someguyonhn

I can't tell if you're trolling or not. I tried to respond to you in what I believe was a mature and respectful way.

You've responded with a breathtaking amount of immaturity. And completely ignored any of the points I made. Perhaps one day you'll be more open to hearing and responding to what I wrote to you. Maybe that day won't come. Either way I wish you well.

To your question: I censor myself on HN because I don't believe Hacker News, which is often used by children and is a place that seems to wish to be more welcoming to women and racial minorities, is the right place to have an environment where swearing or using racially inflammatory language is okay.

Especially when readers don't know my relationship to the subject matter, or my relationship to the individual I'm addressing.

To your point about relevance, I'm going to point out to you that zero people are actually advocating banning a word. They're saying "hey let's stop calling girls who express leadership skills "bossy" because that has negative consequences". To which I think the average person would probably be open to. They are advocating not using a word in the wrong context. Call kids bossy when they're being brats, sure, but when someone, particularly girls are being leaders and doing the same things that boys are complimented for, don't call them bossy.

#WhenSomeonesBeingALeaderDontCallThemBossy is a pretty long hashtag and a terrible way to quickly market your campaign. #banbossy is memorable, gets to the point, and can encourage a conversation.

This is a kind of long response. But I hope maybe you'll read through it. Just saying "check your privilege" is probably not the best starting point for the conversation, so I'll try to do a better job of explaining. I don't know if you are misunderstanding what is meant by "privilege" or not, but the privilege being talked about when someone says "check your privilege" in my experience are the privileges that come from being part of the, for lack of a better term, more socially accepted or socially powerful group. Things like white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, you get the idea.

So regardless of your level of income or education, you can be, and probably are, still privileged in the way society sees and treats you.

For example, as a man, I pretty much never have to worry about being told I got a promotion because I was having sex with the boss, or that I'm only being angry or "emotional" about something because it's my "time of the month". Things that women have to deal with all the time.

Another example would be that I'm never worried wanting to have children is going to be seen as bad for business, and result in me being denied promotions or other advancement because of it.(Not to mention I'm statistically going to be getting paid more than women for doing equal work.)

Hopefully you can see how these are the type of privileges men, or another group of people in a similar situation, may never notice unless it is pointed out to them. Or they "check their privilege".

In relation to Ban Bossy, an important example seems to be that I've been conditioned my entire life to aspire to be a leader: team captain, salesman of the year, best on the basketball court, you get the idea. And not once was I ever, or will I ever, be discouraged from asserting my leadership skills as essentially "not knowing my place" because I'm a man, which can be the outcome when we tell girls and young women to not be bossy or other similar things.

Maybe a good exercise for you, and for all of us, is to listen to what people are saying when they describe the privileges we have, or to ask them to explain better because we would like to understand. Depending on our situation, maybe we'll gain a better understanding of our heterosexual privilege and being able to love who we want without having to worry that their gender will result in violence against us or them. Or maybe we'll learn about our religious privilege, and that we are able to practice a religion without inciting fear, being called names, profiled, assaulted, or killed because of the head covering we wear or for being "different".

Firstly, I fail to see how the lyrics from a Jay-Z song from 2002 are anything other than completely irrelevant to the Ban Bossy campaign. But if you're going to bring it up, we might as well do it right.

1) Pharrell says those lines not Jay-Z. This is the same person who wrote/sings/produced the Academy-Award nominated "Happy" song from Despicable Me.

2) The context of lyrics within a song, the intended meaning of the song itself, and intended audience of a song should obviously be taken into consideration. On a site like HN, that so often seems to point out the ridiculous nature of arguments against video games causing violence, citing lyrics of someone's husband as somehow a statement about.... well I have to be honest, I can't follow the logic of the point you're trying to make... is disappointing.

And finally 3) Here are some lyrics from Jay-Z that seem pretty relevant to your comment:

"...Rap critics that say he's Money, Cash, Hoes I'm from the hood stupid, what type of facts are those If you grew up with holes in your zapatos You'd celebrate the minute you was having dough I'm like f-ck critics, you can kiss my whole a--hole If you don't like my lyrics, you can press fast forward...

