It's a little scary how some leaders are using this pandemic to grab power. Even Canada's PM tried to grant himself emergency powers that went a little too far. He had to back down because he controls a minority of seats and the other parties noticed what had been snuck into an emergency bill [1].
If this almost happened in Canada, we should expect there will be a lot of countries where citizens will have to make noise to ensure emergency powers don't become permanent powers.
I'm amazed this didn't make many headlines, even here in Canada.
If a politician in the US, UK, etc tried to push an emergency bill that allowed them to tax/spend without any congressional/parliamentary oversight for 1-2yrs it'd be a big deal. Not to mention the current government didn't even win a majority government... so it's hardly the same as some rubberstamp parliament.
I guess because it didn't pass parliament?
Regardless this has to go down as one of the biggest attempted power grabs in the history of Canada.
We're already seeing what that might have meant, a few days ago Trudeau announced any company (even major public multinational companies) that loses 30% of business would get up to 75% of wages covered... the problem was the bill that just got passed said none of that. The bill was limited to small private companies with <$12 million in revenue and had no measures of "lost business" (which makes far, far more sense, why give companies with access to plenty of capital the same help as struggling small/medium businesses? Not to mention "lost business" is very easy to manipulate for big companies).
Although Orban already had aspirations of being a long term dictator after Xi and Putin, it hits really close to home when a country inside the EU decides to do that. Apparently the world is becoming some kind of Absurdistan.
> Although Orban already had aspirations of being a long term dictator after Xi and Putin, it hits really close to home when a country inside the EU decides to do that.
EU already had that before Xi or Putin or Orban. Helmut Kohl lead germany for 16 years. Angela Merkel ( sometimes called the leader of the EU ) is on her 4th term as chancellor of germany. In the US, we have senators/congressmen who hold onto their power for decades. Just because people serve a long time doesn't mean it is a dictatorship. And it also doesn't make it a bad to thing have political stability.
> Apparently the world is becoming some kind of Absurdistan.
It was already that unless think its only bad when russia, china and hungary does it.
Kohl and Merkel didn't rule by decree. They were still subject to the Bundestag, they just got reelected a lot (or more accurately: they lead the largest party in a coalition government). They were influential, but didn't remotely have any kind of dictatorial power.
Putin, Xi and now apparently Orban really do have dictatorial powers. I hope Orban's will be removed once the crisis is over, otherwise I don't see how Hungary can stay in the EU.
FDR was not long dead before the US ratified the XXII Amendment to the Constitution, providing that nobody might be elected president more than twice, or more than once if he had served more than two years of someone else's term.
Any long-serving member of the House of Representatives has become such by standing for election every other year; any long-serving senator by standing every six years. In some cases (think of Strom Thurmond) the election seems to be more or less a formality; but people do turn out and vote.
The scariest thing to me about this pandemic is not leaders and governments doing this. In some ways it's to be expected.
What terrifies me, is how eager I was at the start of this pandemic for the government to lock me and my fellow citizens in their homes. We have drones policing in Wales now, shouting "stay inside to save lives". And April fools jokes have been forbidden.
Not even George Orwell ever imagined such a perfect scenario. Fear is really powerful, specially against such a strange enemy, one we can't see.
If Western society can get back out of this without permanently losing significant civil liberties, it will be a pretty strong signal for the viability of our democracies, because we can temporarily suspended rights to counter a credible threat without ratcheting up too much.
It remains to be seen if that will happen. After 9/11 I would argue there was a significant ratcheting effect.
There’s no law that I’m aware of prohibiting April fool’s jokes. If you can stomach other people’s disapproval, you can fill your boots without fear of government intervention.
Your willingness to support the lockdown is no doubt based on the evidence that expert scientists have presented to the government; that’s about as far from arbitrary decree as you can get.
Is it dangerous? Absolutely. The counterweight to the government seizing and consolidating their new powers and running amok with them is democracy. That’s what we’re doing here: remembering our right to free speech, and asserting it. It’s perfectly reasonable and compatible with democracy to recognise that some freedoms have been suspended for epidemiological reasons; you’d have to be a hopeless ideologue to want to assert the right to assemble right now.
The vital part here though is that it remains science-driven. Not all governments have a good record of following science, and the moment they stop, the justification for the harsh measures disappears.
If you're going to overrule or disband the parliament of people's representatives for this, maybe it should be replaced by a parliament of scientists.
