It's not an issue of whether or not the government will work for the advantage ofone group of people - it WILL work for the advantage of one group of people. It can't help but. It can't do literally everything - it has to pick and choose specific things. And each of those specific things will, if it provides benefit at all, only provide that benefit for some.
So the issue is merely who is going to benefit.
And the only way for we the people to benefit, as opposed to a handful of wealthy and powerful fuckwads benefitting, is if we the people demand that we're the ones who benefit - if we insist, "No - fuck you - this is our government spending our tax revenue and it's fucking well going to spend it on us!"
Ask not what you can do for you country; we will be the ones asking the questions here. Your country will tell you what to do and either you will obey or there will be consequences, because the revolution was a lie and you are a fool.
I gotta agree with cartoon Bernie on this one. Here in Utah the three big concerns of our upcoming legislative session are: how to ban more transgender people from public restrooms, how to prosecute women who may have had an abortion at anytime in the past, and how to ensure colleges and universities can no longer encourage diversity, equity, or inclusion under criminal penalty. I'm not joking, those are the main focuses of the upcoming session.
Never mind that homelessness is out of control, housing prices are through the roof, drug addiction is at an all time high, and the great Salt lake is now nothing but a mud puddle that will dry up in five years' time.
More important to score political points with your witless white-ass cronies and mormon shit heads.
I'll do my best - you hang tough out there also. I feel bad for people in Oklahoma who are stuck with the same type of right wing nutjobbery we have in Utah. The people are completely the opposite of what the legislature thinks they are. We have absolutely zero say in what goes on.
For example, we voted for fairer redistricting, but the legislature overrode it because it might have allowed a democrat into office.
Even though most of Utah's population is not conservative, we have no voice at all in our government. A lot of is controlled by the mormon church.
Shit sucks indeed. But at least I can harrass and harangue them with letters and opinion pieces in the newspaper that call them out for the scumbags they really are. They hate that.
Yeah I feel like Republicans have been grooming Americans into slack jawed cultists with their war against, education, books, cultural diversity, etc. the government is a sad clown show
It's so odd we have a march today (MLK day) for "Equity, Diversity and Inclusion," while last week our Utah Governor called "equity and diversity the most evil concepts mankind can indulge in." And now Utah colleges are forbidden to allow any diversity in hiring.
Mormons also believe horses existed in North America prior to the Spanish bringing them over. All because a dude who wanted to marry his adopted daughter made some shit up about some golden plates.
Well, there were North American “horses,” they just all died out around 11,400 years ago, so well after the aboriginals got here, but a bit before the Spanish.
The whole Mormon religion is as baseless and nonsensical as a Dr. Seuss story, only more silly. And it's really just a big business, it rakes in money from idiots dumb enough to give up 10% of their income to a cult. I keep telling them, I'm willing to do it for less - all I ask if 5% of your income and you can TA DA suddenly have eternal salvation, and more underage kids to fuck than a weekend with Jeff Dahmer. (!)
I agree totally. I do consider all religion to be poison, or as Marx (I think) said, the opioid of the masses. But really, it's no more or less terrible than any big business that strips people of their personal freedom and demands fealty and money in return.
Governments who do not fear their people have no reason to maintain a culture of obeying their wishes.
You can demand it, but when your election options are all determined by insiders and you further contribute by treating 3rd parties like laughing stock, you’ve got nothing but some weak whatever’s left of a second amendment to hold over them.
That’s crazy talk. You’d have to have some crazy government where you only get to vote every couple of years for one of only two candidates where the only reason to vote for one of them would be to not vote for the other guy for something like that to happen.
I keep telling people, I'll do it for less. Give me just 5% of your income and I'll be happy to fuck you over with inane laws and restrictions, plus I'll let you believe you're going to become a god in the afterlife and have a harem of however many underage kids you want to screw for eternity.
A bit of a weird tangent, but Canadian civil servants are the fucking worst. They make OKish money, and have some of the most secure jobs in the country, which unfortunately means they come with some of the worst attitudes ever. Like, they’ve got this massive chip on their shoulders that they don’t make more money, but they can’t lose their jobs, so they’ll be damned if they’re gonna fucking help you with a problem that totally falls under their purview. I always came out of public buildings with the mantra, “My fucking taxes pay your shitty salary!” running through my head.
I moved to Korea some years back, and was amazed how helpful public officials can actually be. Not that Korea doesn’t have its share of bureaucratic problems, too.
Both of those things may be true, but have you seen Zootopia? The sloth who works in the DMV? That joke falls flat here because Korean DMVs are notoriously fast, efficient, and staffed by competent, courteous people.
Sounds like Canadian gov workers have it figured out. Who gives a shit. Its just a job. Why bend over backwards?
This also a massive over simplified and generally repeated untruth about government employees anyway. It’s a good story to tell when you’re trying to undermine a strong labor group. “They’re lazy”, “they don’t care”, “they have it too good”. Makes for a great premise for a media company that wants to send that message too.
