8 ms·

Anger, despair, and defiance from a voice within the US federal research system

44 points by yunque 2y ago

taylodl 2y ago
This administration has adopted a blitzkrieg approach, fully aware that our system of checks and balances requires time to respond. Their apparent goal is to inflict as much damage as possible before legal challenges can be mounted. Notably, Congress seems complicit in this blitzkrieg, and it appears they have employed Musk as their patsy. I wonder what Musk thinks of this role? When this is all over, we must seriously consider a Constitutional Convention. It's been 236 years since the Constitution was ratified and adopted, and Trump has exposed significant shortcomings. The next iteration of the Constitution should focus on imposing limits on the executive branch. As a single individual, a rogue president can cause substantial harm in a short period.
- goatlover 2y ago
  Musk likely has his own motivations. Who calls a Constitutional Convention? Would would you need both parties to agree? Does it take a majority of the states to make it happen? There is an amendment process, but a new Convention would go beyond that. Seems difficult to get the red and blue parts of the US to agree on anything that substatial.
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    I would do that if the delegates were actually interested in ratifying something that serves everyone rather than entrenching the power in the hands of a few people. I don't trust the Republican Party as it is organized today to do that, based on the actions of their president and their senate and house.
- emorning3 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - hiddencost 2y ago
    I wish but who do you think would enforce that? We've already seen that war crimes are only prosecuted if America wants them to be
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  The last thing that we want is a constitutional convention. The american populace just gave trump and right wing authoritarianism a "strong" democratic mandate (don't act like ~2% isn't HUGE in modern elections). He's actually getting more popular in the face of his current "deconstruction of the nation state". You might try to meme this away as "political honeymoon" but I'm sure that this is durable. https://abcnews.go.com/538/trump-popular/story?id=117620918 https://abcnews.go.com/538/trump-popular/story?id=117620918 https://www.vox.com/trump-administration/395804/trump-mandate-poll-support-executive-action-policy-immigration-mass-deportation-tariff-pardon https://www.vox.com/trump-administration/395804/trump-mandat... Right now, if you hold a constitutional convention, you're getting to get a whole lot of the sheep further voting for wolves, and you can kiss everything you love about "liberalism" goodbye from existing within the united states. Americans hate empathy, compassion, precieved "beta" weakness, and helping our allies. We also learned this election that Mexican immigrants really hate immigrants from the rest of south and Latin America, and that those same Mexican immigrants hated precieved "wokeness" so much they'd literally mass abandon catholocism and mass convert to evangelical Protestantism over it. The American people want a boot on their face to lick. The people will vote for Trump's agenda. Democrats are in shambles with zero real leadership and no path forward.
  - derbOac 2y ago
    So for one thing, the popular vote differential was less than 2%: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 It's also not that large historically speaking: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5094602-a-landslide-just-0-15-percent-of-all-voters-determined-trumps-2024-victory/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5094602-a-landslide-jus... Also, his popularity has been dropping, even among voters who voted for him: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-approval-rating-slips-americans-worry-about-economy-2025-02-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-approval-rating-slip... Finally, a lot of voters seem to be disapproving of what he's doing even if they don't disapprove of him. DOGE is becoming unpopular for example, even among people who support Trump. I agree with your skepticism about a constitutional convention, but I also think something of that scale is necessary. I don't see how the US can continue on this path with blatant disregard for the constitution. From my perspective, the problem currently isn't with the US constitution per se. The problem is people ignoring it. Maybe that's part of the same problem, but it seems to me any legal system breaks down when everyone is ignoring the law.
