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My own trust in authorities is eroded by more recent and basic things than your list of horrific things. For example, Afghanistan - decades of war, thousands o

My own trust in authorities is eroded by more recent and basic things than your list of horrific things. For example, Afghanistan - decades of war, thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars - all for no clear purpose and whatever we did accomplish there seems to have been reversed in a weekend. The Taliban are still in charge of the country and there was never any accountability for the policy and military failures. Trump is another example. I often feel like I've walked out of a theater after seeing a convoluted movie. I'm left asking things like "So, was Trump a Russian agent?" If our intelligence services thought he was, then their plan was just to run him down in the press for several years? If they didn't then the mainstream media was misrepresenting them for years? Most major things fall into this category of "I can't believe our government could possibly be this bad." Climate change - we need green energy but also haven't approved a new nuclear reactor in decades. Infrastructure - it costs infinity billion dollars to build a train, and a new public restroom will take most of a decade. Economy - we're just going to create trillions and trillions of dollars at ever increasing rates and that will be fine somehow. Pandemic - almost too much to talk about stuff going wrong. I could go on and on but the main thing is that the people in charge, the government and the media, seem incompetent to a degree that beggars belief. Why should I trust these people?

dboreham 5y ago
Note that leaving known agents in place is a recognized approach. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I don't think the approach is applicable if the agent is in position to do serious harm.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Not even the ballsiest, most scheming intelligence officer would let a known agent have the nuclear suitcase, though.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  do they usually let them be President for a full term of four years with no consequence aside from relentless media assault?
saurik 5y ago
I'd even add basic things like the TSA to the list: the government says this is required for everyone to be safe, but every single study or analysis shows it is ineffective and security experts universally deride it; and yet, the "authority"--which might literally be the agent at the scanner with a smug attitude about the whole thing--is adamant this is important and that maybe you are a terrorist for nothing other than making a sarcastic joke about the situation.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  My elderly parents were both submitted to full body pat downs and my dad had to pull up his pant leg to demonstrate that yes, his leg brace was a medical device. Neither of them are physically capable of overwhelming my preschooler nephew let alone an air flight attendant. So much theater for so little security.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    Looking back on this comment, I probably should have included that this happened within the last month, as if we haven't had 20 years of practice figuring this out.
- VikingCoder 5y ago
  No one wants to sign a bill pulling back TSA, and then see the headline "TSA would have stopped this terrorist." Voters are not reasonable, and the media fans those flames.
  - saurik 5y ago
    Is that supposed to make me feel better, or worse? ;P I will say that if everyone (including the agent at the gate who doesn't seem to want to admit this to even themselves) said that out loud--instead of claiming it was a critical security measure--it would make me feel a lot better about the whole thing and I might not even be upset about it anymore (though at that point you might also see the public opinion holding it together change).
causi 5y ago
I'm left asking things like "So, was Trump a Russian agent?" The fact is, he never had to be. He is a fool and it was easy to predict his behavior would be far better for Russia than that of Clinton, and so Russia did everything it could to support him and damage his opponents, no collaboration necessary.
- tlear 5y ago
  And yet Crimea and east Ukraine happened on Obama's watch and Kyiv will fall on Biden's watch. Cool eh?
  - zaphar 5y ago
    All the stage setting for them Kyiv on Trump's watch. If Trump had won a second term it would still have happened. We ascribe entirely too much power to the office of the President sometimes.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      It is clear Russia is taking advantage of Biden's fear of military action. China, North Korea, Iran all have been more aggressive. The outcome in Afghanistan gave everyone the impression America will back down. Trump kept everyone off balance.
      - anInternetCat 5y ago
        > The outcome in Afghanistan gave everyone the impression America will back down. Trump kept everyone off balance. You mean the outcome of the withdrawal plan that Trump agreed to? Biden was damned if he did and damned if he didn't: - The US is weak for withdrawing - The US doesn't stick to its agreements
        ars 5y ago
        That's a false dilema. Biden wasn't criticized for withdrawing from Afghanistan, he was criticized for doing a bad job at withdrawing.
hnuser847 5y ago
Governments are incentivized to do everything wrong at every level. * Unlike a business, governments don't earn revenue from providing services that people want. They earn revenue through taxes, which they get to collect regardless of how well they govern. * Unlike shareholders, politicians have zero skin in the game and are therefore incentivized to be as wasteful as reckless as possible. If a politician passes an overly generous pension plan that ends up bankrupting the state several decades in the future, the politician will suffer no consequences whatsoever. * Unlike monarchs, politicians don't own the state, its land, or its resources. They merely get to control the state for a short period of time. That means they are incentivized to extract as much personal wealth out of the state as rapidly as possible during their short tenure.
- KerrAvon 5y ago
