Wahaha wrote on March 16, 2021 at 3:12 PM

Reply to comment by Imperator in Have you gotten your COVID vaccination? Do you plan to? Why or why not? by Rambler

I don't think any trust in the so called democratic government is warranted. A government that poisons it's citizens with LSD and pretends a magic bullet that curved in the air killed Kennedy cannot be trusted. Not even a little bit. And those are just on the top of my head on what everyone can agree is bullshit. Duck and cover, amirite?

Nobody needs to keep their mouth shut. As long as enough people accept bogus primary sources, like the ones retelling them through their own media outlet, it's going to be enough.

With lies it is like with projects. The bigger and grander, the easier it is to get people going along. If you want funds for a nuclear plant, nobody bothers checking everything. Try to build a bike shed and things are different.

Wikipedia has a whole long ass article about things people got wrong just because nobody bothered checking and verifying primary sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

"The government isn't spying on us, they have better things to do" and "over dozens of independent rivaling news organisations somehow collaborate to keep information hidden - all while all people in said organisations keep silent without any dissent whatsoever." Then Snowden came along.

There's precedent for the thing you try to frame as ridiculous happening in the past ten years. And after seeing how Snowden ended up, others will think twice about following his example.

Imperator wrote on March 19, 2021 at 9:09 AM

I concur that the U.S. government has pulled some shady shit the last century and has a poor track record. So I certainly understand your skepticism regarding your government. I'm from Europe (in the case you hadn't figured that out) and I really feel that the average European citizen has a different relation to the average European government than the average U.S. citizen has to the U.S. government, if that makes sense. Generally speaking, social democracy, liberalism and christian centrism are the prevailing ideologies here and this is reflected in our government policies. Most European countries have a reasonable welfare state and collective labor's rights. To many of us, this government is not a big baddie that must be kept to a minimum, but instead ought to occasionally intervene to protect the weaker in society. European response to the coronacrisis has been largely economically Keynesian. So yeah, different relationship dynamic. Our media landscape is generally diverse and broad with relatively little polarisation. Some media outlets have a slight bias in columnists and opinions but overall I cannot think of a concrete example where two news agencies report stuff in seriously different ways, unlike the CNN/Fox situation. Perhaps that makes us a bit naive and trusting but it does appear to work well for us thus far.

And about Snowden: if I recall correctly his revelations were mostly about the intelligence agencies overstepping their legal authority and getting cooperation from the upper echelons of the tech giants. I don't think that is wholly applicable in this discussion about the reliability of government in general. But I could be wrong here.

Wahaha wrote on March 19, 2021 at 10:27 AM

I don't know every European country good enough, but for Germany: "Nobody plans to erect a wall!" and for Great Britain: September Dossier

No government has the best of their citizens in mind, that's just how it is. European countries have more social features because they are rather homogeneous. Handing out some benefits to people you have a positive attitude for is easier than handing out benefits to your arch nemesis. The major reason the USA isn't like that is because people from the US hate each other. And the reason for that is that the USA is a melting pot of many different people. The more you increase that type of diversity the worse things will get.

It's also why people in the US can feel the need to arm themselves. I was on vacation in Norway once and saw a car in the middle of nowhere. Open door, key in the ignition. It was a non-issue. People were just all nice to each other. Do that in the US and that car will be gone fast. Americans actually have a valid reason to arm themselves for defense. Not necessarily everywhere in the US, but in enough places. People hate each other. There are gangs in the streets fighting to death. That's just the kind of place you get when mixing people together that actually hate each other.