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Comment by fnordfnordfnord | Hacker News Reader

What is this post supposed to be? An junior high school Civics lesson? There was never any opportunity to "elect" anything to do with NSA. The NSA is a huge military-ish state security organization that was secretly and massively built up in the Cold War. It at least seems to outsiders that it served its purpose well[1]. But there is no more great enemy, and the whole lot are now struggling to remain relevant.

People have been boycotting elections for years. That only makes it easier for the radical fringes to their their crap on the agenda and for politicians to focus on those low-hanging fruits.

[1] I've been reading a lot about NSA lately and it seems they could've got us all killed with some very provocative missions pentesting Soviet air defenses. They did manage to get dozens of pilots and air-crew killed.

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The NSA did not spring out of the ground, either, and the Cold War has arguably been over since 1991 or so.

Indirect democracy makes it very easy to eschew responsibility in terms of "I had a choice between candidate X and candidate Y; they both supported decision D. I didn't support it, but since I had to vote between either X and Y, I didn't have a choice, did I?".

If the actions of the NSA were seen by American citizens as such a major concern that they would not vote for a candidate who supported it, then we'd see major votes against one of them. If all the candidates were to represent interests opposite to those of their voters, then we'd see no votes for any.

The fact that we keep seeing these votes is simply a proof of the fact that most people don't really care about it. The handful of us who hang out on HackerNews aren't representative of the general populace. Ask the audience of Toddlers and Tiaras, who are probably an order of magnitude more than we are, what they think about it, and 90% of them would probably tell you something similar to "NSA? Is that like, UUUUUUUM, some football league or something?"

> People have been boycotting elections for years. That only makes it easier for the radical fringes to their their crap on the agenda and for politicians to focus on those low-hanging fruits.

People have been boycotting elections for years -- they're only valuable when they bring the turnout below the threshold of validity, which has happened in some countries.

If US citizens feel their political or electoral system is biased, whining about it won't help -- and it looks particularly hypocritical after readily applauding the Arab spring.

>If the actions of the NSA were seen by American citizens as such a major concern that they would not vote for a candidate who supported it, then we'd see major votes against one of them. If all the candidates were to represent interests opposite to those of their voters, then we'd see no votes for any.

You've simplified this way too much, as if each voter only has one issue that they care about. Political strategists are experts at game theory. They build political platforms based on how to get the most people off their couches per dollar. It is a multi-dimensional problem.

>The fact that we keep seeing these votes is simply a proof of the fact that most people don't really care about it.

It is proof of no such thing. Most people are happy to leave well enough alone when they don't see a problem. NSA surveillance has never been a serious issue in a national campaign. Until recently, anyone who expressed too much interest in domestic surveillance of citizens was a tinfoil hat wearing crackpot.

> The handful of us who hang out on HackerNews aren't representative of the general populace.

So? The populace is a composite of many factions. Some people even have mixed political philosophies.

> Ask the audience of Toddlers and Tiaras, who are probably an order of magnitude more than we are, what they think about it, and 90% of them would probably tell you something similar to "NSA? Is that like, UUUUUUUM, some football league or something?"

The media is the reason for this. I wish I had some good idea that wasn't completely at odds with democratic principles.

>> People have been boycotting elections for years. That only makes it easier for the radical fringes to their their crap on the agenda and for politicians to focus on those low-hanging fruits. >People have been boycotting elections for years -- they're only valuable when they bring the turnout below the threshold of validity, which has happened in some countries.

Well, that isn't going to happen, ever, or at least until the "Toddlers and Tiaras" crowd has some political motivation other than ["ZOMG Abortion", "ZOMG Teh Gays", "ZOMG Illegal Mexicans in our jerbs"]

>If US citizens feel their political or electoral system is biased, whining about it won't help -- and it looks particularly hypocritical after readily applauding the Arab spring.

Whining about politics is as great an American tradition as Apple Pie.

> You've simplified this way too much, as if each voter only has one issue that they care about. Political strategists are experts at game theory. They build political platforms based on how to get the most people off their couches per dollar. It is a multi-dimensional problem.

I don't think I have. Blatant breaches of something that voters perceive to be a fundamental right of theirs should be a dealbreaker; I am fairly sure that a candidate whose otherwise great agenda would include items like stoping state financing of any educational institution, explicitly forbidding any kind of health care for patients over fifty (you can pick any criteria here), explicitly introducing media censorship or punishing adherence to Catholicism with jail wouldn't get too many votes from mentally-sane voters.

It sounds fairly logical to assume that most American citizens are ignorant enough about their dignity, the meaning of being human or about who they are voting for that they don't perceive acts of support for such breaches of their rights to be a dealbreaker.

I'm not saying this is good or bad -- Americans seem to be happy enough not to do much about it, so if it floats their boat, it's awesome -- I'm just arguing that it is representative for them.

