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Comment by IgorPartola | Hacker News Reader

I get some kind of sick satisfaction out of watching a certain small subset of HN lose their mind trying to square the circle when it comes to stuff like this. On one hand “this is government overreach!” (it’s not because the committee here is on a specific task to investigate a specific crime) and “free market!” and on the other hand “big social media companies are evil and decide what’s right and what’s wrong.” Nevermind that this has nothing to do with “cancel culture”, “censorship”, or “mainstream media” and everything to do with an investigation. Just read the headline and get angry at… someone?

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AFAICT political tribes rule everything now, and the actual policy issues are unimportant. I rarely see anyone discussing policy, everything is very shallow, very personal.

Has policy ever been discussed as the main thing? It seems like at least American politics has always been about which faction you align with/how you self-identify.

A lot of people are single or close to single issue voters. So there is policy discussion but it's usually extremely shallow

It feels like policy isn't correlated with action, sometimes even with the conversation

They make it extremely personal every time because that is was calls to action. My point is, yes, for politicians actual policy is an illusion and everyone is now on a team. They are exactly the most successful when they convince others to make it personal and join their team. I'd go as far as to say that policies issues don't even align exactly on party lines except when it benefits them. Look at the filibuster rule, the exact same politicians want to eliminate the rule that said it was the most important thing in our democracy, just because now eliminating the rule would benefit their side. I don't think it would surprise everyone that politicians are self serving only. There were a number of laws that democrats said they would not vote for specifically because it would make Trump look good, not because they didn't think the law as good for people, and they would say this out loud. This is what happens in this tribe based environment.

if congress is investigating a 'crime' then it is overreach because that is not the responsibility of congress. congress has investigatory powers like the subpoena power in order to help it make decisions about passing law. it is not meant to use this power primarily to pursue individuals.

Conducting investigations is something that congress does, and has centuries of precedent supported by the Supreme Court, including the investigation of crimes

> if congress is investigating a 'crime' then it is overreach because that is not the responsibility of congress.

If a crime was committed by the US Executive branch (e.g., President, e.g., Nixon), should the Executive branch investigate itself?

Congress investigating things goes back a few centuries:

> On November 4, 1791, some 900 U.S. army troops under the command of Gen. Arthur St. Clair, a Revolutionary War veteran, were killed or wounded in a surprise attack by Native American warriors on the Ohio frontier. The following year, in what was the new nation’s first congressional investigation, a House committee was formed to look into the debacle, which became known as St. Clair’s Defeat. As part of the investigation, the committee asked President George Washington for paperwork pertaining to his administration’s management of the failed expedition.

* https://www.history.com/news/6-famous-congressional-investig...

Congress has had broad investigatory powers since the beginning, this is nothing new.

That ship to Benghazi sailed a long time ago.

Aren't they working on passing some sort of 'big tech antitrust' law? I could have sworn that's a thing right now...

This is true. Enforcing criminal statutes is the job of the executive branch. Congress can investigate other branches of government, and for the purpose of formulating policy, but I can see no policy formulation here. This is clearly a show investigation to try and paint their opponents in the worst light for the next election.

This sounds personal, and reads like you read headlines every day from 2016-2020 and got very angry at “someone” (there is a common term for this) and now you are happy that the shoe is on the other foot, despite it being a false equivalence and no such similar syndrome existing for the other side?

> no such similar syndrome existing for the other side

Do you earnestly believe this?

Yep, a syndrome commonly known as a derangement.

> Just read the headline and get angry at… someone?

That seems to be the current state of the internetz everywhere. I have to print that on a sticker or something.

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