Distrust its gov't? Last time I checked Americans were willing to give up there freedom and security with the patriot act for fears of attack. Not to mention re-elect officials that blatently lie to them and invade/occupy other nations. Distrust..perhaps in ways that will help them like medicare and infrastructure regulation. The U.S.A...the one country that I fear will start goose-stepping at any givin moment.
Why does America fear/distrust it's government?
- Thread starter Da Orky Man
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Recently, a congressman who never changed his ideals and always fought and shouted for what he believed in was ousted because of a sexless sex scandal. There's another congressman, the one who represents my district, to be exact, who holds a prominent position in the economic ring of Congressional matters, and he hasn't changed since when he first started, even after he came out as the first openly gay congressman. People like to think it's the corruption of government officials that keeps the country from moving forward, but how many people do you know have in the past several months called or wrote their congressman or senator and said "Don't do this or you lose my vote" or "Do this and you have my vote". If you live in the US, it's probably close to none.conflictofinterests said:
Well said!JMeganSnow said:
It's sad that so many Americans claim to represent the ideas of liberty and freedom, and yet they seek to destroy those very ideals through manipulation of the government.
California is a GREAT example of this!
California (or should we say, "The People's Republic") is an example of how this principle has failed. Everyone is always worried about what everyone else is doing, and it's a little ridiculous.
Forgive my harshness. I see a lot of blame placed in this kind of debate, and a lot of... subjective "truths". Voters often only take their own beliefs into consideration, which is why they dislike the government so much, and why little gets done. They want less taxes so they can buy more. They don't care, or don't know, that taxes pay their police officer uncle's salary. Or they want the war in Afghanistan to end, because they say too many US troops have died. They forget, or don't know, what happened the last time the US left Afghanistan in a rush after intervening in a crisis; Al Qaeda was formed out of spite, and the Taliban reformatted out of opportunity.Booradlee said:
Because the country was founded as a result of the controlling gov't being a bunch of jerks. As such, our own gov't system is seen as a necessary evil when it was set up. When that's your starting point, distrust makes sense.
because, as South Park put it, "over 1/3 of Americans are retarded".
there are people who think 9/11 was an inside job, of course there's gonna be idiots who think Big Brother is out to get them...
there are people who think 9/11 was an inside job, of course there's gonna be idiots who think Big Brother is out to get them...
A large number of people have already stopped thinking.Kleingeier said:
Also, there are systems where, when areas get a number of seats in the same governmental structure, they get proportional representation to who won. Say, 60% voted Republican, 30% voted Democrat, 10% voted Libertarian (or your minority party of choice), that area, if given 10 representatives, would get 6 Republicans, 3 Democrats and 1 Libertarian, meaning that you can support a party that better fits your ideals without throwing away your vote.
Voting for someone who actually represents your interests outside the main two parties in the current system is effectively throwing away your vote, because that area from before was divided up into 10 smaller areas, each of which only got ONE representative, wherein you'd see a sharp increase in Republican representatives, and NO Libertarian representatives, which is a very poor representation of the will of the people.
Two party systems may be a self checking system, but the only things this system seems to check at present is any attempt to pass legislation. Republicans and Democrats are so entrenched in their anti-other mentalities, that anything the other proposes, even if it's in the interests of both, or even in the interests of the nation as a whole, has to be either rejected or rewritten so the non-originating side can take credit for it. There is no way to encourage cooperation within the current system, it's too adversarial.
The government, to be a legitimate government, has to accomplish things on behalf of its people. The current government fails to do this, or at least fails to do this with enough numbers to validate it's current iteration.
The current owner of Fox News drafted the idea for an establishment conservative news outlet that would provide people with a means of attacking left wing politicians.theultimateend said:
It's postmodernism at work. In our current culture, the illusion of Big Brother and the Lizardmen holds more weight because it's everywhere and infinitely more exploitable. Now every one is a conspiracy theorist and everything is a sign. Nixon and Kissinger did indeed ruin things. Reagan made them worse. Now the only plausible answer is that the government is to blame for everything, and yet at the same time, everyone agrees that the government has no power and the corporations rule. Blame everyone; do nothing.
I would have to disagree with your private industry pointTStormer said:
individual innovation is what allows for creative thinking and advancement as individuals. The state itself, only thinks of adding more to itself so that it can better control our lives from how we eat to what we want to watch or read. The state can become like an overbearing overprotective parent, but the government needs to realize that we are not all children that still needs to hold hands to get anywhere. Private industry is much better than socialist industry.
Everyone should pull their own weight and should not whine to their government if they want more for doing less. This is where socialism and communism fail - socialism wants to give the unequal equal parts while communism distributes wealth and even the lazy can get ahead without needing to do anything. Capitalism promote work ethic and innovation.
We, as Americans or any democratic, capitalistic nation for that matter, need to be able to have control over what we want or need and that includes the government. The government should never be able to tell us how we should live our lives. As history has shown - too much government control leads to revolt and eventually collapse, however, mankind is incapable of maintaining a sense of individuality for any extended period of time.
A good note: as soon as there were two people on Earth, one was already trying to control the other.
I was taught by my parents that the Republican party is a team of evil, lying, hypocritical douchebags who constantly try to wiggle around the rules that were made when the nation was formed. They are currently behind the wheel of Congress.
