Ask Lemmy

26778 readers

1420 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

candyman337@lemmy.world

TheSaneWriter@lemm.ee

TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

Asudox@lemmy.world

can@lemmy.ca

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

AsudoxDev@programming.dev

What do you believe the role of government to be? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago by oxjox@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Regardless of your geographic location, religion, heritage, party affiliation, or your firmness on historical texts; what is it that you believe government's role to be - or should be?

If you'd like to elaborate, what is it you think your local or national government gets right and gets wrong?

I pose the question because I believe this fundamental belief is through which we observe and react to politics. There are things we want or don't want government to do but often legislation or special interests or geographic or political threats get in the way. Our reactions to politics are often, but not wrongly, short-sighted and emotional without context or wisdom. I don't see much dialog around this topic and I wonder if people subscribe to political parties without really considering if the party aligns with what they genuinely believe government's responsibility is or should be.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

You might as well ask me what I believe the role of lizard or a bird to be. The measures of its success is how long it lives and how well it did at copying its uniqueness. The state doesn't exist for humans, it exists because we are capable of getting that particular meme-infection.

This isn't a value judgement. I could argue all the points of why having a government is better for us vs not having one but I won't bother because even if I am right it is a post hoc justification that would apply to modern governments not what we have typically had in history.

Now a very good strategy for a state to survive is to make its territory such a nice place it has productive humans and is able to attract more. Given that the pragmatic solution is the highly democratic welfare state.