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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and the OP's understanding (and in fairness, many people's understanding) of how the US government is supposed to work is at odds with how it works in reality.

> Congress has been effectively gridlocked and do-nothing for at least 35 years--all of my adult life.

Gridlock is a design feature. It literally means there isn't consensus on whatever the topic may be. Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? What people often express as "congress not doing their job" is in reality "they aren't passing the policies I want!".

> The executive branch's powers are being quickly eroded by SCOTUS.

OP means "restored" instead of "eroded". POTUS was never supposed to be as powerful as they have become. Executive Orders are the worst way to run a country, yet we've had several presidents in a row that have abused EO's to get whatever they want done... only for the next person in office to undo it all with the stroke of a pen.

The only take-away one can have here is we need better civics classes in our schools...

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> Gridlock is a design feature. [...] Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again?

Speaking as a Brit, it's really not as bad as you make it sound.

In the UK system there is basically only one elected body - parliament - and if we elect a party that pledges to X, they have the power to X - meaning they can be held to account if they fail to deliver it.

And generally that means X gets done - that sounds pretty democratic to me. It has the downside that if people vote for Brexit you get Brexit, which ain't great, but I much prefer it to if people vote for Brexit and we don't get Brexit.

Whereas in the US system, as far as I can tell, you can elect a party that pledges to do X, then gridlock blocks them from doing it, then everyone just says "oh yeah that's understandable" and re-elects them?

As a Brit, it seems obvious to me that the legality of abortion is a political question. Isn't the whole point of the political process to have a national conversation, figure out what the public want, then representatives to represent that? The fact that America made this obviously political decision by... just handing the decision to a load of unelected judges? Then spent about 50 years not legislating on the matter, not amending the constitution, but instead giving judges the role of unelected pseudo-politicians who rule for life? And the legality hinges on when these elderly judges die?

To me that doesn't sound like a system that was designed at all.

The main reason why this is different for the US is the language of the Constitution effectively forces a two-party system, despite several of the framers really not wanting political parties as we have today.

The US doesn't have the same concepts of coalition building as many other types of governments do (coalitions being a way for many smaller parties to compromise with each other, reach consensus, and pass policy).

In the US, if you don't quite fit into one of the two major parties, then your "say" is effectively nullified. This is why the two parties have a huge range of voices - but are compelled to rally behind a singular set of views (usually their presidential candidate's) in order to gain power and accomplish anything.

For example - Bernie fans have been snuffed a few times, and their voices effectively silenced from the mainstream discussion. Even if you disagree with those viewpoints, they should get representation. Coalition building would force their voices to be heard in a meaningful way via compromises with other similar-but-not-quite-the-same parties.

Another example - Democrats held a primary election and chose their presidential candidate, which later dropped out of the race. Now Democrats are being told who they must vote for otherwise they will lose power. Many Democrats will hold their nose and vote for the new Democrat candidate, despite not liking the candidate or their policies, because they don't really have another choice. The wide range of views held within the Democrat party will be boiled down into whatever the candidate's views are - everyone else loses their "voice". Many smaller, more focused parties would help solve this issue as well.

In short, the US needs more political parties.

> US doesn't have the same concepts of coalition building as many other types of governments

The House is a coalition government in everything but name.

That's not actually a difference between the UK and the US - we in the UK have a two party system as well, in effect.

For the last 100 years, every elected prime minister has been either Labour or Conservative. Occasionally at the head of a wartime coalition or propped up by a minor party, but far more often not and always from one of the two main parties.

Nice job paying lip service to a general issue as a spring board to push nonsensical partisan talking points. The general argument would have been much stronger had you analyzed the party that's been taken over and lobotomized by radical extremists, yet you just skipped right over that whole elephant in the room. "Many Democrats", as well as this libertarian, won't be needing to hold our noses as we vote for Harris out of a sense of overwhelming conservatism. I don't agree with the majority of her political views, but at this point in history you can consider me a single issue voter in favor of bureaucracy, which we have come to take for granted far too much.

> Nice job paying lip service to a general issue as a spring board to push nonsensical partisan talking points.

