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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

Swathes of the US public seem to be cheering as their own country is going down. Strange times indeed.

If what you really want is a religious ethnostate, you're going to cheer the demise of a multicultural democracy.

which is why the progressive democrats have made removing these programs such a core tenet of their platforms?

this isn't partisan. perhaps skewed one way or another, but both parties seem to be quite happy with the state of domestic surveillance as a whole..

They don't see it as their country going down, they see it as "making it great again". As the other poster said here, what a very large fraction of the US really wants is a religious ethnostate, and they're very good at voting for that, so that's where we're headed.

That is why the US was created as a Constitutional Republic. To prevent the catastrophe of a pure democracy

Problem is the leaders of the country are profiting from the demise.

I see an "interesting" future for the next 20 years of the US

If you mean the fact that the US doesn't have proportional voting and a president can be elected on a minority of the popular vote, then I'm afraid those seem to be exactly what's causing the problem here. It magnifies the impact of the group that wants this theocratic ethnostate, and enabled the election of Donald, who would not have been elected otherwise.

>That is why the US was created as a Constitutional Republic. To prevent the catastrophe of a pure democracy

Why do people like you bring up this canard? Can you point to any pure democracies, anywhere, ever, aside from Ancient Greece? The US isn't special; every decent country (and many not-so-great ones too) now is a democratic republic of some kind, usually constitutional (UK is a notable exception here).

Because as you age you see how change is implemented. You watch the drift.

Example. In my youth police were called peace officers. Their main mission was to enforce the peace at the expense of bending the law.

Today law enforcement disrupts the peace to enforce the law. Society is not better off because of it.

Watching presidents change what they called the nation from Republic to Democracy has also been something that happened. A republic is a nation of laws where everyone has the same rules. A democracy is simply a majority vote and currently the constitution and the laws are being marginalized.

That is why folks bring up this "canard"

FYI calling something constitutionally guaranteed, a canard is exactly to what I refer

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

ARTICLE IV, SECTION 4

> A republic is a nation of laws where everyone has the same rules.

Not necessarily. A republic is simply a country without a monarch. China is a republic. Iran is a republic. Russia is a republic. Democracies that are not republics include places like Denmark, Netherland, Sweden and Spain.

The canard you're bringing up stems from a weird misunderstanding of what republics and democracies really are. Democracies have laws, the same rules for everyone, they have constitutions that (try to) guarantee equal rights. Democracies often have better "rule of law" than many republics, but ultimately, they believe that the authority stems from the people and that the government serves the people rather than the other way around.

Fortunately many republics are also democracies. France, Germany, and, as many people would really, really like to believe, the United States of America. The fact that so many Americans don't really care about democracy, undermine its legitimacy with misleading arguments, and support an electoral system that denies minority representation while letting the loser of the popular vote win the presidency, is really sad.

You do realize the ability of the representative to override the majority vote in a republic was by design as the founders (read Madison's Federalist No. 10) did not trust the general public to make good choices (democracy).

You can conflate the ideas all you want. Does not change the fact the US is a republic. Your example proved it.

if this was such a partisan issue, why did most of the backlash against wikileaks come long before the change of administration, and why didn't the previous administration hillary, etc, speak out loudly for assange, and terminate the programs, rather than continuing them or extending them?

this is not a partisan issue, it is a public awareness / power-elitism issue

Actually, I was just responding to the comment "Swathes of the US public seem to be cheering as their own country is going down" and its response about a religious ethnostate, I wasn't talking about the leakers specifically.

As an American, I disagree with the statements.

I'm halfway "parable of the talents" by Octavia E. Butler (I'm trying to read all the novels that won a Nebula Award). I can see it happening if US keep the current trajectory.

The source of your confusion is your conflation of a criminal government with the country itself.

Somebody's voting them in.

Most people are voting based on emotions which are pre-occupied with issues that are at the forefront of American politics. These often are exceptionally philosophical, emotional or religious topics; or in other cases, dramatic misrepresentations, lies or handouts.

Outright corruption, unconstitutionality and waste are the main part of the show, but hidden behind that stage going on in front that most Americans are watching.

Then we need more power voting out.

An increasingly small minority is voting them in.

Democrats won the popular votes for the president, house and senate (they had 56.9% in the senate, in 2018, FFS!) in 2016 and 2018, but the republicans somehow managed to get complete control of the house senate and presidency, and unconstitutionally packed the courts in 2016-2018.

Now, the democrats have control of just the house, and the executive branch has decided to simply ignore the constitutional limits on its power, since, as Trump has boasted, he could shoot someone in public for no reason, and there’s still no way the senate would impeach him.

Also, it is apparently legal for state legislatures to override their popular vote. If even one swing state decide to do that, democrats won’t have enough votes in the house to prevent Trump from being reappointed (despite having a vast majority there, because of the way those votes are counted).

Florida, or Ohio are likely candidates. In 2000, Florida would have used this power if the courts hadn’t stepped in, and would have voted for W. After recounts, Gore won Florida. In Ohio, in 2004, the vote was decided by a ballot box that republicans illegally transported to Indiana, and then transported back for tallying. Exit polls disagreed with the tally.

We need to eliminate the electoral college, and get rid of per-state representatives. In our lifetimes, demographic trends suggest that the majority of the US will be represented by just 18 senators (with 82 for the minority).

One person, one vote!

The problem we are talking about has existed far before Trump became president. The secret AT&T closet started during Bush, since then we have had Obama and now Trump. The Patriot Act was passed and renewed with bi-partisan support.

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