Seriously, what’s the point of government if not to HELP US. We didn’t invent government to make our lives more difficult. We invented it to keep our shit together. For us. As a property of its existence.
Only if you hold them accountable for what they do.
Seriously, what’s the point of government if not to HELP US.
We would get surprisingly far if we got to a place where the government didn’t actively hinder us.
Hinder us how?
Off the top of my head:
- removing school lunch programs
- removing women’s reproductive rights
- dragging feet on legalizing marijuana
- gerrymandering certain states/districts to keep one party in power
- politicians being bought by the highest corporate bidder
Those are all pretty big ways in which the government hinders the population at large.
how do I say this, but free school lunches are provided by the state, wanting less state is literally wanting no free school lunches, rights are also given by the state (the only inherent rights are natural rights, everything beyond might makes right is the state meddling in our lives)
No idea what your point is.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but they didn’t say they wanted less state. Just for the state to do less bad things/things that hinder its citizens. That doesn’t mean they must oppose school lunches, unless they also believe that school lunches fit into that category. You can argue whether or not they do, but ‘you don’t want the government to hinder us, but X is the government hindering us, therefore you must oppose X’ isn’t much of an argument on its own.
Apologies if I misunderstood your comment tho.
no they want less state because the ideology dictates that the state just does it worse, something that just isn’t born out by reality, case and point school lunches
I’m for small government so yes, I want less state. But school lunches is definitely one of the last things that should be cut. Since I’m fairly certain that in real world we’re never going to cut or fix the hundreds of things that are more wrong than publically funded school lunches, in practical terms I’m not advocating against them.
That said, just because school lunch is publically funded aka “free” does not necessarily make it good. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/healthier-school-lunches-may-have-curbed-childhood-obesity-new-study-finds/2023/06 – but again, that’s a detail problem that can be fixed (like it was here) without dropping that practice altogether.
And as for the other items in zargotext’s list, I pretty much agree with them too. But also excessive regulation, market distortions of every kind, poor educational systems, bureacracy.
If the context is USA, it’s an old country in modern terms. A lot of cruft has accumulated in 300 years and it’s not getting better. Ditto for many others.
…of, by and for The People. Greatest work of fiction ever written.
Eh, we DIDN’T invent government. Government invented itself to control and exploit us. They do so to the degree of our tolerance levels and the level to which we are manipulated.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I don’t think quoting a bunch of slave-owners and misogynists who did none of all that is proving the point you’re trying to make.
no, we did invent the government, or do you really think that for however bad this is, the literal warlord nobility that predates it was Superior?
Wasn’t JFKs speech supposed to be about not seeing a community only for what you get out of it?
Do you understand how offensive that concept is to a market capitalist?
They don’t even want to fund public schools, and they get a pre-literate workforce out of that.
“Whats in it for me” would be our national slogan, if it wasn’t already “fuck you whether or not I got mine.”
That might be what the speech meant in context, but the quote alone sounds like something Animal Farm’s Napoleon would say to Boxer.
American’s vote for the government and fund it with their taxes. To believe it’s a system with any other purpose than to serve it’s citizens is assenine.
Actually, citizens pay taxes to avoid going to jail or, in the olden days (perhaps soon to be reintroduced), to avoid being killed on the spot.
They vote because when you are locked in a room with no way out, you’ll push one of the buttons in front of you frantically - trying to figure out if, perhaps, they are pushed just like this, you’ll get out.
When you’re not paying taxes or voting, someone richer than Smaug from the Hobbit is cashing in on the rest of your life.
To call this a system that serves its citizens seems… I’m not sure what to call it. Naïve? Misguided? Uninformed?
better than what we had before the whole government thing, if you think this is bad, wait until the warlords come kill you, enslave your children and use your wife as a baby production machine
The warlords are also a government. However, the fact that warlords emerge when government fails shows that government is inevitable, so the best you can do is try to have a good one.
Human organisation and leadership may be an inherent part of us. That is not government…
I find it funny the way people just accept that they are sheep and need someone to protect them from the big bad wolf. And, of course, enlist the big bad wolf to protect them.
I also find it hilarious when people pretend they alone are not the weak little sheep waiting on any more organized group to eat them.
I’m also sus of people who use the sheep/wolf/sheepdog analogy since it’s literally Nazi propaganda, as espoused by Nazis themselves…
This is a bit of an old reply, but I thought I’d post something I stumbled upon here as it’s a response to your fear of warlords: https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/111290743792188200
From the post (it’s quite extensive with plenty of references):
“Once people are free of state violence and hierarchy, how can they just stop some bad actor from taking over?”
