[bittercynic]

>The "government" is just the set of people who hold power over others.

Often, yes, but in a more functional society it would be the mechanism we collectively use to prevent a few people from amassing excessive wealth and power.

[serial_dev]

Where did this ever work out? It’s extremely common that policies are universally hated by the people, yet the people in power do it anyway.

[cutemonster]

The Nordic countries are pretty ok functioning democracies, with many smaller political parties. And pretty high taxes

(What do you refer to with "this"?)

[pydry]

Switzerland.

America isnt really a democracy it's a plutocracy.

[Ray20]

Just for example. When the elite drives all their opponents into poverty and sends them to rot in prison for the slightest outcry, that's anything but democracy.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/swiss-lgbtq-groups-...

[Balinares]

The way real democracies punish bad people is really upsetting to bad people.

[fwip]

"Soral was convicted repeatedly in France and sentenced to jail time in 2019 for denying the Holocaust, which is a crime in France." Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[rolandog]

That's the paradox of tolerance for you; we must be intolerant of those that are intolerant... but you probably already know that Karl Popper theorized that [0]. Just looking around globally, we seem to be at that inflection point where this isn't mere hypothesis, but theory or law:

"Popper posited that if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices."

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[Ray20]

> That's the paradox of tolerance for you

That's not a paradox of tolerance, it is the anti-democratic practice of fascism.

> they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices.

This is exactly my point: an emerging fascist government through authoritarian or oppressive practices destroys tolerance by silencing people for any words that go against their agenda. There is no paradox here.

[eru]

That's just one particular set of preferences. Different people have different priorities.

[010101010101]

Those two things don’t sound mutually exclusive to me.