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Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by x86_64Ubuntu on Saturday June 19, 2021 @11:13AM (#27561152)
A lot of those issues you cited are a reflection of the citizenry. Many of the laws passed, including student load non-dischargeability, come from officials elected by the citizenry.
Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by musingsole on Saturday June 19, 2021 @11:36AM (#27561393)
A law passed at any given time has at most something like 30% of the citizens' voices behind it (by virtue of voting participation). But cycle after cycle, who is in that 30% changes as people enter or exit the voting community. We don't make a habit of revisiting a law to vote on it again very often and when we do, it's often decades later.

All that's to say that any given law was decided by a fraction of the population some time ago -> meaning it's a continuously decreasing fraction of population that was represented in this or that law.

This realization is why I have very little buy-in into any modern governance. Either I get an equal vote on all existing rules the moment I become a citizen or your government is just tyranny by another name.

Re:Declining trust in government is denting democracy (2017) by nickthemagicman on Saturday June 19, 2021 @11:37AM (#27561411)
You mean the two-party system where citizens can pick from TWO candidates selected by the DNC/RNC because the candidate toes the line and doesn't spook the big money interests... and no other candidate can compete?

And then once they're in office they can gerrymander their districts and essentially secure their position forever.

Is it really the citizen's fault?

My favorite part about your comment is how optimistic you are that a citizens vote actually matters.