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Comment by 001sky | Hacker News Reader

Ron Wyden of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, all Democrats, are United States senators.

== Why isn't this adressed to Dianne Feinstein?

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I think the bit about the single vote was about her? Does it mean they had just one vote in the committee or a single person quashed the bill?

Feinstein lives in an ivory tower, completely isolated from the needs of ordinary citizens in California. She gets six years in office with every election, and was just recently re-elected. She's totally safe, like those tea-party republicans in gerrymandered districts. California is too big of a state for a grassroots organization to challenge her in a primary and she placates enough of various groups with the funds to start an astroturf war and so they leave her alone. She's pretty much untouchable. She often starts on the wrong side of many issues, a notable exception being LGBT rights (good for her and us), and only with intense pressure from public opinion does she bow for appearances only. For example she was for SOPA, against meaningful health reform, and she's been a staunch defender of the NSA.

Senator Feinstein is a defender of the status quo. She's a conservative. Not a social conservative or neo-conservative, but someone who fights progress. Her office is in an actual giant tower right outside of the Montgomery Street Bart station and she wouldn't even come down to visit protestors and talk to them when we were there on behalf of OFA and there quite a few of us. It might as well have been built in ivory. That was the only protest I have ever taken part in. It wasn't even really a protest, just a show of support for Obama's health care plan.

Politicians like Feinstein make me cynical about politics. I feel helpless to be able to contribute change, so I just don't want to care anymore. Whatever, she's the boss. Great. Could be worse I guess.

If she runs again in 2018, the best plan might be convince enough Democrats and Republicans to vote for an alternative Democrat in the primaries to make the general election Dem v. Dem. Then you'd get people actually considering the individuals... Of course, she's 80, so she might well not be running again anyway.

> If she runs again in 2012

2012 was last year.

Right, forgot to add 6. It's early... Fixed.

In five years she will have done so much more damage it's hardly fun to think about it.

Plausibly. She doesn't individually have much power without cooperation from others, who could potentially stop cooperating, though. That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

As the face of hypocrisy, its (perhaps) actually worth rallying against her individually. Does she really represent you (or by extension CA, SF, SV...etc?). Human nature has very strong instinctual aversion to public demonstrations of hypocrisy of one's own activity. This is true because political power is power rested in delegated authority. That is rooted in trust. And duplicity and hypocrisy mark such an agent as untrustworththy. This reduces their eventual political tenebility. Its one of those experiments, ironically derived from cognitve science about why people don't <change their mind> on a publicly revealed preference or bet. In this case, it (perhaps) makes sense to use the result in a constructive way.

She's not a hypocrite. She is very open and public about her positions. I do not think she is dishonest I just think she fights against progress.

There's something about (consevative, Liberal) that itches akward, although you may be right in a narrow sense.

That itch is your problem, not hers. Everyone operating in the public sphere should be honestly trying to pursue the policies they think will lead to the best results (for everyone, for their constituencies, and to some degree for themselves). They should not be trying to live up to labels whose definitions are different at different times, which are useful only when speaking in pretty broad terms, and which largely refer to coalitions with varied individuals of varied personal philosophy.

A ton of the "most Conservative" politicians in American politics aren't anything like "conservative" - changing a slew of things to the way they were 200 years ago, with no eye to the things that have changed technologically, demographically, &c, may still be the right thing to do, but it's not "conservative". I would even argue that opposition to abortion is ceasing to be a "conservative" position - it has been legal for longer than most of the population has been alive. That doesn't mean that people who oppose it on whatever grounds, and consider themselves conservative overall, are necessarily wrong or "hypocritical" to do so.

Its more a problem for the people that she was elected to represent. The fact that once that power is accrued, the game is to keep it, is not a partisan one. But that creates more cognitive dissonance for some ideologies that it does for others.

As you had phrased it it is not a problem for them. It's a problem if she's misrepresenting herself, but she has an awfully long voting record at this point, and when she talks what she says is not radically different than what she does.

Many of her particular positions I consider a problem, but that has nothing to do with any discrepancy implied by "(conservative, Liberal)".

but she'll save us from the guns, right guise

Almost certainly because she is allergic to common sense.

Because they're making their case to the American people directly, having failed to persuade their colleagues.

And now it's up to us, having failed to elect enough people who support the Constitution. Elections next year, and in 2016. Just sayin'.

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