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Comment by intopieces | Hacker News Reader

> If congress doesn't change something, then that means they have determined no change is necessary.

This not accurate. Congress failing to act due to deadlock does not indicate that either party agrees that no change ought to be made, only that congress couldn’t come to an agreement about how it should be made.

To say otherwise is akin to saying that, because you and your husband can’t agree on where to eat for dinner, you must not be hungry.

Both parties might believe that a law needs to be changed, but changed in opposite directions: one might want it repealed, the other strengthened.

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> This not accurate. Congress failing to act due to deadlock does not indicate that either party agrees that no change ought to be made, only that congress couldn’t come to an agreement about how it should be made.

That is actually literally what it means. The way the Union is set up, there is a certain amount of consensus necessary to pass legislation over 50 States across 300+ million people.

If there is a deadlock, then it's the system telling you that the consensus isn't met. In a Federal system, this means that the next best place to (try to) pass the law is at the State level, where you may have less of a deadlock.

This is by far one of the pieces a lot of people seem to miss. The system was set up for gridlock in hopes that it will temper some of the more dangerous tendencies of powerful and ambitious men.

Thanks for this bit of insight. It really explains a lot, and it actually makes sense to me now.

It does indicate a consensus is not met, and merely that; the GP claimed the this lack of specific consensus on action is actually a form of broad consensus on inaction, a leap in logic that is unfounded because it ignores the political game theory that is employed in obstructionism.

It also ignores the fundamental brokenness of the system through a sort of circular logic: things didn’t change since they didn’t need to be changed.

You're putting words in my mouth.

That was not my intention. Could you clarify how your statement:

> If congress doesn't change something, then that means they have determined no change is necessary.

Is not accurately reworded as:

>this lack of specific consensus on action is actually a form of broad consensus on inaction

Yup. In tech terms, deadlock is an intentional feature, not a big.

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