For Context: I live in the United States of America.
Well, we’re all afraid of your government, and we don’t even live there.
Define constantly, define afraid.
If you continually maintain readiness for government violation of your rights, no problem. If your heart rate is elevated and you’re sweating in fear, that’s a pretty serious problem.
As Bruce Lee said, “Do not be tense, but ready”.
Yeah the government is a monster and it might come get you. That’s true. But the likelihood it’s coming to get you right now is very low and being in constant fear is no way to live. And the government isn’t the only monster.
Buuuuut, if you think your houseplant is an undercover CIA agent or your entire family including your dog has been replaced with hyper realistic govt robots, you need to seek medical attention immediately.
If they replaced your family they definitely replaced your psychiatrist too.
it’s not impossible that they even replaced you!
Holy shit I’m delicious
Your lithium isn’t actually lithium anymore, it’s govt nanobots that are going to implant in your brain and emit and receive 5g waves.
Im so happy cause today I found my friends. They’re in my head. I’m so vaxxed up, its okay cause so are you, we broke our cells. Buy my groceries in a daze cause I’m 5G.
And the government isn’t the only monster.
Very important. Otherwise you become a Libertarian or a Theocrat.
Well I’m a libertarian because it takes into account all the other monsters. The goal of government is to maximize freedom. That doesnt’ mean anarchy, because people are less free under anarchy than they are under properly-operating government.
IMO a government should be just powerful enough to prevent other governments from forming. Like, the purpose of an army in a democracy is to prevent other armies from coming to install a dictatorship over the people.
Or to mirror the common saying about guns: “The only way to stop a bad government with an army, is with a good government with an army”.
But the other monsters are gangs, corporations, individuals. And a good government enforces rules that prevent those other monsters from taking away your freedom.
But yeah. Basic point is that libertarian => government’s purpose is to maximize freedom
Libertarians are anarchists with suits. I hope you are a edgy 16 year old because I think you got a lot to learn about how the government works and how society works
Libertarians are anarchists with suits
You don’t see this as “edgy” at all? Like what value are we to obtain from this comment as readers?
The American libertarian party and anarchists in all of their flavors (minus an-caps) are wildly different. What brought you to that conclusion?
I get the sentiment, and agree with it in theory. But in practice, the libertarian party in America is going to give you corporate tyranny
We already have corporate tyranny. That’s why Lemmy exists.
But why do you think that about the American Libertarian party specifically?
So, I was gonna do a lot of research into seeing if the libertarian party actually proposes policy the way you suggested (in that corporate tyranny limits freedoms and therefore the libertarian party would be for policy that regulates corporations) but that’s a lot of work I don’t wanna do so instead I’m going to ask you if you’re aware of any such policy
By the way, I am very pro small business (I partner with some friends in our own business, actually), and recognize the sentiment of “if the government regulates the market, then who regulates the government”. I would like to see the government solve positive and negative externalities by providing contracts to small businesses, as well as have the government function as a competitor to big corporations. But from what I can tell, the libertarian party is libertarian in the sense that they think government should have no authority over the markets.
Again, I want it to be extremely accessible for individuals to take initiative in the market, but eveb right wing economists recognize that market failures exist for capitalism (such as in climate change or cybersec) and those negative externalities need to be addressed through some kind of regulation
Most people worry the US will ruin their lives. Completely normal.
One thing to consider when you constantly feel something is “why?”
Why are you constantly afraid of the government?
Fear is our response to danger, it motivates us to take actions to protect ourselves. Fear in the presence of danger is normal, fear in the absence of danger is not a tremendously helpful emotion. The hard part now is really truly identifying why you fear the government.
Your first reaction might be to start listing grievances, the direct reason you fear the government. This could range from reasonable concerns, “they have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence and use that monopoly to attack me physically,” to less reasonable concerns like “they are lizard people.”
I’d invite you though to try to not stop at the list of grievances and interrogate “why” you believe that grievance is real.
Consider these two examples.
I fear the government because the police beat me up. I fear being beaten up because physical violence is painful and living without physical safety is truly dangerous. My fear is likely a reasonable response.
