I think knowing about the branches of your government is a prerequisite to having an opinion or good argument about it. It’s not sufficient to just know that but it’s a good filter in the USA where a surprising number of people have “opinions” but lack the most basic knowledge.
It's a prerequisite, but so is breathing. It's necessary but not sufficient.
The bar I like to use is pretty simple: do you know who represents you in Congress (I am American so this is my bias, but substitute your country's equivalent if there is one)? As in, your state's two Senators and your district's Representative? If not, you probably don't vote or don't pay attention when you do, and you've definitely never called your Congresspeople to complain about their votes, so you probably don't really care that much about whatever it is you say you care about, since you haven't done the easiest thing you can do to make a change.
It's not perfect, and no criteria will be, but there are tons of people who can rattle off "executive, legislative, judiciary" who nevertheless don't know ball.
Having valid opinions about politics and engaging with the existing political system are not the same thing. I am super happy to chat about political questions (of all sorts) irrespective of my interest in voting.
Note that when I say "talk politics" I really mean "discuss things controlled by politicians", not "discuss politicians". If you mean the latter it is a super fair bar to set!
>It's a prerequisite, but so is breathing. It's necessary but not sufficient.
It's the fizzbuzz of political debate.
You are filtering out politically engaged people who have assesed the current mechanisms of state to be too flawed to be worth continued interaction.
This is likely quite a large group.
This particular test might be reasonable, but at some point you're just filtering out anyone who's not in your bubble, which is a problem when your beliefs are extreme because your bubble is tiny.
Imagine a Marxist who refuses to discuss economics with anyone who can't explain dialectic materialism or enclosure.
Even in his particular test, he's filtering out people who are quite well informed on political topics but also feel that the input of the average person has effectively 0 impact. And this is quite a huge blindspot because political understanding/knowledge tends to precisely trend towards that worldview for many. A sack of money goes much further than a phone or picket.
IMO. It is ok to filter them out.
One simply does not have infinite time and resource to engage with everybody.
Aware what you have filtered and don't treat them like idiot
> and you've definitely never called your Congresspeople to complain about their votes
Or, you know, you haven't lived at the same address for twenty years. In your imagined world where every single citizen either has something so pressing to call their representatives about or is just ignorant, you're still basically filtering out everybody who moved for a job/college/SO/whatever recently. I guess in your mind it's only fitting that they're disqualified from having an opinion? For reference about 12% of Americans change residence each year.
Feels a little disingenuous to quote this line and not the full section where OP was just asking you to know your local representatives.
I've never called anyone about anything political, and I also haven't lived at the same address (or even in the same state) for 20 years but I still know at least who my senators are and some of my representatives. State elections are every two years; you have to almost actively not pay attention to not know anything about yours.
> Feels a little disingenuous to quote this line and not the full section where OP was just asking you to know your local representatives. [...] you have to almost actively not pay attention to not know anything about yours.
Feels disingenuous to ignore the fact that what I said applies to the rest of the comment too, don't you think? If it isn't obvious: typically the first year after a move - likely more, at least until House elections - most people will have zero reason to know their representatives' names, let alone keep remembering it for years. Who ever forgets a name they learned during a campaign a couple years ago, right?
For starters, something like almost ~half of students move away from their families to attend college. And then look at moves for jobs and retirement and everything else. And then when an incumbent leaves, all of their constituents end up in a similar boat as someone who just moved. And I'm not even beginning to touch the fact that a lot of people's unawareness of politics is (spoiler, I know) due to them not having the luxury to be able to devote as much bandwidth to it as HNers do. All these people shouldn't have any political opinions whatsoever until they figure out their representatives because... some wise guy on HN thinks knowing your representative's name is a good litmus test for whether you can tell good from bad? Do you expect any other response than "screw you"?
> I've never called anyone about anything political
Quite a confession given the side you're standing on. You'd think such a model citizen would've at least cared to contact their rep one damn time to suggest something about such a serious issue. Like maybe helping educate people about the government and politics better so they become as enlightened as the others.
If you (and/or parent, whoever feels this way) genuinely want a good outcome for something so serious instead of standing on a high horse and looking down on the uneducated, maybe actually go campaign to put your lovely literacy tests in the constitution, or whatever else would advance your cause forward. If you have some integrity, perhaps also campaign to fund the education system better and make it easier for citizens to vote in the same amendment, so that you're actually helping the people you presumably care about. Until you actually do something meaningful about this, I hope you can understand that your opinions about who should have opinions really won't come across the way you'd presumably hope they do.
> let alone keep remembering it for years.
This one for me. I have my own viewpoints and when elections come around I look up the candidates to see who best matches, then once the election is over forget pretty quickly. Unless politics is your entertainment it seems completely normal to not keep their names in mind.
> Feels disingenuous to ignore the fact that what I said applies to the rest of the comment too, don't you think?
