That irritates me.
Nobody I've voted for in a Federal election has ever won that election. I often vote for third-party candidates with the knowledge that they have as good as zero chance of winning, but sometimes I vote for major-party candidates who seem mostly reasonable. None of them have ever won either.
"It's the cities, Stupid."
Look at Facebook, for instance. I'm seeing splinter social networks that generally rip off its UI so they can develop their special interest via their particular domain name. Let's look at a pessimistic utopia where Developer == Plumber: everything eventually becomes decentralized because of the dividing and conquering of the digital laborer. In an optimistic utopia where Developer == Artisan: everything eventually becomes decentralized because each small team or developer group manages some autonomous function of digital society.
None of this national stuff really matters unless we're talking about a Nation-state divided. In which cases, we're talking the worst case scenario, and any pretense that rational debate will absolve these architectural problems of "the State" fails to acknowledge the already unfit architecture of the State, wherein direct action is necessary.
'The unfitness of the object may cause one to overlook the unfitness of the means.'
But you didn't work on it, Mr. President. Just like your preceding, you established a corrupt administration hell-bent upon restriction of freedom and secrecy. You are no better than Bush, and regardless of what party differences both of you had, you are one and the same behind the scenes.
You just don't give a fuck.
No joke. These are not idle words.
I grew up in Eastern Europe looking up to the great US of A, where hippies stopped a war and abolished the draft, where people can sue the government and win, where privacy and human rights are enshrined in the Constitution, which more than 200 hundred years ago prompted other nations to adopt something similar many years later.
Then the 9/11 came. Fast forward a decade and it looks like all those great achievements went to the toilet. Sorry, I can't help but feel that the Americans have let the world down, and the terrorists have won.
--stop it right there. That's bullshit, and he knows it. A president can't do anything without Congress, and when Congress is crap, nothing but a downward spiral is going to be the outlook.
And much of what's happening in the Justice Department and IRS, for instance, belong squarely to the Executive. Something could be done, but this administration is not doing it.
Maybe he did just say those things at election time and doesn't truly care. But assuming that to be the case for certain is lazy thinking.
The discussion I want to have is, what else could make a person who is dead-set against surveillance turn around so drastically once in office? What did he see, what did he come up against? Right or wrong, what scared him?
Unfortunately, we never have that discussion. Politicians are all just simple liars, it's as easy at that, there is no nuance to even remotely consider, blah blah.
A) Phone records are not wiretaps. B) They weren't warrantless.
However, secret warrants can be misused, and gathering data on domestic calls needs further scrutiny than this collection of every call.
Unfortunately that is par for the course here on HN, if you pay attention to the political threads. It so often is just the same political truth-twisting, logic-bending contortions that I often saw applied by the GOP or creationists, where logic becomes subservient to the objective, instead of forming your objective based on logic.
And in this case it's completely needless! Why use propaganda techniques to mislead when the truth is persuasive on its own? I'm not even shocked about collection of metadata per se, but it should not be a secret program run by secret courts issuing secret warrants. If it's important and useful the people will allow it, if not then let us live with that choice too.
It is important to be specific and accurate with claims made so that the culprits can't just pick one inaccurate claim and deny that loudly and repeatedly while ignoring the things that they actually have done.
They don't only have access to phone records; they also have access to our communications, and they have had that access for at least the last 6 years without a warrant, not even one from a FISA court.
As a 'non-[US]-citizen living outside the US', I'm a bit disturbed by the implication that it's somehow less bad for the US government to demand any data they like about non-US citizens (from private companies based in the US) than data about US citizens. Non-US citizens do make up 95% of the world's population, and they use Google etc. too.
Most European governments seem to recognise that the contents of 'human rights' documents, if they're to mean anything, should apply to, well, humans, not just the citizens of those countries. (Hence e.g. the ECHR blocking the deportation of illegal immigrants if they might be tortured in their home countries). It seems to be mostly just the US that has this strange idea that, despite one of its founding documents talking about 'all men being created equal' and 'inalienable rights', those rights shouldn't apply to non-US citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...
This is not what you do if you're only going after call records. This is what you do if you're siphoning off communications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...
In other words, say whatever needs to be said to get elected. Worry about the details later. Or not.
"You can’t vote for a Messiah and not expect a theocracy."
And if this was a joke, the only reason it is funny is because so many have treated him like a Messiah. Of course, when he was saying in all seriousness things like "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal" the confusion is understandable....