I fear the government because they are going to join in a new world order where the satanists and the the blue-eyed people are plotting to turn us all into Babylon 5 fans by putting sriracha in the public water supply. I fear this because I’ve watched several thousand hours of YouTube videos be people that have convinced me of this plot. The people making these videos are trustworthy because… hmm… they say they are. The people making the videos make money by me watching their videos and buying their merchandise because I believe in them. I believe in them because they claim to have the only way to keep me safe from this danger I’m very afraid of. Uh oh, this fear is irrational and being fed by people that profit off me always being afraid.
I fear the government because of events since the 2016 election. Because of the January 6th pro-administration insurrection/auto-coup attempt.
I’d consider your fear to be rational, although others might disagree.
Governments, by their nature, hold a monopoly on the “legitimate use of violence.” That’s a pretty terrible power to abuse and the best systems we have for holding power in check is to diffuse it into many people and set those people somewhat at odds with each other, aka, checks and balances.
I would consider J6 to be a failed coup, and coups are often about consolidating power into fewer and fewer hands, purging groups at odds with a strong man leader, which is fertile ground for abuse of power.
Now though you have to decide what to do with that fear. You have to decide how you want that fear to be a part of your life. Fear exists to tell us of danger, it’s our limbic system telling us to pay attention. You get to decide now if this danger is real and if living in fear is appropriate.
There are many reactions to fear, but I’ve found that positive action and mental health support are good responses to fear.
As an example, I struggle with anxiety, and it sucks because when you are anxious about something it’s common to avoid it and then you never fix it so it makes you more anxious and then you avoid it more, repeat. It took mental health support in the form of therapy and anti anxiety medicine to give me the tools I needed to start taking positive action that started tackling the things causing me anxiety. Now though, much less anxiety, the things that made me anxious weren’t helpful, it wasn’t helpful to my life to be constantly worrying about things I could address once I wasn’t constantly worrying.
Fear is a difficult emotion to live with day in and day out. Perhaps there are positive actions you can take to help address these fears, run for office, vote, volunteer for candidates you believe in. I know that therapy was helpful for me in understanding why I feel what I feel and how to make healthy choices around those feelings.
I hope you find some measure of peace though, you aren’t alone. I share your concerns, and many other people do, and I’ve decided to work my hardest to prevent it since that’s all I can do. History is full of assholes trying to fuck shit up for their own benefit and decent people unfucking that shit up.
Found the lizard person.
It’s not normal to be constantly afraid of anything. That’s not healthy.
It’s normal and advisable not to completely trust the government, but being constantly afraid is paranoid.
For Context: I live in the United States of America.
It’s so cool that you say that! Most Americans just assume they are the default and don’t have to say where they are from.
For Context: I live in Europe
In the early days of the Internet, they were.
“You work for DARPA? No way! I also work for DARPA! I’m on terminal 3!”
How constantly are we talking? I think some degree of fear is completely reasonable. If the government wants to, they could ruin your life in countless ways. They can often detain, injure, or kill you legally, and even if it’s not legally, there’s a good chance that nothing will happen to them. They can pass laws that will make your life harder, very possibly to the point of pushing you out or not wanting to continue living.
I’m not sure which type of fear you have or where you’re located, so I’m not gonna try to downplay your fear. There’s absolutely some places where you should be afraid of what the government might do at any moment. eg, Russians have a lot more to be afraid of from their government than someone from, say, Canada. Similarly, LGBT folks have a lot to be afraid of from quite a scary number of governments around the world, as well as even some regional governments (such as Florida). But in some places, your fear may be taking it too far, particularly if it’s impacting your life too much, since frankly there is no place in the world where governments aren’t scary if they wanted to fuck with you.
EDIT: I see another comment of yours mentioning US things. Perhaps the best thing of note for the US is that your state is very influential. The difference between California vs Florida is like night and day. If you’re not already in a state that is moving in the right direction, you may feel safer in such a state. Obviously there’s still federal government power and even progressive states abuse their powers, but there’s no shortage of examples of progressive states standing up against tyrany from the federal government and going out of their way to protect people that other states are actively persecuting.
