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Comment by maratd | Hacker News Reader

> As an outsider, it appears to me that the almost the entire US legal and political system is driven by, and for the benefit of, corporate and big business interests.

This is the case in every country. Those at the top will take an inordinate amount of time to make rules that benefit themselves and their friends.

The primary difference between the US and other countries is that the US constitution provides a means for the citizens to fight back against the most outrageous of offenses. Now, that doesn't mean it always works. In fact, it rarely does. But it does, in fact, work occasionally, which is better than nothing.

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No, I strongly disagree with that statement that it's the same in every country. US supports and openly agrees with lobbying. Actually, I have read opinions saying it's a good thing - companies can have a direct effect on laws by pouring money into the government,so it kind of is democratic, right?

Well, not every country is like that. In many others lobbying is illegal and people who do it are severely punished. Any connection with a business is strongly frowned upon, and if the laws a politician is voting for turn out to support his/her company or his family's business, the negative press will pretty much destroy their career as it has happened many times in the past. Meanwhile, in the US, politicians are very well known for making money thanks to policies they themselves wrote, and it has been a plague of both senators and presidents of the United States.

The problem is, that the US is calling our approach socialist. The first question we always ask is - how is this going to affect people? Most of the time the people's interest is put before companies interest. Media companies lobbying for making breaking ToS criminal offence? They can piss right off, this does not benefit people in any way. Monsanto wants to grow GMO crops in our country? Sure, but only after they show the documentation that its safe for people and does not affect local businesses. I can't imagine Microsoft ever being given a fine in the US for monopolistic practices - in the US it's probably just how you do business and no one sees anything wrong with it. In the "land of the free" you are also free to exploit your employees, because they being "free" can just change jobs,right? Well, in most of the EU you need to guarantee decent working conditions, health insurance and you can't work more than X number of hours per day. Is that bad/socialist? Maybe, but I know for certain where I would prefer to live and work!

And sure, its very,very far from perfect, but I am pretty sure its nowhere as corrupt as the US government. Mostly because in US it's not corruption, it's legitimate business.

    > companies can have a direct effect on laws by pouring money into the government,so it kind of is democratic, right?

"corporations are people my friend!" ;)

I realized the other day that it's a grammatically correct way of saying "corporations are made of people." Consider the famous quote: "Soylent green is people!" It doesn't mean that Soylent Green is a person, it means Soylent Green is made of people.

> Well, not every country is like that. In many others lobbying is illegal and people who do it are severely punished.

That's not the only way to buy influence.

> Monsanto wants to grow GMO crops in our country? Sure, but only after they show the documentation that its safe for people and does not affect local businesses.

So this only applies to Monsanto, or do local companies have to do the same things?

> In the "land of the free" you are also free to exploit your employees

Utterly untrue. You have no idea what you're talking about.

> And sure, its very,very far from perfect, but I am pretty sure its nowhere as corrupt as the US government.

How can you possibly know?

> Utterly untrue. You have no idea what you're talking about.

It took ten (1998-2008) years before the US minimum wage went up.

That's 10 years without a pay rise for the unskilled worker of America.

It that's not an example of worker exploitation I don't know what is?

Statutory minimum wages not rising are not an example of worker exploitation. Even if there were no minimum wage laws worker exploitation does not necessarily follow.

Additionally, in your example while the federal minimum wage might not have increased many states have their own minimum wage laws that have changed over the period you describe.

The closest statement you could make is that an absence of minimum wage laws may make it legal to employ people at an exploitatively low wage. This is not really the name thing.

> Even if there were no minimum wage laws worker exploitation does not necessarily follow.

To answer this question you have to go no further than to study history.

When there where no minimum wage laws workers where exploited.

You have to go back no further than the first industrial revolution to see evidence of this.

Now that exploitation brought about the rise of the union movement.

I don't think it is a coincide that as we now witness the decline of the union movement, there is a corresponding rise in the exploitation of workers.

Those who don't study their history are destined to repeat it.

Germany doesn't have a minimum wage either.

It's becoming more complicated in Germany. See e.g. http://www.economist.com/node/21536648

>So this only applies to Monsanto, or do local companies have to do the same things?

This would naturally apply to any company, local or foreign.

> Utterly untrue. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Just six words: "right to work", "at will employment".

And only four to counter: "Be a hard worker".

"I can't imagine Microsoft ever being given a fine in the US for monopolistic practices" See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"Well, in most of the EU you need to guarantee decent working conditions" You also do in the US. See OSHA safety standards. Also US has much stricter anti-harassment and anti-discrimination laws and rules than much of the EU. Comments that would be acceptable jokes in the workplace in Denmark could get you fired for creating a hostile work environment in the US.