...I don't know what you take me as Or understand the intelligence that Jay-Z has I'm from rags to riches, ni--as I ain't dumb I got 99 problems, but a b-tch ain't one, hit me"

That's really well put. I hadn't thought of it in that way. It seems pretty funny someone would say "What's that? We can't just redraw the districts to get what we want? Fine, let's redraw entire states."

You've definitely addressed the first question I had. I'm sorry but I still can't find in your original post where you addressed the "If enough people were to work together to make that change a reality, is there anything that could realistically stop that change from happening?" question. Which is probably my fault for not explaining what I meant correctly. Maybe a better way to put it would have been, "how specifically would an ideal government work in your mind... and why is that impossible?"

From what you've written I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) you're saying that your ideal form of government is one run by individuals without corruption who can remain entirely impartial. But those people don't exist, therefore it's just not possible.

I would probably be inclined to agree that nobody is above all corruption etc. (especially not the tens of thousands it would take to fill every public position in the country) so in that regard I would probably agree with you.

My point, and I hope you can agree is that, sure we aren't going to find perfect people to run the country, because more likely than not, nobody including ourselves is completely perfect. But we can look at the types of corruption and other problems in government like campaign finance laws and find solutions. And here's the most important part, because we live in a democracy, nothing can stop us. For example we as a country might say, "okay, so all of this corruption you politicians are so fond of but isn't technically illegal, it's all illegal now. And if you participate in it you'll lose your seat and go to prison." Which for some types of corruption and campaign finance laws that already exist happens pretty frequently [1] [2]

Then we might say, "campaigns are all publicly funded from now on."

But no matter what we say or do, or how many tries it takes, because all of our votes count, and we can all go vote, we can keep on trying to make our Union a better one.

[1] - Daily show clip about former Illinois governor Rob Blagojevich being convicted of corruption charges. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-28-2011/conhair--...

[2] Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife were convicted of crimes related to their campaign fund misuse. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/14/jesse...

I completely understand that OP isn't a fan of their current democracy. But let's be honest and not hyperbolic about what the situation really is. Again, I can't speak for every nation, but in America our democracy undeniably has its flaws and shortcoming but there is nothing I've ever heard of that is realistically stopping a movement with enough political will from making a change.

But instead of disagreeing on semantics about "real" or "pseudo" democracies, what "real power" is, etc., I'd be interested to know how you, OP, or anyone else would answer these two straightforward questions.

1. What is it about the current democracy you live in that would need to change for it to become a "real" democracy?

2. If enough people were to work together to make that change a reality, is there anything that could realistically stop that change from happening? (And I don't just mean, you might get out-campaigned, I mean no matter how hard you tried nothing could be done.)

Not being able to change what is wrong is I think a fairly simple starting point for defining something that is not a "real democracy".

The fact is, at least in the US any criticism of government that most people have is something that, if there is enough political will from the electorate, if you, me, and anyone else will knock on doors, talk to our neighbors, find candidates, run ourselves if necessary, can't be stopped.

I know people often phrase questions as backhanded insults on discussion forums, but please know I'm being genuine when I say I would be excited to hear you or anyone else describe specifically what needs to change in government, and then explain specifically why it's impossible for those changes to take place.

I believe any changes are definitely possible if the political will is there.

We don't really live in democracies? So the fact that a President of the United States was elected who appointed two liberal leaning Supreme Court justices that were confirmed by a freely and fairly elected Senate and now serve their terms without fear of being removed for making an unpopular decision, making Roe v. Wade less likely to be overturned, and the recent Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 cases to be adjudicated the way they were didn't happen? If that's not democracy I'd love to hear what you think is.

