Why does America fear/distrust it's government?

[King Toasty]

Sometimes, a little paranoia is healthy. In America's case, a lot of paranoia.

 

[Nosforontu]

I think that you have to keep in mind certain aspects of our history especially in our role as one of the first modern Republics.
1: When we successfully rebelled the original idea of the United States was that we were more a loose collection of nation states directed under a weak centralized over state. This is something I think a lot of Europeans don't quite understand about the American System. That while the Federal government has increasingly been the dominant partner in this relationship that our State government's have always been another very important layer in our history.

I am not really familiar with the workings of the European Union is set up but I think it does have some correlations for how we relate to our government. Think of the EU as your version of the Feds and the individual nation states within the EU as our States and I think you will understand our system of government a bit better (unless of course I am completely off with this analogy which is quite likely of course ).

2: We are a Continental Nation State that has not had a serious contender for control over this continent since probably the time of our civil war a 150 years ago. For the vast majority of our time as a nation state we have not needed a strong central government. Until 1913 the United States Federal government did not even have a permanent federal income tax to support itself (instead it made do largely with various tariff's on trade) though we did have a few brief ones in our history to cover the cost of some our more expensive early wars.

Additionally we benefited from the fact European diseases hugely decimated the local native population and that said native population was several centuries behind Europe in several important technologies. Once we became in our own right this allowed us to advance across the continent with little long term effective resistance.

This gives us a much different historical experience than that possessed by Europeans we did not require an increasingly powerful nation state to compete with other powerful nation states until very late in our history (probably World War I or World War II for that idea to sink in though the Civil War changed things quite a bit as well).

3: We are a continental sized nation with only 300 million citizens spread out across the continent. To be perfectly honest the technology and infrastructure to control such a dispersed population across the continent is fairly recent. Add in the divergent though still recognizably American State Governments and it has been historically very easy for Americans to go off the grid so to speak reinvent themselves else-wear in the country. Again that has changed over the last century but it has historically been true for Americans over our history.

4: Our own experience with the quality of government work has been that the overall quality of the work and is lower and its cost is higher than what we have found in the private sector when those two groups find themselves in competition with each other. This along side Americas Wealth (I believe that we currently control approximately 25% of the worlds G.D.P.) that over all when given the choice between government providing service A or the private sector providing service A that everyone involved is better off if it is the private sector doing the work.

It is even a common belief among many Americans that our wealth and standard of living derives from recognizing that the government needs to be the last choice in our economy to solve a problem that because of the massive size of our country that we have a real inability at the federal level to fine tune a federal answer to local issues without a relatively massive expense compared to any other solution offered.

5: If it isn't broke don't fix it we control approximately 25% of the worlds G.D.P. our domestic borders are absolutely safe from a national incursion from another state on our continent (illegal immigration and possible terrorist infiltration is a different story altogether both being impossible to truly stop because of the size of our borders). Our Navy and Air Force is absolutely the most powerful in the world our Army is arguably the most powerful in the world as well (I would say it is but it has grown ragged over 10 years of fighting in the war on terror and probably needs some secure peace time to refurbish and rest up), and our nation is still among the most advanced in the world.

Quite honestly this does not encourage rapid or radical change in the way our government works. It is going to be resistant and sluggish to change because no one wants to be the one that screws up this level of national dominance.

 

[Xisin]

So, why does America distrust it's government so much more than Europe?

Well seems pretty simple to me. There has been 7 pages of discussion and almost no one agrees with each other. No government is perfect because people run it. Everyone will always disagree therefore no one will ever be completely happy with the way the government is run.

 

[conflictofinterests]

All the more reason to give them their own personal party?

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.

How many instances like the DREAM act can you cite for me? Because if it's ONLY that one, then I retain my opinion, but if you have a fair number of them, I guess I'm wrong.

I'm also very confused as to your argument for the two party system. Your arguments seem to be ones that could be used towards autocracy, as you say. I find it a fair enough argument that the tyrrany of the majority is as threatening as, if not more threatening than the tyrrany of the minority. I just don't understand how minority political parties deserve to be subjugated to majority political parties in this system. Yes, it isn't what I want for the "will of the people" to justify banning interracial or same sex marriage, but the check we have against that is the Supreme Court, to determine the legitimacy of laws, so I don't see how people voting exactly how they want could fuck things up to the extent you're suggesting. Still, I'm open to your arguments.

