Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

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actually, one can argue that bipartisan support is the last thing you want because that's how 90% violate the rights for the 10% (and eventually, to 100% since we all take turns at being part of the 10%).

Case in point: Patriot ACT. SOPA attempts. Asset Forfeiture.

In contrast, see the most unruly place in Europe: Switzerland. Politicians bicker about inane things like updating language spelling, which caused huge uproar in 2006 [0] . 10 years later, you had the Cow Horns debate [1] of 2018, and its own sort of epilogue with the firestorm around cowbells [2]

You also have a weak executive with rotating posts of only 1 year. [3] So, nothing gets done (by design). And when policians work out a small miracle via bipartisanship, they still must jump the hurdle of direct democracy and win over the population. Moreover, anything can be reversed with a very small minority [3,4] calling for a referendum, anytime.

Yet Switzerland its the longest living democracy in the world with insanely high levels of development and prosperity.

[0] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/chaos-fears-loom-over-s... [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/life-aging/podcast_campaigning-... [2]https://www.iamexpat.ch/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/cowbell-noi... [3] https://www.thelocal.ch/20211129/a-foreigners-guide-to-under... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2014_Swiss_immigratio...

> Case in point: Patriot ACT. SOPA attempts. Asset Forfeiture. In contrast, see the most unruly place in Europe: Switzerland.

I'm not so sure about that. Swiss public like all westerners seem to turn off their brains and vote for any authoritarian bullshit as soon as someone utter the word "terrorism" in 100km radius around them [0][1]:

"Voters have endorsed a series of measures allowing police to crack down on militant extremists and apply preventive detention methods, giving Switzerland one of the strictest anti-terrorism legislations in Europe ."

"The Swiss government has proposed new legislation aimed at preventing extremist violence and forcing people deemed a threat, including children aged 12 upwards, to be registered with the authorities. House arrest could also be applied to suspects as a last resort in some cases. The idea is to target people who have not yet committed a crime but who are considered to be a risk."

"The experts are concerned that the draft law’s new definition of “terrorist activity” no longer requires the prospect of any crime at all. They fear it may target “legitimate activities of journalists, civil society and political activists”."

[0]: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/controversial-anti-ter...

[1]: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/un-experts-criticise-s...

edit: spelling

Democracies can't really be condensed into one political moment; that is why they are so effective against dictatorships. Dictatorships have to make sense to one person.

The usual pattern is authoritarians do something stupid, democracies do something stupid but also erratic, then time passes then the democracies reorganise to try something new and the dictatorship gets stuck in a rut. Eventually the democracy tries something that works to the amazement of all observers. The authoritarians are still pushing the same tired old plan of failure.

Democracy doesn't have any secret sauce for making good decisions. Large groups of people are actually notoriously stupid. But they are much more responsive to situations where the government's official plan is obviously not working and the evidence is rolling in.

I wasn't arguing that Switzerland is not a democracy, just noted the its political system is nowhere as immune to enacting things like "patriot act" as OP suggested.

Not suggesting Switzerland is immune, and your example perhaps makes citation of Patriot Act a poor choice, but the US has plenty of awful laws to select from that Switzerland has not yet decided to copy (thankfully).

Unfortunately, even Switzerland eventually as we know it will collapse, as all governments do. I do not suggest the Swiss system of government is perfect or even great, only that it is considerably more resilient to breaking vs its Euro peers, for precisely the same reason that US republicanism/Democracy has lasted: Both were forged in the embers of of wildly disparate groups of people to agree to join into a republic/federation.

As a happy accident of those concessions, a lot of powers normally held by the bipartisan ruling body, were stripped away, and therefore, you have 2 democracies thus far that are winning in the test of time.

Also, regarding a canton not allowing vote by X - not going to condone it, but it makes my point. Other countries ban the vote by felons, or by certain classes of people. Yet, they are still called democracies. The only difference is that the agreement to strip voting power is bipartisan in 1 case, and in switzerland it was a niche who approves of it. The fact that Switzerland allows that level of extreme disagreement is the reason why the democratic confederation will persist, for far longer than other neighboring democracies that are not willing to allow the fringes of its population to experiment with self rule, vs conform with the bipartisan viewpoint.

