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Comment by joeclark77 | Hacker News Reader

Democracy is when the people can replace the government if they don't like the way it governs. What we're seeing in Europe and the US these days is that government is trying to replace the people because it doesn't like the way they vote. The unfettered-immigration and amnesty-for-illegals movements on both continents are direct attacks on democracy by governments that think they can get more money or power with a different set of voters. I don't know if anything quite like this has happened before... did the Greeks even have a word for it?

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Looks like we have partisans here, downmodding the "incorrect dissent". Not only this parent, but all dissenting comments.

Looks like we have a low tolerance for populist nationalist rhetoric.

Frankly, as a German I'm disgusted by some of the "dissenting" comments. We've already been through this nationalist crap before and we're not going to let the rest of Europe repeat our own mistakes.

That famous German collective guilt kicking in, plus that nice tactics, when any dissent is being labeled by extreme labels.

You are on the best way to destroy Europe again, do you realize that? The rest of Europe is not repeating your mistakes, they are not looking for more Lebensraum and killing Untermenschen, they want to preserve what's theirs. And you have no right to dictate them what to do.

Neither do you.

Do you have any confidence that all this, the chaos, violence and economic problems it will inevitably bring, won't cause a return to some form of "this nationalist crap"?

And when you say "we're not going to let the rest of Europe repeat our own mistakes", well, I guarantee that attitude is sending chills up the spines of your neighbors.

Gerrymandering, but on a grander scale?

Entryism, but reversed. How much you consider Entryism to be a problem vs a feature of democracy is up for debate. I'm of the opinion that it's a fairly serious problem, in that it can easily destroy the 'Ship of Theseus', the internal continuity of an organization has been compromised.

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