  I'm not convinced you understand how representative democracy actually works. Are you really arguing for establishing a monarchy in the US, as you seem to be? > They earn revenue through taxes, which they get to collect regardless of how well they govern. Who is the "they" earning revenue? What does "how well they govern" mean, and who is the "they" doing the governing? These definitions are important. What are you actually complaining about here? > If a politician passes an overly generous pension plan that ends up bankrupting the state several decades in the future, the politician will suffer no consequences whatsoever Really. Gosh, that sounds very different from every corporate executive ever. > That means they are incentivized to extract as much personal wealth out of the state as rapidly as possible during their short tenure. Really. Gosh, that also sounds very different from every corporate executive ever.
  - hnuser847 5y ago
    > I'm not convinced you understand how representative democracy actually works. Are you really arguing for establishing a monarchy in the US, as you seem to be? Not at all, I was just juxtaposing the incentives at play between the two systems. > Who is the "they" earning revenue? What does "how well they govern" mean, and who is the "they" doing the governing? These definitions are important. What are you actually complaining about here? I thought the subject of the sentence was clear ("they" meaning the government). The government earns money by demanding it through force. Private businesses (and non-profit charities) earn revenue by providing services that people are willing to pay for. Businesses that sell stuff people don't want will earn $0 in revenue. Do you disagree? > Really. Gosh, that sounds very different from every corporate executive ever. > Really. Gosh, that also sounds very different from every corporate executive ever. I agree with you to some extent. However, a corporate executive is generally compensated with shares in the company, so they have a pretty large incentive to keep the company in tact at least. Politicians have no such incentive whatsoever.
guelo 5y ago
Our intelligence services are not rogue nor do they have the power to take out a democratically elected president. To think otherwise is just conspiracy theories with no basis.
- kansface 5y ago
  My recollection is probably a bit off, but IIRC, the FBI knowingly and repeatedly lied to the FISA court ("material misstatements") in order to obtain secret search warrants to spy on the Tump campaign based on opposition research which was directly funded by the Clinton campaign, who had hired a former MI6 spook to find or make up dirt who also happened to be working for the bureau and was secretly leaking everything to the press! There were basically no consequences for anyone involved, including the FBI. I wouldn't believe that story line in a movie. The FBI continually goads citizens into being terrorists or on occasion, convinces them to kidnap a governor, then arrests them and claims victory! We could look a little further back in time to the aftermath of 9/11, and the role the CIA played in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the even the FBI doing its best to destroy the civil rights movement.
  - guelo 5y ago
    That's certainly the Republican narrative of that FISA warrant. The inspector general report that found "material misstatements" found no evidence of politically-motivated or intentional abuse. It was basically technical sloppiness. The Iraq WMD lies were driven directly from the White House, it was not a rogue CIA. For J. Edgar Hoover's FBI you have a point, but it led to many reforms by the Church Committee in the 70s.
    - barbacoa 5y ago
      I think GP was referring to Kevin Clinesmith who pleaded guilty to deliberately falsifying documents presented to FISA courts.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      Have you read the key judgements from the 2002 NIE on Iraq? > High Confidence: > - Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions. > - We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs. > - Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles. > - Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Iraq_NIE_Excerpts_2003.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Iraq_NIE_Excerpts_2003.p...
VikingCoder 5y ago
I think you and I blame different people for that. I blame voters for wanting easy answers, having a NIMBY attitude to anything, want scapegoats, won't raise taxes in good times, won't help their neighbors in bad times, blame everyone else for their problems, demand instant results, get bored waiting for long-term solutions, care more about style over substance... Politicians exploit all of those things. And so do talking heads.
roenxi 5y ago
> ...the people in charge, the government and the media, seem incompetent to a degree that beggars belief. Not exactly true, two important things intersect: 1. Running a country is much harder than it looks. The machinery they maintain is older, hoarier and covers more diverse topics than anything and they are constantly being lied to about whether it is working. It is a point I struggle to get across to people as a small-government proponent, but the people in power physically cannot understand the levers they are pulling and the effects the pulling achieves. Most of them aren't even numerate and the complexity at work here is beyond any human. They're flying blind and often setting up bad systems with bad incentives. 2. The goals of the polity are not your goals. The swing voter, in the moment that they vote, appears to be a different and much simpler creature from anything that turns up in normal conversation. The politicians have to deal with that swing voter rather than do what the politician may think is prudent (which, to be honest, is a good thing even if it sometimes throws up terrible results).
AvocadoPanic 5y ago
You missed the subplot where the Hillary Campaign via intermediaries paid a foreign national to 'develop' the Trump Russia Conspiracy. It's not your fault it was poorly edited and paced. Looking like there may be a sequel and probably a spin-off.
datavirtue 5y ago
A note on Afghanistan, the military started the war paying farmers to stop growing poppy in an attempt to defund the Taliban. The next season farmers planted more, expecting to be paid to burn thier crops again. No dice. Crop production ramped up, flooding the market with Heroine and subsequently rounding out the pain pill opiate crisis in the US with a swell of Afghanny (circuitously routed through south American drug Lords) heroine. And the Taliban got funding for decades. Now the media is aghast at how much regular people hate the government now. Trump support is just a big fat middle finger to an inept establishment that currently has it's pants down around it's ankles.
0a3feeb 5y ago
I think it's more accurate to see the government's primary function as deciding who gets what sinecure, not accomplishing things. I would wager that's the historical norm. Your list of failures, among others (homeless industrial complex), make much more sense through this light: they're all wealth transfers to political friends.

