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by shawxe 2050 days ago
> To be fair, if this was truly a big deal, it would be a political issue with bipartisan support and taken care of short order.

Are you serious? Since you're using the term bipartisan, I'm going to assume you're also from the US. Have you been following the news/current events recently (and by recently, really I mean any time at all over the course of the past forty or fifty years)? Almost nothing actually gets "bipartisan" support these days. Our government is in a constant state of gridlock and it is next to impossible to get anything done.

> In times of strife, at least there's one thing you can always count on: Democracy. It never fails. If you can just remember that one thing, you should be able to sleep soundly at night. (It works for me at least, I used to be a constant worrywart until I learned this trick from my therapist, and I've been golden ever since.)

I'm really having a hard time telling if this comment is sarcastic. I'm not trying to cause you to lose sleep or anything, and honestly, I commend your optimism if you're serious, but the fact is that democracy is an abstract concept that is almost never put into practice perfectly. Even if democracy's promise of "most people being happy" meaning 51 people are happy while 49 people are not is actually sufficient, even that idealized version is very far from our actually political system in the United States.

I think one thing most Americans actually would agree with is that the way we do things here, right now, in terms of government, doesn't work so well. I think there is a lot of disagreement about what should change, and how, but it seems like very few people are satisfied with the current state of affairs. The more I think about it, the more I think this comment just has to be sarcastic, so this reply is probably a waste of everyone's time, but in any case, wow. I wish what you were saying here were actually true. That would be a nicer world to live in than this one (although, frustrating as it might be at times, this one is also not so bad).

2 comments

> Almost nothing actually gets "bipartisan" support these days

There is bipartisan support - for breaking encryption: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020#Legislatio...

Democracy is probably fine, it's the fact that we allowed politicians anywhere near it that's the problem...