That said, dragnet surveillance of US citizens is still heinous.
Just because it's possible to do something, doesn't mean it has to be done, although I realize it's not how it works with governments.
To: "We have won the fight! Slavery is now legal. There is no more illegal slavery."
Also, check out the news on PRISM, which comes much closer to the common definition of wiretaps. I'd say his administration has pretty thoroughly broken that particular promise.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence...
"Warrantless wiretaps" refers to the program authorized by Bush in 2001 to do these wiretaps without ever notifying the FISA court.
What Obama was campaigning against in 2008 was the executive branch deciding what it could and could not do in regards to surveillance in secret without any input from the legislative or judicial branches.
What is being done now is under the FISA, an act passed by Congress and just re-authorized in 2012, and a law that the courts have upheld (at least, when they've allowed a lawsuit in the first place).
I am not defending the practice, but let's at least be strict about the terms we use. Surprisingly, no one in the government seems to mind a wiretap that has a warrant behind it.
That being said, it does seem somewhat reasonable to me that the US is monitoring metadata about who is contacting who overseas. If you are making calls to and receiving calls from numbers originating in Afghanistan that appear on CIA lists of contacts associated with anti-American activity, that information should be used to get a warrant to listen to the content of those communications.
On the other hand, I would feel better about the surveillance state if there were some evidence that it was effective. In reality most of this surveillance is probably a waste of resources and potentially distracting to real law enforcement. Our rights are obviously already interpreted through a "prism" - it would be beneficial if people could make utilitarian assessments of these practices.
That's extremely satisfying, isn't it?
The narrow legal answer is: false advertising regulations generally only apply to commercial trade which doesn't include elections; wider fraud offences are (unlike false advertising) not strict liability so would require you to prove that they knew the representation was false at the time it was made (as opposed to just changing their mind later), which is difficult, and in any case it's unclear that a court would consider a vote to be a gain of money/property; there's no unilateral contract here as there's no objective intent to create binding legal relations with every voter in the country; and administrative law concepts of legitimate expectations don't apply to manifesto/pre-election political promises per R (Wheeler) v PM. (That's all for English law, but I imagine the concepts are similar in the US).
The wider answer is: laws are made by politicians. They're not going to pass laws that would make them liable for lying to win elections.
Lying to the American people as a politician for the sake of gaining power presents a very real clear and present danger to the United States of America. If we can't rely on a politician to at least make a good faith effort to carry out their promises, then the entire basis of a representative government, a fundamental concept upon which our entire union is based, is essentially nullified. I know this sounds naïve, but this is a very real conversation we should be having because it is at the root of many of the problems with politics these days and many problems can just be solved by introducing moral hazard when votes are at state and holding the politician and anyone that follows him into office (as a cabinet member) accountable.
Lying is fine with me. Lying for the purposes of getting votes from citizens, should fall under the clear and present danger clause and should be prosecutable just like yelling fire in a crowded theatre. If a politician wants to lie while outside an election cycle, that's fine, but from the moment they begin making an intentional effort to be voted into office, until the time they are voted into office, they should not be allowed to lie in forums and messages targeted towards a voter they are trying to court. Doing so, should be prosecutable.
Sorry pal, but "promises" are worth the paper they're written on. It's simply your fault for being credulous. This game's been going on for hundreds of years.
"If you vote for me, I will <political promise here>" sounds like an oral contract to me, since it involves consideration in the form of a vote.
Oral contracts when done before witnesses may be enforceable in some jurisdictions, except when the type of contract in question explicitly requires a written counterpart, such as in the conveyance of property.
I'm curious if this could be solved at the federal level via checks and balances provided at the state level. i.e. could a State legislate that it is illegal for candidate for US federal office to make false campaign claims when in that state. e.g. Any promises conveyed in speech made by a US presidential candidate when campaigning in that state, would constitute a legally binding contract between that candidate and any constituent of that state that votes for that candidate if that candidate is successfully elected into office.
No, states can't enforce laws which would penalize federal officials for how they perform official duties. This is pretty well established Constitutional jurisprudence.
Did I mention they're complaining on a website, owned by another corporation? Which more often than not sells ad space (and user information!) to dozens or hundreds of other corporations?
It's comforting to think that these companies don't know everything about you. But right now, a 4 TB hard drive can be bought from NCIX for $159.99. And right now there are 313.9 million US citizens.
