Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Saying “US corruption isn’t new” is a truism. There are probably isolated incidents, and many unproven theories, but everyone is quick to agree with this statement because it’s a common feeling everyone has now for some reason. The reality of corruption is likely much smaller and more boring than people think.

Corruption in the US been extensively documented and proven. The revolving door at regulatory bodies, dark money, gerrymandering, no-bid contracts, "kids for cash", the collusion at the DNC before the 2016 primary, unconstitutional domestic spying by the NSA (along with the directer James Clapper lying to congress under oath without consequence), the lies the George W. Bush administration sold the public to justify his wars (and just about everything else surrounding them including profiteering, the use of torture, and many other war crimes), the Whitewater scandal, etc.

You can go back in time as far as you like and you'll find things like The Teapot Dome scandal or The Whiskey Ring.

The kind of corruption we're seeing today is exceptional, but to pretend that anything before now was "isolated incidents" and "unproven theories" is beyond ridiculous. Things right now are bad enough that we don't have to blind ourselves to our own history in order to make it appear worse. It is worse. It doesn't change the reality that corruption has been an ongoing problem in the US and maybe if we'd been more aggressive about punishing it we wouldn't be here today. Sweeping any of it under the rug is the last thing we should be doing.

You listed a bunch of things only some of which are bad, and none of which are clearly corrupt. Did you know that things can be bad, and still not corrupt?

When you delete a customer database at work, it doesn't have to be because you're corrupt.

You're believing conjecture, because it makes you feel smarter, like you can see through the facade. The reality is that you're probably afraid to come off naive. We have to be stronger and fight this urge to cry wolf about everything, because sometimes real ones show up.

> You listed a bunch of things only some of which are bad, and none of which are clearly corrupt.

Charitably, you might be using a different definition of corruption than most of the world uses. Even if we limit ourselves to only a narrow definition of only political corruption, the abuse of government power for private gain, most of what I listed would still be (sometimes literally) textbook examples of it. The revolving door, dark money, "kids for cash", no-bid contracts, Teapot Dome, these are examples of how we've seen bribery and cronyism play out in the Untied States. Voter suppression for example is a form of electoral corruption. While you're welcome to play at semantics or choose your own definitions for what you feel is and isn't corruption, claiming that "none of the things" listed were "clearly corrupt" is simply false.

I think we'd agree that a worker deleting a database doesn't have to be corruption, but that also doesn't mean it can never be an act of corruption either. I'm not talking about conjecture, just documented history, some of it recent. There are people in prison right now for their roles in it and many others who should have been, or who should still be, locked up for it, but who have escaped justice because of corruption.

It's difficult to imagine what "real ones" would even look like to you personally, but be assured that to the rest of us the US has a very long and well documented history of real corruption.

I'll be more specific.

Let's take revolving door. Who would you want to be in charge of regulating an industry, a person who knows it inside out or a newcomer who has no idea how anything works? How would the latter have any hope at being an effective regulator? You would never accept this kind of lack of experience anywhere else in life. But for some reason we're all used to pointing out revolving doors as some kind of gotcha, without giving it the basic level of thought.

Dark money sounds bad, but anonymity doesn't imply corruption. Money also isn't enough. Look at billionaires trying to run for president, and where they got. You'll also be hard pressed to find any example where a politician picks a stance that goes against their constituents' opinion, in favor of money. Usually money piggybacks on a public opinion that already supports them, or is largely indifferent. History has shown that pumping money can rarely reverse public opinion to a significant extent, but sometimes can dissuade a positive opinion into indifference. Even that, unclear if it’s still possible in today’s world.

Kids for cash — I didn't know what it was at first. Sure, that's straight corruption. A couple of judges committed crimes, got caught, and received prison sentences.

I could go down every example you made, but I hope the sample above illustrates what I mean. "Documented history" is conjecture until it's adjudicated. You're making a mistake of putting "documented history" (insinuations of corruption in dark money, revolving doors, voter suppression) in the same bucket as clear and adjudicated corruption (like kids for cash), and based on this mixed bucket of good and bad examples, make a conclusion that there's always been outsized corruption in US, compared to normal baseline. Your basis for that conclusion is flawed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com