Science has completely different mindset and that wouldn't work well with governing job. Science is operating in almost anarchy to push boundaries and constantly revise previously accepted theories. Governing needs more cohesion and stronger guidance. Engineers, on the other hand...
The issue here is that we accept that these very intrusive measures are necessary because epidemiologists tell us that they are necessary. If politicians want to implement similarly intrusive measures that are not backed up by science, we won't accept them. So direct approval by scientists is vital for our acceptance of these measures.
Your institutions have a very long history and have seen much, much worse. You barely need a law to protect your most essential right which is to able to confer ('assemble' but really meaning communicate) with others about whatever you want, especially to talk about your government in almost whatever terms you want ... because we have a fairly open Internet or this would be a lot scarier.
You are not locked in at home because of some arbitrary authoritarian measure, there is are very good reasons for this, and though some things will change for good, most of your 'good life' will come back soon enough.
Orban is playing a much more dangerous game, and I fear for the citizens of Hungary. I believe that once the EU gets over the hump, they will deal with Orban. The EU is effete and feckless sometimes, but I think Orban just crossed an actual line. The EU holds the purse, and ultimately Orban is small and poor, and therefore mostly powerless and he will eventually cave like a paper tiger. Or lose an election. Orban has no real cards to play.
The litmus test for me, is what does the state get out of this?
As much as it seems like an authoritarian wet dream, the state doesn't actually benefit from this lockdown. The economic damage works against them, not for them.
Hungary doesn't pass this sniff test for me. Orban finally saw his first electoral defeat late last year (his party lost the mayoral vote for the capital), and has now banned all elections until further notice. That's uncomfortably convenient. And for his track record .. the emergency powers they granted during the refugee crisis in 2015, are still in effect today. Emergency powers with no expiration date are terrifying.
Give it time. Lockdown will breakdown in novel ways.
We don't live in the time of Orwell.
A hyperconnected world where info good and bad is constantly flowing, changes how the system works. Its much more unpredictable and harder to control.
If I don't like what my boss is doing I have ten different ways to subvert him because the network shows me different routes to people above his level.
Well, people are so lucky to have such a leader leading in these times. I say do away with elections too, why take chances? /s
Power is aphrodisiac and a lot of these "emergency" powers will stay, one way or another. Hard term limits, of 8 years, should be mandatory for everyone. Will not solve everything, but better than nothing.
In a lot of countries they rule be decree anyway. The leader control everything, the party, the parliament and eventually courts. So while the parliament passed it, actually one person and his close circle decided it.
They get everyone on their side with Plata o plomo...a share of corruption money or you have the entire state on your back.
I don't want leave unrelated comments. But I have genuine question here.
Why is this article allowed to stay up on Hacker News and be open for discussion ? How is this related to hacker news or hacker/tech culture ?
Is it worrying that Hugary's PM is grabbing authoritarian powers? Sure. Does this have wide implications for Europe? Sure.
But if this article is allowed to stay up. Then why was the post about the House Intelligence Committee Report on FISA Abuses nuked from the front-page last February ?
One would think, illegally spying on a US presidential campaign is pretty worrying as well (its a bi-partisan issue, that could affect both parties, so put down your pitchforks). In fact, such event could undo the underpinnings of the US democracy. A pretty important topic to discuss I'd say.
The mods don't read threads, and don't respond to questions directed at them. Traffic on HN is too high for them to actively monitor. They depend upon users emailing them to alert them to issues with content.
Meta-comments like this are useless at best, trolling at worst.
I've previously alerted the mods to threads of discussion within a post where one user was calling for the mods to nuke a blatantly anti-semitic post, and I emailed them. My email got a response, the plaintive posts in the thread didn't, and the mods said you need to email them to get their attention [0].
Even if mods don't respond. I think this comment is useful for the community as well.
There is no dedicated meta-discussion section on hacker-news. So it has to happen somewhere.
And no I am not trolling. I do value the high signal to noise ratio on HN, which is why I participate. My comment is meant to make not just mods, but users think about what counts as signal, versus noise on this forum.
I don't think you were trolling, but you were addressing the mods while aiming at the users, which is a coy sort of tactic to have a meta-discussion. Why not be more direct and address the community about whether a broader range of acceptable topics is desired?
If I appeared coy, I am sorry. That was not my intention.
I've seen comments in several previous HN discussions respectfully address the mods. Based on this I assumed it was fair to address comments to mods if it helps improve quality of HN discussion.
Before I respond, just want to say I am trying to be respectful, and not start a flame war. I value the high quality discussion that happens on HN
> That’s like, just your opinion, man.