Then quote the whole thing your responding to, otherwise your response seems disproportionately overreacting.
> For starters, something like almost ~half of students move away from their families to attend college. And then look at moves for jobs and retirement and everything else. And then when an incumbent leaves, all of their constituents end up in a similar boat as someone who just moved. And I'm not even beginning to touch the fact that a lot of people's unawareness of politics is (spoiler, I know) due to them not having the luxury to be able to devote as much bandwidth to it as HNers do.
I am very aware of that situation. I moved away from my home town and state for school, I moved cities post college three times, and I am now quite literally in the middle of a move to another state. While I won't pretend that I'll immediately get into the weeds of local city politics, I've still participated in local politics and I will participate in politics in my new city/state come this fall.
>All these people shouldn't have any political opinions whatsoever until they figure out their representatives because... some wise guy on HN thinks knowing your representative's name is a good litmus test for whether you can tell good from bad? Do you expect any other response than "screw you"?
Consider the context of the comment: "do you know who represents you in Congress [...]. If not, you probably don't vote or don't pay attention when you do, and you've definitely never called your Congresspeople to complain about their votes, so you probably don't really care that much about whatever it is you say you care about, since you haven't done the easiest thing you can do to make a change."
If you don't know the names of your representatives you can't vote for them. Seems pretty straight forward to me. I think it's pretty fair to say if you're complaining about a political situation but haven't even voted about it you probably haven't tried that hard.
> Quite a confession given the side you're standing on. You'd think such a model citizen would've at least cared to contact their rep one damn time to suggest something about such a serious issue. Like maybe helping educate people about the government and politics better so they become as enlightened as the others.
To be clear, I've contacted my representatives plenty of times, I just haven't called them. I hate phone calls. But I have written emails, physical letters, and on several occasions spoke to them in person at events to express my issues.
> If you (and/or parent, whoever feels this way) genuinely want a good outcome for something so serious instead of standing on a high horse and looking down on the uneducated, maybe actually go campaign to put your lovely literacy tests in the constitution, or whatever else would advance your cause forward. If you have some integrity, perhaps also campaign to fund the education system better and make it easier for citizens to vote in the same amendment, so that you're actually helping the people you presumably care about.
1. I have campaigned for better education funding; I used to work in higher education.
2. No one mentioned literacy tests, so I have a suspicion there's a lot of background context in your head that you're imposing here. Either way, I have no interest in them.
>If you don't know the names of your representatives you can't vote for them. Seems pretty straight forward to me.
The names are printed on the ballot, along with party affiliation. No memorization needed. In a primary there may be a bit of research needed, but even then you get a sample ballot beforehand so you can research the alternatives, but when the final election happens you generally only have two choices in the US per position and you simply vote for your party of choice.
As always everyone is entitled to their opinions, the question is how much should the rest of us care.
Just like how sometimes I consider how little I should care about a social media frequenter’s opinions. I am, for better or for worse, getting near the last willing comment I am going to leave on this, or any, social media site.
That is not due to age or illness, it is due to enshittification. Not by the admin but by the populace.
Very bottom of the page, you can see links to the long and storied history of people saying “HN is bad now,” and why it’s an opinion you don’t really need to share.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I’d throw in for free that when you’re done at a party… say goodbye to your friends and leave. The party in general doesn’t need an announcement of your dissatisfaction and departure. Safe travels.
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We all learned what the 3 branches are in grade school. Some people forgot it. Liberals are more likely to remember it because liberal discourse (this thread for example) reminds them of it. It's a biased litmus test in other words.
It's inconceivable to me that you could forget the three branches. There are still headlines and news articles about the president , congress, and the supreme court. Those three things , talked about constantly, are a basic reminder of the most visible aspects of each branch.
That's because your experience is siloed. People in other silos are seeing other headlines and other news articles, and wondering how you could not see them.
It is indeed important to know about ones government - not just its branches, but also its misdeeds and crimes.
The national secrecy is a cess pool of corruption in any and all governments - the corruption of all government begins with its secrets - a truly free people don't allow their governments to keep secrets, but encourages governance to have a responsibility of protecting the truth over secrecy - and this, under the knowledge that absolutes are unattainable. Of course, nuclear codes need to be made inaccessible; the more the people know about their government, the less corrupt it is, however.
After all, do you know why your government hates Russia, like, legislatively - as opposed to culturally and all the other distractions from governance.
The issue is, the overlying principle is that modern governments must allow the people to survive extremism. Political systems, designed to combat the extremes of mass survival, reach a point where they, too, are extreme. As is also born in the history of other forms of human organization - religion, and so on. The very thing the subject was started to address, becomes it in the end.
Basic knowledge is one thing. But constant awareness is something else. We must always hold our governments and their agency, accountable. It is true of priests and politicians and scientists and icons, alike.