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Comment by naterator | Hacker News Reader

It is stunning how this past year has changed my views on government. Between this massive healthcare fuck up, the spying, the shutdown, and all the rest that doesn't need mentioning, I am basically becoming a crotchety old conservative who says formulaic things like: "Government can't do anything right"; "Governments never give up power once you let them have it". I basically went from a liberal college student to a full blown conservative/libertarian (if I pigeonhole myself into common stereotypes). Of course, I'm not even that, because I wouldn't vote for those fucking idiots either.

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You're not the first. You may enjoy looking up the story of Dr. Thomas Sowell. Right out of college (which included studying under Milton Friedman) he was a self identified Marxist. He went to work in a federal bureaucracy and soon completely changed course, becoming one of the most well known conservative/libertarian advocates for the last 40 years.

In the words of Winston Churchill: "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."

From the "Quotes Falsely Attributed" page [1] on the official Churchill Centre website:

"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." There is no record of anyone hearing Churchill say this. Paul Addison of Edinburgh University makes this comment: "Surely Churchill can't have used the words attributed to him. He'd been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35! And would he have talked so disrespectfully of Clemmie, who is generally thought to have been a lifelong Liberal?"

[1] http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/quotations/qu...

Normally it takes getting into a higher tax bracket to force this type of conversion. :-)

The nice thing about conservatives is they don't believe in the power of government to do things right. The bad thing is that this sometimes leads to putting incompetent people in jobs of authority since the expectations are so low. ("You're doing a helluva job Brownie!")

On the flip side, the Democrats historically have wanted to put more competent managers in (not always!) because they believed that government can solve real problems. The reality is there's a limit to central planning, so lots of great intentions go awry.

Hayek [1] covers a lot of the theoretical underpinnings to this. It's worth reading the first two books, though be aware of the historical context. It was a time of competition against what appeared to be an unassailable centrally planned Soviet machine.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/F.-A.-Hayek/e/B000AQ6W60

I am a firm believer that neither party is a judge who makes a good manager. All they want is someone who makes a good party member.

I'm feeling a tangible dissonance brought on by these two seemingly inconsistent truths:

* The government is incompetent at implementing good programs, like healthcare reform.

* The government is very competent at doing bad things, like domestic spying.

They're probably equally bad at both things, but being incompetent isn't a problem.

They've totally screwed up health care, and they're not giving up, they're going to try even harder to get it working.

On secret projects there's even less incentive to admit failure and kill the project because there's no public oversight. For all we know, the NSA spying programs were delayed a dozen times and came in billions over budget...

>For all we know

In at least one big case, we do in fact know it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailblazer_Project

I'm a firm believer in the lack of competency in all things governmental.

The government is terrible at domestic spying. "Grab everything and look for interesting stuff" is a terrible way to do it - expensive, complex to whole new levels of complexity, and the miniscule amount of data you actually seek is lost in the deluge of noise of all the data you don't need.

The only thing the government is any good at is ensuring that government retains the power it needs to stay governing.

it's never been said they're actually good at spying (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER)

> Governments never give up power once you let them have it

This is a universal truth.

No, it isn't. Unless you mean that governments don't relinquish power unless they're designed to, but that's a big difference. Nor is it true that governments can't due anything well by virtue of being governments. What is true is that governments are complex (and thus difficult to get right) and usually have a high inertia. It's also true that individuals tend not to relinquish power, both out of self-interest and a lack of trust/belief in the other guy.

> Unless you mean that governments don't relinquish power unless they're designed to, but that's a big difference.

No I mean once they've taken it or the people give them that power, they don't relinquish it.

Consider the extensions to the Patriot Act.

"The provisions -- passed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack -- deal with roving wiretaps, the tracking of alleged "lone wolf" terrorists, and the ability of law enforcement officials to obtain records they deem relevant to an investigation after securing an order from a federal court."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/27/congress.patriot.act/

> Nor is it true that governments can't due anything well by virtue of being governments.

Governments can't do anything well because they are bureaucratic nightmares.

> Governments can't do anything well because they are bureaucratic nightmares.

And what's the difference between a government and a large corporation? "No government can do anything well" is lazy thinking.

Prohibition, price controls, so many monopoly regulations, financial regulation, etc,etc.

The word government defines a broad group of entities. Using any absolute terms here likely is a mistake.

In general, people in power resist giving up power. Seizing additional power acts as a conduit to keep the existing power. The greater ones power, the more numerous one's enemies become. There are different reasons why this occurs. In some circumstances it is because those individuals did things that were illegal and face either prison or death at the loss of power (typical of an absolute ruler, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe.)

Groups of individuals can behave similarly in shared self-interest. Private citizens and corporations can also be viewed as behaving the same.

What separates government from the private citizen or group is the general ability to use lethal force, theft, and imprisonment over very long periods of time and on a massive scale. Historically the relinquishment of power is generally one of a transfer of power, or some other bargain; sometimes through outright force and demand (Magna Carta and subsequent events, etc.)

The private citizen and corporation is certainly capable of using lethal force, theft, and imprisonment. However, without government complicity it is not possible forever or at scale.

Government only keeps as much power as its citizens allow it to.

typical approach of blaming the victim. You miss completely on the fact of force and information asymmetry.

My statement was a bit to hasty, I admit that. Resting control of your rights back from the government in the US is probably fraught with a lot less peril than doing so in Russia (i.e. Pussy Riot).

As a US citizen, I am dismayed at the situation, and like other posters here, my sentiment towards government has shifted greatly over the last six months. As a US citizen, I don't know what the solution is other than radical transparency in government and citizens as a whole having violent disdain for apathy in the political process.

I'll trade you "Government" for "a(ny) massive organization". It has been my experience that this sort of incompetence is not restricted to the public sector.

To be fair, this generally happens with age anyway. We slowly come to the realization that idealism is often a mask for arrogance and a false-confidence borne of insecurity. As we mature, we not only see the failings of our former naive selves, but the folly of such idealism in and of itself. The opposite of idealism is not cynicism, but realism.

Hold on there. Realism isn't ideological. One person's realism may be turning to conservatism, another person's realism may be pushing to systematically address failures in government to prevent them in future cases.

Indeed it may, but it's a general framework of pragmatism which accepts short term compromises along the way. Often leading to less than ideal outcomes in the long run. Hence, my claim it is the opposite of idealism. Not necessarily a better opposite.

There's a such thing as "liberaltarian" you might be interested in investigating, but as I've gotten older, I think an attitude of anti-incumbency, "throw the bums out," is a healthy one that at least provides a benefit of fresh perspectives.

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