[komali2]

> with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States

There are two versions of the United States.

1. The People of. The ones that benefit from whistleblowers. They are not injured when classified information is distributed - they get valuable insight they don't normally get into the doings of their employees (government officials that take their salary from taxes). The ones upon whose whims the government has power, and allegedly upon whose whims that power can be revoked.

2. The Government of. This is the actual entity of power in the USA, and probably has been forever (though the way the Executive branch reacted to union riots makes me wonder - it was genuinely concerned it was about to be deposed, I wonder if that was a valid fear?) This is injured when word gets out about it breaking its own laws - it makes the USA look bad, it destroys trust and thus the ability for the government to maintain control of the people, etc. This is a living creature and that's what many 2nd amendmenters don't seem to realize, that the government of the USA isn't The People of, it's an organism that will maintain its form by any means necessary. Legal ones are the safest, illegal and immoral ones if needs must. Anybody challenging this power is an enemy of #2, even if they aren't an enemy of #1. Great examples are some of our industry's favorite persons of interest, namely Snowden, Manning. Back in the day it was Civil Rights activists (note I'm not drawing a comparison between current leaks and that era, just saying it's another example of enemies of #2 but not #1).

As per the article, the line "be used to the injury of the USA" is obviously being interpreted by the current administration to mean "to the injury of #2" above.

[drak0n1c]

There is a dichotomy in the government between elected representatives and unelected bureaucrats. The "deep state" exists but it is not nearly as malicious as popularly portrayed. At worst, those who make their careers as unelected bureaucrats and federal officers may occasionally be self-protecting and rationalize their decisions in terms of the trolley problem as for the greater national good, and are overly confident in their ability to discern what that is.

[vkou]

Most unelected bureaucrats only have a job at the whims of elected representatives. Your vote for the bureaucrats, via proxy of your representative.

I'm not sure why people have a hard time grasping this concept, when they grasp the concept of representative democracy (Where you vote for new legislature, or for supreme court appointments, or for executive actions, via proxy of voting for a representative of congress, or a president.)

I can only assume that it's a defense mechanism, where you can blame the boogieman of the deep state when the candidate you voted for does not deliver us to a land of milk and honey, and turns out to be an all-around shitty human being.

[merpnderp]

This has been on a trend of less and less true as Congress continues to abdicate its responsibilities to bureaucrats in the Executive office.

It doesn't matter which party they vote for as much of the day to day lives of citizens is determined by people who never stood for election, and barely answer to someone who did.

[js2]

Congress is 535 people and is filled with relatively little expertise[1]. The United States has a population of 330M and is the largest and most advanced economy in the world. Of course Congress has to delegate to executive agencies. This is not abdication.

Abdication is letting lobbyists and "model legislation" outfits author the laws which legislators have been known to almost literally just rubber stamp.

[1] Just to pick on one representative, because I'm familiar with him, this guy has no college degree past an AA, and his career experience is running a restaurant and real estate development. I would hope he'd delegate running the country to someone more experienced than himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meadows_(North_Carolina_p...

[jfengel]

As the guy who said "we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya" I doubt Meadows has a very broad-minded approach to delegating responsibility to those with more experience and expertise.

I wouldn't automatically discount the value that a restauranteur or real estate developer could bring to office. At least it would bring a bit of diversity of opinion compared to the roomful of lawyers. Though in this case, we're experiencing the opposite problem: people who have absolutely no idea how legislation is done or how the government functions, and who cannot be convinced that they're not experts in every domain they touch.

It would be nice if people came to DC with the intent of listening, discussing, and coming to conclusions together. But the system is adversarial by design, and grows more adversarial with each passing year.

[Fjolsvith]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/promotional-booklet/

[ceejayoz]

> Congress is 535 people and is filled with relatively little expertise.

That's like calling the Executive Branch one person (currently filled by someone with extremely little expertise).

Congress includes bureaucratic organizations staffed by career experts like the Government Accountability Office. They used to have the Office of Technology Assessment until it was killed off by ideologues. They also enjoy ready access to experts from the various agencies.

> Of course Congress has to delegate to executive agencies. This is not abdication.

They've very clearly abdicated their responsibilities to the Executive in things like war powers and surveillance oversight. They are supposed to serve as a co-equal branch of government and as a check on Executive power.

[js2]

Fair enough and I don't disagree at all on your last point, but I was really addressing the delegation to executive agencies to write regulations as part of executing the laws passed by congress. I do not consider that abdication.

[jachee]

Abdication is a single man stonewalling all remotely-progressive legislation from even reaching a vote in the Senate.

[jki275]

Well, it's not one man, it's 53 men and women, and that's not abdication it's politics -- as practiced by both sides when in power.

