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Comment by youdontknowtho | Hacker News Reader

It's a mistake to empower and legitimize the right. Rand Paul is an extremist on issues of life and limb. Just because he's "good" on this issue doesn't change that. In fact, it makes it more likely that he will be afforded the position of a moderate because he went against his party on this issue, when he is just as extreme as anyone in his party on any others.

It is something that Democrats will need to understand at some point. You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support. It sucks but the right has outsized influence over the country because of party discipline like I've just described.

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> Just because he's "good" on this issue doesn't change that... You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support

I understand this argument when it's something like a good stance on education, with bad stances on abortion and the environment. There are lots of people on the left who would share that education stance, and they should be championed instead.

But that's really, really not the case on surveillance. We don't have the luxury of siding with the left and denying the right (or vice-versa). Dianne Feinstein is the Congressional Democrat's standard-bearer on surveillance. We don't want to empower the right, great. But this is a hugely important issue where the left is terrible. So is most of the right - only a handful of figures on each side (especially Wyden, Udall, and Paul) doing anything good.

So what the heck does party discipline look like? Surrendering the entire issue because the Democrats are so profoundly wrong?

It means primary Feinstein from the left. Even if you lose you will have scared her. It means you don't surrender the issue. It means that you use this as an opportunity to hit Paul on the issues he's bad on. You thank him for making sense for once and the point out how he's opposed to the voting rights act. I'm not saying that we should be soft on democrats. I'm saying that they are the only party that doesn't actively portray you as a villain to their base. Forcing them left and forcing them to take the correct stand on issues is the only choice.

> I'm saying that they are the only party that doesn't actively portray you as a villain to their base.

On surveillance? They do. High-profile Democrats consistently talk about privacy advocates and encryption developers/users as threats to the security of the country. This is my point - surveillance is perhaps the most nastily bipartisan issue going.

More broadly: I absolutely support primary challenges from the outside. But I see no particular reason to pretend that Feinstein is any more open to change stance on this issue than your conservative of choice; if anything she's more unapologetically pro-surveillance than Republican moderates like McCain.

McCain is not a moderate. Not even remotely. This is my point. You can't judge the republicans on this one issue. He's also opposed to torture. That doesn't make him any less crazy on anything else. If McCain had his way in 08 we would already be at war with Russia.

There are more things wrong with American than surveillance. The Republicans are making them all worse.

>> You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support. It sucks but the right has outsized influence over the country because of party discipline like I've just described.

This attitude is the reason politics is fucked. Vote based on issues, not party bullshit. If a party is good on one issue you support and bad on every other issue obviously they won't get your support but voting based on a party and not issues is idiotic.

>Democrats will need to understand at some point. You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support.

Putting party warfare comjng first before the actual issue is the reason why politics is such a shitshow.

This is not a Democrat/Republican issue. Obama and Bush both expanded these programs with their party's blessing. There are pockets of civil liberty defenders in both parties.

It should have become pretty clear that this wasn't partisan when an outgoing Obama helped ramp up surveillance in full knowledge of who was next. Seeing people treat this as a D/R fight when Udall and Feinstein are viciously opposed to one another is bizarre to me.

> You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support.

And then the right does the same, and nothing ever gets done in the Legislature. Now any real progress needs to be made by the judiciary or by executive fiat.

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future." -JFK

And this right here is why reasonable debate has died in the world today.

Put your country before your party or you're damned to lose both.

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