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> Hazarding a guess: the 'really dumb thing' is portraying democratic government as a distinct, foreign, hostile, and alien entity that any sane and morally ups

> Hazarding a guess: the 'really dumb thing' is portraying democratic government as a distinct, foreign, hostile, and alien entity that any sane and morally upstanding person would minimize their interaction with, barely giving theirs 'unto Caesar' and getting away as quickly as possible. That's not how I portrayed it. What I portrayed is the reality of how people and organizations operate within society. It's quite telling that some people are too fragile to hear even a tiny bit of criticism or slightly different perspective about their God, the government. > It teaches and reinforces apathy and learned helplessness when it comes to effecting change on matters of public policy. Ultimately, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. No it doesn't, subservience and dependence on the government and viewing them as "the experts", the moral authority, to be implicitly trusted, and who aim primarily to serve others above themselves, is what reinforces apathy and helplessness and dependency. Look at all the wars America and "the west" at large has got into, because all "the experts" said we had to go to war, and you were a traitor, an expert-denier, "against us", etc., if you disagreed. The same exact strategy and rhetoric is used everywhere once you see it. Enemies are created, division is sown, critics are denounced... A little bit less blind faith and trust in government and their alleged "experts", and a bit more rational thinking and questioning would have gone a long way on many occasions. That is the dangerous apathy and faith in government that has quite literally caused the loss of millions of lives and trillions of dollars since WWII. It's funny, I get a lot of this kind of pushback from people, with my simple observations of reality. Most of it seems to come from the same people who will simultaneously go on endlessly about how corrupt the government is, how much it spends on war, how racist and bigoted it is, how subservient to corporations and lobbyists, how it doesn't provide good healthcare, its police forces are brutal and unjust, justice system provides favorable outcomes for the wealthy, it doesn't do enough to solve climate change, doesn't make billionaires and corporations pay enough tax, etc. ... And yet when I point out the obvious, gee maybe that's because the government care more about themselves than they care about you, these same people suddenly lose their minds. And I'll bet dollars to donuts I know where you and OP and anybody who criticizes me for making that comment generally on most of those above issues. The thing about the sad truth versus a happy lie is that the sad truth doesn't prevent you from taking any action, participating in the system, trying to improve it or make it work for you. It's actually the happy lie that does that. Sure there are those who will become paralyzed with terror at the idea that the authority they are subservient to and essentially worship is not completely good and moral, but those people weren't going to change anything anyway.

ShroudedNight 4y ago
Given the leverage inherent in government, self-dealing is always going to be a problem. Yes, given the cornucopia of moral hazards, it will always be attractive to charismatic sociopaths. And yes, even people of relatively sound moral intent easily fall prey to the opportunities for personal profit. That does not require it to be 'the' government and for it to cease being 'our' government. Further, a sense of ownership and a desire to work constructively with the parts that improve our lives does not require me to abdicate moral judgement to its authority. Finally, believing that public office can and should be an honourable pursuit does not imply or require that I believe that my current representation comes anywhere close of meeting that standard. You are correct to assume that I believe my current government enables or even engages in injustices against certain cohorts of the population. Yes, I even believe that I benefit from significant inter-generational privilege that others were actively denied. No, that neither means that my life is a cakewalk, nor does it compel me to plead forgiveness in the gutter. It does however instill a duty to raise those less fortunate up when I have the means to do so. It also compels me to advocate for collective action to do the same. Ultimately, I don't see embodying alienation between a democratic government and its citizens to be a reasonable source of tribalistic pride. It's fucked, and fixing it should be almost as existentially compelling as eating or surviving the elements.

ShroudedNight 4y ago

Given the leverage inherent in government, self-dealing is always going to be a problem. Yes, given the cornucopia of moral hazards, it will always be attractive to charismatic sociopaths. And yes, even people of relatively sound moral intent easily fall prey to the opportunities for personal profit. That does not require it to be 'the' government and for it to cease being 'our' government. Further, a sense of ownership and a desire to work constructively with the parts that improve our lives does not require me to abdicate moral judgement to its authority. Finally, believing that public office can and should be an honourable pursuit does not imply or require that I believe that my current representation comes anywhere close of meeting that standard. You are correct to assume that I believe my current government enables or even engages in injustices against certain cohorts of the population. Yes, I even believe that I benefit from significant inter-generational privilege that others were actively denied. No, that neither means that my life is a cakewalk, nor does it compel me to plead forgiveness in the gutter. It does however instill a duty to raise those less fortunate up when I have the means to do so. It also compels me to advocate for collective action to do the same. Ultimately, I don't see embodying alienation between a democratic government and its citizens to be a reasonable source of tribalistic pride. It's fucked, and fixing it should be almost as existentially compelling as eating or surviving the elements.