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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> Yes, but on the other hand Congress is so dysfunctional the choice is often regulatory/executive action or nothing.

Which means that the country, through their elected legislature, has not agreed on a policy. Not coming to a new decision doesn’t mean the executive branch gets carte blanche to make up the rules.

Not coming to an agreement means the country is not at enough of an agreement. If it’s truly popular it should pass Congress. If it’s not, it won’t.

And if it’s popular and it doesn’t pass, then there’s always elections to change Congress and try again.

The slow pace is a feature, not a bug.

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In addition to what you've said, it's still in the hands of states to do something about it and we, as individuals, have significantly more power to affect change at the state level.

It's 50/50. Yes, ideally it gets punted to the states, the states can mark their preferences (see abortion). What's great about that too is you can move to a state that matches your believies.

The 50/50 part of it - still there is federal vs state jurisdiction. If there's stuff on federal jurisdiction that's just a mess as far as congress never fixing it (say - immigration), states can do this and that about it somewhat (sanctuary city) - they can manage some rotten branches - but they can't touch the rotten root of federal jurisdiction

Frankly, it doesn’t mean that at all. There are myriad issues where a clear majority of the country believes something should be legal or illegal but congress either takes no action or goes against that will. The issue is that these people are far more accountable to those with the money to run their campaigns than to the common peasant the campaign ad targets. Consequently, the will that tends to get realized in congress is slanted heavily towards the interests of money, and of course it is. Lack of noncompete legislation isn’t an example of slow pace, it’s an example of companies that have money slanting politics in their favor to maintain a bit of extra leverage over their workers.

Those issues are largely red herrings. Get into actual policy details and you'll see the consensus disappear.

Marijuana legalization is a great example. It's been consensus that it shouldn't have been as illegal as it was for decades yet it's only been consensus to treat it mostly like alcohol in a handful of states.

The consensus of "something should be done" can predate the consensus of "this should be done" by years or decades, especially nationally.

You know what, this is actually a pretty good point. No politician wants to go out on a limb proposing a specific solution in case some of their demo doesn’t like that particular one.

> Which means that the country, through their elected legislature, has not agreed on a policy.

No, it means that the country has not agreed to the standard demanded by the constitution, which is an insanely high bar not required by virtually any other ostensibly democratic country.

The constitution is obsolete, undemocratic, and does not work in practice. Thus attempts to subvert it are completely legitimate. I don't understand the point of view that if the constitution says we have to do something a certain way, then we must do it that way, because those are The Rules, as if the constitution is some kind of law of nature.

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