It is my opinion that if any siting president (of any party) can abuse FISA court to spy on an opponents presidential campaign, the US democracy is in trouble
> Hungary established dictatorship
> See, this one actually did fundamentally change how government works.
Spying on a presidential campaign is in my opinion a fundamental change in how US government works.
I'm not trying to start a flame war either. I'm worried about the same things you are. But I also talk to people that don't read the news, and this is the kind of thing they will never care about because it doesn't affect their lives. Some other people say that Obama spied on Trump's campaign, so nothing is new here and therefore democracy isn't changing.
Trump is bad, sure. But he doesn't do anything like Orbán did. I don't even think he's smart enough to do it. A EU country becoming a dictatorship is a watershed moment that will have repercussions for decades. A US House report will be relegated to a sentence in high school history books in the best case.
Can you not see that one is of more interest to hackers than the other? For reals?
This is a fair and honest question. Not everyone knows the fine points about HN, and the answer to this question not posted anywhere in a manner that would make it obvious.
I think the answer is because the rules are not black and white, and such a post may have started a flame war and so maybe the mods dropped it. I think when there are 'more comments than upvotes' or some such ratio, they have a look and kill discussions that are going downhill.
Trump is 'closer to home' possibly making it more personal and therefore flame-bait-ish, while Orban is an abstraction for most people.
Also, the near existential reality of the entire freaking world being 'locked up at home' makes the issue rather topical!
Recall that the Patriot act after 911 was a veritable Trojan horse of new governmental powers having nothing to do with terrorism and it's success paves the way for the 2020 pandemic power grabs.
36 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadIf this almost happened in Canada, we should expect there will be a lot of countries where citizens will have to make noise to ensure emergency powers don't become permanent powers.
[1]https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/liberals-to-back-off-...
If a politician in the US, UK, etc tried to push an emergency bill that allowed them to tax/spend without any congressional/parliamentary oversight for 1-2yrs it'd be a big deal. Not to mention the current government didn't even win a majority government... so it's hardly the same as some rubberstamp parliament.
I guess because it didn't pass parliament?
Regardless this has to go down as one of the biggest attempted power grabs in the history of Canada.
We're already seeing what that might have meant, a few days ago Trudeau announced any company (even major public multinational companies) that loses 30% of business would get up to 75% of wages covered... the problem was the bill that just got passed said none of that. The bill was limited to small private companies with <$12 million in revenue and had no measures of "lost business" (which makes far, far more sense, why give companies with access to plenty of capital the same help as struggling small/medium businesses? Not to mention "lost business" is very easy to manipulate for big companies).
EU already had that before Xi or Putin or Orban. Helmut Kohl lead germany for 16 years. Angela Merkel ( sometimes called the leader of the EU ) is on her 4th term as chancellor of germany. In the US, we have senators/congressmen who hold onto their power for decades. Just because people serve a long time doesn't mean it is a dictatorship. And it also doesn't make it a bad to thing have political stability.
> Apparently the world is becoming some kind of Absurdistan.
It was already that unless think its only bad when russia, china and hungary does it.
Putin, Xi and now apparently Orban really do have dictatorial powers. I hope Orban's will be removed once the crisis is over, otherwise I don't see how Hungary can stay in the EU.
Any long-serving member of the House of Representatives has become such by standing for election every other year; any long-serving senator by standing every six years. In some cases (think of Strom Thurmond) the election seems to be more or less a formality; but people do turn out and vote.
What terrifies me, is how eager I was at the start of this pandemic for the government to lock me and my fellow citizens in their homes. We have drones policing in Wales now, shouting "stay inside to save lives". And April fools jokes have been forbidden.
Not even George Orwell ever imagined such a perfect scenario. Fear is really powerful, specially against such a strange enemy, one we can't see.
It remains to be seen if that will happen. After 9/11 I would argue there was a significant ratcheting effect.
Your willingness to support the lockdown is no doubt based on the evidence that expert scientists have presented to the government; that’s about as far from arbitrary decree as you can get.
Is it dangerous? Absolutely. The counterweight to the government seizing and consolidating their new powers and running amok with them is democracy. That’s what we’re doing here: remembering our right to free speech, and asserting it. It’s perfectly reasonable and compatible with democracy to recognise that some freedoms have been suspended for epidemiological reasons; you’d have to be a hopeless ideologue to want to assert the right to assemble right now.
If you're going to overrule or disband the parliament of people's representatives for this, maybe it should be replaced by a parliament of scientists.
