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Comment by roxolotl | Hacker News Reader

I think the point is “it’s fair to Americans that’s what counts” is a nationalistic statement. Maybe it’s the way to go. But it’s not refuting the parent who’s saying the missing piece is nationalism.

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I mean what is the point of a government of its people if not to serve those who elected it? It seems bizarre that one would elect a government to benefit others whose governments could give a rats ass about us.

Again that’s a nationalistic point of view. For someone unused to thinking about the world as “us” vs “them” where the designations of “us” and “them” are defined by national borders it can be surprising and seem like there’s missing information. There’s not missing information there’s a values/worldview mismatch.

Who benefited from all the years Elon Musk studied in the US and built his early companies? Certainly not south Africa.

If they can teach/lead us, then we can bring them in. If we have to teach them then we don’t need them and instead can cultivate our own talent.

I’m not against brining in talent that can teach us where we don’t have local talent. We can use them to jump start our own talent. I’m also not against extraordinarily talented business people who can add to the economy.

Elon Musk didn't come to the US as a businessman. He graduated from UPenn. So with your logic he shouldn't have been allowed to come here to get trained.

> I mean what is the point of a government of its people if not to serve those who elected it?

How about to serve the people it represents and governs over, rather than the small, loud, fascist minority that voted for them?

The majority of Americans want to preserve jobs for Americans. It’s a minority of people who would agree with your position. It’s like voter IDs. Even a majority of Democrats would agree with requiring IDs at polling stations. Only a minority are against it, according to polls. In addition many of the poorest of countries require IDs for voting but some people frame it as a fascist opinion. That would imply lots of the world is fascist as they implement ID requirements for voting.

The majority of Americans don't want to cripple their country's science capabilities, either in terms of funding or talent. Especially not on a xenophobic basis like this. Only a minority of trump voters, who are themselves a minority of Americans, are for this, according to polls[0].

Not sure what you're on about with voter ID, that sounds like a totally different topic you might have meant to post about in a totally different thread, so I'll focus on this one, in which the administration is acting in direct contravention to what The People want.

Then again, maybe this is purely a disagreement of principles. You already indicated[1] that you were in favor of politicians ignoring The People in favor of a minority of individuals who specifically voted for said politicians.

0 - https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/americans-wa...

1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47217163

The idea of voter ID is fine. The problem in the US is the implementation. Those other countries have national ID systems and are good at making sure everyone gets an ID.

In the US there is no national ID. There are state IDs but a significant number of eligible voters do not have one and many cannot afford to get one. Even if there is no direct fee to get an ID it can cost a lot (sometimes over $100) to get the documentation needed. It is made more difficult and expensive by the patchwork record keeping in many states, which can require searching in many different counties for birth records for example if you aren't sure exactly where you were born. I think most states do have statewide record keeping now, but some have not gone through the old per county paper only records and scanned them and added them to the central system.

Worse, some states seem to have deliberately tried to make it harder for people who are likely to vote against the party that is making the rules to get IDs and easier for voters who are likely to vote for them to get IDs.

For example, under the guise of trying to save money they close down many of the offices that issue IDs. These closures mostly are in areas where groups more likely to be against that party live, often poor and/or minority areas. This sometimes leaves those areas with no place to get ID within 50 miles, which can be difficult for people in poor areas with no affordable public transit and low car ownership.

Another thing is picking what ID is acceptable. Say make hunting licenses acceptable as ID, but do not allow student IDs from state colleges.

Make an ID law that includes funding to pay for getting IDs for those who do not have them, including assistance and funding to find the required records, and that sets up a system to make sure that going forward new citizens get issues acceptable ID, and finally that has a way to grandfather in people who can show by clear and convincing evidence that they are eligible to vote and cannot reasonably obtain an ID, and most people who object will drop their objections.

Here's a whole bunch of links about this.

https://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/AMERI...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jul/11/eric-holde...

https://www.aclu.org/documents/oppose-voter-id-legislation-f...

https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/2018/Minority_Voting_Access...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...

https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/4/7157037/us-voter-id-req...

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/07/644648955/for-older-voters-ge...

https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-...

https://www.theregreview.org/2019/01/08/shapiro-moran-burden...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/heres-h...

https://scholars.org/contribution/high-cost-free-photo-voter...

https://now.tufts.edu/2018/01/23/proving-voter-id-laws-discr...

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debu...

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