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Comment by basetop | Hacker News Reader

It's insane the level of vindicativeness that government can reach. Worse than any bully and more fanatical than any terrorist.

Of course the government is like this to mere peasants. If you are the wealthy elite, the government acts like a grovel servant rather than master. Expose war crimes - then you are public enemy #1. Be part of the wealthy elite who destroys the financial system and ruins the lives of millions - it's just good ol' boys being good ol' boys.

And yet, everyday, we give more and more power to governments and corporations.

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There are three facts that are not going to change anytime soon. Number one, integrity is a trait not every human possesses, most don't so the power balance will always be tilted to the other side. Number two, money still rules this world and who has the most of it? Corporations! Number three, society is not going to adapt to each individual, only the other way around.

As a result of these three facts, sometimes life can get pretty tough if you don't join the other side. Integrity was more valued in the past but it simply does not have the same weight in today society as modern competition has ramped up everywhere making everything much more difficult for the average citizen. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself becoming a villain. In other words, we either throw integrity out of the window and survive, or we die with it.

I'm still with Robin Hood. I agree though, integrity seems to be in remarkably short supply of late. The older I get, the flakier people seem to be when it comes to showing up when they said they would.

Curious, is this rosy retrospection or are there objective measures that integrity was more of a mainstay in the past?

Also the way that politics works, there tends to be self-selection by those of little integrity. Those who desire power are frequently those least suited to it. It is unlikely that those who demur with 'nolo episcopari' attain positions of importance in a representative democracy.

The math doesn't add up here.

Either integrity is a virtue, or it's not. Either it's something people value, or it's not.

If it's something people value, then it should be one of the attributes people weigh when they choose a spouse/job/politician/cell phone carrier. If it is, then the marketplace of spouses/jobs/politicians/cell phone providers should be incentivized to provide integrity, and also to broadcast that their competitors do not.

I would argue this happens pretty regularly. Samsung using Apple's battery throttling in it's ads comes to mind.

So integrity definitely factors into the marketing calculus of politicians and corporations, but maybe the market doesn't value it enough to offer it the primacy you're looking for.

I mean, honesty is also a virtue. So's loyalty.

That doesn't mean we vote for loyal, honest politicians. (Just people who present themselves as such, which can be significantly easier)

We force them to deal with us individually. I think that is the difference that we must maintain or we quickly become collectivized.

Individual rights.

Honestly, I think a great first step would be alcohol and drug testing for politicians and zero tolerance.

> If you are the wealthy elite, the government acts like a grovel servant rather than master.

Anyone who draws the ire of government and doesn't have people on the inside (in the right places) protecting them WILL get screwed. The rich just have enough money to drag out the process and make that more difficult so you don't see them getting screwed over little things.

Shouldn't have the acts of Manning granted a little sympathy also among many people inside at this moment? I bet that not everybody is pro-war.

Rich people would have much more offshore properties, business, friends or economic relationships with other countries. They would have much more to lose by wars or unstability than common people [Unless directly feeded by war promoting systems].

> Shouldn't have the acts of Manning granted a little sympathy also among many people inside at this moment? I bet that not everybody is pro-war.

Yes, but not the right people it seems.

>And yet, everyday, we give more and more power to governments...

I think we should be careful about blaming government itself. But instead focus on the _people_ that make up the government. It seems there is a serious lack of equal representation throughout our government. For the most part, it has become a matter of who has the larger bank roll.

It would be interesting to see a government with forced equal representation across the entire socioeconomic spectrum.

Exactly.

It's astounding to hear the hateful Libertarian view of government, understanding that it's exactly those kinds of people who often seek that kind of power, and make the worst kinds of politicians that create the vindictive, hateful government that Libertarians on the ground rail about.

It's a self-perpetuating anti-government cycle that helps no one.

I think libertarians simply understand incentives and human psychology. As long as a position confers wealth and power, over time it will tend to attract and get filled by the most cynical people who are willing to sacrifice the most ethics to achieve that wealth and power.

What helps no one is to perpetually increase the power of government, making the target ever more enviable to the absolute worst kinds of people. This is an inescapable truth of power.

The fundamental problem with the Libertarian ideal is that it trades the tyranny of the government for tyranny of the rich. At least with a democratic government you get 1 vote. With oligarchy you have 0 votes.