> the party that's been taken over and lobotomized by radical extremist

> won't be needing to hold our noses as we vote for Harris out of a sense of overwhelming conservatism

> I don't agree with the majority of her political views

> at this point in history you can consider me a single issue voter in favor of bureaucracy

You have unintentionally proven every single point I've raised in this entire thread. I could not have imagined a more perfect demonstration of what is wrong with US politics. The worst part - you probably felt vindicated writing this, failing to realize this behavior is exactly the problem.

Gridlock, or the inability to adapt to changing times and keep up with technology that itself is shaping society, is one of the USA's government's biggest and most embarrassing design flaws. How much of the regulatory environment we are subject to today was written before the IBM PC debuted, by people who used to travel on horse-drawn carriages? This is not a design feature. Taking a civics class does not mean you lose your ability to identify a dysfunctional system.

> the inability to adapt to changing times and keep up with technology that itself is shaping society

None of that changes the basic principle that the US government was supposed to uphold, namely, that the role of government is not to solve whatever problem someone thinks should be solved, but to protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level legal playing field, and stopping there.

The problem is that the US government has gone far beyond that, the current regulatory megastate being only one aspect. To the extent the US government is dysfunctional, it's not because it doesn't do enough; it's because it does far, far too much.

Net neutrality is a case in point: it's only necessary in the first place to undo the effects of all the government-granted privileges that ISPs have. In a US that was run according to the way the US was supposed to be run, ISPs would have to compete in a free market and none of them would have monopoly privileges over particular areas, and none of them would have been able to get huge government grants supposedly to build infrastructure and then pocket the money instead. In that US there would be no need for net neutrality because nobody wants to buy Internet service that gets throttled depending on what website you go to. The only reason ISPs can even think of offering such a non-service is that they have monopolies granted by the government.

> None of that changes the basic principle that the US government was supposed to uphold, namely, that the role of government is not to solve whatever problem someone thinks should be solved, but to protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level legal playing field, and stopping there.

Where is this said in the constitution ? Or any papers that isn’t the Federalist papers?

> Net neutrality is a case in point: it's only necessary in the first place to undo the effects of all the government-granted privileges that ISPs have. In a US that was run according to the way the US was supposed to be run, ISPs would have to compete in a free market and none of them would have monopoly privileges over particular areas, and none of them would have been able to get huge government grants supposedly to build infrastructure and then pocket the money instead. In that US there would be no need for net neutrality because nobody wants to buy Internet service that gets throttled depending on what website you go to. The only reason ISPs can even think of offering such a non-service is that they have monopolies granted by the government.

The only means in which these infrastructures can be built is either: Companies with enough capital to do so without governmental assistance, the government, or not at all.

The later is at odds with your first point (unless you believe the restriction not to apply to state and local governments) and the first leads to the same issues since competition is impossible for an eventual finite resource

> Where is this said in the constitution ?

"Protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level playing field" is mainly in the Bill of Rights. (Some aspects of it are in the original Constitution.)

"Stopping there" means the government only doing the things the Constitution specifically says it can do. For example, it would mean Congress only passing laws that are actually within what Article I, Section 8 says Congress can do. And it would mean the other branches of government holding Congress to that. It would also mean Congress not delegating legislative power to Executive branch agencies; Article I says all legislative power is vested in Congress. It doesn't allow Congress to delegate it to any other body.

Of course we have long since stopped holding the US government to such standards. But that just means we've stopped holding the government accountable for actually obeying the Constitution.

> the first leads to the same issues since competition is impossible for an eventual finite resource

Not at all. If a local municipality builds, say, common use fiber optic infrastructure that the municipality owns, sure, that's technically a finite resource, but it's still perfectly possible for the municipality to make companies compete to provide services using that infrastructure. There is nothing forcing them to give monopoly privileges to any one company--except that in the US as it actually is, ISPs sue municipalities into oblivion when they try it, on the grounds that higher levels of government (mainly state although there are Federal fingers in the pie as well) have granted them exclusive access to that particular region.