- moshun 2y ago
  If you’ve read Project 2025, which is the blueprint being followed to the letter, you know this administration intends to fully dismantle US government and it’s democracy as quickly as possible. Ideally, so fast there is no time to mount a defense, resistance or even general understanding that it’s happening. Purges of anyone who would object in the government, open defiance of any checks and balances, mass arrests, full penetration of nearly every significant and highly secure digital infrastructure, and the head of state literally referring to himself as the king. In any other country, we would call this a coup.
- Tadpole9181 2y ago
  > When this is all over I really wish I shared the optimism. Trump is talking about taking over USPS directly. The new head of the FBI just announced he wants to send agents after "legacy media". We had an EO saying the president is the sole arbiter of truth in the Executive and installs Apparatchiks into each department for overseeing compliance. And then the official white house communications channel said "long live the King". Republicans are looking at lifting the term limit for him. In 2020, Trump directed a mob to overthrow the US government to prevent the ratification of an election he lost. In return, SCOTUS granted him absolute immunity for "official acts" that they get to define on an arbitrary basis. I really think it's over this time. He once told an audience of Christians that if they voted for him, they never had to vote again. Yeah...
- hiddencost 2y ago
  I think secession is likely the only way out.
kelipso 2y ago
I find it really hard to be sympathetic when these same people silenced voices on the right for years and now they complain that the same thing is being done to them.
- tokai 2y ago
  You have no way of knowing if the Anonymous medical researcher here is not right wing themselves.
  - kelipso 2y ago
    Isn't the likelihood insanely low like 10%? Maybe since it's a government researcher the likelihood is higher. This thought calls into question why conservatives should even support academia in general, especially liberal arts academia, which shuns conservative thought like the plague while having massive influence upon the culture. At least STEM has measurable value.
    - goatlover 2y ago
      I'm not a conservative, but the most recent Mindscape podcast had a psychologist on talking about polarization, and she presented the most polarized position, while also mentioning the bad things about being polarized. It was an educated version of what you would expect to find on any popular reddit sub when politics comes up.
      - kelipso 2y ago
        It's amazing to me how even more STEM-ish fields like biology or medicine has biases like this and even censors research that align against liberal values.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      > liberal arts academia Which is where one studies physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, amongst many other such studies. Here's how STEM tends to break down at universities: S - College of Liberal Arts T - College of Engineering E - College of Engineering M - College of Medicine Not every university is the same of course, but that's pretty much how STEM gets divided amongst the colleges. Now, if you want to make the claim that conservatives don't support science, I'm not going to disagree with you. It's been wryly noted that reality has a liberal bias.
bananapub 2y ago
it really is just amazing how Americans are mostly sitting around watching their country and it's position in the world be dismantled by a bunch of drug-addled lunatics who plan to enrich themselves and advance their very stupid and malicious little hobby horses.
bananapub 2y ago
another post about the descontruction of the American state and in particular the government-funded research state that produced the entire fucking tech industry of which we are part, flagged. seriously, dang, why are you doing nothing about the concerted attack on HN?
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  It shouldn't be zero cost to suppress discussion like this. That some people find such deep topical hackery discussions convenient, and that they can flag with impunity to their heart's content, is a disgrace. Flagging should absolutely have to be public, at a bare bare minimum.

