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Comment by Werewolf255 | Hacker News Reader

I enjoyed the article until the inevitable comparison to current trends. It's like reading a retro article. "Holding people in power to account is EXACTLY WHAT THE COMMUNISTS WOULD Do. DON'T ASK HOW. Smoke Lucky Strike Brand cigarettes for that healthy asbestos glow. Vote Mondale. "

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You know Mondale was a pro-labor Democrat [1] who, according to Wikipedia "supported consumer protection, fair housing, tax reform, and the desegregation of schools" [2]. Not sure why you want to set up negative associations around him. Probably the ignorant belief that everything in the past was evil and far-right. I can't blame you; our collective memory is getting fucked with.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/22/magazine/labor-s-gamble-o...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mondale

> Mondale was a pro-labor

Do those laborers include the Nicaraguans (or Americans like Ben Linder) who were massacred by the Contras Mondale advocated funding for so that they could overthrow Nicaragua's democratically elected government?

I think that "holding people in power to account is bad because cOMmUnISM" is a disingenuous interpretation. From the article:

"Since the party line often shifted, one could find oneself accused of errors that, at the time they were made, were not errors at all. The party constantly invented new mistakes, whether in ideas, practices, or phrases, so that one could never free oneself from the risk of humiliation. One sign of this sort of shame culture is the constant creation of new offenses, usually applied retroactively. No matter how many times the cadre manages to overcome his, he must always overcome them yet again."

I don't think a single person who objects to the current parallels to communism would take issue with "holding people in power to account," they just wouldn't characterize the current problem as such. The objection seems to be more along the lines of:

- we disagree with characterizing people as being "in power" in accordance with extremely imprecise identity groups

- we disagree with restructuring liberal society to be instead be focused on reparative justice in accordance with who has most competently argued on behalf of their identity group's victimization within society

- we disagree with constituting consensual economic relationships as abuse of power

- we disagree with the mechanisms by which and degree to which people should be "held to account"

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