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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

I find it interesting when people trash the government. In the US atleast, you have some control over it. If you are getting screwed by the government, you have various outlets to mobilize change and if you don't act on them it's no ones fault but your, since the government answers to it's shareholders: you.

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I didn't vote this guy into office. But I did vote. And I knew going into it that either candidate would've screwed us over in his own way. Most of us have come to terms with the fact that all candidates are for bigger government, it's just whose pork barrels will be filled for the next 4-8 years.

You can be a candidate too. That's the the whole premise of democracy. Choose the right guy, and if the right guy ain't there you can step up.

Or you can keep whining and wait until someone else does it like the rest of us.

That'd be great, if America was a democracy.

I'm sorry, but this just isn't well thought out. I do agree that people should be much more active in politics than they are (and much more educated on the subjects!), but the US has a hopelessly broken government. It will take a great deal more than activism to effect that.

If you were talking about an actual, direct democracy (e.g. Switzerland) then what you say would have some truth to it, but in the US? No.

//you have various outlets to mobilize change and if you don't act on them it's no ones fault but yours

I disagree. I should not need to mobilize change or act on it to be able to have certain things. Mobilizing change has a cost (time, effort, money etc) and I should not be forced to pay those costs for things an individual in a civilized society ought to be entitled to.

Freedom isn't free. The 'civilized' society just doesn't arrive naturally. People who want a civilized society have to actively work to maintain it.

What do you think tax is for? It pays for the military which defends your civilized society, your schools to make sure the next guy you hire isn't an idiot, and your police so that it's less likely you get mugged.

When you pay tax you're actively working to maintain your civilized society, but it's not enough. A government can enforce and execute but at the lowest level it still needs people like you with ideas to operate.

You have the right to bitch about your goverent only after you have exhausted all recourse.

You're only entitled to what you work for, and that includes defending it.

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