 

[martin's a madman]

Because they are a bunch of Communist fascist alien lizards.

Or something...

 

[TheTaco007]

The majority of people (not just America, but in the whole world) are complete idiots.

The people who are in power are elected by a majority vote. (yeah, I know it's an electoral vote, but it's close enough)

Therefore idiots pick who is in charge of this country.

How does that NOT scare you?

 

[Woodsey]

Well I imagine the Constitution's set up that way given how Parliament treated the colonies when they first arrived, and the power they tried to exert over them (taxes and stuff, but with no representation or say in how the government was run).

Its not bad to be wary of the government, but it does mean that a lot of people have no grasp on the concept of Socialism (Obama is not a socialist - that is not a matter of opinion), or can see that giving a little more "control" will do them the world of good (health care).

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.

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.

Yeah, there's more than two points on the political spectrum, he's not a socialist.

Anyway, it wasn't to do with conditions, it was to do with them being governed by Britain and having no say in the matter despite the people telling them what's what not having lived there and making them pay taxes. Their situation may have been "better", but they had the means by which to gain control for themselves.

That's my understanding anyway, I've literally only just started that aspect of things in 6th Form.

 

[Mark Hardigan]

First, governments generally never give up power once they gain it. So every time you consent to give a government more power, it's out of the hands of the citizens and in the hands of government officials FOREVER.

QFT. You want proof positive of this, then just read a few history books about the civil war. In the reformation period after the civil war, the federal government took a lot of powers from the individual states. The promise was that these were temporary powers that would only be used to help speed the process of reformation and the reconstruction of the south.

To this day, the states have not gotten those powers back.

 

[mrdude2010]

i dislike the government because certain political parties are more interested in scoring cheap political points to get themselves elected than actually fixing the f*cking country

 

[mrdude2010]

The government has power in a very Captailistic society, I don't see a reason not to fear it.

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:

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.

in addition, to what you've said, choice- the ability to not pay for something if the company running it is overcharging/being a dickweed is absent, because there are too many things that people really can't boycott, can't live without. like food. or healthcare. or gasoline. all of these things end up costing more than they're worth because the companies involved are well aware that they can charge basically what they want and people will probably find a way to pay for it.

and invariably, one corporation ends up controlling a disproportionate chunk of the market, ruining competition. that and the various things all corporations in the same business have agreed upon to make choice more difficult- things like planned obsolescence in appliances (they still cost the same but don't work for as long, so they're forcing you to buy an inferior product, because it's pretty difficult to live without a refrigerator), or cancellation fees (a cell phone company courageous enough to lower their rates to a reasonable level won't be properly rewarded for a year or so while everyone else's subscriptions to other companies run out, because the cancellation fee is usually something stupid like $200)

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

Would anybody trust a country where it's government is daft as the people living under it.

 

[Kleingeier]

All the more reason to give them their own personal party?

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.

How many instances like the DREAM act can you cite for me? Because if it's ONLY that one, then I retain my opinion, but if you have a fair number of them, I guess I'm wrong.

I'm also very confused as to your argument for the two party system. Your arguments seem to be ones that could be used towards autocracy, as you say. I find it a fair enough argument that the tyrrany of the majority is as threatening as, if not more threatening than the tyrrany of the minority. I just don't understand how minority political parties deserve to be subjugated to majority political parties in this system. Yes, it isn't what I want for the "will of the people" to justify banning interracial or same sex marriage, but the check we have against that is the Supreme Court, to determine the legitimacy of laws, so I don't see how people voting exactly how they want could fuck things up to the extent you're suggesting. Still, I'm open to your arguments.

Barack Obama is the most bipartisan president in recent history, but I digress.
Just over five years ago, legislation was passed to make sure Congress could not longer tack on special bills to block transparency in Washington.
In the 90s, there was bipartisan education reform, especially in the way of improving funding for daycare and educational institutions like Head Start for kids.
Just several years ago bipartisan legislation was reintroduced and passed to make hate crimes against the disabled, gays, and women more severely punished under the law, after being rejected in the 90s.
The list goes on.

There is no tyranny of the majority in a two party system. Those minor political affiliations manipulate the course and creed of the two parties(excluding independents) and create a mostly-encompassing political vehicle. The compromise you seek is within the parties. Only when a minority faction rules the majority is it tyrannical.
And you should brush up on your Supreme Court law and history, because the Supreme Court is actually the only aspect of the US government that has no checks in place. Most supreme court decisions are decided in a 5:4 ratio. The five being one party and the four being another.

