Top all-time · #10027
Foseti
Personal blog · foseti.wordpress.compolitics
Foseti is a personal blog at foseti.wordpress.com about politics. Since 2010, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times, most often “Perspectives from an unelected bureaucrat”. The last post was in 2014, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Foseti's posts on how US government works, such as the permanent bureaucracy and government employment, as support in debates about politics, surveillance and climate policy.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Perspectives from an unelected bureaucrat3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2011-02-04
What Hacker News says?
The present reality of our government's structure is certainly nothing like it claims in its charters and bylaws. America is best described as a post-democratic state. The permanent bureaucracy is the largest and most powerful branch of government and it is never subject to elections. From the Washington Post editorial desk[1]: "Our carefully constructed system of checks and balances is being negated by the rise of…
Comment linking /2011/02/02/on-government-employment&
on “Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)”Submitted Perspectives from an unelected bureaucrat as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI found this via Google (which isn't much): https://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/the-war-on-drugs/ When the author was asked in the comments to expound on the thesis he just provided a link to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court#Due_process_and_r... I think the crux is in the last paragraph of that section, although the link to the War on Drugs is not made explicit: > Conservatives angrily denounced the "…
Comment linking /2011/05/21/the-war-on-drugs/
on “Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers”Submitted Washington seen from the inside as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIf we're going to discuss McCarthyism, we need to remember that the US government was riddled with soviet spies during the Roosevelt administration[1][2][3][4]. Communist spies outside of government were also instrumental to soviet espionage efforts, including the theft of nuclear technology[5][6]. McCarthy was responding to real threats, although my high school history class didn't talk much about them. Members of…
Comment linking /2012/08/19/review-of-americas-retreat-from-victory-by-joseph-r-mccarthy&
on “Tech companies, bristling, concede to government surveillance program”Submitted This is your government as a story · 3 points
HN discussionTianming. If some other system governs better than democracy, then we should use it. As Moldbug points out, the current US Govcorp is structured as an employee collective[1][2], which no competitive corporation chooses as a system of organization in the free market. As Mancur Olson points out, bureaucracies tend to get more inefficient over time[3]. I know we've all been raised to believe that democracy is love and…
Comment linking /2011/02/02/on-government-employment/
on “You can't beat politics with new technology all the time”Submitted The Three Branches of the U.S. Government as a story · 1 points
HN discussionCompare "Strictures upon the Declaration of Independence" by Thomas Hutchinson" ( http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-hutchinson-strictures-... ) "Mr Hutchinson believes that the majority of Americans were deluded into war with Britain by a few crazies. A common experience in history. Read it, it's short. Pay attention to Mr Hutchinson pointing out logical inconsistencies between the revolutionaries' calls for fre…
Comment linking /2009/04/10/review-of-strictures-upon-the-declaration-of-independence-by-thomas-hutchinson/
on “British Spy Agency Considers Journalists a Threat, Vacuums Up Their Emails”No offense to Prof. Lessig - but he's sort of like someone trying to restore the Roman Republic in the age of Nero. The reality of Washington is that politics (ie, democracy) matters a little, but not very much: http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government-employm... If politics has negligible power over government, electorates have negligible power over government. So why do we need to "get money out of pol…
Comment linking /2011/02/02/on-government-employment/
on “Lawrence Lessig's New Book: One Way Forward”If the US government ran the scientific community, that community would not have its strong consensus on climate change, because half of congress, and every other president, is committed to at least equivocating on whether that consensus exists. You fail to realize how the USG operates. Elected officials are not the ones in charge: http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government-employm... Congress and the Pres…
Comment linking /2011/02/02/on-government-employment/
on “Not just the weather: climate change acceptance nosedives with the economy”Mencius Moldbug traces back the lineage modern progressivism to the Puritans, and you can still see the effects of this lineage in its illiberal totalitarian righteousness[1]. They were briefly the supporters of liberal principles like free speech and open debate when the movement was young and had no power. Like all movements which have grown to power, it now seeks to drive all dissent into the shadows by making di…
Comment linking /2014/01/06/review-of-unqualified-reservations-part-1/
on “Mozilla situation worsens as three board members call it quits”
