[ransom1538]

We don't want the government to have power! We just want them to be responsible for our education, health care, water, policing, energy, laws, foreign intelligence, taxing, safety, banking, college, protection, transportation, international affairs, court system, prison system, retirement and food supply.

[6510]

Here is a fun suggestion: Imagine each of those was an entirely separate institution with its own properly named tax and its own elections. i.e. We all pay education tax, the elected board makes a budget within the boundaries of its charter.

We replace the dinosaur one time election with a "change your vote whenever you like" system something like a coalition needs 51% to be eligible to take office and less than 40% to lose it.

Salaries should be glorious and the officials shall be [financially] accountable beyond death.

People will not care much and not modify their vote very often until things get bad enough.

The military [for example] can go to war without the usual bribing of senile old men but if you take the country to war you probably wont be in charge of the war effort and if people really don't want the war they will rappidly cycle though different formations until they are rid of it.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

It's perfectly possible to improve, say, environmental protection without any drone programs. Most of Europe does so, for example.

So it's just mindless cynicism to argue "more government" / "no less government" / blablabla.

The specific American infatuation with anything that kills is, well, specific. Using all that wasteful killing/incarcerating/surveilling as an argument not against the Military-Industrial-Complex but, yet again, to diminish policies that might actually help people, is part and parcel of exactly the approach that ends with dead civilians domestically and abroad.

[ransom1538]

"The specific American infatuation with anything that kills is, well, specific. Using all that wasteful killing/incarcerating/surveilling"

America is militarized due to 20th century European "killing/incarcerating/surveilling." Europe perfected these methods.

[tekproxy]

Also military, environment, mail, immigration, trade, and my personal favorite: currency.

[busymom0]

And we also want the corrupt incompetent bloated government to disarm the citizens and censor all offensive speech. Because the corrupt incompetent government is surely not going to do some bad things ever.