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

Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

news.gallup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 580 posts

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#321

Post by lern_too_spel »

koolba wrote: post #180
vannevar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only thing I got out of this article is that both parties + the F500 need to be destroyed. I don't know, if we'd had an overwhelmingly Democrat-dominated government, we'd have comprehensive bans on government insider trading and we'd correct the bad ruling in Citizens United. Corporatism is definitely a bipartisan issue, but at least Democrats recognize it as a problem, while to Republicans it's a feature. Not e…

> I don't know, if we'd had an overwhelmingly Democrat-dominated government, we'd have comprehensive bans on government insider trading We had two years under Biden with Democrat control of the House and the Senate. They passed no legislation to ban insider trading. It probably didn’t help that the poster octogenarian for insider trading was Speaker of the House > and we'd correct the bad ruling in Citizens United. C…

With just 48 Democratic senators and 2 independents caucusing with them, the 117th Congress had to deal with rampant GOP filibustering, starting with setting up an independent commission to investigate the January 6 riots. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/28/1000524897/senate-republicans...

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#322

Post by Arodex »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #135
the_gastropod wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re going to get downvoted to hell, but you’re pretty much spot on. There’s something strangely desirable about being seen as the edgy contrarian “not left, not right” person. But 9 times out of 10, that person has approximately the same incoherent worldview most Trumpists have.

He's not spot on at all, and that's why he's being downvoted. He's examining the world through a false dichotomy of "if you aren't on my side, you support my enemies". But the reality is that most people who consider themselves independent are actually independent and vote for whomever they consider to be the best candidate.

Yeah, and the best candidate they voted for was Trump.

Which is the point the person you reply to was making: those independents are incompetent, incoherent and uninformed.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#323

Post by patagurbon »

nonethewiser wrote: post #238
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the implication here? Trump actually isn’t corrupt? Or Biden was actually secretly as corrupt as Trump is? Or more generally, the current state of affairs is somehow justifiable?

But the poll asks if corruption is widespread. Trump could be 100x as corrupt as Biden and it says nothing about if corruption is widespread.

100x is dramatically undercounting here.

The most corrupt things Biden has done were: 1. Hide the extent of health issues. Par for the course in politics at this point for some reason. This is broadly just downstream of him believing he could continue before a precipitous health decline as election season began 2. Pardon his son who was teed up by the Republican world to be target number 1 for low level drug and tax charges.

Trump on the other hand has made literally billions of dollars since starting his presidency, not to mention the fortunes of his family and various associates. 100x is not even just a few orders of magnitude off.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#324

Post by [deleted] »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #127
tstrimple wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine there had been no Nuremberg trials. The Nazis just got a slap on the wrist and almost immediately let back into politics as usual. That's how we got here. We're still fighting the remnants of the confederacy. Germany and Japan in particular purged most of those elements from their society. Here we built statues to the evil fucks.

Here's a map which attempts to estimate when slavery was abolished across various parts of the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abo... The US wasn't much of an outlier. As a general rule, anyone who tries to use slavery as a skeleton key to understand US politics is most likely an ideologue with an agenda. Sane people don't propose struggle sessions for events which happened 100+ years…

[deleted]

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#325

Post by patagurbon »

bandofthehawk wrote: post #214
estearum wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it’s almost certainly not just more open. But also more common and more intense. There is 100% absolutely no possible comparison to Trump’s personal acts of corruption in any prior White House ever.

Maybe it doesn't qualify as a personal act of corruption, but George W. lying us into the the Iraq war followed by capturing people off the street and then torturing them in military prisons, is comparable to what's happening today, in my opinion.

Dubya did some of the most horrific things in modern American history, and filled the pockets of many of his associates im sure.

But in terms of the letter of the law unfortunately he couldn’t be held accountable for much of it because it was legal! The US legal system has largely agreed that the president, especially with a bloodthirsty Congress behind him, can torture, kill and maim as much as he pleases so long as it’s outside the border.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#327

Post by multjoy »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #286
Chermska1 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poster you responded to did not mention slavery, they mentioned the confederacy, which held a variety of views, many of which still inform the politics of many Americans today. Acknowledging this reality seems reasonable. Your replies indicate your disdain for appeals to the history of American slavery in political discussions, yet you were the one who brought it into the conversation, diverting the thread by ini…

This is bad faith hair-splitting. You know perfectly well what tshrimple thinks "Nuremberg trials" were needed for, or why they think confederates were "evil fucks".

Are you actually 'both sidesing' slavery?

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#328

Post by _doctor_love »

baxtr wrote: post #244
dozerly wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US’s democracy has been under fire from foreign nations and corporations for years. It has slowly degraded because of it. What we’re seeing now is the “all at once” portion.

It started on 9/11. I find it sad that those terrorist might can get what aimed for after all.

Depending on how you reckon, you could argue it started much earlier than that. Some people say the downhill decline started with JFK, others say it started with Reagan.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#329

Post by patagurbon »

mitxela wrote: post #279
rootusrootus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading about Ground News, I am starting to gain a real appreciation for how effective "both sides are bad" is at benefiting the right. It may well be the closest I've seen to 4D chess in reality.

Why is Ground News relevant here?

They help launder this idea that every issue has two reasonable sides. Which is patently false

There is some kernel of value to seeking out information from diverse sources. But groups like Ground News pervert that to mean that the left and right are on equally good terms with fact and reality (nevermind that collapsing politics and news media down to left and right is balderdash)

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#330

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

!!!THIS IS NOT A MEASURE OF CORRUPTION!!!

This is a measure of perceptions of corruption. Among regular Americans who have little to no first-hand information about it. While there may be some correlation between this measure and corruption, Gallup doesn't show that. It's mostly a measure of what's in the news cycle.

ITT: people playing right in to Gallup's hands.

Post reply on HN