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Comment by blitzar | Hacker News Reader

Yet digital cash is seen by actual true patriots as the solution to free themselves from the enemy the government.

As an European I fail to see how I could call myself patriot and at the same time distrust my own government - elected by me. Even if I didn't like the government, I'd still go with it because it's representing my country, and I'd also try to change the aspects which I don't like, again because it's my country. Those "actual true patriots" sound to me more like actual true selfish people which only want things happening according to their own ideas and needs.

Stealing from above;

> Distrust of government, and the limiting of its powers, is an American founding principle

American Patriots believe defending themselves and their country from an oppressive government is true patriotism. It looks and sounds a lot like you think because taken to its logical conclusion thats exactly what it is.

As a European, you almost certainly have better representation than most Americans. We haven't expanded the House of Representatives since 1929. We're approaching a million constituents per rep, an extreme outlier among OECD countries:

https://www.amacad.org/ourcommonpurpose/enlarging-the-house/...

The reason Americans no longer trust Congress is because the Colonists had better representation per constituent (on paper) in British Parliament. Early U.S. representation was in line with Nordic countries today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap...

Also the US following UK's FPTP system inevitably creates a 2-party system, you simply cannot have just 2 parties representing all of the political spectrum and needs of a nation of 340 million people, and very diverse people at it, across a vast swath of land.

Even though most Continental Europe elections end up being a race between 2 major coalitions at least there's fluidity in the composition of these coalitions, sometimes the right-wing coalition embraces the centrist parties, or the greens, sometimes it's the left-wing coalition, this fluidity creates a lot more of nuance and compromise in politics rather than choosing Team Blue vs Team Red. FPTP is a dumb election system.

Yes, but voting is up to the States. They're free to adopt RCV, as we have here in Maine. Or ban it, as in five other States.

But only Congress can repeal the Apportionment Act of 1929.

https://nocapfund.org

The 118th Congress is on pace to pass the fewest acts ever. Will they hit double digits?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acts_of_the_118th_Unit...

triple*

> As an European I fail to see how I could call myself patriot and at the same time distrust my own government - elected by me.

Can you see how an Italian might love Italy, but think that Silvio Berlusconi seems like a pretty suspicious chap?

The patriots mentioned in GP don't distrust Biden, they distrust the entire system and elections and representation, everything. Disliking Berlusconi motivated Italians to vote him out of office, not to burn down Palazzo Chigi. That's the difference I meant above.

This particular pathology makes more sense when you recall the traitor statues of Robert E Lee, etc; there's a substantial faction in the US which is against the US specifically because it won the civil war and imposed the end of slavery on them, which they remained upset about into the 20th century and schools in Alabama being integrated at gunpoint.

That's why the "anti-government" faction doesn't care about civilians being unjustly shot dead by police, because they're not federal government.

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