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I think everyone does see that there is good government and bad government. They just disagree about which one is the good one and which is the bad one. The re
by Aurornis 5mo ago
I think everyone does see that there is good government and bad government. They just disagree about which one is the good one and which is the bad one.
The real problem is when people demand heavy government involvement but don’t think about what could go wrong if an administration decided to misuse the regulation. They just assume it’s going to be used perfectly as they imagined it, usually to punish the companies they dislike while completely sparing the companies they like.
A good example is the usual chorus of people demanding heavy regulations or bans of social media, who always imagine that the regulator won’t touch their websites. They imagine surgical laws hitting Facebook and TikTok because they don’t use those websites, but they imagine the law won’t touch their Discords or require them to do any age verification on their phone or PC for the sites they use. Then we get the intrusive age and ID checking law proposals that everyone hates.
- EvanAnderson 5mo ago> I think everyone does see that there is good government and bad government. I only know the time and place I've lived in (United States, born in 1977), but I feel like the trope of "all government is bad" has been the rallying cry of conservatives since the Reagan era. I'm convinced enough people have grown up hearing that trope that your assumption is incorrect. I think a ton of people believe there can only be bad government because they've never had to think about it-- they've been told that from birth. I'm not a student of history. Maybe this isn't a new thing and this "all government bad" trope has been a consistent feature of US politics. It doesn't feel like it, though.
- gcanyon 5mo agoThey say government is bad, and then set about making that statement true :-/
- slopinthebag 5mo ago[flagged]
- yoyohello13 5mo agoBullshit. There is a spectrum of good and bad. If you truly believed all government is bad, then please feel free to move to a banana republic.
- slopinthebag 5mo agoName a good government.
- jacker38 5mo agoAustralia has a good government. It's extremely middle of the road due to Mandatory voting attendance and preferential voting. It's very much wisdom of the crowd. It's a good system and the results across the board from wealth inequality, GDP per capita, human development pretty much speak for themselves. it basically forces a really centrist approach because everyone preferences all of the candidates you never want to use outrage politics or it will backfire. It also has an independent body that defines where the electorate borders are so gerrymandering is not really a thing.
- slopinthebag 5mo agoThe Australian government enforced assimilation policies that systematically removed Aboriginal children from their families. The Australian Human Rights Commission concluded that this state-sanctioned policy constituted an act of genocide. During early colonization, government troops and police forces were directly involved in the planned and calculated mass slaughter of Indigenous communities. Archival records frequently referred to these indiscriminate killings using the codeword "dispersal". In Afghanistan, Australian special forces were involved in the unlawful killing of Afghan prisoners and civilians. In 2025, laws were passed allowing bans on protests for up to three months, and activists face arrest and imprisonment for demonstrations relating to climate change and the Gaza conflict. If any group other than the state did any of these things they would be rightfully disbanded, instead people praise mandatory voting???
- intended 5mo agoIf that is the case, then its no skin off of anyone’s back to state it. As long as I have paid attention to American politics, it’s always had a major undercurrent of “all government bad”, with a subtext of “this thing I know about is an exception”.