Comment by bopbop | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bopbop | Hacker News Reader

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> Government, democracy or not, generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes.

The fact that Government is being governed according to some of your wishes is coincidental. It's only in a democracy (or an autocracy where you are the ruling party) where the fact that some of your wishes are the laws is built in to the fabric of the system.

The word compromise is an interesting choice - a comprimise is an agreement between several parties in which all sides agree on a less then optimal solution for themselves in favour of a resolution the group can agree to. It's essentially a democracy - it's certainly the basis for participatory democracy.

I'm not sure where the on-off switch analogy is coming from - it's definitely not my opinion - hence the Churchhill comparison. Also, on-off seems very binary.

On a similar note, I would say that the comparison to the 2016 US Elections feels a little simplified - being given a choice of two parites doesn't mean you are being given a choice representing your wishes. At best, it can mean you are being given two options from a range on a spectrum, but even then the spectrum and gap between political parties is normally more then a single issue.

The American Left, for instance, would in Europe be on a fairly right wing part of the spectrum.

Nah. All sorts of things are done right by governments that I find distasteful and wouldn't vote for. For a coarse example, they're not abolishing laws against murder. That's good, because I want murder to be illegal. The area of agreement between the two parties in the US is much broader than the areas of disagreement.

But I was talking about compromise. And an unwillingness to tolerate compromise in our leaders was characteristic of the 2016 election - that's how Trump won the GOP nomination, and how Bernie put up a hard fight against Hillary Clinton. Bernie doesn't compromise on anything (he's not even a Democrat!), and most of his supporters find that admirable. Hillary compromises on everything, and those same supporters find it shameful, even though she's the one with an actual record of getting actual things done.

As a Democrat, I liked both the Democratic candidates (for different reasons), but can imagine a candidate I would have liked much better - one closer to my personal values. By voting for one, I compromised. I find Trump to be a disturbing human being who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near actual power. Nonetheless, his presidency is not the end of my world, and I sometimes even admire him (the same way I'd admire a child who killed their parents and then begged for mercy as an orphan, but admiration nonetheless).

Right, I get your previous comment now. I would agree with it if it where:

"Democracy generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes."

The fact that you are/are not being governed according to some of your wishes in a non-democratic society is coincidental. Why it may or may not be true for any given government, it is not inherent to the structure of any non-democratic government.

For all of the subsequent points in this comment about compromise, that's desirability in a democratic (small d) candidate - that doesn't have anything to do with the system itself.

But yes, I appreciate all the points you are making about the candidates - I would say Bernie does compromise, but his stubbornness is part of his desirability, certainly.

Hilarys ability to compromise becomes extremely clear when you look at what she stood for in the 70s/80s and the policies she pushed while running for presidency.

Thanks for clarifying, that was interesting.

Yeah, I think underneath it all, one of my points is that whether or not I'm being governed according to my wishes isn't really a function of democracy. A lot of people live in authoritarian societies where they quite agree with the main thrust of the government.

As an aside on the Hillary thing... something that frustrates me as a Democrat is that we're supposed to be the party of learning and evolving, but then we punish people for opinions held and mistakes made decades ago. I want our candidates to evolve. I've certainly evolved.

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