

Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will ‘Have to Change’ After Boston - Shivetya
http://politicker.com/2013/04/bloomberg-says-post-boston-interpretation-of-the-constitution-will-have-to-change/

======
mindcrime
Breaking News:

"HN User 'mindcrime' Says Mayor Bloomberg Is A F%@#ng Idiot"

Seriously, what is the deal with this guy? The terrorists kill FAR, FAR fewer
people in this country every year than lightning strikes, slips & falls in the
bathroom, accidental drownings in one's own swimming pool, automobile
accidents, cancer, heart disease, etc., etc., etc.

But because of a few anomalous events, as tragic as they may be, we're
supposed to compromise the most basic, fundamental principles that define us
as a nation? I don't think so.

Anyway, our government is far more of a threat to our freedom than any
terrorist organization will be.

~~~
IanDrake
When a gun is used to kill people he wants to ban guns. Strangely, he's not
proposing a ban on pressure cookers.

Government will use fear to slowly strip us of our rights. Why? Because it
works really well.

He has already made the leap to assume we "Interpret" the US Constitution.
It's a pretty clear document that needs little interpretation. We're supposed
to amend it, not change are mind on what they really meant.

~~~
astrodust
When the number of deaths by pressure cookers exceeds the number of death by
guns, maybe then.

~~~
sageikosa
The number of guns versus number of (reported) gun related crimes is pretty
low. Pretty low for pressure cookers too I would imagine. Not sure what the
OSHA guidelines are.

~~~
astrodust
There's roughly 270 million guns in the USA and every day about 270 shootings.
A ratio of one in a million.

I'm not sure how many pressure cookers there are in the US, probably in the
tens of millions at most. I can't find any data on how many injuries are
caused by them, but there'd have to be 10-20 incidents per day for it to
measure up to guns in terms of injuries per object.

The most common injury from a pressure cooker is a burn. There are about 100
burns requiring medical attention in the US daily
(<http://www.ameriburn.org/resources_factsheet.php>) and it's unlikely that
25% of these are caused by pressure cookers given the wide number of causes of
burns.

~~~
mindcrime
Sounds to me like pressure cookers are quite the danger. I say we implement
rigorous background checks before allowing their purchase, keep a database of
all purchased pressure cookers, require mandatory training and a seven day
waiting period before purchase, and require mandatory lid locks. Also, any
pressure cooker with a pistol grip or bayonet lug is clearly an assault cooker
and must be banned.

~~~
astrodust
Kinder Surprise was presumably banned because of the assault variants flooding
the market.

------
voidlogic
"We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms."

The terrorists want my life; its the government that wants my freedom. I'll
keep my freedom, thank you, and take my chances with my life. My chance of
being injured by terrorism is infinitesimal compared to the very real chance
of losing civil rights and privacy I value.

As Patrick Henry said: "Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!"

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Quibble: the terrorists don't want your life, they want your attention, and
more specifically, your _panicky attention_. Political reactions like
Bloomberg's help keep the terrorism availability cascade rolling.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_cascade>

They are just about exactly the wrong way to respond.

There are a few important facts about terrorism that should put our fear in
context:

* Terrorists tend to be spectacularly inept.

* Terrorist organizations tend to collapse over time, through various combinations of frustration, attrition and overreach.

* The methods of terrorism tend to be highly ineffective at killing people.

On the same day that the Boston bombings killed three people, approximately 40
Americans country-wide were murdered for various non-terrorist reasons. Also
on the same day, approximately 140 Americans died via guns (this includes
suicides, which make up two-thirds of the total, and accidental deaths).

We can keep going: for example, approximately 85 Americans are killed every
day in automobile accidents. My point is that the fear that we feel about
terrorism is utterly disproportionate to the risk that we will experience it -
especially compared to the kinds of things we rarely think about but really
should worry about.

