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Comment by jameskilton | Hacker News Reader

Ah yes, Republican congressmen trying to harm a private company because it's doing better than a government funded program.

Pot, kettle, yada yada.

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Well, ultimately they're trying to help out Boeing and other major contractors, right? It's not about big government versus private industry, it's about private industry defended by lobbying and pork-barrel concessions versus private industry that doesn't have those things.

Not that that's better.

I'd argue SpaceX is very likely getting into the lobbyist game, too. The major difference is that the United Launch Alliance consists of big defense players whose collective clout and spending on political donations and lobbying makes SpaceX look like a joke.

Also, the top military contractors have been convicted on numerous occasions of deliberately defrauding taxpayers without losing contracts over this behavior. This can only continue to happen if they're being protected by powerful people. The military procurement industry is a notoriously corrupt circle which rewards the largest and most inept, as the Joint Strike Fighter proves.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/fraudu...

You're right, of course. This is the sort of thing that Eisenhower foresaw when he warned against the military-industrial complex, but even with the benefit of hindsight I don't know what we could have done about it. Everyone's incentives are aligned, and in the wrong direction.

It's worse, actually.

I think that focusing on the illusory party division is exactly the wrong approach to this. Both Democrats and Republicans are the problem, and both parties have essentially the same agenda.

What needs to happen is the elimination of government interference, not calling out some perceived hypocrisy.

We get the governments we elect. If we pick our candidates poorly, it's our own fault (including if we don't exercise our right to vote).

That's great - when I actually get to pick my candidate. Most of the times, it's the party (or candidates' money) choosing for me - then I get to choose which of the parties' candidates I vote for. Third party candidate? Not going to ever work with FTTP [1] voting.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

You don't vote for a Third Party Candidate. You vote for a Third Party Platform. Once the Platform gains the support of a few percent of voters, it is adopted by the major parties. This is how every progressive agenda from the abolition of slavery to marijuana reform has gained traction.

Since I don't live in a swing-state (or the swing-county of a swing-state) I feel like voting for Third Party Platforms is the best way to make my vote heard.

It most all cases though it is a heads I win tails you lose situation.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for non-major party candidates to get on the ballot.

This hard http://www.illinoisherald.com/articles/2014/q3/illinois-gop-...

That doesn't work, though. The only time anyone really cares about your opinion is when you're in the voting booth and any concern directed at you at any other time is solely with respect to the voting booth. And in the voting booth you can only choose between two parties. You either make the best out of it or you don't.

How doesn't it work? As far as I know, it's never been tried.

It has been tried, by everyone who votes for a third party.

You are correct but there are third party options. Voting for the "lesser of two evils" is poisonous and the public should be made aware of third++ parties.

They already are aware, and correctly dismiss them as pointless. Third parties cannot accomplish anything in a first-past-the-post election system like we have. Any vote for one will essentially be a vote for whichever big party you agree least with. Changing that would require changing the whole government over to a parliamentary system.

Yeah, what the US really need is a proportional voting system where x% of the federal/national votes means x% (+/- rounding error) of the parliamentary seats, with no voting districts or any other excuses. So what's needed is to convince the ruling classes that switching to such a system is worth potentially ruining their and their friends' careers. Luckily, this is not my problem, but it is pretty frustrating to hear Americans discuss politics.

I wouldn't quite say that we really need to switch to proportional or something else just yet. These type of fundamental changes have the potential for huge unintended consequences, and need to be looked at carefully from every angle.

One of the properties of our system the way that it is is that all "radical" elements, where radical is anything outside the national status quo, must join one of the big parties and appeal at least somewhat to all of the interests in that party to get anything done. Going to this sort of proportional system breaks that, for all such radical interests.

Sure, being able to vote for a useful Libertarian party, or a tech and science party, sounds nice. But there would also be the radical Christian party, the drug warrior party, the foreign policy hawk party, the isolationist party, union party, big business party, etc, and none of them will be moderated by the need to appeal to the rest of a large party.

