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I don't want to start a left vs right debate, but just imagine how much harder this would be if say half of the adult population was employed by the government.

by devx 13y ago

I don't want to start a left vs right debate, but just imagine how much harder this would be if say half of the adult population was employed by the government. That's why the communist countries tended to be some of the most totalitarian and oppressed, and perhaps more importantly - the longest lasting. People don't want to speak against the government especially when they're working for it, and there are not many job alternatives around. In the end, the revolutions happened when the economy was doing very poorly, and people had nothing to eat, so they didn't have much to lose. Hopefully, Americans are smarter than to wait until that happens, and should revolt, or at least protest before most of the damage has already been done, and you have "nothing to lose".

api 13y ago
There's a left handed sock puppet and a right handed sock puppet. There's one puppeteer: the military-industrial-intelligence-academic complex and its vast revolving door apparatus. It's ultimately about power, oligarchy, control, and big big money... taxpayer money and access to it.
- swombat 13y ago
  > the military-industrial-intelligence-academic complex It's a huge conspiracy! So huge that everyone is in on it... except for you!!!
  - api 13y ago
    It's not a conspiracy in the closed-door pre-planned sense. It's a power network, an oligarchy, an "old boy network" in the classical sense. I never said the word conspiracy, did I? Labeling any criticism of power "conspiracy theory" is a straw man tactic for discouraging real discussion.
vidarh 13y ago
> I don't want to start a left vs right debate, but just imagine how much harder this would be if say half of the adult population was employed by the government. That's why the communist countries tended to be some of the most totalitarian and oppressed, and perhaps more importantly - the longest lasting. That's nonsense. In these countries whether or not you were employed by the government had exactly 0 influence on how dangerous it was for you to speak out against the government. Meanwhile, in many European countries, 1/3 or more of the population works directly or indirectly for the government, yet you won't find many that are the slightest afraid of speaking out against the government - in fact in many of them you have a steady stream of government employed people who are actively involved in political opposition to whichever party is currently in power.

by devx 13y ago

api 13y ago

There's a left handed sock puppet and a right handed sock puppet. There's one puppeteer: the military-industrial-intelligence-academic complex and its vast revolving door apparatus. It's ultimately about power, oligarchy, control, and big big money... taxpayer money and access to it.

swombat 13y ago
> the military-industrial-intelligence-academic complex It's a huge conspiracy! So huge that everyone is in on it... except for you!!!
- api 13y ago
  It's not a conspiracy in the closed-door pre-planned sense. It's a power network, an oligarchy, an "old boy network" in the classical sense. I never said the word conspiracy, did I? Labeling any criticism of power "conspiracy theory" is a straw man tactic for discouraging real discussion.

vidarh 13y ago

> I don't want to start a left vs right debate, but just imagine how much harder this would be if say half of the adult population was employed by the government. That's why the communist countries tended to be some of the most totalitarian and oppressed, and perhaps more importantly - the longest lasting. That's nonsense. In these countries whether or not you were employed by the government had exactly 0 influence on how dangerous it was for you to speak out against the government. Meanwhile, in many European countries, 1/3 or more of the population works directly or indirectly for the government, yet you won't find many that are the slightest afraid of speaking out against the government - in fact in many of them you have a steady stream of government employed people who are actively involved in political opposition to whichever party is currently in power.