Your institutions have a very long history and have seen much, much worse. You barely need a law to protect your most essential right which is to able to confer ('assemble' but really meaning communicate) with others about whatever you want, especially to talk about your government in almost whatever terms you want ... because we have a fairly open Internet or this would be a lot scarier.
You are not locked in at home because of some arbitrary authoritarian measure, there is are very good reasons for this, and though some things will change for good, most of your 'good life' will come back soon enough.
Orban is playing a much more dangerous game, and I fear for the citizens of Hungary. I believe that once the EU gets over the hump, they will deal with Orban. The EU is effete and feckless sometimes, but I think Orban just crossed an actual line. The EU holds the purse, and ultimately Orban is small and poor, and therefore mostly powerless and he will eventually cave like a paper tiger. Or lose an election. Orban has no real cards to play.
Have faith. It's 'mostly' going to be ok.
As much as it seems like an authoritarian wet dream, the state doesn't actually benefit from this lockdown. The economic damage works against them, not for them.
Hungary doesn't pass this sniff test for me. Orban finally saw his first electoral defeat late last year (his party lost the mayoral vote for the capital), and has now banned all elections until further notice. That's uncomfortably convenient. And for his track record .. the emergency powers they granted during the refugee crisis in 2015, are still in effect today. Emergency powers with no expiration date are terrifying.
We don't live in the time of Orwell.
A hyperconnected world where info good and bad is constantly flowing, changes how the system works. Its much more unpredictable and harder to control.
If I don't like what my boss is doing I have ten different ways to subvert him because the network shows me different routes to people above his level.
This was not true in the past.
Power is aphrodisiac and a lot of these "emergency" powers will stay, one way or another. Hard term limits, of 8 years, should be mandatory for everyone. Will not solve everything, but better than nothing.
In a lot of countries they rule be decree anyway. The leader control everything, the party, the parliament and eventually courts. So while the parliament passed it, actually one person and his close circle decided it.
They get everyone on their side with Plata o plomo...a share of corruption money or you have the entire state on your back.
I don't want leave unrelated comments. But I have genuine question here.
Why is this article allowed to stay up on Hacker News and be open for discussion ? How is this related to hacker news or hacker/tech culture ?
Is it worrying that Hugary's PM is grabbing authoritarian powers? Sure. Does this have wide implications for Europe? Sure.
But if this article is allowed to stay up. Then why was the post about the House Intelligence Committee Report on FISA Abuses nuked from the front-page last February ?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292336
One would think, illegally spying on a US presidential campaign is pretty worrying as well (its a bi-partisan issue, that could affect both parties, so put down your pitchforks). In fact, such event could undo the underpinnings of the US democracy. A pretty important topic to discuss I'd say.
Meta-comments like this are useless at best, trolling at worst.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21003570
There is no dedicated meta-discussion section on hacker-news. So it has to happen somewhere.
And no I am not trolling. I do value the high signal to noise ratio on HN, which is why I participate. My comment is meant to make not just mods, but users think about what counts as signal, versus noise on this forum.
I've seen comments in several previous HN discussions respectfully address the mods. Based on this I assumed it was fair to address comments to mods if it helps improve quality of HN discussion.
That’s like, just your opinion, man.
> Hungary established dictatorship
See, this one actually did fundamentally change how government works. Fait accompli. If you can’t see how that’s different... I dont know what to say.
This event will profoundly affect the daily lives of hackers. The other did not.
> That’s like, just your opinion, man.
It is my opinion that if any siting president (of any party) can abuse FISA court to spy on an opponents presidential campaign, the US democracy is in trouble
> Hungary established dictatorship > See, this one actually did fundamentally change how government works.
Spying on a presidential campaign is in my opinion a fundamental change in how US government works.
Trump is bad, sure. But he doesn't do anything like Orbán did. I don't even think he's smart enough to do it. A EU country becoming a dictatorship is a watershed moment that will have repercussions for decades. A US House report will be relegated to a sentence in high school history books in the best case.
Can you not see that one is of more interest to hackers than the other? For reals?
I think the answer is because the rules are not black and white, and such a post may have started a flame war and so maybe the mods dropped it. I think when there are 'more comments than upvotes' or some such ratio, they have a look and kill discussions that are going downhill.
Trump is 'closer to home' possibly making it more personal and therefore flame-bait-ish, while Orban is an abstraction for most people.
Also, the near existential reality of the entire freaking world being 'locked up at home' makes the issue rather topical!