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Comment by contrarian1234 | Hacker News Reader

yeah, this is exactly it. all the arguments kind of boil down to

"well how about if the government does illegal or evil stuff?"

its very similar to arguments about the second ammendment. But laws and rules shouldnt be structured around expecting a future moment where the government isnt serving the people. At that moment the rules already dont matter

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You just described the Bill of Rights. Constitutions should be structured around that.

The Rights are not intended as preemptive. You don't have a right to free speech b/c otherwise maybe the government regulation of speech will get out of hand. You have it because it's espoused as a fundamental right. Same with separation of church and state. It's like "Well maybe a future evil government will regulate the church poorly, so lets ban it completely". It's just seen as an area the government shouldn't delve in entirely.

Collecting information about people doesn't really fit the same mold. It's not sensible to remove that function entirely. It's not a right. And it's not sensible to structure things with the expectation the future government will be evil

> And it's not sensible to structure things with the expectation the future government will be evil

Jewish Danes would like to have a word with you about that

Are we supposed to structure out society so we're safer in the case that the Chinese invade and use all our institutions against us? There is a risk-benefit tradeoff to make. Crippling society and institutions in preparation for an a worst-case scenario future hypothetical is not sensible. To get things done you operate from the standpoint that the democratic government is responsive to the desires of the people. The adversarial perspective is self sabotaging

I would have liked for there have to have been more limits before DOGE got their hands on the voting rolls.

I think the real problem is that the government is not structured in an accountable way and things like DOGE can happen. These things basically don't happen in other democracies. The Japanese don't all have assault rifles in their basement b/c they're waiting for the day the Diet is going to harvest their data to oppress them

No. Let me introduce you to the fourth amendment.

The rights weren’t invented out if thin air but to address real issues that happened earlier. Yes, every government has been evil. Power corrupts. That’s why constitutions exist, to address that problem.

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