4 ms·

It has always been conspicuous to me how vocal most Americans are about wanting personal privacy AND about wanting “smaller” government but at the same time not

by ixtli 4y ago

It has always been conspicuous to me how vocal most Americans are about wanting personal privacy AND about wanting “smaller” government but at the same time not doing much of anything when things like this, the Snowden leaks, and etc come out. We spend very, very large amounts of money on this and if you listen to pundits it’s not doing anything because the “crisis” of “illegal” immigration is always getting worse. It reminds me very much of backscatter machines at the airport and the insistence that we don’t bring bottles larger than 3 or 4 oz on a flight.

turtledove 4y ago
In general, folks who are asking for a small government aren't actually asking for a small government. They are asking for the government to reallocate to the things they care about and away from the things they don't. "Small government" is just a pleasing label that is more marketable for their priorities.
- ixtli 4y ago
  I generally agree that the people you’re talking about are unique in how they obfuscate their intentions when they talk about this stuff. It’s always parsing slogans and decoding in-group concepts.
- libraryatnight 4y ago
  My in-laws all wear t-shirts that say things like "Get in, we're doing freedom and shit" with a picture of some founding fathers in sunglasses, or that simply say "FREEDOM" with a flag, or a 1776 in red white and blue etc. They also believe in the drug war (the smattering of drug problems among them is an irony I'll save for another comment I guess), they believe in walls, and a police force with near absolute power (because the good guys are the good guys, what could go wrong?). They're fine with protestors being arrested, and if they're roughed up a little bit in the process that's OK too. They're good with banning books in schools that might be "indecent." Anyway, I agree. To them, and I would count them in the demo you describe, "Freedom" is just a logo and "small government" is just a meaningless slogan. It has more to do with their specific cultural and moral fears.
  - cocacola1 4y ago
    "Freedom" is one of those words that can mean just about whatever you want it to. From Orwell's Politics and the English Language: > Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning[2]. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. *The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.* https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
BitwiseFool 4y ago
I think the truth is that the American political system is structured in such a way that substantive policy change is monumentally difficult and not correlated with how angry or how vocal the citizenry is about any particular topic. Virtually everyone I know was appalled by the Snowden leaks, yet I know of no one that actually changed their vote. Or, if any candidate ran on dismantling the surveillance state got elected in the aftermath.
- ixtli 4y ago
  I think this is best illustrated in the pathological US need for every level of the entire infrastructure stack to be revenue positive. The recent whinging about the post office is a great example. Further, people asking "whos going to pay" for trains demonstrates the lack of complex thinking. By way of counter example: the Japanese have figured out how to value the high speed train network by how much business it enables every year as opposed to simply looking at how much it costs vs ticket revenue. This isn't, of course, to imply that somehow Japan is magically better. Just that countries like France and China who have less decrepit, more complete public infrastructure didnt get there by accident.

by ixtli 4y ago

turtledove 4y ago

In general, folks who are asking for a small government aren't actually asking for a small government. They are asking for the government to reallocate to the things they care about and away from the things they don't. "Small government" is just a pleasing label that is more marketable for their priorities.

ixtli 4y ago
I generally agree that the people you’re talking about are unique in how they obfuscate their intentions when they talk about this stuff. It’s always parsing slogans and decoding in-group concepts.
libraryatnight 4y ago
My in-laws all wear t-shirts that say things like "Get in, we're doing freedom and shit" with a picture of some founding fathers in sunglasses, or that simply say "FREEDOM" with a flag, or a 1776 in red white and blue etc. They also believe in the drug war (the smattering of drug problems among them is an irony I'll save for another comment I guess), they believe in walls, and a police force with near absolute power (because the good guys are the good guys, what could go wrong?). They're fine with protestors being arrested, and if they're roughed up a little bit in the process that's OK too. They're good with banning books in schools that might be "indecent." Anyway, I agree. To them, and I would count them in the demo you describe, "Freedom" is just a logo and "small government" is just a meaningless slogan. It has more to do with their specific cultural and moral fears.
- cocacola1 4y ago
  "Freedom" is one of those words that can mean just about whatever you want it to. From Orwell's Politics and the English Language: > Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning[2]. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. *The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.* https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

BitwiseFool 4y ago

I think the truth is that the American political system is structured in such a way that substantive policy change is monumentally difficult and not correlated with how angry or how vocal the citizenry is about any particular topic. Virtually everyone I know was appalled by the Snowden leaks, yet I know of no one that actually changed their vote. Or, if any candidate ran on dismantling the surveillance state got elected in the aftermath.

ixtli 4y ago
I think this is best illustrated in the pathological US need for every level of the entire infrastructure stack to be revenue positive. The recent whinging about the post office is a great example. Further, people asking "whos going to pay" for trains demonstrates the lack of complex thinking. By way of counter example: the Japanese have figured out how to value the high speed train network by how much business it enables every year as opposed to simply looking at how much it costs vs ticket revenue. This isn't, of course, to imply that somehow Japan is magically better. Just that countries like France and China who have less decrepit, more complete public infrastructure didnt get there by accident.