Comment by ashleyn
16 days ago
At some point we need to have a tough conversation about collective civic engagement and societal dysfunction and not just individually running from it or routing around it. All these institutional problems have been stacking up for the past twenty years, they're only continuing to get worse and worse, and the most common reaction I see from it is some variation on "try to just stay out of its way".
There's a tendency for people to react to institutional problems like this by saying they'll just move over here to a blue state, or they'll monitor their accounts closer on reporting bureaus, or they'll just have a lawyer on retainer, etc, etc. If a legal system in a red state is this dysfunctional, you can't simply hide away in a blue state with better-run systems. The underlying problem - the social decay of much of the US and the broader world - needs to be directly engaged with and confronted.
I agree, but the "tough conversation about collective civic engagement and societal dysfunction" is actually a "tough conversation about taxing the sh*t out of everyone who makes more than $150k a year". Most of our problems are downstream of our extreme inequality and the way it incentivizes dysfunctional and antisocial behavior across the board. So it's going to be an even harder conversation to have than you think.
And if you don't believe me, consider what, "I'll just move, I'll just retain a lawyer, I'll just spend my precious time monitoring my data or hiring someone else to do it for me," as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards says about the means of the people holding those views. (It's that they can, and intend to, buy their way out of a system stood up by people like them ostensibly to promote accountability and social order.)
Right, whatever the actual fundraising method is, "good justice" is something we must spend to get the same way we spend for drinkable tapwater, or roads, or having someone else watch you child for most of the day every workday for 12 years.
As someone who makes well over $150k a year, wholly agree
"If a legal system in a red state is this dysfunctional, you can't simply hide away in a blue state with better-run systems."
These sorts of abuses or dysfunction are rampant in all states. I can't think of a single state that actually has a good system (properly staffed, no overreach, etc).
Yes but it only gets worse as you go to red states which are “tough on crime”. Which basically just means they put as many people in prison as humanly possible, and for as long as possible.
New Hampshire is pretty great. That may be due to them having some of the lowest crime rates in the country to begin with.
This doesn't look great. https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026-09-21/nh-newhampshire-supr...
But they do tend to have better speedy trial definitions and such. Although it seems they are rolling back bail reform (which may have been too lenient, but they didn't find a middle solution). And it seems they still have ex parte protection from abuse orders, which are notoriously abused in divorce cases.
>All these institutional problems have been stacking up for the past twenty years, they're only continuing to get worse
You're right about "continuing to get worse", but our institutions have been failing for more than 20 years. I think it's more like that Hemingway quote about bankruptcy, “Gradually and then suddenly.” in turn, that always makes me think of an exponential growth curve... and I think America, if not the entire world, is headed towards the vertical. Ib other words, when it comes to how dysfunctional our institutions can get, I think we've just begun.
We are all ears if you'd like to start that conversation. Make a page/blog post and submit it here, and accept ahead of time whatever fallout may arise from doing so. If the benefits outweigh the risks, or if you simply are at a point where the risks do not matter.
It'll be flagged and your HN account banned or restricted. HN hates political posts unless they confidently assert nothing is wrong with the system.
We will just have to deal with it I suppose. That's why it is best if the source is outside of HN to begin with.
IL here.
Blue state systems are not better run.
You’re in the most corrupt state in the nation. Go look at your state bond ratings. Of course it doesn’t work there!!!
WA here.
Most definitely are.
Source?
I think we would need to quantify "better", but there aren't any states that are good.
Oregon here. If you mean better in the sense that they dont convict guilty people much less innocent people, then yes much better run.
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