[mschuster91]

> When an evil force takes over the government and wants to rule the whole country, they can't, because nobody even knows how a single tiny village is organized.

As we're seeing right now this isn't true. Everyone is afraid because the current federal executive doesn't give a flying f..k about norms, including telling people "comply with what DOGE wants or get fired" or drawing up lists of "Government Gangsters" [1]. And so, everyone is bending over in fear of getting in the crosshairs, getting government spending contracts cut, getting fired, getting death threats like Fauci, or getting extorted to buy ads on Twitter [2].

Side rant: where are all the "don't tread on me" gun nuts that have arsenals rivaling what would be a special forces unit in smaller countries?

[1] https://rollcall.com/2024/12/09/trumps-pick-to-lead-fbi-iden...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-linda-yaccarino-x-...

[formerly_proven]

> Side rant: where are all the "don't tread on me" gun nuts that have arsenals rivaling what would be a special forces unit in smaller countries?

They won the election?

[Retric]

Gun nut and republicans have overlap but aren’t the same group.

Quite a few are really into Libertarian values and hate Republican stances on a wide range of issues.

[mschuster91]

> Quite a few are really into Libertarian values and hate Republican stances on a wide range of issues.

Mostly abortion and to a lesser extent the "war on drugs". The rest is seeing especially Musk's blatant self-dealings [1] and teardown of "big gubmint" as something laudable.

"So This is How Liberty Dies, With Thunderous Applause"

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43127819

[Retric]

There’s far more fundamental disagreement between the parties than that.

Libertarians strongly oppose government intervention in the economy like farm subsidies or specific tax cuts for specific industries. The Reputation party says it believes in free markets, but it doesn’t act that way.

The gap between Republican stated goals and actual policies is really stark. I think it mostly works because so few people dig into the details, but some people get really disillusioned.

[orblivion]

Yeah, it's not "Don't tread on the executive branch". Quite the opposite.

[massysett]

> As we're seeing right now this isn't true.

It's absolutely true. My county and state government has not changed. My kid goes to the public school, which has not changed. Indeed some of my state officials are suing the federal government.

State and local governments provide many services of enormous importance: schools, police, fire, roads. The President is not ruling all of that.

[bombcar]

The problem isn't who provides it, it's where the funding comes from.

If the local school is 90% funded by local taxes, they can ignore the state and federal government for quite awhile.

But if it's only 10% funded directly by local taxes, and the rest (even if coming from the locality!) is funneled through the state and/or federal government, then they can be squeezed on the money side.

[xp84]

Fair point.

For the past few decades, though, it feels like we’ve been locked in a permanent war between two opposing factions that barely admit each other’s right to exist, let alone to disagree, with the goal of forcing federal government policy to agree with, alternatingly, the “left” or the “right” orthodoxy and for the feds to force those ideas on the whole country.

Wouldn’t it be more productive to just massively cut federal taxes and obligations, and let Republicans live in Republican controlled states and let Democrats live in Democrat controlled states? Then the state governments can raise taxes and be able to use their taxpayers’ money as they see fit.

This way, if you want any category of government goodies, from single-payer healthcare to fixing the roads, you only need to convince your fellow state residents to pay for and tolerate it, and the people you don’t trust from far away can’t block you.

The federal government has only shown any particular skill at operating the military (no one’s dared to invade us since 1812!). Maybe we just let them handle that, plus uncontroversial standards and maybe make trade agreements. Let states handle the rest.

[bombcar]

That’s close to the original plan (even more so if you look at the articles of confederation) and is actually quite present in many things (look at the ACA for example).

But it should be more explicit in many cases. As we see routing everything through the federal government gives it more power than “expected” - like how it regulates drinking age via federal highway funds.

[mschuster91]

> State and local governments provide many services of enormous importance: schools, police, fire, roads. The President is not ruling all of that.

A lot of that hinges closely on cooperation with the feds, and the Trump admin has repeatedly said they will go and target "sanctuary cities" - so much for states rights.

In doubt, the federal government will pull off another drinking ban - the age for drinking is 21 because the federal government threatened to retract highway funding many decades ago, and that was explicitly ruled to be constitutional [1].

Do not think even for a single second that you are safe from the impact of the Trump admin even if you live in a deep blue city in a deep blue state.

In doubt, your daughter might not be able to access plan B any more (or your son stuck paying child support) because, of course, that one is on the target list as well, or your trans kid might not receive the care they need because the federal government plans to ban that as well, and if it's just by banning federally active insurances from covering the cost for such treatment. Or if you're Black and your kid needs to take ADHD meds? Say goodbye to your kid [2].

You all are anything but safe, but by the time you realize it because it starts finally affecting you and your loved ones, it will be too late. Take that warning from a German and heed it because we actually lived through that and learn about the time of 1933-45 and the years leading up to it in school!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

[2] https://wordinblack.com/2025/02/rfk-jr-black-kids-adhd-drugs...

[Mountain_Skies]

Probably out celebrating the shrinking of government, which is one of their core desires, if not their top desire.

[brookst]

…while uploading their ID’s to government mandated databases in order to watch the trans porn they want to completely outlaw, in the same of small government?

Nah, they just dropped the pretense. Small government was always code for “leave me alone and make those people suffer.”

[foobarian]

Luckily they are not the only ones with guns.