It can also mean countless other things. Like that government has to stop excessive surveillance. Cannot take your home away to build a road. Or has to lift a regulation for your buisness, ...
Not every government activity is money redistribution.
You can change a few roads around from time to time, resulting in the government taking more of your money to build road that takes a longer route so you and your fellow plebs have to commute 10 minutes longer. That's not the "real" power previous poster was talking about, going up against the ruling class.
And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.
Strange.
> If not, do you think, there is anything positive, the government is doing?
Yes.
> And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.
I can't understand what you mean.
You are throwing the separate branches of government on the same pile, which I think is unfair to say the least.
The judicial branch tells the executive branch to stop or adjust whatever it is doing. The executive branch is not happy about this, but if it wants to survive it needs to listen or at the very least project the illusion that it is listening in some way shape or form. We haven't touched the legislative branch here which is also a force to be reckoned with.
All these branches are filled to the brim with people of various background and motivations. They might not be happy about eachother, but they are stuck with it.
I don't know about American politics, but these branches are pretty well separated in the Netherlands. Maybe not as much as we'd like, but I'm hard-pressed to call it anything but a clear improvement over the past.
I promise you your government does not give the slightest shit if it forces itself to force its citizens to pay more taxes on food and energy. Funny that they have people believing that is a "win" -- socialize the cost of climate change to the commoners. Have you not noticed that it has become fashionable for governments to apologize and promise atonement for such things? Have you ever wondered why that is? It's not because they are looking to take down the banks or the petroleum cartels or the billionaires or whatever. It's because government ~= people. They are accepting blame on your behalf to shield their friends and owners from the blame they deserve.
Wake me up when they dismantle the carbon profiteers and seize their profits and the profits of their profits from the past century or so. Then the war profiteers, and so on.
I get it, I really do and I am biased as well so your underlying points may just as well be 1000% correct. It’s just not something I can productively engage with.
Where?
> You then build on top of these simplifications in the most general of terms in an attempt to strengthen your ideas about power and how it is distributed.
How exactly did I do that?
Pretty weak response to my post tbh. I get it though, it hurts to realize the benevolent and omnipotent protector and provider you are subservient to is anything but. Lashing out is not an unusual response.
That is how to conflate branches of government. IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.
I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.
I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.
It's the government though. The point from the start was that the judicial branch is part of government control. You are the one confused if you don't understand that.
> IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.
IMO it isn't.
> I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.
And yet you seem to know that the government is the solution to them all apparently without knowing what they are.
> I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.
I think you're angrily lashing out at strawmen of your own making because it has become difficult for you to reconcile the scary new ideas in this conversation. But I do find it very interesting how wildly irrational and angry governments and bureaucrats become at the suggestion that they should be held to account for their actions, or that anything they do could be questioned or disagreed with, and by those "hateful commoners" of all people!
Yet fun as it was, I will now cease my demented rage, but not before profusely apologizing for my irrational and unforgivable lashing out.
Also, sorry HN. I have indulged forces here that shouldn’t be. I thought it would be interesting, but that is.. doubtful in hindsight.
I notice a lot of dirty corrupt western politicians have started a lot of unpopular wars and "interventions" that have killed countless thousands of people and stolen trillions of dollars from their citizens since WWII, and all have escaped justice for it. Worse yet, they have the gall to blame victims of their crimes and force them to bear the consequences, "we meddled and caused wars and destabilization, and therefore we (read: you) need to shoulder burden of the consequences and 'help' more". That's not winning. Avenues of hanged war criminals would be winning.