Personally I'd be more afraid of corporations having power in a very capitalist society. Not that I'd want to get rid of all corporations or completely remove their power (that would suck for everyone) but I've always thought that they had more reason to screw us over than the government. Some people have told me "corporations can't screw us over cos they'd get caught and lose money", a statement that I have a full list of problems with:Serving UpSmiles said:
1) Businesses are perfectly willing to make big gambles (which is one of the reasons we're in a recession right now) in the name of greed.
2) Businesses tend to be more clever about screwing people over without you knowing.
3) When people DO find out the corporations are screwing people over some of them will come out and say that the victims are the bad-guys.
4) Because in modern America even suggesting to the Right Wing that a Corporation may be more corrupt than the government boogeyman is enough to get you called a Nazi.
I personally don't trust our government because they only want one thing, and they will do anything and everything in their power to get it. They will lie to you, say what you want to hear, and make problems out of nothing all in the hopes of increasing public opinion and getting re-elected.
Granted, there are the few who want to make a difference, but they're overshadowed by that majority that are self-righteous, egotistical assholes.
Granted, there are the few who want to make a difference, but they're overshadowed by that majority that are self-righteous, egotistical assholes.
All the more reason to give them their own personal party?conflictofinterests said:
In that situation, you still have a Democratic majority. In that situation, you also have six democrats roughly voting in kind, 3 republicans resisting, and 1 libertarian trying to use the legislative process to dismantle the legislative process. How's that for a more effective solution?
The will of the people is a selfish and regionally-affected one that only halts the US national arena. If the will of the people was so infallible and considerable, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would exclude over a third of the states in the Union. Almost 50 years later, a political majority of Southerners still think inter-ethnic marriage should be illegal. The will of the people also dictates homosexuals are not full-fledged citizens, no matter the party. Trust me, politics is not so brilliantly kaleidoscopic that a know-nothing and a libertarian are going to suffer because they have to vote for a Republican.
You're wrong again. The DREAM Act, for instance, was put forth by Republicans. Democrats clamored to get a vote for that bill in Congress. The "will of the people" in late 2010 reversed that progress when a new wave of social conservatives entered the fray. Just last week in New York, a new same sex rights bill was passed by a state senate with a Republican majority. This illusion that the two party system is an unmoving two-part block of ideology is just that, a centrist half-truth to justify the intellectual stasis of postmodern apathists and vacillating idealists.
All governments are flawed. Autocracy is the only political model where a political decision can be made without mass opposition against it from another political force. And I doubt you want autocracy.
There was a great example of ALL of those points in American history. It was called the Robber Baron Era, and it was the reason Labor Unions started popping up (but they caught a shit ton more flack than they do today) Corporation: LABOR UNIONS ARE STOPPING MY TRAINS, GOVERNMENT, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Government: ALRIGHT, HERE ARE SOME OF OUR MILITARY UNITS. STRAIGHTEN OUT AND FLY RIGHT, WORKERS. ALSO, STOP DOING THAT UNION THING. WE DON'T LIKE THAT. The workers were doing the Labor Union thing because of something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpTJg2EBpw&feature=relatedJumpingbean3 said:
It seems to me that the media is the main source of the fear. Our news sources come in many different varieties, but they all seem to agree that breeding fear is the main source for good ratings. And there's no real cure for that. It would only take one well placed, far reaching failure (resource depletion, infrastructure failure) for us to "rip each other apart through fear". And if it doesn't happen that way, we will make sure it does through the slow passage of time. Its aggravating to watch your own people burn, but there doesn't seem to be a doable solution. Realistically we've been around for more than two hundred years, historically speaking that's a good amount of time for your average nation. Within this century there will be either a major shift, or total failure, and really its just our time.
I think I answered the question somewhere in there.
I think I answered the question somewhere in there.
also what he saidWalter Sobchak said:
because every single movie about the CIA or some other government agency are fucking scary. i mean just imagine if there was a real Jason Bourne out there and at any moment your government could end your life with him. you don't fuck with Bourne.
First of all, I do think that if he were in a situation that would allow him to push through whatever laws he wanted to, he would be quite a bit more socialist than he currently is, so I do believe he's a socialist (which I view as a good thing), however because of the ingrained fear of left-wing politics, anything approaching what would be considered the middle-left in Europe is considered to basically be communism.Woodsey said:
But enough on that, my second point is the main thing I want to say:
Exactly how were the colonies treated badly? They (or at least the white peopel there, though it was basically only white people involved in the uprising) were subject to basically the same laws as everyone else in the UK, and around that time less than 5% of the population were given the vote anyway (which was pretty standard in the advanced countries at that time) -- only the middle class land owners and up were allowed to have their say in the running of the government via a vote back in Britain, so really, for the working class man, there was really no difference in how important their say was either at home or in the colonies.
American history has always taught this story of how the British ruthlessly suppressed and abused the people living in their colonies, when in fact conditions there (for white people, that is) were never anywhere near as bad as inner city London (or any other industrial city in the UK) at the time. Taxes were no worse for the people in the colonies in north than anywhere else in the globe (under British control I mean).
OT:
I think that generally, the bigger a country, the more distant the government seems, and the more distant the government, the more wary the citizens are of it.