Not a good framing. The government is not static to be loved or hated. It is rather like a cyborg who has behavior modifications and parts added and removed ove

Not a good framing. The government is not static to be loved or hated. It is rather like a cyborg who has behavior modifications and parts added and removed over time. It's a mess and a kludge and it does things we don't like, does contradictory things, because of how we change it to suit ourselves. When the cyborg does something I like, I am happy and say "good cyborg, nice cyborg". I do not call the cyborg a friend, but rather I approve its current behavior. That is what democracy is: it's living with a cyborg that you don't fully control. It's not a friend, its not an enemy, its vast complex slow machine that is a thing we put up with because it's better than nothing. The primary alternative is a coherent cyborg fully owned and operated by one person. Humans are always tempted by this vision of a government that is finally all good, all friend. Yet we have learned time and again that this almost always is even greater misery. (The exception is when the scale is smaller and the autocrat is capable and the need is immediate and finite. Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew comes to mind. Startup leaders can also fall in this category.)