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But that's what freedom of speech is for. If you are a citizen of a free country with freedom of speech and voting rights, everything is your responsibility. Yo

But that's what freedom of speech is for. If you are a citizen of a free country with freedom of speech and voting rights, everything is your responsibility. You are supposed to be the ultimate source of power. If you think something is wrong in the society, fixing it is your responsibility. You can of course ignore it if you think the issue is not particularly significant or if it looks like other people are already handling it. But if the issue is important and contested, you are expected to get involved. The deeper issue behind polarization is that people don't agree on the principles the society is built on. The Constitution may codify some principles, but too many people consider them insufficient or illegitimate. There is no fix to this apart from the vast majority of people agreeing on some set of principles. I think everyone should try living a few years as a non-citizen in a foreign country. It gives a different perspective on politics. You live somewhere in the long term and see the issues around you, but you don't have the same rights as most other people and your responsibilities are limited.

robonerd 5y ago
> If you are a citizen of a free country with freedom of speech and voting rights, everything is your responsibility. I vehemently disagree. America is a representative democracy. We vote for representatives in the legislature and other parts of government who are responsible for the "everything". All the regular people have to do is vote for whichever representatives they think will do a good job. There is no obligation that everybody be informed in all matters concerning how to run a country. Even congresspeople have specializations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Senate_committees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Senate_c...
- letitbeirie 5y ago
  Ideally, but what if those representatives and all of their credible opponents are doing a bad job and have been for years?
  - robonerd 5y ago
    Then that's the way the cookie crumbles. What do you want me to say? Throw away the constitution because congressmen are idiots, lets do direct democracy and all pretend we're experts on everything? Nobody can be informed on everything; anybody who thinks they are is obviously an obvious idiot who doesn't know his own limitations. No, direct democracy sucks for anything much larger than a canton, and certainly for any group with interests as serious and diverse as America's. What we have now is far from perfect, but it works reasonably well and I wouldn't throw it away in exchange for a nuclear-armed ochlocracy. The mere thought of that sends shivers up my spine.
  - lazide 5y ago
    A friend of mine is fond of a saying - ‘Democracy is the theory that the people deserve to get the government they vote for, good and hard’.
- jltsiren 5y ago
  That's the voting rights part. Freedom of speech gives you the right to tell your representatives how you want them to represent you. If you choose not to get involved in a contested issue, your representatives will think that the issue is not important to you. They will then prioritize their efforts accordingly. As far as everyone else is concerned, an opinion you don't act upon is indistinguishable from not having an opinion at all. Freedom of speech makes representative politics a market, where effort is a key currency. You may dislike markets in general or think they are inappropriate in some situations, but they are an inevitable consequence of individual liberties.
  - robonerd 5y ago
    It is the job of congress to write up and pass laws concerning matters I will never understand, and for which I am grateful that I am not obliged to understand.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    Our nation would be a better place if people wrote their congressman more, and posted on social media less.
    - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
      Bold of you to assume the congresscritters are interested in reading the letters written by constituents. At the local and state level I've had _some_ success in getting in touch with my local reps but when it comes to the federal level? Nothing. Every email I've ever sent is responded with the generic "Representative foobar is working for all americans blah blah blah..." followed by the generic press release they send out every few months.
    - hattmall 5y ago
      What about a social media site for congressmen where you can only, like / vote / comment if you are a verified constituent and every post is linked to a real identity. And moderation was done wikipedia style. As in a comment may be removed, but you can see why it was removed and it's content and author can still be viewed via history or something similar.
junofan 5y ago
At least in the United States that’s really not what the founders were going for. Their stance was more, “First, imagine there is no government. Then people come together. What would they reasonably agree to out of self-interest?” It wasn’t about individuals being responsible for solving every societal problem they each observe, and it wasn’t about creating an apparatus individuals could use to solve arbitrary social problems. It was about self-governing individuals negotiating with each other and having the tools to safeguard those agreements against tyranny. Individuals were responsible for themselves, not society. Political society existed as a compact to lift up the individual, not the other way around.

robonerd 5y ago

> If you are a citizen of a free country with freedom of speech and voting rights, everything is your responsibility. I vehemently disagree. America is a representative democracy. We vote for representatives in the legislature and other parts of government who are responsible for the "everything". All the regular people have to do is vote for whichever representatives they think will do a good job. There is no obligation that everybody be informed in all matters concerning how to run a country. Even congresspeople have specializations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Senate_committees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Senate_c...

letitbeirie 5y ago
Ideally, but what if those representatives and all of their credible opponents are doing a bad job and have been for years?
- robonerd 5y ago
  Then that's the way the cookie crumbles. What do you want me to say? Throw away the constitution because congressmen are idiots, lets do direct democracy and all pretend we're experts on everything? Nobody can be informed on everything; anybody who thinks they are is obviously an obvious idiot who doesn't know his own limitations. No, direct democracy sucks for anything much larger than a canton, and certainly for any group with interests as serious and diverse as America's. What we have now is far from perfect, but it works reasonably well and I wouldn't throw it away in exchange for a nuclear-armed ochlocracy. The mere thought of that sends shivers up my spine.
- lazide 5y ago
  A friend of mine is fond of a saying - ‘Democracy is the theory that the people deserve to get the government they vote for, good and hard’.
jltsiren 5y ago
That's the voting rights part. Freedom of speech gives you the right to tell your representatives how you want them to represent you. If you choose not to get involved in a contested issue, your representatives will think that the issue is not important to you. They will then prioritize their efforts accordingly. As far as everyone else is concerned, an opinion you don't act upon is indistinguishable from not having an opinion at all. Freedom of speech makes representative politics a market, where effort is a key currency. You may dislike markets in general or think they are inappropriate in some situations, but they are an inevitable consequence of individual liberties.
- robonerd 5y ago
  It is the job of congress to write up and pass laws concerning matters I will never understand, and for which I am grateful that I am not obliged to understand.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- pyuser583 5y ago
  Our nation would be a better place if people wrote their congressman more, and posted on social media less.
  - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
    Bold of you to assume the congresscritters are interested in reading the letters written by constituents. At the local and state level I've had _some_ success in getting in touch with my local reps but when it comes to the federal level? Nothing. Every email I've ever sent is responded with the generic "Representative foobar is working for all americans blah blah blah..." followed by the generic press release they send out every few months.
  - hattmall 5y ago
    What about a social media site for congressmen where you can only, like / vote / comment if you are a verified constituent and every post is linked to a real identity. And moderation was done wikipedia style. As in a comment may be removed, but you can see why it was removed and it's content and author can still be viewed via history or something similar.

junofan 5y ago

At least in the United States that’s really not what the founders were going for. Their stance was more, “First, imagine there is no government. Then people come together. What would they reasonably agree to out of self-interest?” It wasn’t about individuals being responsible for solving every societal problem they each observe, and it wasn’t about creating an apparatus individuals could use to solve arbitrary social problems. It was about self-governing individuals negotiating with each other and having the tools to safeguard those agreements against tyranny. Individuals were responsible for themselves, not society. Political society existed as a compact to lift up the individual, not the other way around.