dboreham 5y ago

Note that leaving known agents in place is a recognized approach. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt

ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't think the approach is applicable if the agent is in position to do serious harm.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Not even the ballsiest, most scheming intelligence officer would let a known agent have the nuclear suitcase, though.
adamrezich 5y ago
do they usually let them be President for a full term of four years with no consequence aside from relentless media assault?

saurik 5y ago

I'd even add basic things like the TSA to the list: the government says this is required for everyone to be safe, but every single study or analysis shows it is ineffective and security experts universally deride it; and yet, the "authority"--which might literally be the agent at the scanner with a smug attitude about the whole thing--is adamant this is important and that maybe you are a terrorist for nothing other than making a sarcastic joke about the situation.

zdragnar 5y ago
My elderly parents were both submitted to full body pat downs and my dad had to pull up his pant leg to demonstrate that yes, his leg brace was a medical device. Neither of them are physically capable of overwhelming my preschooler nephew let alone an air flight attendant. So much theater for so little security.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Looking back on this comment, I probably should have included that this happened within the last month, as if we haven't had 20 years of practice figuring this out.
VikingCoder 5y ago
No one wants to sign a bill pulling back TSA, and then see the headline "TSA would have stopped this terrorist." Voters are not reasonable, and the media fans those flames.
- saurik 5y ago
  Is that supposed to make me feel better, or worse? ;P I will say that if everyone (including the agent at the gate who doesn't seem to want to admit this to even themselves) said that out loud--instead of claiming it was a critical security measure--it would make me feel a lot better about the whole thing and I might not even be upset about it anymore (though at that point you might also see the public opinion holding it together change).