That means, for $159.99, you could store 14,011 bytes of information per every US citizen. If you don't want the government to look over a company's shoulder at data they've collected, maybe we should make it illegal for companies to collect that information in the first place.
I clock the United States Constitution at 19 kB in EPUB format, according to Project Gutenberg. That means that you wouldn't even need two 4 TB hard drives to store an entire copy of the Constitution, for every single US Citizen.
Also not sure how prices for hard drives got brought up. What relevance does cheap disk space have on this?
And, before the age of massive hard drives it was easy to imagine that we were anonymous - that it would be impossible for any government or corporation to keep many records on us. I was highlighting that information is so shockingly cheap to store now, that even your local burger joint could trivially afford to own a database storing a huge amount of information on every single person in this country.
I mean, if corporations are really running the world then we should be more worried about them, I would think.
The "actual useful reasons" you mention may exist alongside personal or political reasons of individual government employees.
Teenagers have killed themselves over stuff posted to Facebook so I wish people would quit acting like the government is really that much more directly important to the day-to-day lives of people. If you're going to be worried then be worried, but at least be consistently worried.
http://xkcd.com/1200/ is also close to relevant.
...on what will happen if we elect him POTUS.
Where is the balance?
If not, then you should definitely ban cars, as they kill a whopping 33k people a year.
In other words, the balance is: let people die free rather than live unfree.
No matter what the reasoning or circumstances surrounding it, does this look like the image of a free society ran by the people: http://static1.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/a_...
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
The US voted against this crap in 2008. The new administration doubled down on it. Where is the balance?
That's an inane justification for destroying our constitution. If people complain either way, but only one way destroys the constitution, why choose the worse one? Why would people complain if gov't prevents an attack? That makes no sense. I'm not sure you can call it "preventing an attack" when it's the gov't that is attacking us.
> Where is the balance?
There is no balance. The gov't is off the rails when it comes to expanding their budget and justifying expending law enforcement powers for the miniscule chance of a terrorist attack.
Who says this? Do you honestly think warrantless wiretaps are a valid form of defense?
If we want this to change, we will first have to, as a people, seriously disincentives these actions from politicians—which is hard to do, considering neither major party has been the "better" one on this issue—but perhaps more importantly, we must understand that there is only so much government can do to keep you safe, if you want to keep your liberty. The sense of entitlement to both has to go.
I think this was a good write up on the issue: http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/06/06/the-security-state-...;
And maybe even the NSA's work is in our best interests (and maybe not), but it seems disingenuous and perhaps flat-out wrong for the president to have campaigned on this specific issue, and do the exact opposite.
To build from the original comment: What if President Obama had ceased these programs, and a (preventable) terrorist attack occurred, that otherwise could have been stopped.
Playing devil's advocate, somewhat, but there indeed lies the rub.
I'm curious what the phrase "initatives have matured and the technology has improved" means. More comprehensive spying? Quicker retrieval? Increased complicity by firms accumulating personal data?
Glad they stopped the bombing that would otherwise occurred in Boston during Boston marathon! You may have not heard because government does not like to say they did a good job, but thanks to spying on all americans they stopped that plot made by 2 Chechnyas to kill 3 Americans and amputate legs of 20 others by using bombs in pressure cookers. Good job, well done. Power to the government!
Especially when he'd already had to decide (rightly, IMHO) to support telecom immunity for "warrantless wiretapping" as a Senator.
> For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants," he said.
As I said, regardless of whether wiretaps are justified, why did he choose to campaign on this issue? Why bother making these claims to the American public?
I guess you'd make a good politician.
Foreign policy is the real issue here.
This narrative is dead wrong.
There are not many people who are properly fed up with the two major parties. The vast majority of the electorate still strongly identifies as either R or D. They may not agree with everything, but they will still see people from their party as "our guy". Those who do not identify with a political party but still feel strongly about politics are very much in the minority. You probably routinely hear about how Congress's approval rating is in the single digits. What doesn't get as much play is that the average approval rating for an individual representative by their constituents is still quite high. People may dislike Congress as a whole, but they like their own people.
As for these bad policies, there's a simple reason they persist: people want them. The Rs and Ds differ on many significant issues, but not on these. They want the TSA, they want massive anti-terrorism surveillance, they want terrorist leaders killed by faraway drone strikes.
