• xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Seriously, what’s the point of government if not to HELP US.

      We would get surprisingly far if we got to a place where the government didn’t actively hinder us.

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          Off the top of my head:

          • removing school lunch programs
          • removing women’s reproductive rights
          • dragging feet on legalizing marijuana
          • gerrymandering certain states/districts to keep one party in power
          • politicians being bought by the highest corporate bidder

          Those are all pretty big ways in which the government hinders the population at large.

          • orrk@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            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)

            • kase@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              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.

              Apologies if I misunderstood your comment tho.

              • orrk@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                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

              • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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                10 months ago

                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. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/healthier-school-lunches-may-have-curbed-childhood-obesity-new-study-finds/2023/06 – 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.

    • andymouse@slrpnk.net
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        “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.”

        • PorkRoll@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I don’t think quoting a bunch of slave-owners and misogynists who did none of all that is proving the point you’re trying to make.

      • orrk@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        no, we did invent the government, or do you really think that for however bad this is, the literal warlord nobility that predates it was Superior?