>The media is the reason for this. I wish I had some good idea that wasn't completely at odds with democratic principles.

Perhaps one of the problems with America today is that the right to broadcast whatever nonsense across the airwaves is considered a democratic principle.

>The media is the reason for this.

I don't quite follow. It's not like there is some naturally occurring flow of newspapers, radio and television broadcasts that discuss with the correct, important issues in an intelligent way, and some sort of cabal (the media) has come in and suppressed all that so they could force toddlers and tiaras down their throats.

There are plenty of news outlets that are spending their money to broadcast the details of the NSA scandal as accurately as possible, and if people happen to find those outlets on their TVs, they change the channel to toddlers and tiaras as quickly as possible. Which goes back to the original (I think correct) point that most people don't find this particular issue as dire as many people think they should.

I knew that comment would open a can of worms. One might also argue that the shabby quality of education has a bit to do with it as well.

>I don't quite follow. It's not like there is some naturally occurring flow of newspapers, radio and television broadcasts that discuss with the correct, important issues in an intelligent way,

The ownership of media in the US is not as diverse as you might think. The content is also not (at least IMO) as diverse as it would be absent improper influence.

>and some sort of cabal (the media) has come in and suppressed all that

Would you believe Carl Bernstein if he told you that the CIA had operatives at all levels of major news media outlets within the US, and a history of manipulating the news? http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

If not him, have a look at the Church Committee reports on intelligence activities along the same theme.

Neither is proof that the activities were continued after being caught red-handed, but, it is enough that I would consider naive the notion that the gov't/intel community had completely ceased such activities, as opposed to just being more careful. As far as I am concerned, given the past (the part that is public record) the possibility that the gov't/intel community aren't still successfully manipulating domestic media coverage can't be dismissed without a credible investigation, or credible oversight, or something to that effect. To put it another way, public exposure of NSA activities is being treated by NSA as a threat to their continued operations; and they will use the tools in their arsenal to fight that threat.

> so they could force toddlers and tiaras down their throats.

If you have a monopoly/oligopoly/cartel in a market, you can feed your customers pretty much anything, and still make a living.

> The fact that we keep seeing these votes is simply a proof of the fact that most people don't really care about it.

Allow me to introduce you to two voters, A and B. Also two representatives, X and Y.

There are two issues in this campaign, D and E.

Support matrix:

   DE 
  Xyn 
  Yny

Now, A may care about both D and E, but feel more strongly about D. B may care about both D and E, but feel a bit more strongly about E. So A votes for X and B votes for Y.

You can't meaningfully infer that B "doesn't care about" D in this situation, they had to make a tough choice and preferred the other. But this binary makes it seem like they voted anti-D.

Expand to a zillion candidates and a zillion issues. You can't really get a meaningful inference, and this is assuming that everyone is 100% rational!

I'm curious how much of the perceived benefit of republic-based democracy is based in logical fallacies and myth.

Voters are irrational and on a long-term scale, growth in state power eventually leads to the circumvention of public involvement, counter to the very definition of a republic: "A republic is a form of government in which affairs of state are a 'public matter', not the private concern of the rulers".

Constitutions were the obvious solution to this problem but they are very rarely considered absolute law in modern times, which almost defeats their purpose. Their influence worn down over decades of tinkering and executive-branch expansions in power.

Constitutions were not the solution to the problem. An educated and engaged electorate was the solution. The Constitution was a framework for that electorate to use as a tool, but several of the founders were very clear that the essential requirement of effective government was the engaged and educated electorate.

James Madison:

  * The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the 
    only guardian of true liberty.
  * Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people 
    who mean to be their own governors, must arm 
    themselves with the power knowledge gives.
  * Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with 
    every free people. They throw that light over the 
    public mind which is the best security against crafty 
    and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

Thomas Jefferson:

  * Every government degenerates when trusted to the 
    rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, 
    therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to 
    render them safe, their minds must be improved to a 
    certain degree.
  * Above all things I hope the education of the common 
    people will be attended to ; convinced that on their 
    good sense we may rely with the most security for the 
    preservation of a due degree of liberty.
  * I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of 
    the society, but the people themselves: and if we 
    think them not enlightened enough to exercise their 
    controul with a wholsome discretion, the remedy is, 
    not to take it from them, but to inform their 
    discretion by education. this is the true corrective 
    of abuses of constitutional power.

Seems to me that those of us who worry about the likes of NSA data slurping are the "radical fringe". That uniformed Muppet certainly seems to think so.

Writing off minorities as radicals is their game, not mine. You just played right in to the hands of the likes of Hayden. See how divide and rule works?

>You just played right in to the hands of the likes of Hayden. See how divide and rule works?

Aww come on, can't we have a little debate with our coffee? Maybe we'll eventually converge on some action that gets an optimal level of support within our cohort.

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