The American electorate is, by and large, terrified of al Qaeda and anything that resembles them. Just look at the reaction to the attempt to try the Guantanamo prisoners in New York. Just the idea of bringing terrorists into the country, no matter how harmless they've been rendered, frightened people out of their minds. You can talk about "security theater" all you want, but the TSA makes them feel safe to take an airplane. The fourth amendment is a distant and abstract concept compared to the possibility that massive surveillance might prevent another Boston Marathon bombing. The collateral damage from drones is sad, but every terrorist they kill is one that can't blow up a building in the US, and a lot of those other people killed were probably terrorist sympathizers anyway.
Now, to be clear, I don't agree with any of this, and I expect most people here don't. Which is, of course, part of the problem. If you hang out on HN, you get the idea that everyone thinks these security programs are terrible overreaches, and if you have that idea, then there's only one possible conclusion: politicians are ignoring the people to advance their own agenda.
The reality is much scarier: on these issues, politicians are simply listening to the people. This is scarier because it's vastly easier to convince politicians to obey the people's will than it is to change the people's will.
I have no idea how you go about convincing the American public that it's not worth doing these things to fight terrorism, but that is what must be done if these things are to change. Telling people to vote for third parties isn't going to cut it, because people don't want to vote for third parties. They want to vote for for the major parties because the major parties are by and large the ones with the policies they like.
While I am uncomfortable with some of the choices around the wiretapping of the Fox News reporter, I was pleased to note that they had obtained a warrant in that case.
Is there an argument for producing better vote quality by raising the minimum voting age to somewhere in the 24 to 30 range?
Instead they should lower the voting age to 14. The only way to get the life experience you are looking for is to DO it!
Despite the common belief, it does NOT automatically come with age. The earlier you start, the better the results are (since younger brains learn faster and are more flexible), and the longer a person has to gain experience.
The earlier people get used to participating in government the more likely it will become a lifelong habit.
A random example would be that there's a huge difference between an 18 year old kid and a 25 year old who has been working, going to school and managing his/her life. An 18 year old is bound to make voting decisions without any real context grounded in having lived a little. They are naive and tend to be innocently dumb. There are exceptions, of course, but I have trouble calling an 18 year old an "adult" other than under the legal definition.
The only reason you don't consider an 18 year old an adult is that we don't give a person adult duties and responsibilities until 18 - so it takes till 25 till they are a "real" adult.
I say, give them those duties and responsibilities at 15. Then they will be an adult earlier.
If we did like you say, and wait till they are 25, then all that will happen is that you will not consider 25 years old adults, and you'll want to wait till 30.
But certainly the most enthusiastic voters to me are the young ones. They are the ones who would actually protest, and put themselves in danger for what they really believe in.
It's really easy for politicians to snow voters with statistics, percentages, factoids, contortions and all manner of lies and manipulative tools in order to get their votes. Few people really have command an understanding of all topics that come into play in an election. At some level allowing everyone to vote might be a romantically attractive feel-good idea but it sure creates a situation where you have a lot of really ignorant voters (probably a majority) voting on stuff they simply know nothing about.
While I consider myself a well-rounded and reasonably educated person I would gladly welcome a scenario where, for example, the general public (including myself) is not allowed to vote on, say, medical laws or policies where medical knowledge is paramount to the understanding of the issues at hand.
I am not exactly ignorant about these things but compared to my wife, who is a doctor, I am the equivalent of a moron. Her vote ought to have hugely more value than mine when medical knowledge is key to understanding what you are voting for or against.
Now, I can see a scenario where if I wanted to have a voice in such a vote I could take a test (and maybe a class prior to that) in order to receive qualifications to vote.
I don't see anything wrong with that at all. I really don't see why we insist that everyone's votes are equal for every single issue in front of us. I don't think it makes any sense. I am not, even for a millisecond, trying to be elitist here at all. I include myself with the millions of "ignorant" when it comes to a myriad of topics.
Two hundred years ago people didn't have to deal with the complex array of knowledge domains we have in our hands today. You could make an argument for voting being open to everyone. Today, well, nobody knows everything. Why is it that everyone can then vote on everything? I mean, people vote on matters of economic impact and, if you dig, they don't even know how to balance their checkbook or are "uncomfortable with math". Really?
I really think voting age ought to be increased significantly and voters ought to qualify to vote in areas that require having an understanding of the topic at hand. This would definitely prevent politicians from manipulating the masses into voting based on utter bullshit arguments designed to guide them by the nose.
Total information awareness is their goal, and they will succeed.
As an end-user, I also did not agree to any sort of terms-of-service. In fact, the original TOS specifically said this wasn't part of the agreement.