I also think that everyone is justifiably worried about what a major rewrite of the US constitution, which is what doing that would require, would look like right now.

The alternative to change is that nothing changes. Anyway, the number of parties are constrained by how many parties can be fitted on a TV screen or in the national consciousness. The rest are condemned to fringe status. A more formal solution are minimum percent requirements (5% in Germany, for example), but the problem then is that all votes for parties below the limit are thrown away. Last election in Germany, 15% of the votes were thrown away for this reason. Some parties narrowly fell short - most notably the liberal party.

Perhaps "aware" was a poor choice of words. Fact is, you can break this down many ways but it almost always boils down to money and who is contributing how much to who else. Visibility is costly.

Which, not to lose sight of the article. "You want us to contribute to you getting elected monetarily and with our employees/unions, you'll do what we want."

I just hope a majority wakes up one day and votes like me.

I agree with your entire comment, but the last sentence stands out as the one thing that everyone agrees on.

"I just hope a majority wakes up one day and votes like me"

Outside of local government, voting for third party is the equivalent of pissing in the wind. It accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even if you do manage to get a third-party representative elected to Congress, they will still have to ally themselves with either side to be able to get anything done.

This is the reality of American politics: it's a two-party, winner-takes-all system. The third party is like a catch-all "else" branch that never runs.

@MadManE: Somalia has tried it for the last few years. No pesky government interference there.

Yeah, that terrible Somalia place, with its dropping infant mortality, increased life expectancy, massive increase in adult literacy, fledging and competitive telecommunications market and thriving economy sectors like livestock.

Or maybe this is just biased reporting from that anti-government rag, the BBC[1][2].

And none of this matters, because taking Somalia as the standard for anarchy is no more valid than using Nazi Germany has the example of the result of democracy[3].

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12278628

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12285365

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_...

"It's a bit less shitty" really doesn't help your argument all that much. I'd still rather not live there.

And I'd rather not live in North Korea, even though it has a stable government.

The fact that a place is both (more or less) stateless and a hard place to leave doesn't mean that the former necessarily causes the latter, any more than having a government necessarily means it'll be a murderous dictatorship.

You have an interesting definition of "stable government" if North Korea is one. They're one death away from complete chaos - if Kim Jong-Un dies, it's probably all-out civil war.

This. OMG 1000 times this. I simply cannot understand why so many intelligent people still allow themselves to be divided like this. How can they not see that the politicians are playing them?

They are the big government they claim to want to eliminate.

They always have been. It's only "big government" when it benefits their mates and future board positions.

There's a missing negation unless I'm misreading your comment: it's only big government when it doesn't benefit their mates.

They only complain about regulations when someone they know, or want to be on the board with, wants that regulation to go away. It's exactly the right size government when it happens to be a massive handout to those same people, or buys off a social group who literally do want to control what you do in the bedroom, for example.

The point is, its all misdirection anyway - the correct question about governments is always to focus on issues and results. When someone has to declare ideology as a motivator, and can't imagine step-wise plans or trials, then they should be ignored.

or "their" can refer to democrats.

Ah yes, an obviously left leaning author accuses several of is local representatives of wrong-doing. Lets take it as cannon and use the opportunity to pile on an bash them Republicans. After all, it is the severity of the accusation that matters, right?

Doesn't matter to me if they have an R or D after their name, if they're doing this, it's wrong.

From direct observation, that appears to be a playbook straight out of the Republican camp.

Can't attack the message, attack the messenger.

Context matters. I see a lot of talk on this thread about the motives of Congressmen who are going to attack a company so they can make their big donors happy.

How about we flip the script and put the same argument to the author: What gets funding for scientists in need of public grants? Maybe attacking opponents in an election year will get you good favor of those who control said public funds?

I doubt either is true (the author having funding motivations behind the article, or the representatives out to kill a business for their lobbying group).

Didn't get the memo? Both sides are exactly the same.

Oddly enough I didn't get that memo. Could you explain it for me?

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