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I have a theory about this: the idea that, as Reagan put it, "The nine most terrifying words in the English Language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here

I have a theory about this: the idea that, as Reagan put it, "The nine most terrifying words in the English Language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" have become so deeply embedded in our national consciousness that almost nobody, on the left or right, really believes that the government can be a force for good anymore. Because it's so deeply embedded, I think it's become self fulfilling prophecy.

themitigating 4y ago
I also think we need to look at why that is. Is it because of personal experience, unreasonable expectations, and/or people pushing the idea for their own goals
rootusrootus 4y ago
The right assumes the government is incompetent, and then crafts policy to kneecap government at every opportunity. The left assumes the government could be competent, but only if everyone tries to make it so, and they know what the right is doing (all of this policy is completely aboveboard and public). Net result, everyone can safely assume the government is incompetent. It is much easier to prevent it from working than to make it work. We'd have to have bipartisan interest in making it work effectively, and we do not have that.
- tcmart14 4y ago
  Or another way to put it, it actually requires effort to make it work, but it requires no effort to not make it work. Its about like saying "hey that kid is drowning! I could swim and go save him, but instead I am going to go get a Slurpee."
  - kansface 4y ago
    No, in my estimate, its more like, you have to be willing to piss some people off to make stuff go. Perhaps better wording would be that you can't accomplish things without sacrifice. We aren't willing to do that. You can't have CA's environmental review process and timely/cost effective construction. You can't have SF's discretionary review process and ... any construction, really. You can't solve the housing crisis without building housing, but to do that, you'd actually have to build housing. The cost of that housing is multiples of the public sectors budget, so you'd need to first of all, admit that, and then allow the private sector to do it. The private sector only does stuff that makes a profit... so we'd just rather not build housing than change regulations. Now, we get to say we like affordable housing and protecting the environment when our policies don't result in affordable housing and we push people out of environmentally efficient cities into the suburbs/exurbs/wilderness. Fundamentally, if you want to be able to build stuff in CA, you have to get rid of all of the universal, asymmetric vetoes that allow any person to spend $200 to cause millions in costs via review processes.
  - jgeada 4y ago
    I the US that inaction is called "thoughts & prayers". Somehow that absolves politicians etc from actually having to do anything constructive.
- shigawire 4y ago
  To add to this - in general a conservative agenda is easier to implement since it requires maintaining status quo versus engaging in radical change.
- treis 4y ago
  I live an extremely democratic leaning city and they basically suck at everything. Yard waste has sat on my curb for 2 months now because I guess they just don't feel like picking it up any more. Equipment has been broken in my local playground for nearly a year now. The only one that actually picks up trash in my local park in an organized fashion is the Libertarian Party of all people. And I could go on. There's no right crafting policy to kneecap the city's ability to function as a city.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris.
    - treis 4y ago
      >Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium. Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. >I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris. Because my city is not good at being a city.
      - trs8080 4y ago
        > We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium Sports stadiums are massive sources of revenue for cities. > Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. It takes more than one person working four hours a week to collect garbage for an entire city.
ok123456 4y ago
Sure there are. You have a huge faction of the government that loves complex, baroque technocratic solutions to everything because they've convinced themselves that complexity justifies their power. We needed healthcare reform. What we got was the ACA. What we needed was them to bring back Glass-Steagall in the wake of sub-prime crisis. What we got was ????? Average peoples' material conditions are getting worse and worse. They need some kind of simple universal assistance. They don't need yet another way of getting means tested.
- lin83 4y ago
  > We needed healthcare reform. What we got was the ACA. > What we needed was them to bring back Glass-Steagall in the wake of sub-prime crisis. What we got was ????? Wealthy powerful interests who fund politicans on both sides ensure those reforms fail or are watered down to nothing. This is not about complexity. It's simple corruption.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    This is a convincing narrative but It ignores the reality that a significant portion of the population doesn't want these reforms.
    - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
      You think a significant portion of the population has strong feelings on separating commercial from investment banking?
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        No. I was addressing the ACA. Should have been more clear
        sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        Having keenly paid attention while the ACA was debated and passed and implemented I would say a lot of those opposed were as clueless about it as they are about Glass-Steagall.
fatherzine 4y ago
Not all "government" is created equal. Federal spending is 30% of GDP. That is a lot for a bureaucracy that lives far removed from the concerns of the average citizen. Perhaps send most of these money back to state/city level?
charwalker 4y ago
It's "Doesn't she look tired" but for the federal government as an entity. Much of the conservative side of the country still actively fights any expansion or increase to the federal government however nowadays it's more about greed and grift ex limiting regulations on businesses, expanding mining/drilling options vs EPA protections, or removing worker/voter rights. The concept that government is there to help is taken like a conspiracy theory and slowly 'Starving the beast' provides ample opportunity for failure that only furthers anti-federalist mentality. Or as some should be saying as they campaign, "Government doesn't work, elect me and I'll prove it!"