By no means do I mean to dismiss or demean or make light of the trauma, injury
and death experienced by the people who experienced the Boston Marathon terror
attack. However, it would only compound the tragedy if we allow such an event
to transform our civilization from one that esteems liberty, autonomy and
privacy into one that sacrifices those things for needless expedience.

~~~
voidlogic
>>Quibble: the terrorists don't want your life, they want your attention, and
more specifically, your panicky attention.

Silly quibble- same difference, there are few things better for getting
"panicky attention" than randomly taking lives or maiming people.

I agree with your other points.

~~~
vbuterin
Not really. If a maximizing murder has a choice between a quiet but effective
means of killing people and a loud but ineffective one, they will go for the
former. A terrorist will go for the latter. Guess which category bombs fall
into.

~~~
voidlogic
>>maximizing murder has a choice between a quiet but effective means of
killing people and a loud but ineffective one

Not really, it has nothing to do with being effective or loud, they go for the
option that spreads the most terror... For example poison city water supply or
send letter bomb. The flasher option here spreads less terror. The goal of a
terrorist is to force political change though terror.

------
Lagged2Death
The Boston bombers _had already caught the attention_ of several tentacles of
our unconstitutional surveillance state. We have _already_ changed our
interpretation of the constitution in the pursuit of an unattainable sliver of
additional security and, as predicted by just about every qualified observer,
it _is not working_.

What on Earth does he propose to do that we haven't already done, anyway?
Strip search stations on every street corner?

~~~
Zimahl
Well, until the people of New York stand up against him and vote him out they
deserve what they get. They seem to really enjoy a nanny state that even
restricts what they can drink. You can't by a 32 oz. Coke but you can buy a
jug of vodka.

~~~
mtalantikite
The soda ban was invalidated, but the city is trying to appeal that ruling:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/nyregion/judge-
invalidates...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/nyregion/judge-invalidates-
bloombergs-soda-ban.html)

Also, Bloomberg is still in office because he was able to change the term
limits, which New Yorkers were against.

It's hard to beat a politician with a personal net worth of $27 billion.

~~~
nickff
There doesn't seem to be much evidence to support the view that personal
wealth can be used to 'buy' an election, or even substantially improve one's
results: [http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/01/17/how-much-does-
campaig...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/01/17/how-much-does-campaign-
spending-influence-the-election-a-freakonomics-quorum/)

personal note: I do not support the abolition of term limits or the imposition
of soda taxes; but I do not think he is in power simply because he is wealthy.

~~~
mtalantikite
I don't know, nothing in that article seems to confirm or deny the hypothesis.
Most of the blurbs summarize to "money doesn't directly win you an election,
but you sure as hell better have a lot of it".

He certainly isn't in power simply because he's wealthy, but having a
bottomless war chest and a large media empire makes it much easier.

~~~
Zimahl
You need money and time to run in an election. When you are rich you have one
and the ability to get the other.

That still doesn't explain that if the people of New York are so against his
policies why he can make them happen. I'll assume that New York is just like
any other city and the mayor can't just do something because they want to.
Don't they have city councilmen? Aren't they beholden to the masses? Can't
they be elected out if the people don't like what is being passed? As for term
limits, if he can get re-elected what does that matter? The people are still
voting him in!

In any case it's still the fault of the people of New York.

~~~
mtalantikite
Sure, there is a city council, and of course they can lose elections.
Unfortunately people aren't that involved with local politics, in a city where
the democratic nominee is likely to win. In the 2009 general election for
mayor voter turnout was 18.4% here in NYC. Bloomberg only won that third term
by 4.4 points.

Overall you're right, New Yorkers don't hate Bloomberg, he's done quite a bit
that lots of people like. I certainly don't hate him, but I do have many
problems with him.

------
Vivtek
"We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms."

How these people's heads don't explode is just beyond me. He _has_ to be aware
of what he's saying. Right?

~~~
masklinn
> He has to be aware of what he's saying. Right?