The assumption is that people who are free from coercive hierarchies are powerless to act in their own self defense, alone or in cooperation with each other.
(The question is usually accompanied by some invocation of the dreaded “war lord” whom the questioner assumes will inevitably overrun a nonstate or non-hierarchical community.)
So, I thought I would take a crack at answering this as comprehensively as I can!>>
The assumption is that people who are free from coercive hierarchies are powerless to act in their own self defense, alone or in cooperation with each other.
That’s the problem. Acting alone is not an option since an organized force will always defeat a disorganized one, and “cooperation” would mean forming the same kinds of hierarchies and governments that we already have, except they won’t have the centuries of stress-testing our present democratic systems have undergone and will therefore fall to corruption and authoritarianism much more easily.
This is why anarchism is such a bankrupt ideology. At best it consists of people willing to burn the world down to institute a system that would be the same but worse.
Doesn’t seem like you read any of it, and it doesn’t seem like you are open to new ideas. So… In the status quo you remain then. Good luck!
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I don’t think you get the comic, or understood how my comment was responding to it.
Also, this is just really condescending. If you’re going to be on the left, you have to learn how to argue in a way that actually convinces people you’re ideas are better. This just makes you sounds like a jerk.
If they’re going to steal 30%+ of my income, I expect something more than a DC pedo party and constant war.
it’s supposed to be ironic ?
I think so.
That Kennedy quote has always been a puzzler.
Not in meaning, but why the hell it’s supposed to be some kind of American ideal to aspire to.
“Take what we give you and beg to serve” seems a more honest phrasing.
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You rarely see any thing else from that speech. If they’d just show even the part right after the “ask not” part it would help.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
I do in fact demand better of my government.
Ok but also remember that Kennedy was demanding Americans accept responsibility for those less fortunate among us and that we invest in our future
Governments who do not fear their people have no reason to maintain a culture of obeying their wishes.
You can demand it, but when your election options are all determined by insiders and you further contribute by treating 3rd parties like laughing stock, you’ve got nothing but some weak whatever’s left of a second amendment to hold over them.
That’s crazy talk. You’d have to have some crazy government where you only get to vote every couple of years for one of only two candidates where the only reason to vote for one of them would be to not vote for the other guy for something like that to happen.
Ask not what you can do for you country; we will be the ones asking the questions here. Your country will tell you what to do and either you will obey or there will be consequences, because the revolution was a lie and you are a fool.
How’s that JFK quote end, Steve Kelley?
Based
A bit of a weird tangent, but Canadian civil servants are the fucking worst. They make OKish money, and have some of the most secure jobs in the country, which unfortunately means they come with some of the worst attitudes ever. Like, they’ve got this massive chip on their shoulders that they don’t make more money, but they can’t lose their jobs, so they’ll be damned if they’re gonna fucking help you with a problem that totally falls under their purview. I always came out of public buildings with the mantra, “My fucking taxes pay your shitty salary!” running through my head.
I moved to Korea some years back, and was amazed how helpful public officials can actually be. Not that Korea doesn’t have its share of bureaucratic problems, too.
You were probably more polite in SK and positive discrimination of white foreigners is very common in Asia.
Both of those things may be true, but have you seen Zootopia? The sloth who works in the DMV? That joke falls flat here because Korean DMVs are notoriously fast, efficient, and staffed by competent, courteous people.
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Sounds like Canadian gov workers have it figured out. Who gives a shit. Its just a job. Why bend over backwards?
This also a massive over simplified and generally repeated untruth about government employees anyway. It’s a good story to tell when you’re trying to undermine a strong labor group. “They’re lazy”, “they don’t care”, “they have it too good”. Makes for a great premise for a media company that wants to send that message too.
All bullshit.
I find that when I don’t act like an entitled ass and respect what these people are doing, I have perfectly adequate interactions with them.
So, which is it? They have it figured out and underperforming is the way to go, or I’m making a generalization that isn’t true? Ahh, I see. I’m an impolite media company trying to slander hard working bureaucrats.
Sort of (left) libertarian vibes here, but I guess it tracks given Sander’s history.
The government is not there to serve you, it’s there to govern you.
The government is there to govern society in the best interest of the populace. That is a form of service.
No, it’s there to govern society in the interest of government members and their friends. Always has been.
yes, but only in authoritarianism. In a democracy it’s the opposite: the raison d’etre of the government is to serve the populace.
Look up dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Oh, you sweet summer child…
If your government does not serve you, you may want to ask yourself if you live in a democracy
