The Blog Briefly Known as "Democratizing Philanthropy?"

I went to the post office this morning and had a perfectly pleasant experience: the staff were friendly and helpful, the products seemed reasonably priced. It got me thinking: Where does the pathological dislike and distrust of government that characterizes today’s political climate come from?

• Tax time: Yes, it’s a hit, but it’s once a year – do people really look at every single paycheck and resent the bite anew, when it’s the same each pay period?
• The DMV: frustrating, but at most, once every year.
• The post office: can be up and down, but these days, do most people use it all that much, and besides, aren’t the automated postal centers relatively convenient?
• Regulation/permits: I can imagine getting a zoning permit, or a building permit, or an event permit, could easily get frustrating. But again, how often does that happen?

I just don’t get it. How much contact does your average Tea Partier have with the government? It seems like people have been whipped up into a frenzy over something that’s not necessarily all that present in their lives – having been convinced that government is bad on principle. This is very dangerous.

I remain unconvinced about where this anti-government strain of thinking comes from. Something else is going on here….

Tags: democracy, zombie ideas

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.