Comment by SomeCallMeTim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SomeCallMeTim | Hacker News Reader

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Democracy is about the people being able to participate in government. That's it. In order for that to be a good thing, the people need to be informed about the decisions they're making.

If the people are completely brainwashed by lies that are completely contrary to the truth--like nearly a quarter of our population seems to be at the moment--then they will vote for those with the most convincing lies.

If someone who gets their information from Fox "News"--which has been shown to be less reliable than not watching any news at all--is given an equal vote to those who actually know what's going on, Democracy is subverted. At that point you actually have a "fake Democracy", where the country is actually guided by the propagandists and not the people.

The US is one of a very few Democracies with this absolutist attitude about freedom of speech. It's not a required component of Democracy, and it's ultimately self-destructive, but it's clearly (based on the downvotes and responses to my comment) deeply ingrained.

As an example, Trump should have gotten barely any votes in the last election. He accomplished almost nothing besides stacking the supreme court and passing a deeply unpopular tax cut. Yes, we beat him, but 74M people voted for Trump. And those 74M people, nearly 47% of the voting public, were manipulated by blatantly false Russian and Republican propaganda.

To my mind, the "free speech as a religion" POV is looking like it will be the death of our democracy. If we can't fight misinformation, it may bury the country.

And clearly those on HN disagree. I won't argue with you further. But as things stand, we're circling the drain.

> Democracy is about the people being able to participate in government. That's it.

But why is that a good thing? We don't have to have everyone participate. You don't seem to believe in democracy yourself here.

> were manipulated by blatantly false Russian and Republican propaganda.

I think we should be extremely cautious about views that suggest cross sections of the population are not capable agents. Either you're right, 47% of people are manipulated idiots, and the other half are enlightened, or they hold grievances and values you just don't understand.

> I think we should be extremely cautious about views that suggest cross sections of the population are not capable agents.

I'm calling it as I see it. "Being cautious" and trying to be "fair" to the other side has been increasingly destroying the country.

47% of the voters in last election, which is just under 25% of the US population, were in fact manipulated, and are really, in this respect, not capable agents as a result of that manipulation. At the very least they're demonstrably not capable of critical thinking.

I've looked carefully at many explanations as to why MAGAts vote the way they do. It's blatantly obvious that there are a small number of primary motivations.

Aside from "sociopathic self-interest" of some of the 0.1% who simply want lower taxes, everyone else be damned, and a big chunk who reflexively vote Republican as if it's their home team and aren't really paying attention, the main motivator seems to be hate of "the liberals." And no, I don't accept that "hurting more than half of the country" is a reasonable motivation for someone under normal circumstances.

Where did that extreme level of hate come from? Manipulation. Sure there was an underlying anger that the propaganda stoked. People in rural America have it hard and they see all of these rich people in urban areas doing well. But that anger has been fanned to the point where kids knocking on the wrong doors are being shot. And the anger is fundamentally misdirected; these blue-collar folks could tremendously benefit from a higher minimum wage, for instance, and it's not like the Republicans would ever voluntarily vote for a minimum wage increase at this point.

> But why is that a good thing? We don't have to have everyone participate. You don't seem to believe in democracy yourself here.

It's the worst form of government around...aside from all the others that have been tried. (paraphrased Churchill).

I don't know of another form of government that has better results. Neither did Churchill. If we could enforce better national education standards, we'd end up with a better result. But in short term I don't know how to fix the problem other than taking the worst liars off the air.

"We don't have to have everyone participate" -- that sounds too much like a support for voter suppression, which is not what I'm talking about.

I can confirm, you cannot articulate what rural voters are concerned about.

> voter suppression

It sounds like your motivation for democracy is that you "owe people" a vote, not that it's actually better to give them it. If education is the factor, what if we gate it by high school, land ownership, or college graduation?

I guess to get back to my original point. You suggested that free information (and misinformation) was a threat to democracy, but I see little indication you believe democracy is important. It's hard to see calls like this as anything other than being upset that the majority is not voting the way you want, and wanting to reign them in.

> I can confirm, you cannot articulate what rural voters are concerned about.

I never claimed that I was giving the entire picture.

Given that there is ZERO positive that Trump accomplished for rural voters aside from "owning the libs," and many things that were actively negative like starting a trade war that may see rural soy farms permanently out of business, no, I don't think that rural voters are motivated by anything aside from "voting their team" and "trolling the libs."

> I see little indication you believe democracy is important

...trouble with reading comprehension there? I'll simply repeat:

> It's the worst form of government around...aside from all the others that have been tried. (paraphrased Churchill).

> I don't know of another form of government that has better results. Neither did Churchill. If we could enforce better national education standards, we'd end up with a better result. But in short term I don't know how to fix the problem other than taking the worst liars off the air.

But you don't actually care what I'm saying if you follow up with:

> It's hard to see calls like this as anything other than being upset that the majority is not voting the way you want, and wanting to reign them in.

Umm... It wasn't a majority. It was barely 25% of the country. The majority of active voters did in fact vote for Biden.

But enough. You're just trolling at this point.

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