Is it normal to be constantly afraid of government?
Is it normal to be constantly afraid of government?
For Context: I live in the United States of America.
Well, we're all afraid of your government, and we don't even live there.
Most people worry the US will ruin their lives. Completely normal.
Define constantly, define afraid.
If you continually maintain readiness for government violation of your rights, no problem. If your heart rate is elevated and you’re sweating in fear, that’s a pretty serious problem.
As Bruce Lee said, “Do not be tense, but ready”.
Yeah the government is a monster and it might come get you. That’s true. But the likelihood it’s coming to get you right now is very low and being in constant fear is no way to live. And the government isn’t the only monster.
And the government isn’t the only monster.
Very important. Otherwise you become a Libertarian or a Theocrat.
Well I'm a libertarian because it takes into account all the other monsters. The goal of government is to maximize freedom. That doesnt' mean anarchy, because people are less free under anarchy than they are under properly-operating government.
IMO a government should be just powerful enough to prevent other governments from forming. Like, the purpose of an army in a democracy is to prevent other armies from coming to install a dictatorship over the people.
Or to mirror the common saying about guns: "The only way to stop a bad government with an army, is with a good government with an army".
But the other monsters are gangs, corporations, individuals. And a good government enforces rules that prevent those other monsters from taking away your freedom.
But yeah. Basic point is that libertarian => government's purpose is to maximize freedom
One thing to consider when you constantly feel something is “why?”
Why are you constantly afraid of the government?
Fear is our response to danger, it motivates us to take actions to protect ourselves. Fear in the presence of danger is normal, fear in the absence of danger is not a tremendously helpful emotion. The hard part now is really truly identifying why you fear the government.
Your first reaction might be to start listing grievances, the direct reason you fear the government. This could range from reasonable concerns, “they have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence and use that monopoly to attack me physically,” to less reasonable concerns like “they are lizard people.”
I’d invite you though to try to not stop at the list of grievances and interrogate “why” you believe that grievance is real.
Consider these two examples.
I fear the government because the police beat me up. I fear being beaten up because physical violence is painful and living without physical safety is truly dangerous. My fear is likely a reasonable response.
I fear the government because they are going to join in a new world order where the satanists and the the blue-eyed people are plotting to turn us all into Babylon 5 fans by putting sriracha in the public water supply. I fear this because I’ve watched several thousand hours of YouTube videos be people that have convinced me of this plot. The people making these videos are trustworthy because… hmm… they say they are. The people making the videos make money by me watching their videos and buying their merchandise because I believe in them. I believe in them because they claim to have the only way to keep me safe from this danger I’m very afraid of. Uh oh, this fear is irrational and being fed by people that profit off me always being afraid.
I fear the government because of events since the 2016 election. Because of the January 6th pro-administration insurrection/auto-coup attempt.
I’d consider your fear to be rational, although others might disagree.
Governments, by their nature, hold a monopoly on the “legitimate use of violence.” That’s a pretty terrible power to abuse and the best systems we have for holding power in check is to diffuse it into many people and set those people somewhat at odds with each other, aka, checks and balances.
I would consider J6 to be a failed coup, and coups are often about consolidating power into fewer and fewer hands, purging groups at odds with a strong man leader, which is fertile ground for abuse of power.
Now though you have to decide what to do with that fear. You have to decide how you want that fear to be a part of your life. Fear exists to tell us of danger, it’s our limbic system telling us to pay attention. You get to decide now if this danger is real and if living in fear is appropriate.
There are many reactions to fear, but I’ve found that positive action and mental health support are good responses to fear.
As an example, I struggle with anxiety, and it sucks because when you are anxious about something it’s common to avoid it and then you never fix it so it makes you more anxious and then you avoid it more, repeat. It took mental health support in the form of therapy and anti anxiety medicine to give me the tools I needed to start taking positive action that started tackling the things causing me anxiety. Now though, much less anxiety, the things that made me anxious weren’t helpful, it wasn’t helpful to my life to be constantly worrying about things I could address once I wasn’t constantly worrying.
Fear is a difficult emotion to live with day in and day out. Perhaps there are positive actions you can take to help address these fears, run for office, vote, volunteer for candidates you believe in. I know that therapy was helpful for me in understanding why I feel what I feel and how to make healthy choices around those feelings.
I hope you find some measure of peace though, you aren’t alone. I share your concerns, and many other people do, and I’ve decided to work my hardest to prevent it since that’s all I can do. History is full of assholes trying to fuck shit up for their own benefit and decent people unfucking that shit up.
Found the lizard person.
It's not normal to be constantly afraid of anything. That's not healthy.
It's normal and advisable not to completely trust the government, but being constantly afraid is paranoid.
For Context: I live in the United States of America.
It's so cool that you say that! Most Americans just assume they are the default and don't have to say where they are from.
For Context: I live in Europe
In the early days of the Internet, they were.
"You work for DARPA? No way! I also work for DARPA! I'm on terminal 3!"
How constantly are we talking? I think some degree of fear is completely reasonable. If the government wants to, they could ruin your life in countless ways. They can often detain, injure, or kill you legally, and even if it's not legally, there's a good chance that nothing will happen to them. They can pass laws that will make your life harder, very possibly to the point of pushing you out or not wanting to continue living.
I'm not sure which type of fear you have or where you're located, so I'm not gonna try to downplay your fear. There's absolutely some places where you should be afraid of what the government might do at any moment. eg, Russians have a lot more to be afraid of from their government than someone from, say, Canada. Similarly, LGBT folks have a lot to be afraid of from quite a scary number of governments around the world, as well as even some regional governments (such as Florida). But in some places, your fear may be taking it too far, particularly if it's impacting your life too much, since frankly there is no place in the world where governments aren't scary if they wanted to fuck with you.