I would disagree about the democracy part in Switzerland. Women weren't allowed to vote in federal elections until 1970 and it took until 1990 before the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden allowed women to vote[1]. I don't think you can call yourself a democracy while banning women from voting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...

This is a valid criticism, but does not detract from the fact that Switzerland is pretty much a model democracy.

Power is extremely decentralized, not just down to the Cantons, but the counties and then the cities/townships (translated to rough US equivalents) also have a huge degree of autonomy. For any law or political decision that affects a Swiss citizen, it is almost guaranteed that it can be overturned be plebiscite (or in local issues by just showing up at meetings).

The late adoption of Women's suffrage is just a consequence of this system, which is biased towards inaction by design. On the plus side they have not had ideological extremists run their country, or had political violence on the level of some of their neighbors (Italy, Germany, France).

The ancient Greek, who invented the word "democracy" (δημοκρατία / dēmokratía), would disagree with your understanding of it.

Aristoteles divided forms of government benefiting their rulers into tyrannies, oligarchies, and democracies as follows: one, few, many. (Analogous to these three you have monarchy, aristocracy, and polity, which are to the benefit of all). Many here does not mean everyone, otherwise you would have to let children and non-citizens vote as well. However in a later chapter he does break things down further and, for instance, establishes a spectrum ranging from polity to democracy. However the most extreme form of democracy on that spectrum would be unrecognizable to you: Every free citizen is the government, only slaves aren't. There are no laws. If that sounds like nonsense to you, it is. He was mostly firing shots at athen's democracy and not really be fair at all.

Also do note that here democracy is the selfish variant of polity, and would thus is considered the "bad kind", inferior to even monarchy and aristocracy, but still preferable to oligarchy and tyranny.

   > Switzerland its the longest living democracy in the world

I Googled that and found: This highly authoritative article from World Economic Forum that disagrees with you: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/countries-are-the-wor...

And, a bunch of Internet randos arguing about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-80426,...

As an outsider, highly advanced democracies appear to argue about very small things because most of the big things are done right. See also: Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Finland, etc.

>This highly authoritative article from World Economic Forum

You mean highly biased? Switzerland's direct democracy is the antithesis of what the WEF stands for.

WEF is based in Switzerland and their annual meeting is in the Swiss Alps.

The financing of WEF is mostly big corps which are in large part headquartered in Switzerland, and is financed by the Swiss government directly.

Swiss direct democracy is irrelevant to WEF.

Their definition of democracy is quite arbitrary, I would argue that any country where women and minorities cannot vote isn’t a democracy, it is according to them.

Sure but in that case, Switzerland wasn't a democracy until 1990 when women in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden finally got the right to vote in federal elections.

Wiki says: Women in Switzerland gained the right to vote in federal elections after a referendum in February 1971.

You're correct but women weren't allowed to vote on the canton level in some cantons until 1990. That's almost as bad:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/a-visit-to-appenzell-i...

not going to condone it, but it makes my point. Other countries ban the vote by felons, or by certain classes of people. Yet, they are still called democracies. The only difference is that the agreement to strip voting power is bipartisan in 1 case, and in switzerland it was a niche who approves of it.

The United States is not and never has been a democracy. The Senate and the SCOTUS are not democratic institutions.

Can you explain why the US Senate is not democratic? And do you feel the same about the senior house for all other highly functioning democracies?

I'm assuming they are from a high populous area, and feel that overall popular vote should have the majority representation at the federal level.

I'm quite glad this is not the case, I don't want to be governed by the populist progressive votes in the coastal cities.

> I don't want to be governed by progressive

This is why the world is ending.

> Yet Switzerland its the longest living democracy in the world…

France conquered Switzerland after its revolution and the current Swiss state only goes back to 1848.

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