Private citizens and corporations can't accumulate much power without the government. Think of the most evil wealthy American citizens and corporations you can think of. How much money would they have without trademark, copyright, or patent protections?

Like water barons, warlords, feudal guilds, etc?

By what mechanism would a libertarian put a check on the capital's natural tendency to accumulate wealth and power upwards?

I already answered your question, by dismantling the government provided mechanisms by which wealth and power accumulate. I'm not an anarchist, not even a minarchist. I'm not even opposed to some manner of minimal intellectual property rights. The point of bringing up the concept of zero intellectual property rights is so that you can see the primary mechanism people accumulate wealth and power in the modern age is through government created mechanisms such as patents and copyright. Since I'm not an anarchist, hopefully you can see how it's trivial to protect from things like warlords.

This has nothing to do with vindictiveness. Simply put, if you refuse to testify in court, you can be held in jail for contempt of court. Manning was offered an immunity deal but decided she didn't believe in the concept of a subpoena, so she chose jail instead.

She could have walked out of jail at any time had she chosen to testify. In accordance with the law, she has been released because the grand jury has concluded.

One can argue whether someone can/should be compelled to testify, but Manning was not singled out for extra punishment here.

I disagree with the premise of your comment GVirish.

> she didn't believe in the concept of a subpoena, so she chose jail instead

That is not the case. As clearly stated bboth in the linked article and by her legal team. She is happy to testify in a public hearing (which I agree is the proper place), but not in a closed door meeting away from democratic due process monitored by the citizenry of the country.

Forgive me if I mischaracterized her objections but previously I saw her quoted as being against the concept of being forced to testify.

And ultimately grand jury proceedings are non-public and they are a key part of our judicial process. To say it's not part of democratic due process is incorrect. There are a number of reasons for grand jury proceedings to not be public, particularly in national security cases.

One can disagree with grand juries as a legal concept, which is fine, but if you refuse to show up, there are legal consequences.

To me, arguing grand juries should work in public just signals a poor understanding of the American legal system - in the purpose of grand juries, the intent behind their design, and what they actually do. Arguing that we need to remove protection against over-zealous prosecutors to make the system safer is pretty nonsensical to me.

The thing is, both secret and public grand juries (or similar constructs) can be and are manipulated by governments and over-zealous prosecutors specifically. Except that the manipulation uses different means.

There’s no such thing as a public grand jury in America. Grand juries are undoubtedly biased towards prosecutors, since defendants have no role in a grand jury. A grand jury decides whether there is sufficient evidence of a crime to allow prosecutors to formally charge someone with a crime, where they then would have a trial with their opportunity to present a defense. Giving prosecutors a public platform to investigate people and associate them with crimes, even if they don’t plan to formally accuse them of such crimes, is quite literally arguing for an authoritarian society. I’m being charitable and assuming that the people who are asking for this actually want free societies and are quite ignorant, and aren’t actually advocates of authoritarian government.

I definitely agree about there being legal consequences. The issue here is that this should not be a situation in the first place, not that there are consequences for actions (which I am not arguing at all).

To your point about grand juries: many states do not use them anymore due to similar outrage as we are seeing here. There is widespread belief that secret tribunals are the things of kangaroo courts and backwater justice systems that people tend to despise (think ussr/north korea). They are largely used by governments to silence political opposition and hide that fact as much as possible.

>not in a closed door meeting away from democratic due process monitored by the citizenry of the country.

Anyone who believes that grand juries are removed from the democratic process because they are confidential should probably learn more about the American legal system before they form their arguments.

"Worse than any bully and more fanatical than any terrorist."

When we elected Der Fuhrer in the last presidential election, weren't we asking for exactly this? I expected the "establishment" to become less hawkish during Obama's reign but that didn't happen either. I love my country but at this point I don't have a whole lot of hope for her (and now I'm probably on an NSA watch-list - I guess I should point out that I have no intention of harming anyone).

Honestly when this happened my thought was Chelsea should just testify. I know it was stupid because it was all previous testimony and they didn't need it. But she's done and suffered enough, forget principals, give the vindictive bastards their testimony whenever they want it and try to enjoy your life in between.

And every day when I say what you just said, I get downvoted on here. What is with people?

You have to realize: They do this unethical crap in our names. We own this.

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