❝❝So "lurching abruptly to the right" is bad but "lurching abruptly to the left" (as happened eight years ago) is good?

Interesting.

Personally I think making government much smaller and letting people make their own choices is the better way.

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Are people better if they are more free or more controlled?

Do the costs of having a bureaucracy monitoring compliance outweigh the benefits?

Most importantly, would most people make the right choices without having a gun held to their head? Can you be a good person without being forced?

I can't answer these questions for you. But you should think about them.

What happens when the government you don't like is elected? How is that worse than when you like the government but someone else doesn't?

ETA: Getting back to the Aridia story, why is resistance to an oppressive government a good thing? Can a left wing government be just as oppressive as a right wing government?

Maybe the real problem is government? Maybe unrestrained government will aways be oppressive?

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It depends on your assumptions.

Do people need to be governed?

Or do people need to be free?

Perhaps the founding principle of Western civilization is parity. One expression is the Ethic of Reciprocity, Christians know it as the Golden Rule. Don't do it if you don't want it done to you.

All this talk about how a right wing government is inherently dangerous while almost everyone here assumes that a left wing government is inherently beneficial.

Most Americans fall into the same trap. You think that government is good so long as your guys are in charge doing the things you think are important. The idea that government itself is extremely hazardous never occurs to most.

Don't impose your morality on others by force unless you want them to impose their morality on you. After generations of the People of the Book imposing their views on us, why can't we see the danger of imposing our views on them?

Stars above and Earth below, that's about as practical as it is going to get.

Do you want to be governed? Or do you want to be free?

Choose. And make it a damn good one.❞❞

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Tags: government ∙ right vs. left ∙ smaller government ∙ bureaucracy ∙ Western Civilization ∙ Ethic of Reciprocity