I vouched for this comment to be non-dead. I'm not a US citizen, but I can see why this comment would be contentious for US citizens. I also think it's a valid point, and doesn't cross any HN guidelines (more than other comments that exist in this thread). I'd like to give it another chance and see how it goes.
People who downvoted or flagged the above post are themselves examples of what’s killing HN. Bunch of snowflakes who don’t want to hear the truth: Political engagement works and matters even at the small scale - we are just lazy as hell.
Look to how unpopular CSPAN is. Everyone says they want the “truth” of politics. The truth is on CSPAN, and no one watches it.
We do have some power, but the system is absolutely intended to suppress the power of the masses. The senate as an institution, the cap on the number of reps in the house, the electoral college, representative rather than parliamentary legislature elections, dark money/super PACs/Citizen's United (and other things that look even closer to outright bribery) and first-past-the-post are ALL anti-democractic institutions intended to preserve the status quo for the already wealthy and powerful.
As for having more power than any other society? Delusional. There are far more democractic electoral systems.
> but the system is absolutely intended to suppress
This seems asinine. I am not psychic, I can't always deduce intentions, but sometimes I can see the lack of intent. Things evolve, they develop, and though there might be many factions hoping to steer things in directions they want it to go, the net effect of many factions doing this is our ship just swirling around randomly in the ocean.
When you talk about "intent", it's just rabblerousing. You hope to rile people up, so they'll do what you prefer they would do. It's unnecessary to talk about intent. Whether the system was intended to suppress the power of the masses, or whether the system randomly and quite accidentally developed to do that is moot if it suppresses the masses. The only thing reasonable people should be discussing is:
1. Does this system suppress the power of the masses?
2. Should that change? It's not all that clear that the masses should have power. We've seen what mobs and riots are like, and most of you are ill-informed, opinionated, and susceptible to the effects of rabble-rousing.
As for answers, I think yes, it does suppress power of the masses. I would be skeptical the intelligence of someone who suggested otherwise. And on the second, I'm uncertain... there are days where it seems like only a lunatic would want the masses to have power. But, if they don't have it, others do, and whoever they happen to be, I've not seen many outcomes I've liked.
> the cap on the number of reps in the house
Haha. Do you want that to change? I stumbled upon a weird political science hack a few years back, and I'm convinced that as few as a dozen people (nobodies, even) might change that by the time the next census rolls around. Low effort, you might have to allocate 15 minutes to go talk to a state rep/senator (plus a few hours to prepare... rehearsal, haircut, getting your nice clothes dry-cleaned). It'd bump the number up to something like 5800+ reps in Congress.
The other stuff's all dead in the water. But I know how to ruin the rep cap.