Probably.

~~~
scarmig
It's a strong rhetorical strategy. Pre-emptively accuse your opponents of
being enemies of liberty. Then all they can say is... "well no you're the real
enemy of liberty!"

Which is much weaker than the original argument, facts be damned.

------
nekojima
“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to
take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more
than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11,” Bloomberg said.

The world is generally safer now than at almost any previous time,
particularly for those of us that remember the Cold War and the early-mid
1980s, when even these measures weren't required to avoid mutually-assured
destruction (MAD) by two super-powers and their proxies. The only people
wanting to limit freedom are politicians in the pocket of those wanting to
expand the myriad of security services of the state. This feeds into the
projected paranoia of those citizens who fail to understand the true cost,
chance, or opportunity of reducing terrorist activities. Of course there has
to be an attempt to reduce terrorist activities, but its the internal
processes and procedures in place currently between the myriad network of
security services which need to be reformed drastically, not the further
expansion of those security services or the reduction in freedoms.

Terrorism is an issue of public security, while before 1991 the Soviet Union
(for the Western world at least) was an issue of national security. Issues of
public security need to be treated as such, not over-inflated and treated
incorrectly. This helps support the terrorists, not defeat them, as has been
shown in almost every internal urban civil conflict in the past hundred years.

------
emeraldd
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety." \--Benjamin Franklin

~~~
ceejayoz
"Essential", of course, being left up to interpretation again.

------
fusiongyro
The world we live in today is a tiny fraction as dangerous as the world the
authors of the Constitution lived in. I'm not so naive as to believe that it
is a perfect document or that any particular political group we have today has
the "right" understanding of it, but please. Of all the possible reasons to
attack it, this is by far the weakest.

------
ataggart
To me, the far more interesting thing is how he lets the mask slip regarding
the Constitution itself, namely that they are not bound to go through the
amendment process, nor even the judicial facade of interpreting how to apply
the Constitution to some new circumstance. Instead, he shines a light on what
has long been true, that the Constitution means whatever some small but
critical mass of powerful people say it means, and the common people will
accept it as true.

Lysander Spooner had it right 150 years ago:

"[T]he Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to
be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government
has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing
from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. ... But whether the
Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain --- that it
has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless
to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."

<http://lysanderspooner.org/node/64>

~~~
ceejayoz
I'd say this is at least in part a side effect of a) vague wording ("general
welfare") and b) unanticipated situations ("interstate commerce" between CA
and NY in milliseconds).

------
jkldotio
This is the person who subscribes to the nudge politics of micromanaging
people's soft drink sizes.[1] Which comes from the same type of political
theorists (Cass Sunstein chief among them) who believe it is a reasonable
proposition to have a US version of China's paid political
propagandists.[2][3] Only to be used for good though, obviously. So one can
easily imagine when people get their hands on all this data, only to protect
you from the terrorists at first, the argument will be swiftly made that it
should be used for nudge purposes as well, seeing as we have the data now..

[1][http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-
Happi...](http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-
Happiness/dp/014311526X)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#.22Conspiracy_The...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#.22Conspiracy_Theories.22_and_government_infiltration)

[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party>

~~~
EvilTerran
I know "ad hominem!" is oft-abused on the internet, but this is a bona fide
example for a change. Two examples, in fact.

"Don't listen to what this guy's saying, he believes in nudge politics. Don't
listen to nudge politics, the people who came up with it like China-style
propaganda."

From the other comments here, there's plenty of legitimate points against his
arguments. There's no need to resort to cheap shots.

------
jdherman
Crazy. The lesson here has been that you _can't_ protect against attacks like
this. No matter how much surveillance and firepower you have, if someone
really wants to commit violence, they're going to do it (especially if they
don't care what happens to them afterwards). Adding more cameras might make it
easier to find the attacker after the fact, but it's not going to prevent the
attack in the first place.

------
kiba
Terrorists are a threat to peace and security, but they can never be a threat
to our freedom. Only the citizens and or the government can pose such a
threat.

~~~
dllthomas
As much as I approve of your sentiment, the way you phrased it forces me to
respond: "tell that to a kidnapping victim." Anyone can, in principle, pose a
threat to your freedom.

