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

171–180 of 562 posts

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

#171

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

tw04 wrote: post #154
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?

"Around the world, at least eleven million people are imprisoned, either pre-trial or following conviction. Most sentenced prisoners will work while in custody...

...

Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work—sometimes for no pay, but typically for very low rates of pay.

There are, even so, multiple potential benefits to prison work. For example, ICPR’s recent research indicated that prisoners who could not work (when prison regimes around the world were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic) reported many negative consequences, including to their mental and physical wellbeing. At the minimum, work may mitigate some harmful impacts of imprisonment. At best, it may increase prisoners’ prospects of successful reintegration into society, potentially also benefitting society by reducing recidivism."

https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publicatio...

(emphasis mine)

Here's a photo from a Brazilian prison from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmat...

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

#172

Post by hackernud3s »

dataflow wrote: post #151
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't seem to believe that something like generational wealth makes much of a difference?

It makes a difference at a demographics level but I don't think that's what we're discussing here.

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

#173

Post by Der_Einzige »

tw04 wrote: post #154
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?

De facto there’s hardly rule of law there so if you piss off the wrong people yes.

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

#174

Post by amanaplanacanal »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #143
newAccount2025 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. At the end of the day it’s candidate A vs. B. Once they’re all corrupt you still have to decide between them and pick the lesser evil as you see it. They’re creatures of ambition and incentives, and the corruption is a feature of the system. It sucks but what can you do but vote for the corrupt dems or the corrupt republicans?

> It sucks but what can you do but vote for the corrupt dems or the corrupt republicans? Vote for a third party, or don't vote at all. Casting a vote for someone you don't actually want in office ("the lesser of two evils") is negligent.

The reality is one of those two people is going to get elected. Your vote for Mickey Mouse isn't going to affect the outcome.

Of course most elections aren't close enough for your vote to matter at all.

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

#175

Post by otterley »

creato wrote: post #168
otterley wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your angle here, exactly? I don’t get it.

That the issue of slavery has weak explanatory power for what is happening today.

I didn’t ask you. But since you chose to get involved: do you believe there is no lasting impact or consequences resulting from slavery in the USA?

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

#176

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

otterley wrote: post #153
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

What’s your angle here, exactly? I don’t get it.

I'm anti-Trump. If you tell people "Trump is a corrupt asshole", that has a chance at convincing supporters to abandon him. If you tell people "the US needs a cultural revolution due to events from past centuries", that's what got him elected in the first place.

A good general wouldn't voluntarily shift the battleground to a region where their troops are weak. Political persuasion is no different. The Democratic Party keeps losing because they cling to unpopular positions on cultural issues. If Trump is as bad as you say, prove it to me by showing willingness to strategically cede ground on a few issues in order to win more voters.

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

#177

Post by hackernud3s »

ModernMech wrote: post #149
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

It's recent enough that people living today knew former slaves. That's not ancient history at all, so I think the comparison is not good. I'm sure Brazil also has to deal with fallout of their practices, but I don't see how it changes how the fallout of US slavery impacts the US.

I think you need to check the math on that. Knew a former slave maybe?

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

#178

Post by hackernud3s »

magicalist wrote: post #85
irishcoffee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody does. The amount of teenage angst posted in this forum about the current admin is amusingly pathetic. None of it matters. Congress constantly gets a free pass while we focus on a figurehead largely enabled by a passive and embarrassing congressional electorate. “We found the scapegoat, blame that guy!” It’s really embarrassing

> “We found the scapegoat, blame that guy!” Yeah, that's not what an scapegoat is.

What's a scapegoat then?

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

#179

Post by stinkbeetle »

tstrimple wrote: post #159
stinkbeetle wrote: post #106

I remember when this used to be a far right conspiracy theory.

The far right won office and made it manifest. Just like they complain on government inefficiency and that it can never accomplish anything while explicitly making those things worse while in power to prove their point.

Yes possibly so I'd have to see the evidence for that, but my point is it's great that such a large majority of people are now well aware of the horrific and disgusting corruption, inefficiency, and incompetence in governments.

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

#180

Post by koolba »

vannevar wrote: post #74
shimman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay and how do you think it helps the democratic candidate's ability to win elections when they are part of the same party that supports corporations over people? In the not so recent past the democratic party controlled Congress for 60+ years on the new deal coalition alone, now look what the party has morphed into... I read the article too, in what sane world is it okay if 70% of citizens thought their governments…

>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.

CU was absolutely the correct ruling as it just means I can take money from wherever I’ve earned it and spend it on publicizing my message.

Prior to that you had to buy a media company to have the same effect. It was perfectly fine for Fox News or The NY Times to focus articles and segments on what they deem newsworthy to push their narrative. But if I made my money selling widgets, I couldn’t spend it the same way.

It’s a perfectly reasonable ruling.

> Corporatism is definitely a bipartisan issue, but at least Democrats recognize it as a problem, while to Republicans it's a feature.

The same people probably complain the Senate is an antiquated body that should not exist because mob rule is the only true voice of the people.

Post reply on HN