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Comment by ta9000 | Hacker News Reader

Americans aren’t your enemy. We’re just as upset by these idiots running our government as you are.

I have a lot of sympathy for the American people, and many personal American friends. Still, in a democracy everyone is collectively responsible for the government. "It’s not us, it’s our government" only work for so long.

It's not a democracy (by definition)

Trump won the popular vote, so even without electoral college shenanigans, he would be in power.

It’s a representative democracy, in which the people delegate their legislative power to representatives and the executive power to, largely, a president. Its executive branch is stronger than a lot of democracies, but that itself does not make it "not a democracy". It turns out that its constitution is not as much of a guarantee than some people expected but, again, it does not prevent it from being a democracy. It’s on its way to Orbanization, though, which is very concerning and a sign that it might not be an actual democracy for too long.

That's assuming that the population has any power, which in pretty much all countries in the world is not true. "Democracy" isn't just a value to behold, if the population has no power, it has no power and a country can't be called as such out of nowhere. Now, the people might have no actual power, but it's in their hands to get it.

True, there is usually the caveat of the electoral college and gerrymandering. That can excuse the impotence of Congress, but Trump won the popular vote. By any measure, it is a democratic result.

It's not an either / or though; enough Americans are in support of the government, that's how democracy works. Nobody can speak for everyone.

From the article:

> And never forget that the post-American internet will be good for Americans. Because, in a K-shaped, bifurcated, unequal America, the trillions that American companies loot from the world don't trickle down to Americans. The average American holds a portfolio of assets that rounds to zero, and that includes stock in US tech companies.

> The average American isn't a shareholder in Big Tech, the average American is a victim of Big Tech. Liberating the world from US Big Tech is also liberating America from US Big Tech.

> We’re just as upset by these idiots

The former soviets were upset with their empire, and got rid of it themselves.

Is there any reason you all would not be capable of doing what they did?

There's no mechanism for the people to remove the president.

You can't have a loss of confidence vote that every eligible voter can partake in. There's no coalition system where one part can pull out and essentially dissolve the sitting coalition. No snap election.

By now it should be clear to anyone that the only way to remove the president, by lawful means, is to impeach and remove him. But with politicians choosing party over people, that will likely not happen anytime soon.

The median senator and congressman in the US has a net worth close to a million dollars. Other than in the very unlikely event that the US invaded, they will really never feel the effects of bad presidents.

At worst they will live under the threat of being primaried.

US politics is very much a case of "you've made your bed, now lie in it" for minimum the next 4 years.

If I understand correctly, this is to say the Soviet Union was more responsive* to its people than the United States is?

If the people wished to, could they not make it clear what the results of a primary would be, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Unio...

If legislators are afraid of the President, should they not be more afraid of their constituents?

* in the event, it looks like it took them 4 years as well, 1988-1991, but somehow I doubt they were just telling themselves they'd sit around and wait for 2028...

soviet mil was a representative slice of soviet demographics. US civilian enforcers: not so much. (Elsewhen- the antiVW movement "worked" because the same was true of the US mil)

That's mostly it I think.

Edit- "anti-Kissinger" movement

Question for anyone still living in the home of the free and land of the brave:

Does the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act still apply? Or is it now a case of "except where void or prohibited by law"?

Or are you all at the tender mercies of DHS? Are they at least under something resembling UCMJ? (NB: the Geneva Conventions only apply to uniformed* combatants, not internal matters)

  separated at birth?

  Department  Ministerium
  of          für
  Homeland    Staats-
  Security    sicherheit

* with a command structure. Just wait until someone tries to AI-wash command responsibility!

(note for gsf: sorry, I hadn't understood what you meant by civilian enforcers until now! BTW, something Linebarger has that's missing from what I've skimmed of the current PSYOP FM series: a lucid description of the bright lines [at the time?] between war and murder, and what the requirements are for an insurrection to count as uniformed combatants for the purposes of Geneva Convention protections ... will get back to you later on Katyusha's descendants)

I know/knew people who marched first in the CR and then in the antiVW movement.

One important piece of advice from their experiences: have plenty of people during your peaceful demonstration who are ready, willing, and able to eject provocateurs from your midst.

A related lesson from Airstrip One: just because someone is sleeping with you doesn't mean they're not an informant. Of course, if all you're doing is peacefully demonstrating, as you should be, even if they're looking for dirt as hard as they can, you can still screw their brains out with a clean conscience.

MLK sermon on nonviolent resistance: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/dra...

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN_9VqfVQ9c

Reminds me of..

(The site may be triggering..)

"Grothendieck got angry when they started pestering him. Justine recalled in an interview with Allyn Jackson: “The next thing we know, the two policemen are on the ground.” Grothendieck, who once practiced boxing, had single-handedly decked two police officers."

You had a chance here to disambiguate the strategy :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530990

It's luck for everyone that the Latin side of classics is ideologically less controversial (+fertile in symbolism)??

> the Latin side of classics

Tiberius <-> Epstein?

> The site may be triggering.

Indeed. It's a much older generation, but we have our share of immigrants from DZ as well.

Lucky for mathematics that the Avignon policiers were not accustomed to "self defence make me a sandwich"!