EDIT: I see another comment of yours mentioning US things. Perhaps the best thing of note for the US is that your state is very influential. The difference between California vs Florida is like night and day. If you're not already in a state that is moving in the right direction, you may feel safer in such a state. Obviously there's still federal government power and even progressive states abuse their powers, but there's no shortage of examples of progressive states standing up against tyrany from the federal government and going out of their way to protect people that other states are actively persecuting.
Don't give the government any more information than you have to.
Don't stand out.
Be smart about the laws you break.
If you do all that and your fear of government is greater than the fear of a car accident, then you're not being rational.
Don’t give the government any more information than you have to
vs
Don’t stand out
Well which is it? I guarantee “totally mysterious, private type who shares nothing ” is one of the things the government pays attention to.
If it is something that makes you stand out, that would likely count in the category of information that you’d “have” to give out.
If your entire country runs on WhatsApp — for example — there’s not really a practical reason to insist on not using the app just ‘cause of Meta ownership.
Chances are, it doesn’t really matter in the sea of all the others that do the same. Bit of a balance to strike, but not too worrisome if a little bit of personal privacy is the only concern, like your average person.
There's your problem. It should be set to Freedom, not Theocracy.
I’m from the states and I’m always a little afraid they will find some strange reason and then put me in jail.
Like, in 2005 you downloaded a movie… jail!
Or
You made a mistake on your taxes 4 years ago… jail!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Governments are scary. Only organization that has a monopoly on force and will never face consequences.
Living in the u.s.? Sounds about right.
When I was a regular user of illegal drugs, I was always afraid of police.
Well, are you a capitalist? Then no. If you aren't, you definitely do. Here is the thing, we, workers, are stronger together.
I don't really care about the Capitalist-Socialist spectrum, I just want to live a normal happy life without tyrannical oppression. Capitalists are evil, and so far any Communist/Socialist societies have become totalitarian regimes and now ended up as Capitalist anyways, but even worse than your typical Capitalist country that still has democracy (China is a State-Capitalist country with no democracy, ironic, given how Communist they claim to be).
so far any communist/socialist societies have become totalitarian regimes
Uh. You need to broaden your perspective. 1) many countries in Europe have more socialistic governments than the USA. 2) socialism is a spectrum with varying levels. The USA while ostensibly capitalist, has socialist roads and schools and police.
I live in germany, and i am not afraid of my government. They have ups and downs but overall its okay, i would say.
I would leave if i were CONSTANTLY afraid.
Live in the UK, and I feel the same. Being afraid of the government seems a very US specific thing (at least in first world countries). But having visited the US, they're generally living in fear more than Europe. Bars on everyone's houses (or gates on communities). Constant worry about home invasion. Its another level compared to here.
No lol wtf is wrong with you all. Americans have accepted their corporate sefdom as normal?
I'm gonna be real with you, chief: I think Western Europe and maybe East Asia are the only regions where it's not normal to be afraid of government
East Asia? Home of North Korea, China, Myanmar et al?
I'm in Canada and I work for the government lol
Are you afraid of yourself? Half of your brain might be trying to oppress the other half.
I'm afraid sometimes that a new government will get elected and ruin my job. I see lots of this happening in provincial governments where a new conservative government comes in and immediately starts gutting government operations. I work in a science area and the last time the conservatives ran the country they gutted science funding in a way that we're still recovering from.
I'm also in the US and the only thing I fear about the government is that they will continue to fail to put our best interests over corporate greed. It's a given at this point, but still disappointing.
No, but it should be.
Depends on what you mean by "normal". It's "normal" in the sense that most people probably are more or less afraid of their government. That's not what it should be like, if anything, it should be the other way around.
Contemptuous is the right word for me
Thankfully I don't live in the US, as it was shown again and again that your government is doing whatever it wants to its population, including chemical tests and total surveillance. I just hope they don't get bored of you guys anytime soon and start bullying innocent European.
- The overly cynical details in my comment are partly on purpose.
Except the government isn't doing any of that. It's Facebook and Google and Palantir that are trying to total surveillance.
It's train companies slacking on safety that puts dangerous chemicals in our water.
It's the infiltration of business thinking for private good into the government, which manages public goods, that leads to reduced services whose be declining quality.
I believe fear of the government is caused by business interests having influenced the public imagination to redirect justifiable grievances away from where it belongs.
Both can be true. A lot of the bad is business getting what it wants in pursuit of getting All of the money. A lot of the bad is incompetent government officials legislating things they don't understand, often after "seminars" by lobbyists to "teach" them. And a lot of the bad is government officials with bad ideas doing bad things maliciously.
For example, even businesses don't want to kill off encryption but every once in a while here comes some Representative to try and do it anyway.
Don't get too comfortable. Fascism is rapidly rising in your part of the world.
Yes, they have flamethrowers.
People shouldn't be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people. Or at least according to V. 👺
Yea the point of that statement is "people", I, only one of the 8 billion on Earth, ain't gonna make much difference alone.
Permanently Deleted
I’d probably be more worried if I lived in Russia, or China, or Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, or a ton of other places in Eastern Asia, Central America, the Middle East, or Africa.
So given some three or four dozen or so comparatively worse options, you’re probably not that bad off in the US. But of course they are not perfect either.
With all due respect, countering a sentiment with “but look how bad these people have it”or “it could always be worse” is rarely (if ever) helpful.
Probably living in constant fear that the US government is going to take away their guns.
I've heard that line since the 80's. Not feasible even if it was possible.