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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Having politicians who understand the issues you care about is no guarantee that they will work for them. Yes, most of us yearn for a utopia where we're ruled by super-intelligent benevolent overlords. But in the real world, I'll settle for politicians that take popular positions because it's what the voters want. Ryan did the right thing here, regardless of what you think about his understanding of the issue (or about his other politics), and should be commended. We won this little battle. It's a good thing.

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I think the best comment on this I've heard came from Milton Friedman. Paraphrasing, he said:

"Politicians will do whatever they have to do to get re-elected. Everyone thinks if we just elect the right people, we'll have change. If you want change, don't worry about electing the right people. Just make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things".

Now, save for someone being bribed outright by a lobbyist, I think this is the context we need to work within.

"""But in the real world, I'll settle for politicians that take popular positions because it's what the voters want."""

It doesn't always work out best. It becomes a tyranny of the majority. Especially when what's at stake impacts a small group of people (e.g. religious differences, minorities, etc). I'd rather settle for politicians that can think on their own.

I don't understand why this comment is being downvoted. He makes a valid argument against the tyranny of the (uninformed) majority.

A significant number of Americans thought defaulting on our debt was a good idea and ignored every expert and economist shouting this would be catastrophic. Their argument was simply "we don't believe you" without supporting evidence, and without any desire to listen to counter-arguments. There is plenty of legitimate controversy over monetary policy, but basically everyone agreed defaulting on the debt was not a good idea.

I'm not arguing for elitism or benevolent dictatorship, but there are definitely times when "average Joe" has no idea what the fuck he is talking about.

In which case shouldn't the correct solution be to educate Joe about the issue and get him to make informed choices at the voting booth and town hall meeting?

Which, it seems, is exactly what happened here. Democracy is working (if not working well). That's a good thing.

Edit: three responses now are picking on my use of the term "educate" and referring to the willful ignorance of the public. That's missing the point. People certainly can be "educated" about issues they care about, as demonstrated here. It's not an issue of "book learning" or making Joe watch the news. It's an issue of Joe knowing what matters to him already and getting access to information that impacts those interests.

I agree, education is key. And I'm happy about what happened in this particular story. Not disputing that at all =)

But how do you educate someone that plugs their ears and yells "na na na na"? This is what I was getting at - politicians that legislate the ignorance of the masses, even when credible sources are saying its a catastrophic idea.

I don't have an answer to this, by the way. The opposite is legislators that ignore the general public and enforce things "for your own good", which is also a problem.

Often, Joe doesn't want to be educated; Joe looks down on education; Joe doesn't trust all that fancy book learning.

One has to be willing and open to learning to be educated. Often, people discussing politics or economics feel that their understanding is already good and have no desire to learn. This is the main reason that these topics tend to turn into a cesspool of a discussion.

Joe has no incentive to become educated. His odds of affecting the outcome are essentially nil [1], so it's all the same if he votes based on his tribal affiliations or self image (e.g. "look at me, I'm so very not racist!" or "look at me, I'm so religious").

[1] Math can be found here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1750757

Except that's clearly wrong, as evidenced by this very story. Joe reads reddit and hears about SOPA. Joe tells his rep he doesn't like SOPA. And his rep flips. QED.

The bug in your logic is that "tribal affiliation" is, in fact, an "issue" Joe cares about. You don't think it's an important issue, and probably don't like his affiliation anyway, but it is and he's going to vote on it. But it isn't the only issue.

Basically: you can't expect to "educate" Joe to think like you do. Education can't cure Christiantity, etc... But you can tell him about stuff he cares about. Real people care about SOPA, they just don't know the details. That is something that can be fixed.

> I'll settle for politicians that take popular positions

Because it worked so well in Germany in the mid 30's

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