There is no decision-making in a multiple party system. Instead of two arguments, you might have eight. A nation the size of the US with as many demographics as the US cannot be run democratically. It must be a republic.

It's simply no solution.
How would you decide a vote when there are six democrats, three republicans, and one libertarian, on a nation scale? Does the nation still adopt the democratic policy? Or does each region of the nation adopt the law according to their political swing?

 

[scott91575]

I have a question for all the Europeans and Australians that seem to love to bash capitalism...does the fact your world GDP percentage continues to shrink in the face of American, Asian, and Latin American capitalism scare you at all? USA percentage of world GDP has held pretty steady over the last 40 years (after a huge jump after WW2). Asian countries have seen a steady increase, and Latin America with a slight increase (they would be more of a threat if they could simply implement better law enforcement and reduce corruption). In the mean time, the EU continues a steady decline. If the trend continues the EU will be passed by Asia in the next decade, and in the next 50 to 100 years be similar to Latin America or even Africa.

That pretty much sums up why Americans do not like socialism. Yeah, it's great for a while when you can piggy back on the successes of the past. Everyone gets to share in the current wealth structure. Yet it is destined to be a slow death. Socialism stagnates the economy. In a vacuum it is great, but when going up against foreign competition it will continue to fall behind.

The USA certainly has it's own issues, and I am not in favor of unchecked capitalism. Yet I find it laughable how many people here laud socialism as being great when a continued erosion of your GDP with no signs of reversing is staring you right in the face. Sharing wealth is great, but at some point you won't have any to share.

and to get back to the original point, you trust a government that ignores that trend? Maybe you should trust your government less.

Heck, the US has a similar thing staring them in the face, the national debt. That too was caused by politicians.

 

[Enamour]

As uhh contradictory as this is going to sound mate, I actually agree with 99% of your retort. And yes I do come of as just another hater in this format. Where you're wrong though is that I haven't gone out to find stuff to support a pre-existing opinion. I really don't even want to be bothered by this topic, it's like Justin Bieber; I was happier before I knew of his existence but now I do.

And most everything you've answered on is true except that you're describing a lesser of two evils. The problem is that the US in contemporary history has been a constant lesser of two evils and very often an instigator of evil (evil being used as metaphorical language). It's an historical trend; there has almost always been one form of superpower or another fucking everyone around them over; a ruling class if you will. Most of Africa still hates B for the past.

Now the 1% I don't agree with you. WW2, those companies who supplied the Nazis... CEOs, majority stakeholders etc. were all high up, family members of, or otherwise closely related to US politicians.
As for South America... the CIA seems to have very good luck with opponents of the US when it comes to plane crashes; example newly elected South American presidents, vocal African opposers, and intellectuals who don't always seem to make it to press conferences; even internally unpopular senators... hmm... but this is just conspiracy theorizing.

And lastly, what I said about European governments, of course it's a contemporary comparison since we can't exactly spout world history at each other here. Also you only listed B which is European, the others aren't. But the rest of the examples can be answered with the "ever-present lesser of two evils" argument. Most countries have an "enemy" at any given point in time while the US in the last 50 years has pissed of most of the world and only has reluctant allies left.

I'm sure you know the following sentiment "Americans do not even realize why the world hates them." I'm reminded of South Park Season 7 Episode 1.

P.S Me and an American online friend had this same debate, each time we seperately went fact finding, shit just got worse and worse since neither of us had realized how fucked up the details were. He wasn't a happy American that evening.

Also, the power vaccuum left in Angola caused a very long(27 years, millions dead) civil war to continue. The South African government had warned its ally at the time that withdrawing without a solid government in place would cause that... but the US threatened sanctions. Angola isn't fond the US either.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

Crash Course:

Shady senators like Rob Blagoyavich (however you spell the man's name), shady presidents like Bush, unbelievably stupid candidates for the 2012 election (like Nute Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann), ridiculous new policies like that fancy new internet bill to put us all in jail, two failing wars, a critically high deficit, and a stagnant congress.

 

[Booradlee]

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.

Republicans as a political party weren't around when the nation was formed.

 

[historybuff]

I was flicking through the American health service thread, and noticed that the main argument that the main argument against free healthcare was that they didn't want the government controlling it.
Most American's I've talked to also seem to distrust their government, a lot more than Europe does. Your constitution also seems to have been designed from the ground up to prevent the government from having anything more than a fringe affect on anything.