Saying we don't live in a democracy is a popular thing to say (obviously, seeing as this is the top comment) but it's just wrong. Senator McCain and then-Senator Obama had two very separate plans for things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and healthcare reform if they were elected. The fact that the country and the world is the way it is today, for better or worse, is because people went out and voted in a free and fair election, and then did it again and again and again in primaries and general elections for local, state, and federal offices in the US.

The Constitution of the United States says that, had the sitting President of the United States or myself been alive during the start of our country, we would be 3/5ths of a human being... yet he runs the place, and I had the right to have campaigned and voted for him twice had I been inclined. That's democracy in action. The fact that he, myself, the two previously mentioned Supreme Court justices, and anyone else got to exercise our right to vote, knowing if we were intimidated or denied for any reason the judicial system would support our right, is democracy in action. The fact that I can get on HN, reddit, a blog, or walk outside and type/say pretty much whatever vile things I want about the leaders of my country and any other country, is democracy in action.

Obviously Americans are lucky to live in a time and place where we have the ability to perfect our Union.

Please don't disrespect the work of countless often forgotten women, men, and children from around the globe who have sacrificed, willingly or otherwise, very significant parts of, and all too often their entire lives for democracy, by acting like their actions didn't help contribute to others being able to live in (or one day live in) democracies.

Geography has everything to do with government. Where you are geographically determines how you are governed and who governs you.

psuter said, "I find the idea that political and cultural boundaries should align to be a very sad and unimaginative one." Which I took to mean that psuter believes realigning CA along cultural or political boundaries (like saying, "republicans over here, democrats over there") is very sad and unimaginative.

To which you responded "How else could you do it? Tax only the people in favor of infrastructure improvements and prevent everyone else from using them? Only arrest people using recreational drugs if they voted against legalization?"

Which is why I tried to answer your question "How else could you do it?" by pointing out another way it can be done is, you keep things the way they are now meaning, you arrest, tax, and govern everyone equally depending on where they are standing (some things being illegal in some jurisdictions and not in others).

It seems like there's some sort of breakdown in understanding between the two of us here.

Everyone already has a lot of localized control. That's how America, and most individualized states, are set up. I assume by control you mean representation. Are you arguing that the representation within the state isn't good enough? If so there are other avenues to fix that problem, such as changing the state legislature where most of the laws that affect the day to day lives of Californians come from, to be more representative. I can't see how creating five new states solves any control or representation problem.

I agree entirely. I like the fact that as a nation and even in most localities there are people with diverse views, backgrounds, etc. and we all have to figure out how to make this whole living together thing work (or move).

I don't think there's an example of a place that attempted to align in such a way and magically it worked. Even within places where people agree broadly about the role of government, etc. Such as NYC. There are always the same disagreements about how we run the way we live, such as the NYC mayoral primary that happened in 2013.

You could do it the way it is done now. Geographically.

Breaking up the state might provide more representation on the federal level. I disagree that it would be better. Also, I don't know if anyone has considered this but, nothing is stopping California from creating six separate localities with their own "governors" and laws under the California umbrella (sort of like mini states within the state).

I find it really odd that anyone would actually think something like this would work. Firstly, California would have to agree to break itself into 6 states. Even if that happened, those six states, which as far as America is concerned are still all part of California, would then need to convince Congress (which are the representatives of the rest of the country with a disproportionate representation of tiny states) to allow them to join the Union. Asking Congress to let 5 extra states join the Union is pretty much asking every state if it's cool that California gets 10 new Senators and 5 new Congressman. It seems odd that anyone would think Congress would be okay with that, especially when it doesn't seem to benefit the country at all.

I also think it's funny that they've hired a PR firm[1] that handles "luxury hotels and resorts"[2], and "Luxury Real Estate Developments and Private Residence Clubs"[2] to contact for information. I can't think of any successful, attempting to be grassroots movement, created to try to improve the lives of others, that hired a PR firm from the start.

[1] - The for press inquiries link at the bottom of their landing page [2] - The PR company's clients section http://www.seahorsepr.com/clients/clients.htm