[Spooky23]

Hogwash. The elected officials absolutely have control of the institutions that they are responsible for.

“Deep State” nonsense is a trope that is just plain dumb. Brought to you by the same people who cry and whine about judicial activism and appoint people specifically to change the law.

[vkou]

Those bureaucrats are appointed at the whim of the President, and occasionally through a senate confirmation, both of which are elected offices.

> and barely answer to someone who did.

Their hiring is done by elected officials. Their employment and power, aside from a few positions, which are fixed-term, is contingent on the whims of those elected officials.

Just because Congress has been very busy with abdicating all responsibility for governing the country to the executive (Works great when Obama's in charge, because you can blame him for the milk going sour, works great when Trump's in charge, because he can take all the bad PR), doesn't mean that the bureaucrats don't answer to anyone.

[ceejayoz]

> Their hiring is done by elected officials.

No, hiring is largely done by other civil service personnel. The Secretary of State isn't deciding who works in the cafeteria - there's a number of tiers of career employees between him and that decision.

[Spooky23]

Irrelevant.

The Secretary is accountable, and has people working for him or her who serve at the Secretary’s pleasure.

[vkou]

I dearly hope the janitor isn't the person who the grousing about the deep state is targeted at... Because if that's the case, it's a pretty weak one.

The janitor isn't the reason the DoS makes poor decisions. These decisions are made much higher up the food chain, and elected officials have direct influence over the people who make them.

[jacobwilliamroy]

There has been a trend of Congress delegating more and more powers of legislation and enforcement to the executive branch. FCC, NOAA, TSA, CIA, NSA, FBI, ATF, DIA, USCIS and others are children the executive branch and mostly operate without interacting with congress. Agencies like FCC and NOAA actually have the power to make "rules" which we can be punished for breaking, and the system for approving these rules contains minimal checks and balances.

[ceejayoz]

> Most unelected bureaucrats only have a job at the whims of elected representatives. Your vote for the bureaucrats, via proxy of your representative.

This is true for political appointees - ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries, etc. - but much less so for the civil service, where folks like State Department diplomatic staff or FBI agents tend to serve multi-decade careers under many different administrations.

[Spooky23]

As well it should be. You don’t want the spoils system appointing FBI agents.

[vkou]

They only keep their jobs through the administrations when they do as they are told. If the president wants to change a department's policy, and the department pushes back, he can fire as many directors as he needs to.

[ceejayoz]

There are quite a few protections for the civil service rank and file.

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/27/17786324/trump-fires-governmen...

> The reason he can’t is simple: Unlike his employees at the Trump Organization, about a third of federal workers belong to unions. And those unions have negotiated certain job protections for workers, which includes a process that gives workers a chance to improve their job performance before they are terminated.

[vkou]

You don't fire the line workers, you fire the managers. Workers don't set policy. They do what they are told.

None of the directors, or the senior administrators setting policy are unionized.

[jrieo02n]

There are two versions of people in the United States: statists who manipulate public opinion to empower centralized authority (#2, commonly using “failure in much debated framework will be end of nation!” These days its neoliberal economics, used to be religion) and those who want more freedom from such manipulations of our agency.

Not saying either is right or wrong, but I def align personally with the “more freedom from pls” camp.

The governments policing authority should be pointed at itself alone, and let the results of that trickle down.

But we prefer to conflate stable society needs with a goal of paramount importance (currently “free market trade”) that will implode indeed our mental model of reality if the literal world should have to change.

But it won’t implode humanity itself unless we do it to ourselves.

We need to have a sober debate about enabling more people to escape this daily grind. We’re actively instigating anxiety, mindless resource exhaustion (while pretending financial measures of efficiency alone are achieved literally), living some socialized Stockholm syndrome, sympathizing with the aristocratic captors who are plainly indifferent, because they’re subjected to the same struggle too (but not really)!

[coding123]

> We’re actively instigating anxiety, mindless resource exhaustion

Not replying to all you said, but definitely agree - I don't see people as being excited about the limits of our abilities. It's more like people are excited about getting a new Mustang or whichever Ghettoblaster vehicle and annoying others because they are bored and have nothing existential to think about during the day. I don't know how often I just think about humanity or the mind's limits or exploring other times and places growing up - just utter fascination. Now it's just when is the next GTA coming out.

[rayiner]

Isn’t it up to the people to decide how much daylight they think there is between #1 and #2? When the US topples foreign dictators, is that justified by saying we’re doing it for the good of their people, as distinguished from their government?

It’s notable that in weeks of democratic debates hitting all sorts of issues, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone get traction by talking about surveillance.

