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Comment by trevoragilbert | Hacker News Reader

Historically this is just how it works. You want law x passed and I'm ambivalent about it, I want law y passed and you're ambivalent about it. We both need each other to pass either of them, so we agree to pass both as part of a larger law. This isn't a new thing and has been happening since the 1800s. As early as the decision to make DC the capital we've traded goals through compromise.

The process does get abused and I get frustration over those instance. For this one in particular, there are thematic similarities that can reasonably fall under "national security concerns".

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There is no reason a compromise needs to be formalized into a singular piece of legislation. Doing it this way helps politicians avoid accountability because it gives them plausible deniability to say they didn't support specific provisions of the overall bill. I think that is ultimately worse for our political system than making passing legislation more difficult.

> Doing it this way helps politicians avoid accountability because it gives them plausible deniability to say they didn't support specific provisions of the overall bill

Whose position on this bill, in the House or Senate, do you think is unclear?

People's positions on the bill are the one thing that is known. The problem is that it allows politicians to avoid accountability on the individual issues within that bill. A vote on this doesn't tell you directly whether a politician supports banning TikTok. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Ukraine. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Israel. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Taiwan. It just tells you whether they support this specific bill.

> A vote on this doesn't tell you directly whether a politician supports banning TikTok. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Ukraine. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Israel. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Taiwan.

In the House, these bills were individually voted on. (In TikTok's case, twice.) In the Senate, pretty much everyone has made their views known on at least Ukraine, Israel and TikTok. (Taiwan hasn't been particularly contentious.)

>In the Senate, pretty much everyone has made their views known on at least Ukraine, Israel and TikTok.

There is a reason I used the word "accountability". There is difference between talk and action and accountability is about making sure the two align. "Made their views known" by itself is just talk that can easily be obfuscated. A voting record is an action and we shouldn't allow politicians to distance themselves from that action with a simple "it was part of a larger bill".

> we shouldn't allow politicians to distance themselves from that action

Again, we have an actual case on hand. Who is distancing themselves from anything? Whose position—in talk and votes—on each of these issues isn’t abundantly clear?

>Again, we have an actual case on hand.

Which is the disconnect here. I criticized a general practice of which this is an example while you are focusing exclusively on that one example.

> I criticized a general practice of which this is an example

But it’s an example that clearly disproves the point. The accountability you describe is a communication, not vote structuring, problem.

Politicians lie which is why communication alone can’t be trusted the way actions like voting can.

“it’s ok because it has always been like this” is both a fallacy and a really bad argument.

It's not a fallacy if one of the complaints is "routine practice in American politics." It's directly pointing out that it isn't routine by accident, it's routine by design from the beginning.

>It's directly pointing out that it isn't routine by accident, it's routine by design from the beginning.

That isn't a defense of the quality of the practice. Something can have a bad "design from the beginning".

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