Maybe instead of just slandering the US, you should learn a bit more about it.

Harassment and discrimination are nothing compared to actually abusing the worker through lack of vacations, imposed overtime, laughable minimum wages (specially for the "mandatory tip" jobs) and no safety nets.

> laughable minimum wages (specially for the "mandatory tip" jobs)

I couldn't believe this when I first heard of it: Some (or most?) states have a "different minimum" (? yeah ..) wage for certain types of service jobs (waiters, etc) that exclude some arbitrary amount they are supposed to get as "tips".

If that's not something that's purely beneficial to the business and puts a burden on the individual person, I don't know what. It makes the whole concept of "minimum wage" laughable by setting an impossibly low one for a certain class of jobs ("tip money" isn't guaranteed so you can't count it as part of the minimum wage, the guarantee is the whole point). And then it turns into a situation where the customers (nicely sidestepping the business) are made to be felt responsible for the servants to make "minimum wage", but they aren't responsible at all, it's charity.

Any country you could be talking about is either shittier than the U.S. in other ways (Continental Europe), exactly like the U.S. (U.K., Australia), or too small and homogenous to be a credible counter example (Scandinavia, etc).

Scandinavia is small, but depending on who you ask it's not homogenous. E.g:

http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work/Life_in_Sweden/A_multicul...

Examples or evidence for any of those 3 claims? Appears to be wind and noise.

Over 15% of the Swedish population was born outside of the country. The largest groups are from Irak, Poland, Afghanistan, Somalia, China and Iran. There are also large groups of second generation immigrants with parents from Chile, Greece and Italy. Not everybody is blonde and blue eyed...

That's mostly white people then?

You'll get diversity when there isn't a single majority group. Put all of Europe together (including western and eastern), that would be reasonably diverse.

Yes, just like in the USA, the large majority is white (72% for USA, Sweden doesn't measure ethnicity). And Sweden has more foreign born inhabitants than the US (12.4% for US and 15% for Sweden).

So, just dismissing comparisons with the Scandinavian countries based on homogeneity of population might be hasty.

> exactly like the U.S. (U.K., Australia)

They are different. E.g. the UK has `socialistic' health-care.

Not to mention that thing about guns.

> The primary difference between the US and other countries is that the US constitution provides a means for the citizens to fight back against the most outrageous of offenses.

What way does the US constitution provide that other countries don't (besides the firearms shenanigans)?

1. A right to practice any religion without the establishment of any official religion.

2. The right to speak freely against the government. This is culturally extended to other targets of speech as well. Includes written, artistic, and some obscene works.

3. The right to not have soldiers commandeer your property, even in times of war.

4. The right to be safe in your possessions against arbitrary search. In the US, a police officer can't just pull you aside and search you. They need to have a clearly defined reason to do so or get a search warrant from a judge.

5. Every citizen above a certain age has the right to vote and be heard in government, regardless of political affiliation or sex.

I'm bored of listing things. Go read the constitutional yourself if you're curious. Two and half centuries later, and it's still a document that puts much of Europe and the rest of the world to shame. As I said, it's implementation isn't perfect, nothing in life is ... but it's certainly much better than the alternatives currently on display elsewhere.

Look, the constitution is 250 year old parchment and it appears a lot of legislators have probably forgotten what's on it.

1. Applies to most european countries as well. Some, like Scientology, are actually called what they are, scams. Not because of the dogma, but because they put greater emphasis on raising money.

2. And what EU member country doesn't have this?

3. The US has only been invaded by a) the British b) itself. Just like torture, when push comes to shove the government will find a way around this. Do remember the government confiscated property from the southern gentry by classifying them as traitors.

4. Minorities (black, hispanic, asian, arabic) throughout the US would like to have a word with you. Hell, NYC doesn't even try to gus it up. They call it "stop and frisk".

5. You have the right to vote. Not all states have to make it easy or convenient to do so. I'm lucky in that I live abroad so I'm entitled to an absentee ballot. If I lived in my last US address I could not vote by mail on my free time. I would have to go to the polls, on a tuesday, during working hours.

Europe isn't one country so I don't know why you describe it as such. I could equally say the US has a beheading problem since Mexico is right there and they are the same, right?

> 1. Applies to most european countries as well.

No.

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/western-europe-vs-rel...

> 2. And what EU member country doesn't have this?

Germany, Austria, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Persona_non_grata

Mind you, the man is absolute human garbage, but the entire point of protecting speech is protecting the most despicable kind. It's fairly easy to tolerate the pleasant variety.

