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Comment by whipoodle | Hacker News Reader

We are out of our minds.

I cannot understand why Americans say "we" in statements like this. I'm not out of mine (at least not with respect to this issue) and you're quite likely not out of yours.

It's not noble to take responsibility for things when you have no control over them and thus won't be able to fix them.

It's "we" as in "we the people". "We" are doing this because our elected representatives appointed the people who made the decision. "We" collectively bear the responsibility for what our government does. But there's a difference between responsibility and guilt. Unless we voted for someone and knew this would be the consequence, we shouldn't feel guilty.

I know, but I disagree and, moreover, I consider that a harmful belief. The problem isn't that not every citizen of a democracy will agree with the majority preference (I think people understand that caveat), it's that even the majority preference of the population on a single issue is, for many reasons, likely not what gets through the political process.

The "we" wording sweeps all these limitations of democracy comprehensively under the rug: it diverts blame onto the people when it should rightly be directed at the existing political order.

The people in the "existing political order" are put there by the public who ultimately has the responsibility for creating good government. Again, responsibility is not the same as guilt.

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