themitigating 4y ago

I also think we need to look at why that is. Is it because of personal experience, unreasonable expectations, and/or people pushing the idea for their own goals

rootusrootus 4y ago

The right assumes the government is incompetent, and then crafts policy to kneecap government at every opportunity. The left assumes the government could be competent, but only if everyone tries to make it so, and they know what the right is doing (all of this policy is completely aboveboard and public). Net result, everyone can safely assume the government is incompetent. It is much easier to prevent it from working than to make it work. We'd have to have bipartisan interest in making it work effectively, and we do not have that.

tcmart14 4y ago
Or another way to put it, it actually requires effort to make it work, but it requires no effort to not make it work. Its about like saying "hey that kid is drowning! I could swim and go save him, but instead I am going to go get a Slurpee."
- kansface 4y ago
  No, in my estimate, its more like, you have to be willing to piss some people off to make stuff go. Perhaps better wording would be that you can't accomplish things without sacrifice. We aren't willing to do that. You can't have CA's environmental review process and timely/cost effective construction. You can't have SF's discretionary review process and ... any construction, really. You can't solve the housing crisis without building housing, but to do that, you'd actually have to build housing. The cost of that housing is multiples of the public sectors budget, so you'd need to first of all, admit that, and then allow the private sector to do it. The private sector only does stuff that makes a profit... so we'd just rather not build housing than change regulations. Now, we get to say we like affordable housing and protecting the environment when our policies don't result in affordable housing and we push people out of environmentally efficient cities into the suburbs/exurbs/wilderness. Fundamentally, if you want to be able to build stuff in CA, you have to get rid of all of the universal, asymmetric vetoes that allow any person to spend $200 to cause millions in costs via review processes.
- jgeada 4y ago
  I the US that inaction is called "thoughts & prayers". Somehow that absolves politicians etc from actually having to do anything constructive.
shigawire 4y ago
To add to this - in general a conservative agenda is easier to implement since it requires maintaining status quo versus engaging in radical change.
treis 4y ago
I live an extremely democratic leaning city and they basically suck at everything. Yard waste has sat on my curb for 2 months now because I guess they just don't feel like picking it up any more. Equipment has been broken in my local playground for nearly a year now. The only one that actually picks up trash in my local park in an organized fashion is the Libertarian Party of all people. And I could go on. There's no right crafting policy to kneecap the city's ability to function as a city.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris.
  - treis 4y ago
    >Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium. Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. >I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris. Because my city is not good at being a city.
    - trs8080 4y ago
      > We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium Sports stadiums are massive sources of revenue for cities. > Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. It takes more than one person working four hours a week to collect garbage for an entire city.

ok123456 4y ago

Sure there are. You have a huge faction of the government that loves complex, baroque technocratic solutions to everything because they've convinced themselves that complexity justifies their power. We needed healthcare reform. What we got was the ACA. What we needed was them to bring back Glass-Steagall in the wake of sub-prime crisis. What we got was ????? Average peoples' material conditions are getting worse and worse. They need some kind of simple universal assistance. They don't need yet another way of getting means tested.

lin83 4y ago
> We needed healthcare reform. What we got was the ACA. > What we needed was them to bring back Glass-Steagall in the wake of sub-prime crisis. What we got was ????? Wealthy powerful interests who fund politicans on both sides ensure those reforms fail or are watered down to nothing. This is not about complexity. It's simple corruption.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  This is a convincing narrative but It ignores the reality that a significant portion of the population doesn't want these reforms.
  - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
    You think a significant portion of the population has strong feelings on separating commercial from investment banking?
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      No. I was addressing the ACA. Should have been more clear
      - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        Having keenly paid attention while the ACA was debated and passed and implemented I would say a lot of those opposed were as clueless about it as they are about Glass-Steagall.

fatherzine 4y ago

Not all "government" is created equal. Federal spending is 30% of GDP. That is a lot for a bureaucracy that lives far removed from the concerns of the average citizen. Perhaps send most of these money back to state/city level?

charwalker 4y ago

It's "Doesn't she look tired" but for the federal government as an entity. Much of the conservative side of the country still actively fights any expansion or increase to the federal government however nowadays it's more about greed and grift ex limiting regulations on businesses, expanding mining/drilling options vs EPA protections, or removing worker/voter rights. The concept that government is there to help is taken like a conspiracy theory and slowly 'Starving the beast' provides ample opportunity for failure that only furthers anti-federalist mentality. Or as some should be saying as they campaign, "Government doesn't work, elect me and I'll prove it!"