Someday I'll have to learn enough about sheaves to see if they can handle your cut from no-cut, where an initial commonality bifurcates into 有人理想 and 有人富翁.

I guess a classical explanation might be:

  人之初，性本善。
  性相近，習相遠。

but maybe Linebarger can have the last word:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#:~...

> ...if the door is left open to voluntary conversion, so that anyone who wants to can come over to the winning side, the winning side will sooner or later convert almost everyone who is capable of making trouble. (In the language of Vilfredo Pareto, this would probably be termed "capture of the rising elite"; in the language of present-day Marxists, this would be described as "utilization of potential leadership cadres from historically superseded classes"; in the language of practical politics, it means "cut in the smart boys from the opposition, so that they can't set up a racket of their own.")

(also https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#:~... )

Ah Chapter 7

Maybe Cordwainer's take can be updated.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46532760

Rival ideological systems with their own pyramid schemes. High switching costs. So there you have fsckboi(?) knifing an MD(?) across the gap. While the winning side is...?

>Certain very elementary appeals can be made almost without reference to the personal everyday background ("cultural-historical milieu") of the person addressed

HN flamewars beg to differ.. (I note that ouestrous-prop would almost certainly flail)

Sleeping with informant (?): https://youtu.be/nryXhiKdwi0?t=4m43s

(Bonus ref to Santi/"tunneler")

flamewars (here as in persia) have the "former yugoslavia" dynamic, which is the opposite of his aims (unless in "black" form?). IIRC there's a bit in there where the radio/wire service equivalent is discussed as a strong temptation, which serious practitioners must take care to avoid.

(an example of high vs mid: in an anecdote from the 談談 part of the V 打打, the principal [high] mentions his capitalist counterparts directly, with bare names, but his translator [mid] felt the need to "correct" his names by throwing in all the usual epithets "running dog", "oppressor", etc., etc. into the english translation. This habit of "improvement" was not lost upon her counterparts, who later relayed it as an example of what not to do)

off to do atoms stuff; more tomorrow...

Ahh. I finally get it I think?

(Mid) is "not-even-narcissistic" !!

mid == clueless == interchangeable, and interchangeable means the only thing keeping them in the Outer Party is loyalty (partly demonstrated through diligent observance of the rituals). The principal was either in the habit of referring to people however he wishes, or perhaps he was even being accommodating and referring to his counterparts as they wished to be addressed; the translator was in the habit that one must always use the politically correct forms — to the point that the faithfulness to conditioning resulted in a betrayal of the translation.

"A translation is like a romantic partner: almost all are either beautiful, or they are faithful; rarely are they both"

lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grA5XmBRC6g

EDIT: Felix C. Forrest on the temptation to engage in flamewars: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#:~...

It is fascinating how Americans see their system like something unchangeable given by god. My country is in about its sixth iteration and I'm already thinking it is time for new constitution.

Oh no, they did not. USSR collapse was precipitated by decades of economic war, where trying to keep up with US advancements depleted more and more of russian budget, finally plunging the country into collapse deep enough for elites to accept formal change of regime (of course while ensuring they stay on top).

The actual soviet people were bystanders.

Unfortunately, that makes a great deal of sense to me.

This explanation kind of implies the whole planet winds up sunk into the banana republic attractor?

(might Fahd have had more to do with the final collapse than Reagan? By opening his spigots to keep the nomenklatura from earning much hard currency with their principal export, could he have pulled a classic "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" trillionaires' poker move?)

> sunk into the banana republic attractor?

κῦδος to all currently trying nonviolently* to de-banana-ice the republic for which it stands! It gives me hope, Jo'anna.

May the Force be with you!

* a parody paper reports that Greenland is already being strongly defended — with strewn Lego blocks: https://www.der-postillon.com/2026/01/legosteine-groenland.h... (It's good they're hand, not remote, laid; I trust all feasible precautions were taken to protect civilians from their effects?)

I don't think there's any suggestion that Americans are the enemy.

Indeed, the article makes it clear that (a) the issue is not individuals, and (b) the desired changes would be good for most (non-billionaire) Americans.

I mean this kindly - but Americans need to ditch their current administration fast. I don't understand how a Democrat can be a lame duck for four years but the current president can literally threaten NATO members with invasion and nothing happens. If the US goes too far, it won't be coming back. There are no more Obama years of stability. No more soft power. No more tacit agreement from the rest of the democratic world with whatever hair brained scheme US wants to do.

The US is great at making money from monopolies. It has thousands of billionaires and it has more money than sense. It is not a technological supremacy. It is at a stark risk of turning away 450m highly educated people, who traditionally would align with the US as 'shared democracies'. Imagine those same people aligning with China, not out of shared principle, but out of necessity. That would end the US hegemony in a single day.

I don't think the average US person realises what their government is doing. All empires end eventually, but your America is running towards the finish line chasing some dream of 'greatness' and imperial ambition. Meanwhile the average schmoe doesn't even have universal healthcare.

Possibly. But the people who matter the most in this discussion lost their trustworthiness. The government and the tech giants are working together to be a bad partner.

It unfortunately doesn't matter if the average Joe is not with them unless they do something about the state of things.

And not trying to get too political: the GOP and Trump did win the electorate and the popular vote. So the USA kinda wanted this.

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