Maybe we should be raging at congress for allowing these things in the first place? In secret hearings and committees with closed doors?
Words get easily forgotten in a couple of years. This would make them count.
There is also a video from December 15th 2005 that I cannot find online which is even more hypocritical than this one.
Why do people think that throwing up quotes to the contrary matter to these people? I mean, its no different than listening to talk radio, just a days difference.
These guys do not care, they don't have to care, and they know it.
The biggest problem in the US, maybe the world, is that we don't have instant run-off voting to allow competition in federal gov't. We're trapped by this one oversight of the Founding Fathers.
This is a wrong methodology. If you don't accept them - don't make such choice at all. There were other alternatives, but the current voting system prevents anything from competing with the two dominant parties.
I learned to be more specific.
"If slavery isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong." [1][2]
There is a stark change in quality of leaders available today. There is so little correlation between words spoken and execution.
On August 22, 1862, just a few weeks before signing the Proclamation and after he had already discussed a draft of it with his cabinet in July, he wrote a letter in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged complete abolition. Lincoln differentiates between "my view of official duty"—that is, what he can do in his official capacity as President—and his personal views. Officially he must save the Union above all else; personally he wanted to free all the slaves:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery
It is well-known that he personally abhorred slavery; I'm speaking of what he felt was his duty to do as President given conditions as they were.
He stated it like this (1862):
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. [...] I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."
Chomsky speaks: >Political managers are well aware that on issues the public often disagrees sharply with the architects of policy. Accordingly, electoral campaigns avoid issues in favor of slogans, oratorical flourishes, personalities, and gossip. Every year, the advertising industry gives an award for the best marketing campaign of the year. In 2008, it was won by Obama, who beat out Apple computers. Executives were euphoric. They exulted openly that this was their greatest success since they began marketing candidates as they do toothpaste and life-style drugs, a technique that took off during the neoliberal period, first with Reagan.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-unipolar-moment-and-the-o...
States petitioned to join, why shouldn't they get out? Seems reasonable to me. If I join a club I expect I can leave.
Ok the other hand, he did things I would find of dubious morals: -suspend habeaus corpus -wait to free the slaves, and then only do it in the states that were not a part of the union -engage in a bloody war of attrition that killed tons of Americans
So on the whole where do you stand on not allowing people to leave your club vs keeping slavery intact (in areas under his control), trampling on the bill of rights, and sending 625,000 people to their death?
This is a simplification of things overall, but I would argue less simplistic than "Lincoln is this perfect American hero."
There's no such thing as a "Union" at all if each state could simply walk out when the Federal government passed a law the state didn't like, or the country elected a President the state didn't like.
It's also of severe dubious moral quality when the whole reason you secede is merely because you see a threat to your system of institutionalized abuse, killing, slavery, and racial injustice.
You shouldn't get to simply join when the going is good for you, and stab the rest of the nation in the back only when the going is bad.
But with that said, you're right that Pres. Lincoln is not exactly the bright shining example of civil liberties that the other comments here have made him out to be. He did far worse things than Pres. Obama in his quest for national security...
Lincoln was vastly more effective than others, and I attribute that to his strong morality.
Lincoln believed that slavery would die out within an intact US in time, and that pretty much the only thing the federal government could do was to keep it from spreading to states where it did not already exist. Unlike today, in those days the idea that the Federal government actually had limited power was still taken seriously.
If the slaveholding states were allowed to secede then no pressure could be placed on them to give up slavery, and they might even capture or purchase other territories and spread slavery further. So if the moral imperative is to end slavery, then it's urgent to keep the Union intact. And no, I don't think a country is just a club where a province or state can up and leave whenever it wants. There are times when it's wise to allow this, as Havel did with Czechoslovakia, but generally a country is like the Mafia or a spy agency from the movies: you can't resign.
Habeas: this was a war, but I'm really ignorant of the issues here.
wait to free the slaves, and then only do it in the states that were not a part of the union: see above; you can only do what is possible to do, regardless of your feelings. Lincoln wanted to avoid this war, which was started by the South and forced upon him. Of course many people died.
Because while there's provisions allowing states to be admitted with the consent of the rest of the States, there's none permitting them to leave on their own once they've joined. That's the deal they signed on for.
Unfortunately we do get the politicians we deserve, though it's true they conspire to make us think our choices are limited.
When you bet on both sides (and get to pick the frontrunners), you can't lose.
HackerNews = infowars
