General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'll ask it more simply: can the government be trusted? [View all]Cerridwen
(13,257 posts)based on a simplistic reading of US government? No thanks.
I haven't found "civil servants <to be> largely the same everywhere"; well, except they're human. Some want to do a good job; some don't care; some are retired in place; some are excited; some have been beat down; some are good supervisors; some have Peter Principled out; some are smart and funny; some are boring and apathetic; some will talk; some are rushed...and on and on.
Much the same with the various agencies; some are run well, some aren't, some are hog-tied by legislation that doesn't let them follow their mission statement, some aren't, some support the individual, some support business, some set the law, some follow the law, some don't.
But keep playing the government is evil; it's already circling the drain in the grover norquist's bathtub.
If you think the parts shrunken to fit through that drain were only the "evil" parts of the government; watch what happens when fuel reduction isn't performed in forests and lightning starts hitting those forests and there aren't enough fire fighters; or when the EPA doesn't have the funding or the regulatory teeth to stop business from trashing NEPA; and on and on.
I'm not doing a dissertation to justify a 2-dimensional mind-set of government hatred.
Hell, it would take an encyclopedic effort to write against all the limbaugh, o'reilly, coulter, schlafly, gingrich, robertson, et. al., anti-government screeds spewed over these past 40 years. It's just sad how successful they were at pouring shit into the minds of so many who refuse to view the simplistic claptrap with any critical/cynical eye.