How would someone come to the conclusion that their government

[Raven]

wants them dead and subjected to communism or socialism and invasion of their privacy?

I've been trying to figure out where this comes from. How these disrupters come to have such an awful opinion of their government. Here is what I think is a the bottom of this:

These people are not wealthy. They have been plugging along getting nowhere and watching the rich get richer. They have seen their retirement accounts decimated, watched their government send countless kids off to be killed in illegal wars, wondered about illegal wiretaps and intrusions on citizens' privacy and generally, they have watched a lying and corrupt government in action. No wonder they are upset and mistrustful.

They are expecting Barack Obama to conduct business in the very same way that Bush and Cheney did.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Remember, they've lived the last 8 years under Bush. n/t

[Rage for Order]

2. Based on history, it's not much of a stretch to believe that

I don't subscribe to that point of view in our country at the present time, but here are a few for your consideration: North Korea, Stalinist Russia, East Germany (& other Eastern Bloc countries) during the Cold War, Burma, Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Darfur.... governments are not always benevolent organizations that use the best interests of their citizens as the basis of their decision making process.

[RandomThoughts]

3. They also are missing a needed thought component.

They do not think of things like companies, or private sector entities as existing as a way to set policy.

When they think of social control they only think of government. To them corporations are all independent things with no agenda other then just selling some product.

The idea that many types of governments exist in parralel in society needs to be put in their brain, so they can think on how, when they think of how things happen, they have more areas to see as the cause.

Right now, anything that happens must be from the group that 'runs things' for them they only think of government. Even when lobbyist paid by corporate business stops laws that would help them, they don't think of it as a lobbying issue, only a government issue.

So since they are missing that part of the equation, anyone in government that says less government they agree with. Since they have not heard of the corporate thing that is there.

If you can imagine it this way, think of corporations as only being competitive mom and pop grocery stores, each working on their own. And government being everything else. Some of them think like that, so if there is a problem, they think it must be government. They do not realize the interconnectivity and monopoly pressure of many of the groups in the private sector.


But best guess is they are very few, the Repub support is down to 25%, 75% want a public option, want to reign in the banks, want justice for criminals at the top, want government to clean things up. It is a false thought presented by loud megaphones on the right that the 'less government' group has very much support at all. If the question is asked by programs needed most people want reforms on many issues.

They know things are messed up, but the only thing they blame is the only thing they know sets policy, the government.

That is why if government can not fix things, with things like prosecutions not just reports of wrong doing, and with real reform in many sectors, then that would indicate the corporate system and the government system is the same thing, and both would have to come down.

The system needs to be fixed, and government is the logical place to do that, but if they are in sync with the problem, then there is not an established system to fix things, just like until prosecutions happen no laws are in effect. So the 'change' that is needed is not just fixing the problem, it is defining what side of the problem government is on.

[Mr Generic Other]

6. you have done a great job explaining a complex social phenomena.

since calvin coolidge said "the business of government is business" there has been a tendency for the government to legislate in the interest of big business and not in the interest of the common man.
the new deal programs of FDR and the tax policies of the post war period (when the top tax bracket was between 84% and 91%) began to reverse that trend but the reagan revolution put an end to the reversal.
since 1980 the public has been fed the idea that the government is the problem not the solution.
we have been told so often that private industry was more efficient, and therefore less costly, than government sponsored activities that we have begun to believe it. to the point where we have allowed the "privatization" many public resources and responsibilities. this has not been for the common interest but the interest of the few.
the enlightenment ideas that sponsored our form of government legitimized government only when it worked for the common good.
when government stopped doing this it was time for change (revolution).

[timeforpeace]

4. Dunno, but they sure do. Might have to do those things to shut them up. Wouldn't that be ironic?

[Echo In Light]

5. "invasion of their privacy" = mass illegal spying. Telecoms + Govt against anti-war peeps