Hacker News Reader

Comment by simpaticoder | Hacker News Reader

Your post resonates, and yet nostalgia is a powerful force. Was life ever really good? After all, there were issues even during peak post-war Americana from civil rights unrest to Cold War "you could be nuked any day now" anxiety.

OTOH institutions were actually strong, and wealth-inequality not-that-bad prior to the 1980's.... Personally, I think SCOTUS and Citizens United are the root cause of recent decline. Money-in-politics has made inept, corrupt gerontocracy unassailable and safe in their unaccountable malfeasance. A revolution is needed, how sad a fentanyl- and social-media-addled American public picked an even more corrupt old man to fix a corrupt old man problem.

View on HN

> Citizens United

I agree.

Include ranked choice or quadratic voting + repeal CU and a lot of things could improve quickly.

Terms limited to 25 years and age 65 at time of election.

I agree and support term limits, but also not certain it can fix anything.

Legislators are (with rare few exceptions) not independent from the power of their party (meaning, they either align with party line or don't stand a chance of being elected). And each party has a nearly endless supply of new corrupt people to substitute in. Even if we had single term term-limits for every role, each party will keep cycling in new corrupt party-aligned people into those roles.

What we really need is a system where legislator are in a position that it is not feasible to corrupt them. It's fun to think of ways of designing such a government, but of course it will never be allowed by the powers that be.

The problem with a term limit like that is if you kill politics as a career that mostly precludes electing anyone competent because few will want to have to start over in a new career at some point in their life.

I do agree with ranked choice.

Politics isn't supposed to be a career. It's supposed to be an act of service for a limited period.

But most fields don't let you take years off and jump back in without substantial penalty. Doing it as acts of service in a modern society doesn't work.

It doesn't have to be mid career. A mix of people retiring early to hold office and younger people that start a career later in life after being elected would be amazing. Leveraging your elected experience to create a startup is also a good path.

Thanks, I needed a good laugh!8-))

FWIW I agree with you about Citizens United.

Oh, and "was life ever good?" Yes it was and remains so!

Yeah money in politics is most of it. It will be difficult to persuade the oligarchy that one dollar shouldn't equal one vote, but if we continue on this current trajectory they'll inevitably destroy society and the environment to such an extent that groceries won't be able to make it to their New Zealand luxury bunkers.

Personally, I'd make ownership of such bunkers illegal. Make them have some skin in the game.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com