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This dichotomy was made extremely apparent to me during the pandemic. In the US, not saying all opinions were homogenous but most of my liberal friends supporte

This dichotomy was made extremely apparent to me during the pandemic. In the US, not saying all opinions were homogenous but most of my liberal friends supported government actions during the pandemic (e.g. closures originally, then mask mandates, vaccine mandates, etc.) I'm friends with a number of folks from Eastern Europe, a couple of whom spent their early childhood under Ceausescu, and the difference couldn't have been more stark. While these friends generally agree with things like union support, worker protections, environmental action, LGBT rights, etc., their opinions were pretty much lockstep with the US right in terms of the pandemic, and it was clear this was due to ingrained government distrust. The sad thing to me is that while I could clearly understand and wholeheartedly agree with some of their positions, it got to the point where it often veered off into "crazytown" in my opinion ("You're not going to inject Bill Gates' mind control poison, are you?")

Swizec 3y ago
> their opinions were pretty much lockstep with the US right in terms of the pandemic, and it was clear this was due to ingrained government distrust As a person born in communism but too young to remember, now living in USA, my attitude during pandemy was best described as: The mandates are more like guidelines than actual rules. They were definitely a good thing. We needed people not to congregate en masse in poorly ventilated spaces. But joke’s on you if you think that means I won’t go running without a mask, not like I’m breathing in peoples’ face for extended periods.
digging 3y ago
What really sucks is that I can't say anybody is wrong for being skeptical of a government, insofar as any large organization with power over individuals is dangerous. But the critical mistake they are making is that this doesn't mean a government action can't be good. Coordinating public health responses is probably one of the most good government actions possible, and it was vilified for political power. In my mind, it's analogous to a starving rural person saying they should have their hunting rifle melted down (condemning them to likely death) because lots of people have been unjustly murdered by assault rifles. Yes, guns are dangerous - they're powerful, and power is dangerous. So we recognize that there can be abuses of the power of guns (and governments), and we already have guardrails against some of the most egregious abuses - very few people argue citizens should have free access to heavy machine guns and missile launchers. What we argue about is where we should draw the line between usefulness vs risk of abuse of abuse. And in this analogy, there are some people so scared of guns that they're saying we shouldn't even have them available as a simple hunting tool. Bringing it back to government, people are so traumatized by government abuses, regardless of whether those abuses happened to them or even happened at all, that they're sort of arguing for the melting down of the government even when it is genuinely acting in their best interest. Except it's worse, because the anti-mask movement is not trying to actually abolish government at all, just weaponize their own fear for targeted harm.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The issue is that there's a difference between coordinating and coercing. If you want to have a body that studies the best way to stymie a pandemic and make recommendations, and one of those recommendations is to wear a mask in certain circumstances, that's great. If that body has a reputation for being competent and reasonable then most people will follow their recommendations. The problem comes when those recommendations become regulations which get enforced without context or nuance, because then people chafe, and it becomes a political issue, and then people resist for the sake of resisting. Which makes everything worse, and that doesn't work. The thing that works is for people to actually believe in the rules and follow them out of solidarity and self-interest. But then you don't need to point a gun at anybody. And by the time you've sullied your own reputation to the point that you do have to, you've already lost.
  - digging 3y ago
    > The problem comes when those recommendations become regulations which get enforced without context or nuance, because then people chafe, and it becomes a political issue, and then people resist for the sake of resisting. Which makes everything worse, and that doesn't work. The core issue was fearmongering and misinformation. We had people on TV, on the internet, reaching a wide audience, just making up lies about the pandemic or "just asking questions" in a way that is identical to making up and spreading lies. They did this for power, for ratings, for fun, whatever. It is also true that the implementation was not great and that Americans have a cultural tendency to petulance when "told" to do something, but I expect most of that could have been worked through if there wasn't such an active opposition.
sneak 3y ago
Fact is, statistically speaking throughout history, distrusting government mandates is almost always a safe bet. Of course, it's not true 100% of the time, but even if it's only 70% (and I'm pretty sure it's higher than that) it's a good default personal policy.

Swizec 3y ago

> their opinions were pretty much lockstep with the US right in terms of the pandemic, and it was clear this was due to ingrained government distrust As a person born in communism but too young to remember, now living in USA, my attitude during pandemy was best described as: The mandates are more like guidelines than actual rules. They were definitely a good thing. We needed people not to congregate en masse in poorly ventilated spaces. But joke’s on you if you think that means I won’t go running without a mask, not like I’m breathing in peoples’ face for extended periods.

digging 3y ago

What really sucks is that I can't say anybody is wrong for being skeptical of a government, insofar as any large organization with power over individuals is dangerous. But the critical mistake they are making is that this doesn't mean a government action can't be good. Coordinating public health responses is probably one of the most good government actions possible, and it was vilified for political power. In my mind, it's analogous to a starving rural person saying they should have their hunting rifle melted down (condemning them to likely death) because lots of people have been unjustly murdered by assault rifles. Yes, guns are dangerous - they're powerful, and power is dangerous. So we recognize that there can be abuses of the power of guns (and governments), and we already have guardrails against some of the most egregious abuses - very few people argue citizens should have free access to heavy machine guns and missile launchers. What we argue about is where we should draw the line between usefulness vs risk of abuse of abuse. And in this analogy, there are some people so scared of guns that they're saying we shouldn't even have them available as a simple hunting tool. Bringing it back to government, people are so traumatized by government abuses, regardless of whether those abuses happened to them or even happened at all, that they're sort of arguing for the melting down of the government even when it is genuinely acting in their best interest. Except it's worse, because the anti-mask movement is not trying to actually abolish government at all, just weaponize their own fear for targeted harm.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
The issue is that there's a difference between coordinating and coercing. If you want to have a body that studies the best way to stymie a pandemic and make recommendations, and one of those recommendations is to wear a mask in certain circumstances, that's great. If that body has a reputation for being competent and reasonable then most people will follow their recommendations. The problem comes when those recommendations become regulations which get enforced without context or nuance, because then people chafe, and it becomes a political issue, and then people resist for the sake of resisting. Which makes everything worse, and that doesn't work. The thing that works is for people to actually believe in the rules and follow them out of solidarity and self-interest. But then you don't need to point a gun at anybody. And by the time you've sullied your own reputation to the point that you do have to, you've already lost.
- digging 3y ago
  > The problem comes when those recommendations become regulations which get enforced without context or nuance, because then people chafe, and it becomes a political issue, and then people resist for the sake of resisting. Which makes everything worse, and that doesn't work. The core issue was fearmongering and misinformation. We had people on TV, on the internet, reaching a wide audience, just making up lies about the pandemic or "just asking questions" in a way that is identical to making up and spreading lies. They did this for power, for ratings, for fun, whatever. It is also true that the implementation was not great and that Americans have a cultural tendency to petulance when "told" to do something, but I expect most of that could have been worked through if there wasn't such an active opposition.

sneak 3y ago

Fact is, statistically speaking throughout history, distrusting government mandates is almost always a safe bet. Of course, it's not true 100% of the time, but even if it's only 70% (and I'm pretty sure it's higher than that) it's a good default personal policy.