• rhombus@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 day ago

    I’m sure a social safety net propped up entirely by bureaucrats is going to suddenly deprive every one of their rights. It won’t be a government with mass surveillance and militarized police. Nope, those are definitely not two different things. Big government is big government regardless of form apparently.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’m not against safety nets. I’m against bureaucracies and mass data collection. A social safety that features mass surveillance (means testing) is another tool for social control. A simple safety net via a negative income tax doesn’t leave any cookies in the jar for Musk and his goons to plunder.

      Good fences make good neighbours. The government I trust most is the one with the least power to hurt me. When you vote for a new bureaucracy with broad powers over people’s lives you’re setting a time bomb that’s waiting to explode the moment the bad guy wins an election.

      Never forget that it was the power of the bureaucracy that allowed the Nazis to be so ruthlessly efficient at rounding up all the Jews. The lesson of history was not “only the good guys should be allowed to win”, it’s “we shouldn’t be leaving so many loaded guns laying around the house.”