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

Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

thehill.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 146 posts

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#101

Post by leot »

fragsworth wrote: post #60
linuxhansl wrote: post #23

It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country. With a few exceptions nobody in congress seems to actually care even a bit about the people, but only how to drive the personal agenda forward. It's the same in Europe. Apparently representatives…

We should elect the house (or senate, one or the other) by randomly drawing a large number of people from the population. See how easy it is to corrupt 1000-2000 randomly selected folks who, for the most part, have an ingrained set of morals. It'd be like a jury for the government and they'd easily be able to roadblock the vast majority of bullshit that goes on. We could even let them decide who the president is. Alt…

Two key problems with the current system:

1) The financial sector of the economy attracts away many of America's smartest and most charismatic, while simultaneously making a career in public service, especially by comparison, very unattractive for this valuable group. Thus an escape to lucrative lobbying (and gov't contracting) positions becomes the only economic redemption for those experiencing such injustice (as they might call it).

2) There is a school of thought that believes, and aims to show, that gov't can't do anything well. In the U.S., a significant proportion of the time, people who espouse this attitude hold powerful offices -- it's no surprise, then, that they don't instil in their subordinates a sense of civic responsibility and pride. Neither should it be surprising that they behave cynically.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#102

Post by a3n »

leot wrote: post #93
maxwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the solution? Get celebrities to run for office. (Seriously.) Over 60% showed up to the gubernatorial elections won by Schwarzenegger [a] and Ventura [b]; you know, the former body builder and the former wrestler, who co-starred in Predator ... Wasn't George Clooney born in Kentucky? He might be a "rich old white man" at this point, but do you think Mitch McConnell (or any incumbent, for that matter) would…

Another advantage is that celebrities, by definition, aren't in politics to acquire fame and fortune. This has the potential advantage that they might be less able to be bought off.

Or they could be single issue candidates, a particular form of corruption IMNSHO, like Clint Eastwood as the Mayor of Carmel. His restaurant then finally got its liquor license or expansion permit or whatever his issue was, I forget the details.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#103

Post by a3n »

a3n wrote: post #98
siphor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think it's time to take action more than just normal protests.. Which are useless.. We need to find a way to get more than just the minority to revolt. Think about how many straight up stupid things are happening.. We make jokes about politicians and theyre decisions (see daily show) but i dont think its funny anymore. We need to change. I'm thinking about making some sort of political website, I can't dec…

What I've been wishing for recently is a site that has a superficially simple interface: a grid whose rows are members, and columns/subcolumns show votes cast or not cast. The votes wouldn't be just bills, but every action that they voted on, including their working arrangements. For legislation, the columns would have gross bills, whose embedded decisions and regulations could be broken out at will. For example, the…

And by the way, voice votes for a candidate would show a match with how the vote went, regardless of official position. If you hide behind a voice vote, then you're recorded and responsible and accountable for the winning result.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#104

Post by leot »

leot wrote: post #93
maxwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the solution? Get celebrities to run for office. (Seriously.) Over 60% showed up to the gubernatorial elections won by Schwarzenegger [a] and Ventura [b]; you know, the former body builder and the former wrestler, who co-starred in Predator ... Wasn't George Clooney born in Kentucky? He might be a "rich old white man" at this point, but do you think Mitch McConnell (or any incumbent, for that matter) would…

Another advantage is that celebrities, by definition, aren't in politics to acquire fame and fortune. This has the potential advantage that they might be less able to be bought off.

Though perhaps the perfect counter-example, here, is career politician Jerry Brown's successes in turning around California's fiscal situation:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21579483-jerry-b...

His tenure, as many know, immediately followed Schwarzenegger's, who was less successful.

In fairness, though: Brown seems to be exceptionally good this time around, and I'd bet that most people believe Arnold's problems didn't stem from too much partisanship or a lack of good faith effort.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#105

Post by PavlovsCat »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #87
fragsworth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should elect the house (or senate, one or the other) by randomly drawing a large number of people from the population. See how easy it is to corrupt 1000-2000 randomly selected folks who, for the most part, have an ingrained set of morals. It'd be like a jury for the government and they'd easily be able to roadblock the vast majority of bullshit that goes on. We could even let them decide who the president is. Alt…

The problem with this is that you end up trading corruption for incompetence and uncertainty. Suppose we pick elected officials at random. OK, in the first round we get a bunch of reasonable people and they do a bunch of reasonable stuff. In the second round, maybe the same thing, except that they have different ideas from their predecessors so they end up repealing all the programs and replacing them with still reas…

sooner or later, random chance produces a majority coalition consisting of people who are willing to horse trade for corrupt programs that specifically benefit their own friends and family

Something that a "professional" would never do, and something that is much likelier to happen by randomly selecting 1000-2000 people, than if people are able to work towards it. It clearly would be nuts to take away the ability to deliberately commandeer a country and swapping it with the so much higher risk of that happening randomly.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#106

Post by aswanson »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #79
mpyne wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? It's understood in the commercial sector that you have to pay (both on benefits, quality of work/life balance, pay, etc.) to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. How can we all take that very important lesson and completely throw it away when considering the leadership of an entire nation? I'm not sure I'd take Pres. Obama…

I think you're almost onto something here, but I think the problem is not compensation or benefits. It's that the President has too much power. And if I may quote Spider Man, with great power comes great responsibility . The constitution wasn't written under the assumption that the federal government would ever be as large as it is. It isn't set up for it. So the President is in charge of too much and is consequently…

I never thought of this, but this is a brilliant observation. From the presidency, we get issuances forth like Carmen Ortiz, heads of FEMA like Mike Brown, etc. The possibility of cronyism writ large, with decades of consequence. This has to change.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#107

Post by wahnfrieden »

leot wrote: post #93
maxwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the solution? Get celebrities to run for office. (Seriously.) Over 60% showed up to the gubernatorial elections won by Schwarzenegger [a] and Ventura [b]; you know, the former body builder and the former wrestler, who co-starred in Predator ... Wasn't George Clooney born in Kentucky? He might be a "rich old white man" at this point, but do you think Mitch McConnell (or any incumbent, for that matter) would…

Another advantage is that celebrities, by definition, aren't in politics to acquire fame and fortune. This has the potential advantage that they might be less able to be bought off.

If that's true, then why do many already rich celebrities continue to participate in grossly commercialized lowest common denominator work? Being rich doesn't mean you don't want to be richer.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#108

Post by greedo »

javajosh wrote: post #94
greedo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With term limits, you'd end up with an even more powerful bureaucracy.

Why not term-limit the bureaucracy?

I'd love to. If you could find a way to limit civil service to 6 years, I think you'd find things work a lot better. Obviously you'd need exceptions for things like the CIA and the military, but those could be managed.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#110

Post by throwaway10001 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #29

In a normal scandal story, the appropriate committee would grant immunity to Snowden, have him testify, then bring up Clapper, have him testify, and compare notes. Preferably publicly. Here they bring in one side of the story for a secret Powerpoint presentation, no doubt with a high degree of spin to it, and publicly call Snowden a traitor. Then they complain that nobody shows up. This isn't a bake sale or a dog and…

In a normal scandal story, the appropriate committee would grant immunity to Snowden, have him testify, then bring up Clapper, have him testify, and compare notes. Preferably publicly.

Have you seen Manning lately ? White as flour. Shows how much exercise and sun he has been getting while in jail. Snowden would be insane to come without an unconditional pardon/ and full immunity, not just immunity for what he says in Congress. He knows what awaits him in US jails

Post reply on HN