Exactly. Exasperating how many people are not only oblivious to this, they seem to actively buy in to the status where the government are our masters. They're not, they are literally our employees. We elect them to do what we want.

But the state feels so far removed from this in practice now. I'm probably just more aware of it as I get older, but all the recent changes just show how little power people actually have. In theory, we could elect a government who undoes all the current institutionalised state power over people, and move to a more representative system, but in practice it is extremely difficult to impossible.

I wouldn't mind this so much if the state wasn't so utterly useless at actually wielding this power. I look at a place like Singapore, and I see how most people not actually living in Singapore speak down about the supposed conditions Singaporeans must accept. And yet, as every state approaches this level of authoritarian, one thing you can say, at Singapore is actually good at being authoritarian. Stuff works. The plan is long, and works.