causi 5y ago

I'm left asking things like "So, was Trump a Russian agent?" The fact is, he never had to be. He is a fool and it was easy to predict his behavior would be far better for Russia than that of Clinton, and so Russia did everything it could to support him and damage his opponents, no collaboration necessary.

tlear 5y ago
And yet Crimea and east Ukraine happened on Obama's watch and Kyiv will fall on Biden's watch. Cool eh?
- zaphar 5y ago
  All the stage setting for them Kyiv on Trump's watch. If Trump had won a second term it would still have happened. We ascribe entirely too much power to the office of the President sometimes.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    It is clear Russia is taking advantage of Biden's fear of military action. China, North Korea, Iran all have been more aggressive. The outcome in Afghanistan gave everyone the impression America will back down. Trump kept everyone off balance.
    - anInternetCat 5y ago
      > The outcome in Afghanistan gave everyone the impression America will back down. Trump kept everyone off balance. You mean the outcome of the withdrawal plan that Trump agreed to? Biden was damned if he did and damned if he didn't: - The US is weak for withdrawing - The US doesn't stick to its agreements
      - ars 5y ago
        That's a false dilema. Biden wasn't criticized for withdrawing from Afghanistan, he was criticized for doing a bad job at withdrawing.

hnuser847 5y ago

Governments are incentivized to do everything wrong at every level. * Unlike a business, governments don't earn revenue from providing services that people want. They earn revenue through taxes, which they get to collect regardless of how well they govern. * Unlike shareholders, politicians have zero skin in the game and are therefore incentivized to be as wasteful as reckless as possible. If a politician passes an overly generous pension plan that ends up bankrupting the state several decades in the future, the politician will suffer no consequences whatsoever. * Unlike monarchs, politicians don't own the state, its land, or its resources. They merely get to control the state for a short period of time. That means they are incentivized to extract as much personal wealth out of the state as rapidly as possible during their short tenure.

KerrAvon 5y ago
I'm not convinced you understand how representative democracy actually works. Are you really arguing for establishing a monarchy in the US, as you seem to be? > They earn revenue through taxes, which they get to collect regardless of how well they govern. Who is the "they" earning revenue? What does "how well they govern" mean, and who is the "they" doing the governing? These definitions are important. What are you actually complaining about here? > If a politician passes an overly generous pension plan that ends up bankrupting the state several decades in the future, the politician will suffer no consequences whatsoever Really. Gosh, that sounds very different from every corporate executive ever. > That means they are incentivized to extract as much personal wealth out of the state as rapidly as possible during their short tenure. Really. Gosh, that also sounds very different from every corporate executive ever.
- hnuser847 5y ago
  > I'm not convinced you understand how representative democracy actually works. Are you really arguing for establishing a monarchy in the US, as you seem to be? Not at all, I was just juxtaposing the incentives at play between the two systems. > Who is the "they" earning revenue? What does "how well they govern" mean, and who is the "they" doing the governing? These definitions are important. What are you actually complaining about here? I thought the subject of the sentence was clear ("they" meaning the government). The government earns money by demanding it through force. Private businesses (and non-profit charities) earn revenue by providing services that people are willing to pay for. Businesses that sell stuff people don't want will earn $0 in revenue. Do you disagree? > Really. Gosh, that sounds very different from every corporate executive ever. > Really. Gosh, that also sounds very different from every corporate executive ever. I agree with you to some extent. However, a corporate executive is generally compensated with shares in the company, so they have a pretty large incentive to keep the company in tact at least. Politicians have no such incentive whatsoever.