"some aspects"

You know what? No. If a right to privacy doesn't exist because it's not explicitly spelled out, and "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" gets shaved so thin you can see through it, then vibes don't count and neither does "some aspects".

> If a right to privacy doesn't exist because it's not explicitly spelled out, and "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" gets shaved so thin you can see through it

I'm not sure how this relates to what I was saying.

>Where is this said in the constitution ? Or any papers that isn’t the Federalist papers?

From the preamble of the Declaration of Independence:

>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ...

Emphasis mine.

> Gridlock is a design feature.

Gridlock is a design misfeature.

> Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again?

Yes. Because people will realize the next the Other People get in they'll repeal anything that (they think) is truly awful, so there's not much passing it in the first place. Or if there's anything that is (thought to be) 'only' kind of bad it will be tweaked/corrected.

A negative feedback loop tends to increase stability.

Running a country by executive order seems neither much better nor much worse than running it by political judicial decision.

> than running it by political judicial decision

Which country are you referring to? Because it's not the US.

The US.

The Judicial system does not work the way you described in the US.

That's not the way it's supposed to work, but it is absolutely the way it is working right now (especially if you happen to live in the Fifth Circuit).

What? We constantly have this embarrassing song and dance where the government faces a shutdown because they can't pass a budget, and they literally can't do their job.

> We constantly have this embarrassing song and dance where the government faces a shutdown because they can't pass a budget, and they literally can't do their job

It's congress' job to write a budget, and it's the president's job to accept or veto it, after-which it's congresses job to amend or override the veto. The dance you're referring to is all posturing to compel one of the sides of that equation to compromise. In the end, they always compromise.

To be clear - it is not congress' job to write a budget the president will accept. Congress is a separate branch of government and is as-powerful as the president. This process was designed to compel the two branches to compromise with each other - and it works (admittedly after a dog and pony show).

"Shutting down the government" is a stunt designed to get people riled up - and it apparently works.

But "works as designed" isn't the end of argument; things can be working exactly as the founding fathers expected (though only Scalia, with his powers of divination, could tell us for sure what they would think of today's world), and it can still be a bad thing. You advocate for better civics classes, but better classes would teach people to question things and act for the changes they see needed in today's world, not to accept a historically frozen government.

The disconnect with reality is people often find themselves inside "information bubbles" where it feels like everyone thinks the same policies need to be enacted. Then they are dumbfounded when the policy doesn't actually get passed. When this happens, it's easy to fall into the propaganda and believe "the other side" is actively trying to subvert the country/constitution and destroy everything.

Reality is there is not consensus for those policies. It's that simple.

I promise you, there aren't any congress critters that are actually trying to destroy the country. They are each doing what they believe is best, and what they were elected to do... even if personally we don't favor those viewpoints.

I promise you, there aren't any congress critters that are actually trying to destroy the country.

Even the ones who spend July 4 in Moscow, actively support insurrection, and put their hands on the Constitution while swearing to uphold the Bible?

The system wasn't designed to tolerate an entire party of saboteurs.

Can we lay down the propaganda for a minute and actually debate using our brains? This ridiculous propaganda is super exhausting and very unstimulating.

I've been warned multiple times against participating in flamewars on HN, so I'll pass, thanks. Civil discourse has effectively been rendered impossible by the partisans in Congress and elsewhere that I'm referring to.

> Civil discourse has effectively been rendered impossible by the people I'm referring to

> The system wasn't designed to tolerate an entire party of saboteurs.

I'm missing something here, because it seems you are the flame war you speak ill of, and when I asked you to tone down the rhetoric you throw your hands up and say you're not going to participate in said flame war.

You are right though - it is impossible to have a productive conversation when one person is determined to only believe their flavor of propaganda and not find any common ground.

I said it elsewhere in thread: "Sit down with a friend that has the opposite political viewpoints and discuss some hard issues for an hour. There's a 0% chance the two sides don't find common ground..."

