Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

savepandadoc.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 204 posts

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#91

Post by dctoedt »

bobthepanda wrote: post #87
crdrost wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second US civil war only incidentally involves Trump. He happens to be the figurehead right now, but even if that changes we were on the brink before Trump and we will be on the brink after Trump. The underlying cause is a mistake of our founding fathers. Because of the winner-take-all structure of our elections, our political parties are forced to be forkophobic. The fact that we can't have a real Tea Party, to…

The states are free to choose their way of allocating their House representatives so long as they are directly elected. I don’t know if Proportional Allocation would count as directly elected, and to force all states to go along with it you definitely need an amendment.

> to force all states to go along with it you definitely need an amendment

Not necessarily — Congress has vast powers under the Fourteenth Amendment. See the just-published "Abolish the Senate" by lawyer and well-regarded liberal commentator Thomas Geohegan [0].

[0] https://thebaffler.com/salvos/abolish-the-senate-geoghegan

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#92

Post by grey-area »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #71
pcbro141 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's annoying when people think you're being hyperbolic or "too political/left/anti-Trump" when you point out how uniquely dangerous Trump is. He openly talks about his autocratic desires frequently and a lot of Americans frankly don't care about an American president being an open self-admitted threat to democracy. We're in a really bad situation when a simple statement like "Presidents shouldn't talk about…

> He openly talks about his autocratic desires to be honest I've seen it as his form of jest, where he's constantly tryin to rile up his opponents. And he can get away with it because he knows his supporters have all the guns (at least amongst civilians). We'll see what the military does and if that institution is solid.

When he tells you who he is, believe him.

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#93

Post by formerly_proven »

dshpala wrote: post #88

I think that protesters didn't think it through enough. Yes, Lukashenko is an awful guy, but what is the alternative? Protesters say they are pro Russia - but in my opinion this is a grave mistake, and Belarus will soon find itself as a Russia-controlled state.

> Protesters say they are pro Russia - but in my opinion this is a grave mistake, and Belarus will soon find itself as a Russia-controlled state.

If the protesters said they're against Russian influence, they'd be shot down hard by the Russians (with Lukashenka's assent, obviously) to preserve Belarus as a buffer zone towards the West. If they are pro-Russian / pro-status-quo as far as foreign affairs are concerned, there is at least a (slim) possibility of Putin not keeping Lukashenka in office by any means. But considering previous Russian engagements, it seems extremely unlikely Putin will allow anything other than what he'd consider "stable authoritarianism", because the foreign attachments of a democracy (even a bad one) would be too fluent and thus too risky for him.

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#94

Post by jonwachob91 »

crdrost wrote: post #81
cpitman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea how to preserve the ability for people to go to "their" representative under that model?

I mean, you now have a few more people to go to. Like, I used to live in Kansas City, Missouri. I used to have exactly one representative I could go to, but his reelection is almost surely guaranteed as long as he wants to keep running. He has run the exact same campaign against the exact same opponent, Jacob Turk, since 2006, besting him by 10-20 points and taking the seat. One of the larger roads across the center…

>>> I used to have exactly one representative I could go to

No, you have always had 3. Your districts congressman, and your 2 state senators.

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#95

Post by dalbasal »

kazagistar wrote: post #64
odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine yes, Belarus youth don't seem to align with EU that much. They just want a freaking democratic country. Most favour Russian values over EU ones. source: Current and previous gfs were Belarrusian and we had these discussions a lot (both before and after this whole thing) edit: And both parents of both women voted for lukashenko btw, as well as some of their friends (not saying he won or anything, but it isn't…

I'm still not even sure what Russian values even means.

I was probably being too casual with the term. I meant it in terms of identity, especially in politically adjacent ways.

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#96

Post by pstuart »

pstuart wrote: post #51
komali2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this is why portland protesters are demanding these outsiders (the national guard) leave.

Not just those outsiders, but Proud Bois and other White Nationalists.

Hmmmm. I just do nazi why this is getting downvoted.

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#97

Post by Const-me »

diego_moita wrote: post #83
mensetmanusman wrote: post #67

Unfortunately, history tells us that almost all major gains in freedom come, at one point, through violent conflict/sacrifice. If one side (an authoritarian oppressor) is not afraid to use violence, and the other is prevented from using any response, the oppressor will win. This is why major changes usually require civil war. This is also why authoritarians definitely do not want their population to have access to we…

> Unfortunately, history tells us that almost all major gains in freedom come, at one point, through violent conflict/sacrifice. No, it doesn't. Recent history tells us exactly the opposite: 1) Rise of democracy in Latin America in the 70s and 80s (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil) 2) Collapse of communism on Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s. 3) Democracy in Eastern Asia in the 80s (Indonesia, Korea, Phil…

> Collapse of communism on Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars 130000 dead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution 1000 dead

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#98

Post by dalbasal »

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #85
dalbasal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflicts with what I've heard from Belarusians, but possibly a bias based on where those guys live (here in Ireland). That said, I don't think it really matters what how the average Belarusian sees it. Russia (specifically Putin, and probably many of his generation) sees a democratic revolution as 1989 stuff, and as a weakening of their "buffer." Nothing is ever 100% but I think it's likely that most want Lukashenko…

Yes, in general the ones that left are more pro EU than russia (though the ones that left for Moscow are more pro Russia). And I agree that EU should put more pressure on the whole subject. I see the eastern countries like Lithuania, Poland and Latvia trying to make waves/raise concerns, but central and western Europe not so much (ask a Portuguese where Belarus is, and he won't know) and are more invested in the BLM…

"are more invested in the BLM issues than what is happening at the EU borders"

Very frustrating. I believe in solidarity, and I sympathize with US causes as well. But, Belarus is in need of our solidarity. I'm not sure americans even noticed it.

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#99

Post by [deleted] »

dshpala wrote: post #88

I think that protesters didn't think it through enough. Yes, Lukashenko is an awful guy, but what is the alternative? Protesters say they are pro Russia - but in my opinion this is a grave mistake, and Belarus will soon find itself as a Russia-controlled state.

[deleted]

Re: PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

#100

Post by dash2 »

kazagistar wrote: post #61
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy Index compiled by the Economist[0] places 76 countries into the 'democracies' pile, a further 23 into 'hybrid regimes' pile, and the other 68 are autocracies of various types, with Belarus at #150 of 167 on the list. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#/media/File:De...

The economist is a very dubious source for defining "democracy", given their hyperliberal free market ideology that, for example, believes that vast corruption of media for the interests of the wealthy is good and normal. Its a media empire founded in supporting slavery and imerialism, and hasn't changed much.

It’s not a media empire (that’s Pearson, if the FT and Economist are an “empire”), it wasn’t founded to support slavery (wrong by about 50 years for the UK, and supported the Union in the Civil War, https://www.economist.com/united-states/1865/04/22/the-fall-...) and I doubt very much it has ever claimed anything like “vast media corruption is good and normal”. Please don’t post without doing basic fact-checking.
Post reply on HN