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Comment by vault | Hacker News Reader

The USA, of course. Don't forget you vote for your government, not for Google's CEO.

Google's CEO has pretty much ZERO powers over me. The USA government is (largely) democratic and (mostly) obeys laws. But my government... is not the one I voted for and I trust it 0%.

Because I do not live in the West but in one of the great majority of countries with a corrupt, abusive government. The democratic governments of the West are the exception, not the rule.

> The USA government is (largely) democratic

Well, if I may nitpick, it's a federal republic rather than a democracy...

More to the point though, there was this study at Princeton U about the correlation between US government policy and popular opinion on a variety of subjects which found that public opinion correlates very poorly with government policy / legislation passed, but opinions among the very-rich correlate well. Can't remember the exact reference right now.

> and (mostly) obeys laws.

Oh, definitely not. It can well be argued that there is constant mass violation of the constitution. And regardless of this, the US is such a notorious outlaw on the international level that not only does it refuse to accept jurisdiction of the international criminal court, but has in fact threatened action against court staff if the court hears any case against it:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/15/us-threatens-internation...

The effect you mentioned (democratic deficit) is also inversely correlated with unionization (which positively correlates with public engagement with government). So it could be that the reduction in population median household income due to reduction in unionization (and increase in top earner profit / larger inequalities) causes an exacerbation of the effect, with the observation you mentioned.

Under communism unionisation was pretty much complete - but that did not make the dictatorship a democracy by any means.

> it's a federal republic rather than a democracy...

Germany is both a federal republic and a democracy and I would argue the the USA are too. Both countries ultimatively derive their legislation from the general populace and are representative democracies.

I've seen the claim you made several times, but every time I try to look it up I fail to understand it.

What is your reason to think a federal republic would exclude democracy?

Yes this seems to be a common distinction made in the US, which I also don't understand. What I learned in politics at school (and studying it for a short time) was that republic and democracy are orthogonal concepts (leds leave out the federal which seems to be even another dimension).

A republic essentially means, the state doesn't have a king (head of state by inheritancel, but some sort of president which gets elected in some way (not necessary by the population). A democracy is a category of how decisions get made, i.e. by some vote of the people (demos).

Is there some subtlety I'm missing or is this thing about "federal Republic not democracy" something just always repeated, without properly understanding it. .

Still infinitely better than my government though, which was the whole point.

"The government has a defect. It's potentially democratic.

Corporations have no defect - They're pure tyrannies."

- Noam Chomsky

Still waiting for those "pure tyrannies". Meanwhile every damn thing I am using in my daily life, from my car, computer to the furnace heating my house - was made by a corporation.

And I did live under communism, with absolutely zero corporations. Then I knew tyranny every day. And shortages.

Did Noam Chomsky live under communism by any chance?

The fact that you lived under a bad government, while sad, doesn't invalidate Noam's statement.

Maybe. But the fact that we haven't encountered those "pure tyrannies" anywhere sure does.

I won't dive into details, but please consider that maybe you're not recognizing them.

Considering I lived under a tyranny, I should be fairly qualified to recognize one if I see it.

But I can always be wrong, so I am open to examples.

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