Hacker News Reader

Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

Problem is that she's a Democrat and a liberal on social issues. Is SF going to vote for a right wing social conservative candidate just because Feinstein is bad on crypto?

Same problem exists in "red" states, where conservative politicians can get away with all kinds of corruption and madness because who's going to vote for a baby eating liberal? Basically if your state is very Democrat or very Republican you have single party rule and your politicians are dictators.

The culture war must die if we ever want any meaningful progress on any other kind of issue.

View on HN

The culture war is a non-issue because California allows two members of the same party to win the nomination and challenge each other in the general election.

There was 15% voter turnout for the 2012 primary in which Feinstein (49.5%) and Emken (12.7%) were nominated. In other words Emken got on the ballot to challenge Feinstein with only 1.9% of voter support.

To run a successful campaign to challenge incumbent Democrats with pro-liberty Democrats in the general, you possibly only need to get ~ 2% voter turnout for your candidates.

This is pretty feasible to do if California residents actually cared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_...

False dichotomy.

The point is the tech scene can't even get their representatives to represent them in their core issues. Belief in elections mattering is akin to belief in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

If Feinstein's the problem here, then it is irresponsible to throw up your hands and declare the failure of democracy. Instead, vote her out of office and replace her with someone who understands the implications of weakening encryption.

Your vote alone doesn't matter, you say? Do what you can to educate those around you on the issues. Make them think twice before re-electing someone with such a bad record.

Or maybe it's because the tech scene is full of libertarian-leaning individuals who think not-voting and not being involved in the full political process sends a message to politicians. Or think that politics is "stupid" and it would work so much better if everyone was just as rational as an engineer or programmer.

For the last 40 years, Americans have been bombarded with the idea that voting doesn't matter. That "both" sides are just the same. That all politicians are crooked and corrupt. These are all lies.

Our voting levels are abysmal, especially at the local levels where politicians such as Feinstein get their start. Low voting levels means only a small and vocal minority of people actually have to be convinced to vote for a person. Or at least not vote for another person. Running for election continues to cost more and more money, which perpetually give money an advantage.

Meanwhile, many places like Arizona continue to make voting as difficult as they legally can. Most other places continue to avoid making it easy to be an informed voter. My favorite state's approach to voting is still Oregon. Vote by mail and including a wonderfully produced voter pamphlet to help inform voters.

Elections can have huge impacts. It just requires people to ACTUALLY VOTE. Most of these politicians represent the people who do vote. Or at least strive to not work against things they value. Look at how powerful the Tea Party style Republicans are right now.

I won't say money isn't a problem in elections. It is. I won't say popular vote doesn't have its downsides. It does. Elections in America need to be reformed to allow more nuances than two party platforms and to help ensure everybody can take a part in the process.

It's a perverse fantasy to look at elections and declare them a fantasy. They do matter and have changed this country so much since the Civil Rights Act reshaped the country. Conservatives figured out how to use a minority of very motivated voters to craft a political movement that has changed everything about this country. For good or ill will depend on your politics, but it would be the height of ignorance to pretend it didn't.

SHOUTING doesn't make it true.

Elections do not matter, not for anything important. The civil rights act happened because people were willing to go to jail over what was right, the same goes for the draft.

Gerrymandering has made most elections farcical, and money does the rest.

Running as an independent is a way to get exactly nothing passed as both parties, which really are just one two-headed Hydra, will shut out outsiders.

And this only covers elected officials, most laws and regulations are made by life long bureaucrats.

It's amazing the myopia of people, this bill is but one of the thousand examples of our corrupt illegitimate government. Again the government does not care for you or your beliefs, it cares for power and money, it will pass secret trade deals, it will pass secret laws in secret courts, it will torture and imprison those that oppose it.

Does anyone have an honest response? America is a corrupt police state run by an unaccountable elite.

Amazing how so many people refuse to see the truth that is so obvious.

Even in San Francisco the tech folks are a small fraction of the population, even if they have an outsized proportion of the money. What would be "corrupt and illegitimate" would be if tech companies got their way because of their money, despite being in the minority in terms of political views.

They aren't really in the minority. There's a huge amount of overlap between tech folk and the majority in California. The main difference is encryption, and even there, that's largely a matter of education to overcome apathy and misunderstandings. Convince people that encryption backdoors aren't "reasonable," and that they're actively detrimental to their own safety and interests, and you can change that.

In any case, our entire system of government was built around the idea of protecting against a tyranny of the majority. For entirely valid reasons, a majority of the people might support a disastrous policy. Ideally, our system is able to protect against the implementation of those policies. Doing so doesn't make your efforts corrupt and illegitimate.

Money is always going to be involved in politics. There's no getting around it, and anyone who argues that you can "undo it" is deluding themselves. You can, however, push for policies that increase accountability and make sure that funding takes place in the light of day. But that's an entirely separate, complex issue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com