how many of my fellow countrymen know what they're talking about when they criticize their government?

Question

i'm just guessing that half of the people i see on here talking about how bad our government is don't know crap about what they are talking about.

all right, i guess i should have let you know that i am an american. i figured that since half the people that are complaining about their government on this site are complaining about the US government, that might have been a clue.

I still don't think a lot of the people who comment know enough about the government to make their own opinions. I'm glad to see that some people commenting do. This wasn't supposed to end up a debate over how corrupt the government is. I know it is corupt. I know all of these politicians are in Washington looking out for their own ****. I know that they aren't doing what is best for the majority of the population. So how about all of those people who feel so strongly about the government and it's corruption do whoat Thomas Jefferson would have liked and raise a rebellion or learn to deal with it. Better yet, run for a political office. Power breeds corruption. I applaud anybody who proves it wrong.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, from both conservatives and liberals alike, the fact of the matter is that a large majority of people on this site don't actually have any KNOWLEDGE of the facts, just PASSION for what they say and believe. I don't think the government is bad (it's certainly not great!), but many of those who do on this site express themselves so poorly that their message becomes garbled and lost. I think a spelling and grammar test should be a requirement to post on this site, for starters. :)
Just kidding.
Well, sort of.

Answer 2

Whatever leads YOU to believe that you know crap about what you say? I lived and experienced McCarthyism! Have you ever gone overseas and visited any other country and witnessed abuse on the part of police or government officials..? Well, how do YOU think some of us feel when we see it here at home, in the USA? How do you think we feel when our government is acting like our enemies act, torturing, lying, squandering public funds, secretly incarcerating people without charging them and preventing them from defending themselves with legal counsel...? How do you think we feel knowing that we can be incarcerated on the whim of someone who can just as easily say that you (or I) are an enemy and we're not given the opportunity to prove our innocence and can be tortured until we admit whatever they want us to? How do you think we feel when our government spies on us like our enemies do with their own people? How do you think we feel when our government lies to us to get us to engage in a war for the elite privileged social class that runs this nation, the super rich and powerful, corporate Americans, and we are asked to make sacrifices THEY ARE NOT ASKED TO MAKE? How do you think we feel when we send our children to war to die or get maimed, lose legs or arms but not those that send us off to war? How should we feel when our freedoms, liberties and rights are subjugated along with our Constitutional rights under the guise of our safety and our supposed freedoms (that's oxymoronic)? How do you think we should feel when our poor, our elderly and our disabled are having to do without bare necessities such as food over their life sustaining medicines while our super rich and powerful continue to make huge fortunes and still not pay their fair share of taxes?

Do you think someone who questions his/her government is any less patriotic when those in power are doing something wrong and possibly breaking the laws of the land?

If you defend this corrupt President, and this war, why aren't you in uniform? Why aren't the rest of your family also in uniform defending the oil interests of super rich and powerful?

You haven't even graduated from high school judging by the poor sentence construction of your query! Are YOU even old enough to vote?

Even though YOU certainly don't know what you're saying, it is YOUR right to say whatever you please. ONLY in America can an idiot be elected to the White House! Even the stupid and uneducated have the same rights to speak and express their garbled opinions, ONLY IN AMERICA.

Soon we'll have lost 3,000 American lives in this war-for-oil-for-the-super-rich-and-powerful-and-powerful, and the President has not attended even ONE funeral, nor does he or Prick Cheney want us to see the flag-draped coffins being shipped back home.

Answer 3

i would hypothesize that you are right my dear watson. Many people are ill informed about their government officals and their acitvities. But is it our faults, the politicians fault, or the medias? How are we suppose to find the truth when we are continuously lied to?

Answer 4

Unfortunatly way to many thats why almost half dont actually vote.

What explains the gullibility of Americans, a gullibility that has mired the U.S. in disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that promises war with Iran, North Korea, and a variety of other targets if neoconservatives continue to have their way?