> 3. The US has only been invaded by ...

My point still stands. Even if the US throws this one under the bus in the future, my point still stands. It's not about a perfect record, but a good one. The US has a good record on this.

> 4. ... Hell, NYC doesn't even try to gus it up. They call it "stop and frisk".

I live in the NYC area, so I know about this a bit. In each case, the person consents to the search. Yes, it's pretty scary when a cop walks over to you and tells you to empty your pockets. You need to have balls to say "No" and "I do not consent to any searches". But then again, any right given to you is pointless if you don't have the balls to exercise it.

> 5. You have the right to vote. Not all states have to make it easy or convenient to do so.

You don't have a right to a convenient process, merely a process. It's a wonderful thing to reach a point where people have the wherewithal to bitch about how convenient voting is, rather than if their vote is actually counted. Mind you, I'm of the same mind as you, I think we should be able to vote on the Internet. Lately, my home state of New Jersey has made an effort to permit this (albeit, in response to a natural disaster).

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Persona_non_grata

Yeap. Moving the goalposts. You said "The right to speak freely against the government".

If you said "free speech" in general, yes, you'd be right.

But you said "speaking out against the government".

Right now, you've only shown that the US is somehow better because you're allowed to freely deny the Holocaust. Let's put your "god hates fags" guy in the same category. Such a free country!

See, my point is not that these anti-holocaust-denying laws are silly, they are and I wish they'd go away.

The point is, how does your "free speech" protect you when you've actually got something to say. So far you've demonstrated American citizens have the right to inane and offensive yelling, that doesn't actually speak out in any effective way against the government.

Let's see some real examples, where someone exercised their right to free speech of something that actually made the government actually really uncomfortable that actually really led to change, as well as a similar example where this was not possible in a EU country because its people didn't have the right.

And there's been enough examples, also in the US, of people gagged (with legal rulings) because of what they would have to say would make the government uncomfortable.

In practice, your right is the Freedom to Scream Dumb Shit. Don't delude yourself it's actually anything more than that. Maybe "Freedom to play court jester" sounds a bit more forgiving. I'm not saying the EU-"no holocaust denying"-countries are any better, but it's not "free speech" if it only protects raging lunatics.

What goal posts? I was summarizing the constitution. If my summary is too vague for you, here is the actual text:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Then you spend the entire post ranting about what can really be summarized as:

> In practice, your right is the Freedom to Scream Dumb Shit.

Ok. Are you the arbiter of what is and is not "dumb shit"? Because as long as there is somebody deciding what is and is not dumb, then you don't have the capacity to speak your mind. You merely have the capacity to speak what everybody else is already thinking.

And the point wasn't that much of Europe is some sort of third-world cesspool. It isn't.

The point was that the US Constitution provides protections which are not clearly codified in the EU, beside the right to carry arms. Even though the EU is a modern invention, while the US Constitution is the oldest constitution still in use.

these hold true in all european countries, most south/central american ones and probably most asiab countries as well (although I don't know that side of the world firsthand, unfortunately. So much for a pedantic ufanist reply...

> these hold true in all european countries

Last time I checked, Belarus was in Europe.

> This is the case in every country. Those at the top will take an inordinate amount of time to make rules that benefit themselves and their friends.

It's actually a bit simpler than that. Any set of rules will allow certain segments to rise to the top. Once there, they have great interest in keeping the rules in their favour, but they don't have to take all that much time making the rules favour them in the first place.

Your categorical statement about rules is an interesting one. I think this is actually a mathematical claim which I'm fairly certain is false.

It'd be interesting to explore whether the space of rules that keep everyone on an even keel include any rule sets that we'd actually want to live under, though. Ever read "The Lottery in Babylon" by Borges?

Oh, absolutely. As a Canadian, I live in hope that the US will invade and replace our system of government.

Why? Or was that sarcasm?

Already happened. It was peaceful, and at least we're allowed to think we're different.

As a canadian I sincerely hope that you are joking.

No doubt you're joking, but one thing I've repeatedly noticed in my many visits to Canada is the extent to which Canadians define themselves as being "not American" (meaning not US citizens). Can't blame 'em, more power to them.

This is a fair point. I actually can't stand that too.

Oh please. You would only be so lucky. Then this sort of nonsense wouldn't even come to fruition:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/quebec-language-...

the US constitution provides a means for the citizens to fight back against the most outrageous of offenses

Did you, by chance, mean "voting"?

How quaint.

Did you, by chance, mean "voting"?

Suing obviously. Legal action is the American way.

I think the observation was that this has turned out to be the problem, not the solution.

I.e. that not everything is better as a confrontation.

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