I saw this today, it seems to be pretty good.
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What is this post doing in this thread about Government Over/Under Reach?
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yeah, both are often corrupt, but by and large, governments are more accountable to the general public than corporations.
Tell that to the Uyghurs, Armenians (in Turkey), and Sudanese Christians.
Remind me which of those are elected democracies?
Sorry where did Lucy say elected democracies?
I thought she said “but by and large, governments are …”
And China says it has a democratically elected government. Just double checked. Technically Sudan was a democracy when they started persecuting Christians and ended up in a civil war resulting in the creation of South Sudan.
Yeah, the USSR made this claim as well.
I think Cuba does too.
Sure governments can be dicks. History has proven that to be true.
Do you feel the US government falls under that category?
I mean if you are Native American then absolutely the US government is a terrible as any of the ones you mentioned.
But unless you think the US is not a representative democracy where people can actually change the elected leaders, then your are being disingenuous.
fair. Democracies, in which citizens get to elect representatives, tend to be more responsive to the general public than corporations.
Some examples of corporations that have been unaccountable:
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Minamata disease
The US auto industry
Notice that in that last case, it was the government that reined the industry in.
I would say that the representative democracies that have managed not to slide into despotism have done so by expressly limiting the amount of power any 1 individual can get within the government and by limiting the the total legal power of the government. The later prevents a single party from concentrating too much power.
Government certainly needs to be more powerful than any single sector of corporations. But I am definitely a proponent of small government and no corporate monopolies. (I’m not even real happy with duopolies for corps.)
Even democracies have done terrible things, but usually after the people gave away power to an authoritarian state - Nazi German being and extreme example of this.
That’s what makes political apathy among so much of the voting eligible population so disappointing.
But hey if the “over reach of the EPA” adds some cost to construction, I’d prefer that to my rivers catching on fire because corporations police their own waste disposal.
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Maybe indy was pointing out we need more government, to prevent corporations from selling our DNS logs to the Clintons…?
I’m following the title of the thread. You’re on a tangent.
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I assume he was joking. We (not you) hijacked the thread.
I was joking, just riffing off the earlier posts mentioning the extreme thread drift.
The US is a country where politicians frequently get to pick their voters, rather than the other way around. I’m not sure the label of “representative democracy” fits.
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Upon some quick reflection, that’s certainly true for the US House, as well as many state legislatures (state representatives and state senators). It’s even true for many county positions and school boards which often get gerrymandered.
It’s probably more true than not true.
Statewide positions, US Senate and city mayor and dogcatcher are about the only positions not susceptible to gerrymandering.
You make a good point.
And we have the best democracy money can buy!
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I always vote in the primary…
Certainly not in New York. The voters passed changes to the State Constitution to try to reduce gerrymandering and the politicians gamed the system to produce quite possibly the most heavily gerrymandered map in state history. Unless the all D-party judges strike down the D-party gerrymandered map, that is. If you think that’s going to happen, let me show you this bridge for sale.