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Comment by quonn | Hacker News Reader

> only leaves inexperienced and incompetent politicians to do the job.

I think the idea that politicians primarily need to be experienced is a great mistake. It's not like they really run the government, which is really done by a huge number of government employees and experts a layer below.

What _does_ matter is integrity, a willingness to balance interests, listening to experts and aligning with the political position of those who elected you (e.g. a social democrat should probably focus more on the interests of workers - it puzzles me how the fact that there really are different interests that do not always align and that much of politics is therefore really about power is always ignored in favour of "experience").

And, by the way, some current German top politicians often _already_ seem quite incompetent. It seems unfair to just claim that members of smaller parties are more incompetent.

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Then you're simply wrong. I'm not equivocal about that. Experience in politics is - for me - the primary factor which qualifies a politician for a particular office. This is because of two things: First because they really are doing a very difficult job, they really are designing and discussing laws, and they are making decisions all day long. Secondly, looking at what they did before is the most reliable means by which voters can predict future performance. It's not 100% reliable, but not even one more accurate way has been discovered yet.

I can back that up by recent history: Look at what Syriza does to Greece. The prior governments were undeniably corrupt and did so much wrong it's way beyond funny. Still, Syriza, with its completely inexperienced politicians running a first-world country in a deep crisis, are arguably doing even worse.

In Germany there are only two parties who even have enough distinguished members to run a working government. The rest simply don't have enough leadership staff for the job. If these were to form a government, nobody would have heard of many of the ministers ever before, even people who take an interest in politics.

And on top of that, these smaller parties tend to experience a lot more problems than the big ones. I don't want to see something like the Chaos of the AFD and recently the FDP with a party who should be busy running the country.

> Then you're simply wrong. I'm not equivocal about that. Experience in politics is - for me - the primary factor which qualifies a politician for a particular office.

So you would vote for Nixon, essentially.

> I can back that up by recent history: Look at what Syriza does to Greece. The prior governments were undeniably corrupt and did so much wrong it's way beyond funny. Still, Syriza, with its completely inexperienced politicians running a first-world country in a deep crisis, are arguably doing even worse.

I don't see how they could do worse than the prior governments, considering that they are by and large responsible for Greece' current situation. Besides, even this was the case, this is just one example.

> And on top of that, these smaller parties tend to experience a lot more problems than the big ones.

You should look at the French UMP for a counter-example, it's the best performance of slow political suicide I know of.

Can you back up your claims that Syriza hurts Greece? From what I know, they actually defend the peoples interests and stand up to the criminals (e.g. Germany) that try to shake down their country using shady finance schemes set in to place by German politicians with the help of Greece's previous corrupt governments.

> In Germany there are only two parties who even have enough distinguished members to run a working government. The rest simply don't have enough leadership staff for the job. If these were to form a government, nobody would have heard of many of the ministers ever before, even people who take an interest in politics.

I'd prefer randomized decisions over these crooks any time. CDU isn't worthy to even talk about. Really. Its a criminal joke party. SPD was born a backstabber and still is a backstabber. Wer hat uns verraten?

What we need is a government with ethics. As one of the richest nations around we owe it to the world to set a precedent. Put the peoples rights and the environment first. Treat surrounding countries with dignity.

Personally I'd give Die Linke a chance, see what happens. They do most of the critical political work already, which is mainly exposing the crimes of the ruling government.

> And on top of that, these smaller parties tend to experience a lot more problems than the big ones. I don't want to see something like the Chaos of the AFD and recently the FDP with a party who should be busy running the country.

We don't want to see the AfD at all. They're Neo-Nazis.

Would you rather a corrupt politician than made the country rich (Haughey, Putin) or an honest politician that made the country poor (Mugabe)?

You must be thinking of the Mugabe of 30 years ago. Between the political violence, the graft and the cronyism, he is about as far from honest as he could be.

I think these examples are particularly well chosen. Putin and Mugabe are quasi-dictators running authoritarian states, and I don't even know the slightest bit about Haughey.

And Russia is arguably having quite a bit of trouble, economically, not even just because of the sanctions but because the general corruption in the country just doesn't allow for a sufficient retooling of the Russian economy. And the sanctions are a direct consequence of Putin not wanting to play by the rules and now being excluded from the game.

I think that Putin is the band-aid Russian needed ten years ago, but gone mouldy for a few years now.

Mugabe, yes, initially wanted to redistribute the land wonderfully... didn't totally think that one through.

I just mean to say that integrity and competence are not analogues.

Russia didn't need an authoritarian state 10 years ago and didn't need one now.

Putin never achieved anything without cutting down his opposition.

How familiar with Russia are you, by the way? Maybe if we trade backgrounds, the conversation could proceed more interestingly... My contacts are mostly through my wife, so I hear it from St. Petersburg, North Ossetia, Georgia, and the Ukraine, with a slightly over-representative Jewish tint. I am none of the aforenamed.

Please describe how Putin made Russia rich. It's like saying Stalin won 2nd world war. If Russia is richer, it's DESPITE having Putin and his KGB komrades at steering wheel.

Do you remember pre-Putin? It was an effing disaster.

Difficult assessment. The Soviet economy was collapsing when the soviet union broke up. It's hard to tell what Jelzin did right and wrong, especially compared to Putin.

What Putin certainly did was to turn Russia into an authoritarian state, run mostly by ex-KGB officers. What he didn't do was to make the society more open and retool and revitalize the economy. He also did hardly anything against corruption which didn't directly affect is ability to rule.

Mugabe honest?!

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