[jacobwilliamroy]

How are whistleblowers a threat? People like Donald Rumsfeld ought to be tried for war crimes. The "annexation" of Hawaii was both a war crime and a violation of the constitution (read: crime). All of these are common knowledge, well documented, yet there are very few people who are actually doing anything about it.

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

A bit strange to be focused on an event from 126 years ago.

[jacobwilliamroy]

An event which laid the foundation for many of the economic issues facing Hawaii today. Resolving this issue would enrich the lives of many people currently living in Hawaii.

[jki275]

Are you suggesting we should just abandon the state? I'm sure there are a few people who feel that way in HI, but I don't think that's the prevailing desire. I suspect doing so would make things markedly worse for them.

[jacobwilliamroy]

I would like to ask some questions, just to make sure I am doing a good job of understanding what you want to say. Who is "we"? Who is "them"? What is meant by "abandon"?

[jki275]

What are you proposing by "resolving this issue"? What other course of action is there?

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

That's impossible to tell and the US is the richest nation on Earth, the Federal government provides financial assistance to states.

[jacobwilliamroy]

Hawaii is one of the most unstable unsecure countries on earth and it has been made that way under U.S. occupation. It is so heavily dependent on outside resources that if the giant robots that unload cargo in Honolulu ever shut down, a massive humanitarian crisis will ensue in hours. Once upon a time, the land supported a population of 2 million people with no outside help.

Money is worthless in a place like Hawaii where proper land and marine management are the sole requirements for ensuring the well-being of the community. Food production is crippled as the land is destroyed to make way for suburbs and shopping malls. The "state" government routinely approves projects which divert water away from prime farmlands to fill swimming pools and irrigate massive golf courses covered in invasive grass. In Kihei they're teaching school kids that their land is a dry wasteland when everyone's grandparents remember that it was wetlands before the water was diverted.

Hosting the U.S. military has made many places in Hawaii incapable of sustaining life as they heavily pollute any area they occupy. They broke the water table on Kahoolawe and now no one can live there for thousands of years. They are currently allowing jet fuel to leak into the aquifer under red hill.

[Arubis]

This is an excellent breakdown of something that feels obvious but was hard to express. Thank you.

[Clubber]

>This is a living creature and that's what many 2nd amendmenters don't seem to realize, that the government of the USA isn't The People of, it's an organism that will maintain its form by any means necessary. Legal ones are the safest, illegal and immoral ones if needs must.

Second amendment-ers are keenly aware of this.

[komali2]

Speaking from experience with them, they seem to think the 2nd amendment must necessarily be respected by the very government they think is allowing them the guns to threaten said government with in the first place. That's the cognitive hole I'm pointing to - if they stockpile weapons to eventually potentially overthrow the US government, they must do so knowing that it will be illegal to do so regardless - the 2nd amendment won't protect them in that case, and is thus practically useless for what they think it's useful for.

AKA, the life of a militiaman that intends to use weapons to overthrow the USA is, to the USA, the life of a terrorist/rebel/enemy of the state. It's not a constitutionally protected state of existence.

[Clubber]

>government they think is allowing them the guns

Technically, the government #2 doesn't "allow" us rights, they are given to us by the constitution of which government #2 is ultimately bound to. The same fight happened against our right to free speech with the Sedition Act, of which our right to criticize the government ultimately survived. Citizens are still fighting to keep our right of privacy, the rights of the press, and of course the right to bear arms, among others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918

Having said that, the second amendment, as it stands with government #2, is ultimately another check and balance, as is freedom of press, and speech. As with nuclear armaments and M.A.D., arms don't have to be used to be a deterrent. There are many examples in history where armed civilians were effective against much stronger militaries.

[jki275]

Rights are documented in the Constitution, not given by it.

[rayiner]

The 2A doesn’t protect the use of arms against the government, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a 2A advocate suggest that. The point is to prevent the government from disarming the populace before such action might be required.

[dragonwriter]

Actually, no, the point is to prevent the government from deciding it needs to rely on professional police and military forces for day-to-day defense against domestic and international security threats, instead relying on ad hoc levies from the general population for those purposes, making it unthinkable both in terms of capacity and inclination that the “government security services” could suppress the general civilian population, since the former as a separate group by profession, class, etc.—but for very small standing cadres providing institutional knowledge and continuity—would not exist. But that ship has rather sailed, and the 2A failed in its purpose, but it still hangs around, and even it's defenders have forgotten what it was there for.

[komali2]

> I don’t think I’ve ever heard a 2A advocate suggest that

Oh, well, I have, and that's the kind of 2A advocate I'm talking about.

I'm sure there are other sorts, but that's the kind I meant.

[jki275]

A better way to state that would be that the existence of an armed populace is to deter tyrannical actions from the government.

[nyolfen]

seriously, this is probably the least intuitive group to single out over this