It's the practical erosion of Free Speech. Liberal (small "l" liberal) democracy and liberal science thrives on members: 1. Being willing to admit they may be wrong 2. Having access to a diverse information diet But the past two decades have shown erosion of not only legal Free Speech, but practical free speech: * Whereas previously they were just ignored (or even rebutted), today employees, students, and professors…
U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
681–690 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#682Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…
Absolutely, given how polarized things are, I have little trouble believing poll workers and others with the ability to put their thumbs on the scales would do just that.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#683It is despicable how tepid the police response to armed rioters storming the Capitol has been compared to the response to BLM protests over the summer.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#684How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?
The internet allows for mass influence of the population by third party actors. This is largely China vs Russia. I have trouble not playing this out at scale and drawing the conclusion the internet inherently invalidates a lot of the assumptions democracy (as in the American Experiment™ version of it) requires to function. I hope I'm wrong and overly pessimistic.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#685Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…
> Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? There are. One sent me to this [1] resource earlier. I do not endorse this source, and have not manually verified their claims myself. If anyone else would like to check the source, that would be good, I intend to manually check their claims myself later, but don't have time now. [1] https://hereistheevidence.com/ Edit: I would ask anyone checking th…
unfortunately, like i suspect many here, i'm not particularly inclined to spend time going thru them, particular the ~30% of those that link to youtube and twitter accounts.
Brandolini's law, aka the bullshit asymmetry principle comes to mind - "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it."
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#686How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?
Your news is just flat out awful and has been for a long time. From OANN to Fox to MSNBC; it's all us-vs-them, fear the others, be afraid, be angry, and stay tuned in for more. Every time I visit your country I'm apalled and horrified by your news media. It's blatantly exploiting basic animal instinct and core emotions to hook viewers in order to sell ads. You are a product of your media. And then there's the network…
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#687I think, for the safety of all involved, it may be time to enact section 4 of the 25th Amendment. Amendment 25 - Section 4: Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the Pr…
Congratulations! You have just escalated the conflict!
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#688The riot is winding down. The Capitol Police cleared the building hours ago, and many of the crowd just hanging around have left. More cops from Virginia and DC have arrived, and are slowly pushing the remaining crowd back. Tomorrow, Congress will finish counting the electoral votes. I suspect that some, if not all, of the planned objections will not be made.
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#689How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?
Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests
#690Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…
For example, in PA, a judge ordered the election officials to allow republican watchers to view the counting, and struck down the distance requirements set by the governor due to COVID. However, election officials refused to do so, violating a court order. The GOP sued the officials, but the court dismissed it due to standing. They didn't even consider the complaint. Then a voter group tried to sue. They dismissed that for standing. Then trump sued, they dismissed that too. So if neither the political party, the voters, nor the candidate purportedly affected has standing to force the state to allow the vote to be examined and cannot bring a case against an official violating a court order -- then who exactly has that right? Can any election official simply do what they want?
Or in the TX v PA case, the Supreme Court really displayed major cowardice. They ought to have taken the case, examined the merits, and said yes or no. They dismissed it due to lack of standing. The case asked a very important question -- the Constitution says only the legislature sets the election rules, but in PA, the governor and SoS made up rules. Additionally, the PA supreme court simply extended a deadline set by the legislature. If indeed the legislature is the only one who can make electoin rules, then these moves are clearly illegal. The Court should have said if it's okay or not. They could have not granted the relief requested, which I do admit is a major ask. But they should have ruled on whether or not the PA Supreme Court or the governor's actions were legal.
To many republicans, it seems as if there were bad actors who got away with not following the law. It now seems that governors, courts, etc can simply set whatever election rules they want and get away with it. Even if it wouldn't have changed the outcome, I'd like to see a court penalize those officials in PA who disobeyed a court order, or explain in clear legal detail after hearing a case as to why those officials were right to do so.
I also want explanations into why the counting stopped. It is quite clear now that the supposed water leak in Atlanta was a simple toilet overflow that should not have caused anything to stop. Why did they do that, and why did they report it as a leak? Why did we see major drops for Biden with zero votes for Trump? Again, I am ready to concede that Biden won. In fact, I think it likely. However, it is crazy to me that so far not a single body has been willing to investigate these seeming discrepancies and instead told the groups interested in seeking resolution that they have no standing to question it.
Telling people that they do not deserve an answer is what leads to the behavior we're seeing now.
The courts made a huge mistake by simply dismissing on standing. Rumor has it that John Roberts didn't want to take the case due to fear of a mob... Well he got his mob, just not the one he expected.
Downvoters: please engage in good faith. Someone asked if there was anyone who believed the election was 'stolen'. I have given my good faith answer as to what I would have liked to have seen in order for me to fully trust our elections. You may disagree with me, but I'm simply giving my solicited opinion.