I'm sure Viktor Orban thinks he's doing what's best for Hungary, too. It doesn't really matter whether they think they're justified when their values are so alien that you can't reconcile your ideals with theirs. You may as well tell a sick patient that they're being unreasonable because the virus isn't actually a sentient being trying to destroy your body's cells, it's just programmed to reproduce like that.

> But "works as designed" isn't the end of argument; things can be working exactly as the founding fathers expected (though only Scalia, with his powers of divination, could tell us for sure what they would think of today's world), and it can still be a bad thing.

But first things first-- one ought to have an overview of the specification for the form of government, why it was designed that way, and how it's been implemented over the past 200 years. The OP who saw gridlock as an unexpected and undesirable attribute of the federal budget process appears to not yet possess this knowledge.

I'd say knowing things is a recommended dependency for questioning them. Otherwise the changes you think you want to see might as well be chosen by a random number generator. (But then at least random() isn't subject to filter bubbles!)

> act for the changes they see needed in today's world

The Constitution provides a process for amending it, and that process has been used twenty-seven times. That is the proper process for "acting for changes" if you think they are needed.

> The Constitution provides a process for amending it, and that process has been used twenty-seven times. That is the proper process for "acting for changes" if you think they are needed.

That is the process for amending the Constitution, which neither is, nor should be, the only way to effect change. It is surely a ludicrous claim that our system of government has changed only 27 times. I doubt anyone even believes that the amendments record the 27 most consequential changes!

Further, there is absolutely no way that I, or any individual (including any individual in government), can get a Constitutional amendment passed alone, so either there are steps between individual action and amending the Constitution, or there might as well not be an amendment process.

> amending the Constitution, which neither is, nor should be, the only way to effect change

Sure, if you can "effect change" by following the processes described in the Constitution as it is, you don't have to amend it. But my point is that much, if not most, of what the US government currently does is not following the processes described in the Constitution as it is--those are just being ignored, and nobody even talks about having to amend the Constitution to, for example, allow Congress to delegate legislative power to Executive branch agencies.

>"Shutting down the government" is a stunt designed to get people riled up

Is it really posturing if the government actually shuts down and workers get furloughed as has happened in recent memory?

>To be clear - it is not congress' job to write a budget the president will accept.

Congress could certainly write a budget the president has to accept, but of course everything these days is done along party lines.

When they put caution tape around public parks and forests where no government employees were stationed anyway - you know it's all for show.

You're forgetting one little detail in this entire argument:

One side of the chamber has complete contempt for the idea of an administrative state. Not being able to pass a budget and shutting the whole thing down would be great in their minds.

Well, they think so, at least. My family's got a few of those people who would probably feel differently once the EPA stops being able to regulate the emissions of the coal-fired power plant that's upwind of their $600k+ home. But until that actually happens it gives one side of the chamber a "dysfunctional government entity enforcing job-killing regulations" to rage against.

> The only take-away

This snide put-down has no place here. Please review the HN guidelines.

If you are offended by this remark then you are exactly the person it was aimed for.

We need better civics lessons in schools. The evidence is prevalent right here in this thread. Too few people actually understand government - and that's a serious issue. An issue that enables the masses to be manipulated and controlled by political junkies. People need to be better educated on government in general.

No I think OP was pretty clear in what they actually meant and it wasn't what you said.

This current GOP led circus known as the 118th Congress is widely considered one of the most (if not THE most) unproductive, dysfunctional Congresses in history.

And when all they do is sit around and whine about how one side is "weaponizing" the government (ignoring the fact that the side in question is them) or Socialism this or "Biden bad", its really not hard to understand why.

Considered by who? By which metric?

Here’s one about bills passed:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/apr/03/donna-braz...

> Here’s one about bills passed

Judging a legislature by how many bills it passes is like judging programming productivity by lines of code produced, and has the same issue that Edsger Dijkstra identified with the latter: it should be lines spent, not produced. "The current wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger."

The problem is that they are also not able to ram through popular policies that a majority of both liberals and conservatives in the general population are in favor of.

I am not sure why you're downvoted. I assume it's people who took offense at your last paragraph or who believe that the US Constitution is an antiquated document with no relevance to the troubles of today.

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