44 points by yunque 2y ago

This administration has adopted a blitzkrieg approach, fully aware that our system of checks and balances requires time to respond. Their apparent goal is to inflict as much damage as possible before legal challenges can be mounted. Notably, Congress seems complicit in this blitzkrieg, and it appears they have employed Musk as their patsy. I wonder what Musk thinks of this role? When this is all over, we must seriously consider a Constitutional Convention. It's been 236 years since the Constitution was ratified and adopted, and Trump has exposed significant shortcomings. The next iteration of the Constitution should focus on imposing limits on the executive branch. As a single individual, a rogue president can cause substantial harm in a short period.

goatlover 2y ago
Musk likely has his own motivations. Who calls a Constitutional Convention? Would would you need both parties to agree? Does it take a majority of the states to make it happen? There is an amendment process, but a new Convention would go beyond that. Seems difficult to get the red and blue parts of the US to agree on anything that substatial.
- throwway120385 2y ago
  I would do that if the delegates were actually interested in ratifying something that serves everyone rather than entrenching the power in the hands of a few people. I don't trust the Republican Party as it is organized today to do that, based on the actions of their president and their senate and house.
emorning3 2y ago
[flagged]
- hiddencost 2y ago
  I wish but who do you think would enforce that? We've already seen that war crimes are only prosecuted if America wants them to be
Der_Einzige 2y ago
The last thing that we want is a constitutional convention. The american populace just gave trump and right wing authoritarianism a "strong" democratic mandate (don't act like ~2% isn't HUGE in modern elections). He's actually getting more popular in the face of his current "deconstruction of the nation state". You might try to meme this away as "political honeymoon" but I'm sure that this is durable. https://abcnews.go.com/538/trump-popular/story?id=117620918 https://abcnews.go.com/538/trump-popular/story?id=117620918 https://www.vox.com/trump-administration/395804/trump-mandate-poll-support-executive-action-policy-immigration-mass-deportation-tariff-pardon https://www.vox.com/trump-administration/395804/trump-mandat... Right now, if you hold a constitutional convention, you're getting to get a whole lot of the sheep further voting for wolves, and you can kiss everything you love about "liberalism" goodbye from existing within the united states. Americans hate empathy, compassion, precieved "beta" weakness, and helping our allies. We also learned this election that Mexican immigrants really hate immigrants from the rest of south and Latin America, and that those same Mexican immigrants hated precieved "wokeness" so much they'd literally mass abandon catholocism and mass convert to evangelical Protestantism over it. The American people want a boot on their face to lick. The people will vote for Trump's agenda. Democrats are in shambles with zero real leadership and no path forward.
- derbOac 2y ago
  So for one thing, the popular vote differential was less than 2%: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 It's also not that large historically speaking: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5094602-a-landslide-just-0-15-percent-of-all-voters-determined-trumps-2024-victory/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5094602-a-landslide-jus... Also, his popularity has been dropping, even among voters who voted for him: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-approval-rating-slips-americans-worry-about-economy-2025-02-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-approval-rating-slip... Finally, a lot of voters seem to be disapproving of what he's doing even if they don't disapprove of him. DOGE is becoming unpopular for example, even among people who support Trump. I agree with your skepticism about a constitutional convention, but I also think something of that scale is necessary. I don't see how the US can continue on this path with blatant disregard for the constitution. From my perspective, the problem currently isn't with the US constitution per se. The problem is people ignoring it. Maybe that's part of the same problem, but it seems to me any legal system breaks down when everyone is ignoring the law.
moshun 2y ago
If you’ve read Project 2025, which is the blueprint being followed to the letter, you know this administration intends to fully dismantle US government and it’s democracy as quickly as possible. Ideally, so fast there is no time to mount a defense, resistance or even general understanding that it’s happening. Purges of anyone who would object in the government, open defiance of any checks and balances, mass arrests, full penetration of nearly every significant and highly secure digital infrastructure, and the head of state literally referring to himself as the king. In any other country, we would call this a coup.
Tadpole9181 2y ago
> When this is all over I really wish I shared the optimism. Trump is talking about taking over USPS directly. The new head of the FBI just announced he wants to send agents after "legacy media". We had an EO saying the president is the sole arbiter of truth in the Executive and installs Apparatchiks into each department for overseeing compliance. And then the official white house communications channel said "long live the King". Republicans are looking at lifting the term limit for him. In 2020, Trump directed a mob to overthrow the US government to prevent the ratification of an election he lost. In return, SCOTUS granted him absolute immunity for "official acts" that they get to define on an arbitrary basis. I really think it's over this time. He once told an audience of Christians that if they voted for him, they never had to vote again. Yeah...
hiddencost 2y ago
I think secession is likely the only way out.

kelipso 2y ago

I find it really hard to be sympathetic when these same people silenced voices on the right for years and now they complain that the same thing is being done to them.

tokai 2y ago
You have no way of knowing if the Anonymous medical researcher here is not right wing themselves.
- kelipso 2y ago
  Isn't the likelihood insanely low like 10%? Maybe since it's a government researcher the likelihood is higher. This thought calls into question why conservatives should even support academia in general, especially liberal arts academia, which shuns conservative thought like the plague while having massive influence upon the culture. At least STEM has measurable value.
  - goatlover 2y ago
    I'm not a conservative, but the most recent Mindscape podcast had a psychologist on talking about polarization, and she presented the most polarized position, while also mentioning the bad things about being polarized. It was an educated version of what you would expect to find on any popular reddit sub when politics comes up.
    - kelipso 2y ago
      It's amazing to me how even more STEM-ish fields like biology or medicine has biases like this and even censors research that align against liberal values.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    > liberal arts academia Which is where one studies physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, amongst many other such studies. Here's how STEM tends to break down at universities: S - College of Liberal Arts T - College of Engineering E - College of Engineering M - College of Medicine Not every university is the same of course, but that's pretty much how STEM gets divided amongst the colleges. Now, if you want to make the claim that conservatives don't support science, I'm not going to disagree with you. It's been wryly noted that reality has a liberal bias.

bananapub 2y ago

it really is just amazing how Americans are mostly sitting around watching their country and it's position in the world be dismantled by a bunch of drug-addled lunatics who plan to enrich themselves and advance their very stupid and malicious little hobby horses.

bananapub 2y ago

another post about the descontruction of the American state and in particular the government-funded research state that produced the entire fucking tech industry of which we are part, flagged. seriously, dang, why are you doing nothing about the concerted attack on HN?

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
It shouldn't be zero cost to suppress discussion like this. That some people find such deep topical hackery discussions convenient, and that they can flag with impunity to their heart's content, is a disgrace. Flagging should absolutely have to be public, at a bare bare minimum.