Part of the explanation is that millions of conservatives are thrilled at the opportunity to display their patriotism and to show their support for their country. Bush's rhetoric is perfectly designed to appeal to this desire. "You are with us or against us" elicits a blind and unquestioning response from people determined to wear their patriotism on their sleeves. "You are with us or against us" vaccinates Americans against factual reality and guarantees public acceptance of administration propaganda.

Many Americans find the government's message much more reassuring than the actual facts. The government's message is: "America is virtuous. Virtuous America was attacked by evil terrorists. America is protecting itself by going to war and overthrowing regimes that sponsor or give shelter to terrorists, erecting in their place democracies loyal to America."

Sugarcoated propaganda doesn't present Americans with the emotional and mental stress associated with the hard facts.

Many Americans have turned a blind eye to the administration's illegal and unconstitutional spying on the grounds that, as they themselves are doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear. If this is the case, why did our Founding Fathers bother to write the Constitution? If the executive branch can be trusted not to abuse power, why did Congress pass legislation establishing a panel of federal judges (ignored by the Bush administration) to oversee surveillance? If President Bush can decide that he can ignore statutory law, how does he differ from a dictator? If Bush can determine law, what is the role of Congress and the courts? If "national security" is a justification for elevating the power of the executive, where is his incentive to find peaceful solutions?

Emotional appeals to fear and to patriotism have led close to half of the population to accept unaccountable government in the name of "the war on terrorism." What a contradiction it is that so many Americans have been convinced that safety lies in the sacrifice of their civil liberties and accountable government.

If so many Americans cannot discern that they have acquiesced to conditions from which tyranny can arise, how can they understand that it is statistically impossible for the NSA's mass surveillance of Americans to detect terrorists?

Floyd Rudmin, a professor at a Norwegian university, writing at CounterPunch.org applies the mathematics of conditional probability, known as Bayes' Theorem, to demonstrate that the NSA's surveillance cannot successfully detect terrorists unless both the percentage of terrorists in the population and the accuracy rate of their identification are far higher than they are. He correctly concludes that "NSA's surveillance system is useless for finding terrorists."

The surveillance is, however, useful for monitoring political opposition and stymieing the activities of those who do not believe the government's propaganda.

Another reason for the gullibility of Americans is their lack of alternative information to government propaganda. The independence of print and TV media disappeared in the media consolidations of the 1990s. Today a handful of large corporations own the traditional media. The wealth of these corporations consists of broadcast licenses, which the companies hold at the government's discretion. Newspapers are run by corporate executives, whose eyes are on advertising revenue and who shun contentious reporting. The result is that the traditional media are essentially echo chambers for government propaganda.

The Internet and the foreign news media accessible through the Internet are the sources of alternative information. Many Americans have not learned to use and to rely on the Internet for information.

Many Americans find the government's message much more reassuring than the actual facts. The government's message is: "America is virtuous. Virtuous America was attacked by evil terrorists. America is protecting itself by going to war and overthrowing regimes that sponsor or give shelter to terrorists, erecting in their place democracies loyal to America."


In National Socialist Germany, by the time propaganda lost its grip, Germans were in the hands of a police state. It was too late to take corrective measures. Not even the military could correct the disastrous policies of the executive. In the end, Germany was destroyed.

Does a similar fate await Americans?

Answer 5

In fact, you are incorrect. I think that it is fabulous that people question their government. It is part of the checks and balance principle our country's government was founded upon.

Answer 6

Do you? I know enough to know criminal, impeachable behavior when I see it. I know enough to see that big business and the GOP are so in bed together they might as well be married. I know plenty, and this government, mark my words, will go down in history as the worst ever.

Answer 7

That is one of the great things about this country. You can say what ever you want about this GREAT COUNTRY. Even if your an idiot

Answer 8

don't we wish the gov't knew what it was doing .with this flip flopping whitehouse ,who knows whats heads or tails

Answer 9

It would be nice for us to know where you come from, Mr. High and Mighty

Answer 10

I'm guessing that you don't know crap about what you are talking about.