All bullshit.
I find that when I don’t act like an entitled ass and respect what these people are doing, I have perfectly adequate interactions with them.
So, which is it? They have it figured out and underperforming is the way to go, or I’m making a generalization that isn’t true? Ahh, I see. I’m an impolite media company trying to slander hard working bureaucrats.
Seriously, what’s the point of government if not to HELP US. We didn’t invent government to make our lives more difficult. We invented it to keep our shit together. For us. As a property of its existence.
Eh, we DIDN’T invent government. Government invented itself to control and exploit us. They do so to the degree of our tolerance levels and the level to which we are manipulated.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
how do I say this, but free school lunches are provided by the state, wanting less state is literally wanting no free school lunches, rights are also given by the state (the only inherent rights are natural rights, everything beyond might makes right is the state meddling in our lives)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but they didn’t say they wanted less state. Just for the state to do less bad things/things that hinder its citizens. That doesn’t mean they must oppose school lunches, unless they also believe that school lunches fit into that category. You can argue whether or not they do, but ‘you don’t want the government to hinder us, but X is the government hindering us, therefore you must oppose X’ isn’t much of an argument on its own.
I’m for small government so yes, I want less state. But school lunches is definitely one of the last things that should be cut. Since I’m fairly certain that in real world we’re never going to cut or fix the hundreds of things that are more wrong than publically funded school lunches, in practical terms I’m not advocating against them.
That said, just because school lunch is publically funded aka “free” does not necessarily make it good. www.edweek.org/leadership/…/06 – but again, that’s a detail problem that can be fixed (like it was here) without dropping that practice altogether.
And as for the other items in zargotext’s list, I pretty much agree with them too. But also excessive regulation, market distortions of every kind, poor educational systems, bureacracy.
If the context is USA, it’s an old country in modern terms. A lot of cruft has accumulated in 300 years and it’s not getting better. Ditto for many others.
no they want less state because the ideology dictates that the state just does it worse, something that just isn’t born out by reality, case and point school lunches
i talk about balancing books and you jump straight to psychopathy.. shows where your mind is and how low your expectations are.. i'll bet you vote for Republicans who talk a bunch of shit and do nothing but steal..
I’ve just seen plenty of stories about nerds who seem like “good guys” only to see them turn out to be selfish assholes the moment they become successful and start making big money. Especially with tech start-ups.
Although I gotta say, I’d love more nerds in office. The way most (boomer) politicians talk about technology is cringe and often completely without understanding.
Socdem is like “socialism without science fiction and murdering people”. So a lot more ethical, quite a lot more practical, but also doesn’t quite get nearly everything done socialists typically would like to get done.
First of all, social democrat doesn’t mean “watered down socialist”. It means a socialist who favors a democratic electoral structure.
Second, these aren’t tiers. If soc dem was somehow “less socialist” than “socialist” (it isn’t, see above), it would still not be “worse”, just a different set of values.
You linked to an AI-generated site which just regurgitates real information, and even so does not in any way contradict what I said, as if this was a dunk
Social Democrat (which I think is what Bernie is closest to) is not socialist, it is the variant of capitalism used in many European countries (not limited to) like the Scandinavian countries. Democratic socialist is socialist
Not quite true. SocDem means a Social Democrat, ie a Capitalist in favor of strong social safety nets. Social Democrats are not Socialists, and the Nordic Countries are perfect examples of Social Democracies. They have high Unionization, generous social safety nets, and rely on Capitalism as their mode of production.
You’re confusing Social Democrats with Democratic Socialists. Democratic Socialists are generally Socialists who favor liberal democracy over Democratic Centralism, Anarchism, Direct Democracy, Soviet Democracy, or any other form of Democracy. Think America, but when Workers own the Means of Production. They also tend to be more in favor of reform over revolution, though not necessarily.
I agree that there aren’t tiers of Socialism, either Workers own the Means of Production or they don’t, but I had to correct the bit on Social Democracy.
The term “social democracy” is very deceiving nowadays since it does not pertain anymore to the roots of the ideology which has changed quite drastically in the last century.
The original premise was that socialism could be achieved through reform and not revolution (hence it parted ways with the Marxist position). That is, the State’s institutions were suitable enough to “eventually” or “some day” lead to a socialist mode of production, and so cooperation with the state and, by extension, the bourgeoisie were incremental for socialism. This is why socdem parties were firm believers that change comes from the parliamentary electoral structure (Esson, 2022). I am not going to argue why this is problematic—Marx and Engels have said enough regarding this.
However, social democracy as we know it in the modern age is vastly different from what it used to be. The ideology in the 70’s has become attached to the Third Way and socdem parties throughout the world gradually adopted neoliberal policies, pressured by electoral competition. And the Scandinavian countries, home of social democracy, are an exemplary case to this. Just compare their parties’ agenda before and after WW2 and you will see what I am talking about.
To refer to “social democracy” as anything less than capitalism would be factually fallacious.
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