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PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence

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

#181

Post by ORioN63 »

openasocket wrote: post #176

I'm sure there's a couple people reading about this and other events in Belarus and wondering why Russia is so involved with Belarus like this. I thought I'd add a little bit on context. Like Ukraine, Belarus serves as a buffer between NATO and Russia, and was once a part of the Soviet Union. But Belarus is especially important to Russia because of Kaliningrad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad . It's a part…

I just want to clarify Belarus does _not_ border Kalinigrad. You'd either have to pass Lithuania or Poland.

If that happens, the Baltic states should be worried.

In my opinion, it won't though. It's neither a threat nor a direct strategic advantage. It won't connect Kalinigrad. Belarus is landlocked. The population did not and is not asking for Russia assistance in any way, only Lukashenka did. While not super friendly, they're friendlier than to the EU bloc. I think it's just not worth the trouble and an eventual net-loss.

Unless, they have bigger plans, of course.

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

#182

Post by csomar »

Taek wrote: post #130
csomar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the problem with Belarus is the lack of these but rather of external forces. Russia thinks that Belarus belongs to its control; and a democratic system will most certainly be US-friendly. This is hardly a citizen revolt against dictatorship and is one of the several proxy-war these two guys (US/Russia) are playing worldwide.

It's a lot harder to kidnap citizens when they are armed and surrounded by other armed citizens, especially if all of those citizens have substantial firearms training. I endorse bringing guns to peaceful protests in a state where unmarked officials are kidnapping people in broad daylight. That is exactly the sort of reason that the right to bear arms is planted deep within our constitutional rights.

Yeah, arming the people worked really well for Syria and Lybia.

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

#183

Post by Nasrudith »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #104
grey-area wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When he tells you who he is, believe him.

I have to say this is generally horrible advice, especially in politics. Humans rarely are honest.

Contextually it means more "remember who the sociopath really is when their mask slips" essentially. If a man lets it slip that they "want to beat the shit out of their wife for some peace and quiet" or a desire to commit genocide they aren't joking - they really are an abuser or genocidal monster wearing the mask of a decent person.

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

#184

Post by pstuart »

YarickR2 wrote: post #75
pstuart wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US protests are being sabotaged with violence from outsiders to delegitimize them.

How do you know Belarussian protests aren't ?

I assume they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Ukrainian_cr...

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

#185

Post by crdrost »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #94
crdrost wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are not representatives in the sense of being people who serve on the house of representatives, the legislative body whose modification is being considered.

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

#186

Post by crdrost »

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.

You probably don't; a federal law is probably sufficient.

Article I section 2 is the relevant part of the Constitution; it makes absolutely no statements about "The states are free to choose their way of allocating their House representatives so long as they are directly elected" and indeed that is absolutely not true; in fact the restriction to single member districts is a federal law passed by Congress, 2 USC 1 § 2c [1], after gerrymandering was producing multimember districts that were not state-wide in order to disenfrancise minorities.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/2c

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

#187

Post by mensetmanusman »

Taek wrote: post #132
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…

A key point that people often miss is that an armed population is extremely difficult to control even if the oppressor has vastly superior equipment and training. The citizenry has the advantage of living there all the time, of being able to hide in the buildings (their own homes), of overwhelming numbers, and of the fact that short of full genocide the oppressor actually needs some compliance from the oppressed to a…

America will never be invaded (never being heat death of sun), it could only devolve into civil war if education levels get low enough...

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

#188

Post by runarberg »

rtkwe wrote: post #180
runarberg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not an expert, but couldn’t you keep a link between your public key and your vote while the election is open. Allow subsequent votes that will nullify votes associated with your public key. And when the polls close, this link gets deleted. This way you can be intimidated to vote and verify a certain way, then after your intimidator leaves you alone, you simply cast another vote. And after the deadline passes any…

There's still the problem that you can still coerce and verify then use surveillance and the fear of surveillance to keep people from changing their vote. Random rechecks the day the polls close would keep a lot of people from risking changing their vote after the initial check-in. Even beyond any theoretical security measures one huge benefit of in person voting is it limits the available attack. With IPV to steal a…

I do think that voting should be as streamlined and easy as possible. If electronic voting becomes a thing, you should still be able to do an in-person voting at a poll both on election day, an in-person absentee voting at a designated place, a mail-in absentee voting, etc. in addition to the e-voting.

All of these (except for in-person voting on election day) should have a sealed timestamp and a public key/barcode attached so previous ballots can be nullified with a more recent vote by an other—or the same—means.

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

#189

Post by dctoedt »

volkse wrote: post #157
Taek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot harder to kidnap citizens when they are armed and surrounded by other armed citizens, especially if all of those citizens have substantial firearms training. I endorse bringing guns to peaceful protests in a state where unmarked officials are kidnapping people in broad daylight. That is exactly the sort of reason that the right to bear arms is planted deep within our constitutional rights.

It completely boggles my mind that comments like these don’t get any pushback on HN. This insinuation that every citizen should own firearms just in case the state goes rouge is militant, irresponsible, and hilariously naive. A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank.. Let me ask you a direct question. Are you advoca…

> A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank.

This presupposes that the military will go along with firing on their fellow citizens. That was the case in Syria, but it's far from clear that American troops would do likewise — recent polling suggests that the U.S. military is getting tired of the current regime, er, administration. [0]

[0] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08...

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