~~~
djrogers
It's pretty clear from the context that he's referring to our collective
freedom as a nation, the freedom(s) granted to us by the very document mr
Bloomberg wishes to reinterpret.

~~~
dllthomas
I'm pretty sure you're trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist.

------
cpursley
I hope not. People actually questioned me in my local dinner just a few hours
ago because I had a backpack on. I basically told them that the terrorists won
if that was their attitude. Has anyone else experienced similar, or is this
just an ass-backwards deep-south thang?

~~~
chiph
"I'll show you what's in my backpack, but you're going to have to pay for the
dinner you interrupted with your panicky request."

~~~
cpursley
I thought about saying "you have a 30 second head start" but maybe it was too
soon and now with the Patriot Act and all...

------
buro9
I had to check twice that I wasn't reading the Onion.

------
fragsworth
This might seem very controversial and "sexist", but I don't believe there's
any "political conspiracy" involved at all - it's just political reality. This
can almost all be attributed to a combination of 1: gender gap in voting, and
2: media misreporting of the facts - particularly mothers with children who
are not made constantly aware of the statistics involved with these events.

<http://grounds-strategy.com/files/gender-and-voting.pdf>

> after 9/11, women became much more concerned with national security issues.
> Today, a significant majority of women, 43 percent, versus 11 percent of
> men, believe that a member of their family could be affected by a terrorist
> attack.

Note that 43% + 11% is more than half the population; only 3000 people died in
9/11. That's 0.001% actually affected. Public perception of terrorism more
accurately reflects the outcome of a full-scale nuclear war.

Mothers are extremely protective of their children (and this is not a bad
thing) but when terrorism is reported in the news without also giving the
context of the actual size of the event relative to the size of the
population, it leads some people into a false sense of what risk their
children really have. What the media outlets do, instead, is play into fears
and make every attempt to keep these events as looking as scary as possible,
because that's how they get ratings. Perhaps mothers with children are more
apt to pay attention to this.

What is also interesting, and people here should try to consider this every
once in a while, is that the comments on this site are almost exclusively
young males. Most without children. So you won't hear things here from the
mother-with-child perspective, which is a massive voting block.

~~~
flagnog
43% of women = 21.5% of total population, 11% of men = 5.5% of total
population, so you're talking about approx 27% of the total population are
concerned.

Bad statistical reasoning is 150% of the problem here. ;)

~~~
fragsworth
Hah, whoops, that's slightly embarrassing. I think my point still stands
though.

------
justinbeaver
Having personally attended numerous Bloomberg press conferences in NYC
(through his affiliation with the local startup community), let me paint
perhaps a more objective picture from which this article arose:

This press conference likely had absolutely nothing to do with the Boston
bombing. In fact, yesterday he was busy announcing a new ice skating facility
in the Bronx. But using history as a guide, once the Q&A started, the media
hounded him for quotes surrounding the Boston situation b/c stories about ice
skating rinks are "boring".

And then once the media got a couple quotes that fit their mold, they wove
some story around it to meet their biased agenda. Simply strip out Bloomberg's
quotes from the article here and see for yourselves: they're not all that
incriminating. But read them in the context of the author's story, and whoa,
watch out! We're about to lose all of our freedoms.

Look - I get it. Some of the thing Bloomberg have done overstep the boundaries
of what some consider reasonable. And having open discussion on this is
totally warranted. But reading the comments here you would think those who
view NYC from the outside think we live in some totalitarian state. Nothing
could be further from the truth, in fact. The city remains largely liberal
from a social standpoint (and Bloomberg seems to be no exception). And in
terms of diversity - whether it be religion, ethnic background, interests,
etc. - you're simply not going to find a better melting pot.

So everybody please stop panicking for us - we're doing just fine. This is
just some underpaid journo looking for a scoop and it seems she got more than
a few clicks today courtesy of the alarmist HN crowd, so kudos to her. Now
back to work.