So, why does America distrust it's government so much more than Europe?

And, for comparison, I live it the UK, and we generally get on ok.

The answer to this is in history. Right after WW2 America trusted its government. The Government looked out for us, got us through the war and the Depression.

After WW2 came the Cold War, where the US and Russia geared up for the arms race that would influence and control politics for the next fifty years.

Then came the rocky 60s. Civil Rights, riots, kids experimenting with every kind of music and drug, women entering the workforce in trousers, Vietnam--there was a lot of change.

And then came Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon is most famous in the this country because of a little thing called Watergate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal). A huge scandal--where, basically, Nixon lied to us and tried to cover-up the whole business.

This was revealed through court proceedings and nearly resulted in his impeachment.


From this point onward, I would say. Americans really don't trust the government. That's why journalists are so important. That's why there are so many points of view on television news programs. They dig up whatever they can--and while it might seem trivial or silly--we do it because we don't want our government pulling a fast one on us.


It was like what was said to Bill Clinton after he decided to own up about his involvement with his intern. We would have forgiven him for the affair---but what we wouldn't forgive is the lying about it.


Of course, that's the more modern government. The reason the constitution and such is written in that way is because America was the first country to have a real elected leadership. We were terrified of monarchies and big governments controlling everything like they did in Europe at the time.

That sets the stage to the creation of a people who are extremely independent and don't want the government all up in their chili. So Europe got to see what did and didn't work for us and adjusted their systems---so now all European governments have some very similar traits (health care, education, more social benefits)--but we didn't adjust. We kind of rolled with the punches, pull you up by your bootstrap sort of thing.

And that kind of attitude lived on for a long time until, I'd say, the last sixty years. As society globalizes and modernizes at a fantastic rate, the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" can't really be applied anymore.

Minimum wage doesn't pay bills or send your kids to college. Rich get richer, the poor become destitute and the middle class struggles along as much as it can.


With that, it would seem like we would embrace free healthcare. But its the national attitude to 1. Distrust the government and 2. Do things by yourself.

It's much harder for previous generations. Young people like me (in their twenties and younger) it'll be easier because my middle class family couldn't pay for college. I put myself through and I never had health insurance. So I never went to the doctor. That is unfortunate. I think it's like 60% of people in crushing debt are so because of medical bills.

It's a tough call. We want to do things on our own--we're afraid to have that control taken away--even though it screws us. So people freak out a little bit at the idea of the government controlling something.

And remember, only the rich from the US get to go to Europe and actually see what you guys have (and make asses of themselves sometimes). Middle class like me and under. We don't get to go. We don't get to see that in northern Europe, you can send your kids to free day care. That in some European countries, you can go to university for free. That some European countries have months of maternity leave and not just a few weeks. That some of you get a whole month of vacation standard. We get two weeks, standard.


I think it's like, Japan is the only other country that works the hours America does.


So I dunno--I admire, at times, the work ethic but if we don't adapt...people will be left behind. So people are gonna rave and rant about the medical system but I personally hope it works out. It'll just take some time for people to get used to it.

 

[Kadoodle]

There are two types of distrust here: Idiot fuckface conspiracy theories, and the ongoing question of how much the government dabbles in our economy. The former can go fuck off, but the latter is a valid question. Most republicans want as little government intervention as possible, whereas democrats are more open to intervention if it is ultimately beneficial to the public well being. As a result, democrats are often labeled as "socialist pigs."

Because Bush won the election twice, noone knows what's going on in there.

Lmao, you just win a cookies.

 

[Nosforontu]

Of course, that's the more modern government. The reason the constitution and such is written in that way is because America was the first country to have a real elected leadership. We were terrified of monarchies and big governments controlling everything like they did in Europe at the time.

I would also add that their was also a real fear of the abuses of that masses as well when we were setting up the Republic as well. That we had a very real fear that if citizens were given direct control over the government rather being filtered via the Republic that they would vote themselves entitlements that the government could not long support.

 

[coolkirb]

its in the American culture to distrtust athority, their country was born in rebelling and thus has allways ahd a keep your nose out of my buisness attitude. In comparision Canada has been very acepting of its government and thus has a lot of civil obidience as we formed a country out of mutual agreement with Brittain through years of distance and a evolving relationship.