Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

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It's interesting how the effects of filter bubbles are playing out here. Everyone believes that they have the upper hand and the majority of the American people are on their side, because computerized personalization shows them only opinions from people who agree with them. As a result, they think that the negative popular opinion for the shutdown will fall primarily on the other party, and so it is rational for them to continue the shutdown until the other party blinks. Of course, the other party has the same information distortion in the opposite direction, so they also believe that if they just keep going, the American public will blame their opponents.

In reality, the public is pretty close to split down the middle, and both parties are getting blamed, and the real message that people are taking away from this is that Congress is dysfunctional. It's a game of chicken where both parties think that the other side will blink, and so they just end up crashing.

Reminds me of the dysfunction the Roman Republic towards the end of it’s time.

It’s not unique to the US however, I think maybe we are all approaching the end of the line for current political/civil systems without further work that no one seems interested in taking.

That Meta and Twitter seems interested in.

The tail isn’t wagging the dog anymore, the tail(s) are the dog at this point.

Good grief.

The shutdown is a temporary budget squabble in a stable democracy; a banal political stunt that has happened every few years for the past few decades.

Rome’s dysfunction meant civil wars, assassinations, generals seizing poWer, private armies, and uprising (in a fundamentally different society where, incidentally, over 25% of the population was slaves.)

There has been over 2000 years of history since Rome… when a the only analogy a person can come up with is some half-baked allusion to the Roman Empire/Republic it’s a good bet said person lacks a sense of history, knowledge of current events, and common sense.

Sorry to be harsh.

We’re seeing deliberate attacks on: Fair elections Rule of law Independence of courts Checks and balances

I expect if you don’t think this is going to get bad you’re not paying attention.

None of which has anything to do with the ‘last days of the Roman Republic.’

Feel free to panic and tear your hair out… that’s what both sides do. Boring. The post, however, make some pretentious analogy to the Roman Republic. The analogy was silly. That’s all. It’s just an annoying variant of Godwins law: Rome or Hitler… the only two analogies available to those ignorant of history.

No one’s panicking but you pal.

I made an observation that the present day is rhyming with history. You’re now raising Godwin’s law.

Good job.

Assassination & attempted assassinations have all happened within 12ish months.

You’ve got an executive branch stacking all open positions in judicial and legislative branches with their political appointees. And the executive is interpreting the law to gather as much power as possible to the head of state.

It’s not hard to see the parallels but you keep on trucking dude.

> You’ve got an executive branch stacking all open positions in judicial and legislative branches with their political appointees.

The judicial branch is composed of Judges who are confirmed by the Senate… not the executive branch.

And there are no ‘Legislative branch’ appointees.

I assume you mean the executive branch is making appointments to the executive branch? Who would you prefer to make such appointments? The Postal Serice?

> Who would you prefer to make such appointments? The Postal Serice?

At this point, I’d even prefer the Girl Scouts.

I understand Trump nominated and congress/senate approved the last couple of Supreme Court members?

I’d classify things like FDA/FAA as legislative parts of the governments but maybe that’s wrong.

Also I don’t see other governments shutting down regularly with a cheer squad saying yeah this is nothing to worry about, our democracy is 100% A OK.

Trump said it was Republicans fault.

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