Don’t give the government any more information than you have to.
Don’t stand out.
Be smart about the laws you break.
If you do all that and your fear of government is greater than the fear of a car accident, then you’re not being rational.
Don’t give the government any more information than you have to
vs
Don’t stand out
Well which is it? I guarantee “totally mysterious, private type who shares nothing ” is one of the things the government pays attention to.
If it is something that makes you stand out, that would likely count in the category of information that you’d “have” to give out.
If your entire country runs on WhatsApp — for example — there’s not really a practical reason to insist on not using the app just ‘cause of Meta ownership.
Chances are, it doesn’t really matter in the sea of all the others that do the same. Bit of a balance to strike, but not too worrisome if a little bit of personal privacy is the only concern, like your average person.
It’s funny that I have to explain it, but just share any information that makes you look like a very average person, without anything that might make you stand out.
Obviously, you have to give them some information, to adhere to “don’t stand out”.
Well when you say the opposite of what you mean, it does tend to require explanation.
I’m from the states and I’m always a little afraid they will find some strange reason and then put me in jail.
Like, in 2005 you downloaded a movie… jail!
Or
You made a mistake on your taxes 4 years ago… jail!
Obey every law perfectly? Believe it or not, also jail. America is so great because of jail.
/s
People that overcook chicken should go to jail /s
Undercook fish, Jail.
Deleted
The works of Franz Kafka may appeal to you.
Thanks for the recommendation. I just looked him up.
There’s your problem. It should be set to Freedom, not Theocracy.
When I was a regular user of illegal drugs, I was always afraid of police.
No lol wtf is wrong with you all. Americans have accepted their corporate sefdom as normal?
I’m gonna be real with you, chief: I think Western Europe and maybe East Asia are the only regions where it’s not normal to be afraid of government
East Asia? Home of North Korea, China, Myanmar et al?
Living in the u.s.? Sounds about right.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Governments are scary. Only organization that has a monopoly on force and will never face consequences.
Well, are you a capitalist? Then no. If you aren’t, you definitely do. Here is the thing, we, workers, are stronger together.
I don’t really care about the Capitalist-Socialist spectrum, I just want to live a normal happy life without tyrannical oppression. Capitalists are evil, and so far any Communist/Socialist societies have become totalitarian regimes and now ended up as Capitalist anyways, but even worse than your typical Capitalist country that still has democracy (China is a State-Capitalist country with no democracy, ironic, given how Communist they claim to be).
so far any communist/socialist societies have become totalitarian regimes
Uh. You need to broaden your perspective. 1) many countries in Europe have more socialistic governments than the USA. 2) socialism is a spectrum with varying levels. The USA while ostensibly capitalist, has socialist roads and schools and police.
Socialism is when people own the means of production. I’d argue that’s different than infrastructure, though it is a murky line between infrastructure and capital.
Socialism is a range. It’s a tough concept to understand, but once you do, you become more…flexible
Last time someone dropped “you don’t understand socialism” on me I asked them for their definition and I got a youtube video of a professor giving me the definition I gave above.
Is that not the definition you use of socialism? How do you define it?
I’ll remind you that bones enable faster locomotion, and they accomplish it by their inflexibility. Clear, non-fluid concepts can do that too. We need a solid, simple definition of socialism to make any progress here don’t you think?
I agree, but that isn’t reality. Even Richard Wolff agrees that there is a spectrum.
But what’s at one end of the spectrum here?
Light is a spectrum, and the ends of that spectrum are defined: 0 frequency at one end and infinite frequency at the other. A spectrum covering an infinite number of points ranging between two precise, simple definitions.
I define socialism as: joint ownership of the means of production by the people
I like the definition of capitalism as this, from wikipedia:
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor.
My short snarky definition is: Capitalism is the economic system where cooperation requires consent.
No no, socialims is when I have two cows and the government eats one of them (or something like that, I didn’t advance much in my theory)
