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.
MLK said, "I have a dream." And so do I. To see America finally sink back into the quagmire it was born out of, and dissolve completely into nothingness. Because there is no future for America, and there is no hope for a better life here. Time for the rats to abandon the sinking ship. When trump is a frontrunner for the presidency, it's time to destroy what is left and let america burn into total obscurity.
The idea that its downfall into fascism would not have knock-on effects around the world, and that all the 'good' people could escape it to greener pastures, is very shortsighted and more than a little naive. It was not destiny that Germany became fascistic, Hitler didn't even win the popular vote. The knock on effects of the fascists being allowed to win was absolutely devastating the world over. Why would the US becoming full blown fascist be any different?
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.
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.
American's vote for the government and fund it with their taxes. To believe it's a system with any other purpose than to serve it's citizens is assenine.
Actually, citizens pay taxes to avoid going to jail or, in the olden days (perhaps soon to be reintroduced), to avoid being killed on the spot.
They vote because when you are locked in a room with no way out, you'll push one of the buttons in front of you frantically - trying to figure out if, perhaps, they are pushed just like this, you'll get out.
When you're not paying taxes or voting, someone richer than Smaug from the Hobbit is cashing in on the rest of your life.
To call this a system that serves its citizens seems... I'm not sure what to call it. Naïve? Misguided? Uninformed?
better than what we had before the whole government thing, if you think this is bad, wait until the warlords come kill you, enslave your children and use your wife as a baby production machine
The warlords are also a government. However, the fact that warlords emerge when government fails shows that government is inevitable, so the best you can do is try to have a good one.
From the post (it's quite extensive with plenty of references):
“Once people are free of state violence and hierarchy, how can they just stop some bad actor from taking over?”
The assumption is that people who are free from coercive hierarchies are powerless to act in their own self defense, alone or in cooperation with each other.
(The question is usually accompanied by some invocation of the dreaded “war lord” whom the questioner assumes will inevitably overrun a nonstate or non-hierarchical community.)
So, I thought I would take a crack at answering this as comprehensively as I can!>>
The assumption is that people who are free from coercive hierarchies are powerless to act in their own self defense, alone or in cooperation with each other.
That's the problem. Acting alone is not an option since an organized force will always defeat a disorganized one, and "cooperation" would mean forming the same kinds of hierarchies and governments that we already have, except they won't have the centuries of stress-testing our present democratic systems have undergone and will therefore fall to corruption and authoritarianism much more easily.
This is why anarchism is such a bankrupt ideology. At best it consists of people willing to burn the world down to institute a system that would be the same but worse.