guelo 5y ago

Our intelligence services are not rogue nor do they have the power to take out a democratically elected president. To think otherwise is just conspiracy theories with no basis.

kansface 5y ago
My recollection is probably a bit off, but IIRC, the FBI knowingly and repeatedly lied to the FISA court ("material misstatements") in order to obtain secret search warrants to spy on the Tump campaign based on opposition research which was directly funded by the Clinton campaign, who had hired a former MI6 spook to find or make up dirt who also happened to be working for the bureau and was secretly leaking everything to the press! There were basically no consequences for anyone involved, including the FBI. I wouldn't believe that story line in a movie. The FBI continually goads citizens into being terrorists or on occasion, convinces them to kidnap a governor, then arrests them and claims victory! We could look a little further back in time to the aftermath of 9/11, and the role the CIA played in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the even the FBI doing its best to destroy the civil rights movement.
- guelo 5y ago
  That's certainly the Republican narrative of that FISA warrant. The inspector general report that found "material misstatements" found no evidence of politically-motivated or intentional abuse. It was basically technical sloppiness. The Iraq WMD lies were driven directly from the White House, it was not a rogue CIA. For J. Edgar Hoover's FBI you have a point, but it led to many reforms by the Church Committee in the 70s.
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    I think GP was referring to Kevin Clinesmith who pleaded guilty to deliberately falsifying documents presented to FISA courts.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    Have you read the key judgements from the 2002 NIE on Iraq? > High Confidence: > - Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions. > - We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs. > - Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles. > - Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Iraq_NIE_Excerpts_2003.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Iraq_NIE_Excerpts_2003.p...

VikingCoder 5y ago

I think you and I blame different people for that. I blame voters for wanting easy answers, having a NIMBY attitude to anything, want scapegoats, won't raise taxes in good times, won't help their neighbors in bad times, blame everyone else for their problems, demand instant results, get bored waiting for long-term solutions, care more about style over substance... Politicians exploit all of those things. And so do talking heads.

roenxi 5y ago

> ...the people in charge, the government and the media, seem incompetent to a degree that beggars belief. Not exactly true, two important things intersect: 1. Running a country is much harder than it looks. The machinery they maintain is older, hoarier and covers more diverse topics than anything and they are constantly being lied to about whether it is working. It is a point I struggle to get across to people as a small-government proponent, but the people in power physically cannot understand the levers they are pulling and the effects the pulling achieves. Most of them aren't even numerate and the complexity at work here is beyond any human. They're flying blind and often setting up bad systems with bad incentives. 2. The goals of the polity are not your goals. The swing voter, in the moment that they vote, appears to be a different and much simpler creature from anything that turns up in normal conversation. The politicians have to deal with that swing voter rather than do what the politician may think is prudent (which, to be honest, is a good thing even if it sometimes throws up terrible results).

AvocadoPanic 5y ago

You missed the subplot where the Hillary Campaign via intermediaries paid a foreign national to 'develop' the Trump Russia Conspiracy. It's not your fault it was poorly edited and paced. Looking like there may be a sequel and probably a spin-off.

datavirtue 5y ago

A note on Afghanistan, the military started the war paying farmers to stop growing poppy in an attempt to defund the Taliban. The next season farmers planted more, expecting to be paid to burn thier crops again. No dice. Crop production ramped up, flooding the market with Heroine and subsequently rounding out the pain pill opiate crisis in the US with a swell of Afghanny (circuitously routed through south American drug Lords) heroine. And the Taliban got funding for decades. Now the media is aghast at how much regular people hate the government now. Trump support is just a big fat middle finger to an inept establishment that currently has it's pants down around it's ankles.

0a3feeb 5y ago

I think it's more accurate to see the government's primary function as deciding who gets what sinecure, not accomplishing things. I would wager that's the historical norm. Your list of failures, among others (homeless industrial complex), make much more sense through this light: they're all wealth transfers to political friends.