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Comment by dsfyu404ed | Hacker News Reader

>How can you have a working government which has these problems?

I know after a decade+ of mainstream culture shitting on people for what they do outside of their professional capacity this is going to seem like an odd opinion but doing bad things and/or having moral failings outside of the specifics of work does not preclude being good at one's job.

How do you think all those wife beating cops everyone talks about manage to stay employed? They do their jobs.

All those commies that McCarthy said infiltrated industry, how did they get there? They did their jobs.

Alan Turning's "moral failings" were so bad he was criminally convicted for them yet he did some of the highest quality work in his field.

Etc. etc.

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But these politicians are having severe issues with work. Sure, you can do good work and then go home and beat your wife, but that is fundamentally different.

Here you might have to work together with people who you see as either rapist or who allegedly see you as future victims. This has to have an impact. Imagine being asked to work together with someone you believe might wanting to rape you. Can you have a one on one meeting with him? Would you even be willing to have a phone call with him? Even if you can, can you actually still help effectively govern millions of people?

If you can't, then the option of resignation is open. There is also the option to make public accusations. The whole matter cannot be resolved in any way other than victims taking action to oust predators - which doesn't happen for many reasons, which is why these problems never go away.

>The whole matter cannot be resolved in any way other than victims taking action to oust predators

Sure it can. It means dismissing all MPs and everyone potentially implicated from politics.

>which doesn't happen for many reasons

Which doesn't happen for personal reasons. Clearly the women in question prefer to risk a small chance of sexual violence over potential career implications. For their personal consideration it is clearly the right choice, avoid the people in question and almost certainly you will be fine.

But what is missing here is that these people hold very significant amounts of power and responsibility. Without a doubt their duty as politicians is first and foremost towards a functional government.

I would discourage the idea that wife beating and believing in communism are in any way similar.

But they are similar in that some people believed it precluded others from doing their jobs (indeed maybe even being a part of society) if they engaged in the behavior. You may not like the analogy, but it works.

You should talk to an older person from eastern europe, where believing in communism is (rightly) seen at the same level as believing in nazism (and in absolute numbers it actually harmed more people). Then you can reassess your comparison.

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