~~~
betterunix
"reading the comments here you would think those who view NYC from the outside
think we live in some totalitarian state. Nothing could be further from the
truth, in fact"

I spent the first 18 years of my life in NYC. I still go back to visit family
several times each year.

I can tell you that the only place in America where people are less free than
they are in NYC is at the airports. Here are some things to think about:

1\. The NYPD is basically an army. Sure, you have officers who are only armed
with a handgun, but every time I have visited NYC in the past few years I have
encountered _at least one_ paramilitary team. We are talking about soldiers
whose uniforms say "POLICE" standing guard in the village, or Times Square, or
in front of a bank in some uninteresting neighborhood.

2\. I carry a small pocket knife. When I went to NYC with it, I was stopped by
the police, threatened with 2 weeks in jail, and then politely told to hide
the knife so that a less "friendly" officer would not arrest me.

3\. I was given a $50 fine for walking between subway cars while a train was
sitting in a station.

4\. I watched as dozens of cops closed in around a handful of protesters.

5\. I have had the police tell me that either they will inspect my bag or I
will not be allowed to ride the subway.

6\. Cameras are confiscated or damaged at the Ground Zero memorial.

7\. Even hunting rifles are hard to get permission to own in NYC.

8\. Stop and frisk -- need I say more?

9\. [http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20100505//bikes-
confiscated-...](http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20100505//bikes-confiscated-
by-nypd-for-obamas-visit-still-being-sought-by-owners)

10\. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/republican-
national...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/republican-national-
convention-2004-arrest-nypd-nyc-lacked-probable-cause-judge_n_1930433.html)

Unfortunately, that is the city I have to move back to next year for a job. I
am not particularly looking forward to it.

------
Torgo
From stop and frisk of minority groups, to pervasive police surveillance of
Muslims, to police harassment of the Occupy Wall Street protests, it is
already clear that Michael Bloomberg has had disagreements with the
Constitution.

~~~
pnathan
You don't mention the endemic camera network in NYC. Or the asine soda ban....

------
mrcactu5
Bloomberg bought himself a 3rd term in New York City.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_New_York_City#Ter...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_New_York_City#Term_limits_and_campaign_finance)
Maybe he can afford to modify the Constitution.

------
lutusp
“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to
take away our freedoms ..."

So sayeth Mayor Bloomberg, in the midst of a speech that explicitly proposes
taking away another of our freedoms.

------
bayesianhorse
Interpretation of the American constitution should have changed a long time
before. The US way of choosing a president for example still presupposes
people travelling up and down the east cost with horses...

------
thoughtsimple
Since the shelter in place request was a request and wasn't enforced by any
law, why do we have to re-interpret the Constitution?

A better question might be, why is this nonsense on the front page of HN?

------
jelled
Statements such as Bloomberg's always remind me of this:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75oun5gvDAU#t=6m19s>

------
stox
Only cowards will sacrifice freedom for security.

------
ryguytilidie
As most of the constitution seems pretty outdated nowadays, why does no one
ever bring up the idea of writing a new one?

~~~
dragonwriter
> As most of the constitution seems pretty outdated nowadays

I would suggest that that sentiment is far from universal.

It may seem outdated to you, but not to everyone else.

> why does no one ever bring up the idea of writing a new one?

The same reason people are generally better off making incremental changes to
basically-functional mission-critical computing systems than tossing them out
and starting from scratch.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I guess the analogy you chose makes it sound like a bad idea, but I'd use a
different one. If you have a 300 year old house with rotting boards and a
foundation that is cracked, would you replace individual boards or tear down
the whole thing and start anew?

------
FD3SA
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but articles like this really make me
double check that I'm not living in the Truman Show.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

    
    
      “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

------
jarjoura
This is the only source of this "press event"? I don't buy it.

------
john_b
This man is a case study in Statist ideology.

------
ttrreeww
It's over folks, they won.

