I'm not quite sure what is "flamebait" about GP's assertion. The number of criminal investigations initiated by the IRS has dropped from 5,314 in 2013 to 2485 in 2019:
It seems to me that white collar crime, and the increasing impunity with which its perpetrators operate in the US, should be a legitimate topic of debate here on HN.
If GP had written "we need a functioning public school system", would you have considered this "flamebait" as well? That kind of assertion seems to be basically an article of faith among the YC crowd.
Grandiose politicized provocations are flamebait. There's no actual information there. Your comment does contain some, and I wouldn't have replied to it that way.
Sensationalized political fights are one of the worst poisons here, so when an account is showing signs of using HN for that, it's not good. Substantive discussion of divisive questions (which your comment is more touching into) is a quite different thing, and much more likely to be ok.
https://www.goldburdmccone.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-the-tre... https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2019_irs_criminal_investigat...
It seems to me that white collar crime, and the increasing impunity with which its perpetrators operate in the US, should be a legitimate topic of debate here on HN.
If GP had written "we need a functioning public school system", would you have considered this "flamebait" as well? That kind of assertion seems to be basically an article of faith among the YC crowd.