Do you believe this to be true?

[coachTanthony]

Yes

No

[bolverk]

The UK Civil Service (our version of the Washington Swamp) has become so infested with the 'WOKE' Ideology that it is actively working to override any and all Government polices that it does not agree with instead of being Ideologically neutral as it is supposed to be, it is so 'WOKE' because it recruits from universities where 'WOKE' Ideology abounds.

[worldscolide]

Bureaucracy makes everything worse no matter which side you're on.

[worldscolide]

I can't believe someone was dumb enough to vote no to the tune of 44%

[OlderAndWiser]

Yes, big government is a threat to freedom and individual liberties.

[DrPepper12]

Well thank God you told me!!! All along I thought it was the corporations who have captured government!! Whew 😅 dodged a bullet there! 🙄

[OlderAndWiser]

@DrPepper12 Your sarcasm is underwhelming.

[ohsheeT]

What will destroy a democracy or strengthen it is when we the people stand up as one and confront all the lies all the cons all the b******* that we pay these people to do

We have been misled we have been manipulated to believing in their system nine to five working hard everyday for the pay that we get when everything around us just sucks that money right down because of politics manipulation and lies and big business and one of these days when we all can come together and say we've had enough we're tired of being manipulated we're tired of being cheated we're tired of our taxes we're tired of everything we're tired of hiring people that are only into it for their paycheck their status and what they can put in their pockets the truth is coming out slowly but surely and one of these days if we are all not under the thumb because the government is our bank they control food so they will control us every nation is doing this right now the same exact thing they're spending money that should not be spending for things that they should not be spending it on they should be helping their people they should be helping our country succeed they should be putting it into our schools for our children but they want our kids to be stupid they don't want our kids to be able to think for themselves because one of these days it's going to happen

[Anonymous]

Bureaucracy is indeed a real threat to democracy, its just not an avoidable one if you don't limit democracy in scope enough with a constitution.
Every issue on which you don't regularly vote you will by necessity get unaccountable Bureaucracy to manage it instead. Yet anther reason democracy always leads to tyranny and oligarchy.

It is not possible for the people to vote on more than a few issues and people to administrate them. There is not enough knowlage or time in the day for everyone to do every job.

So we are left to trying to administrate those who do, but this too is a job as any manager will tell you, It too takes much time, knowledge, and skill. Which we the people already employed in our own job simply don't have.

Thus we ourselfs cannot manage soo many politicians and issues, certainly not from a 1000 miles away once every 2 to 4 years with an up or down vote.

This is why we have a lot of bureaucracy. We have a distant goverment that does far more things than can ever be managed by us with such tools.

[WindAtMyBack]

No. The real threat to democracy is size and population. My vote is worth half what it was when I was born. My representative in the US Congress represents twice as many people. My state lost 1/3 of it's representatives at the same time it gained population (because other states gained population faster).

Yes, bureaucracy is a threat, but bureaucracy increases exponentially with population. So population is the underlying cause.

There has never been a government at the scale of the US or larger that was effective without being totalitarian.

[goaded]

India.

[WindAtMyBack]

@goaded

You gotta be kidding. India is majorly fucked up.

[goaded]

It's also a democracy that has over four times the population of the US.

[WindAtMyBack]

@goaded

You missed the important word here. Effective. There has never been an effective government at that scale.

[goaded]

So you think the government should control everything?

Democracies mean the people being able to choose their leaders. Anything else is a dictatorship.

[WindAtMyBack]

@goaded

No, I don't think government should exist at all at the federal level. I truly believe the biggest problem in the US is it's size.

The US would be better off closer to what it was originally intended to be, which was autonomous states, with only a VERY loose umbrella organization. Originally it didn't have a federal government at all, because it wasn't a federation. There was no federal government, no Congress, No president. State government was the highest level government.

Our politicians become more and more distant all the time. The congressional district I lived in most of my life was completely eliminated. If I remember the numbers right, we are losing about 1 - 1.5 congressional districts every year.

Of course, the total stays the same - representatives just gets taken from one group and given to another group that didn't exist a year ago. The end result is the same - as the population increases, our representation gets more and more diluted. Isn't that the same thing as saying we have less and less democracy? Is there a point that our vote is so diluted and insignificant that it's questionable if's still rightfully a democracy?

But even if you do have democracy that doesn't mean it's functional or efficient.

[WindAtMyBack]

Before we lost out congressional district, our congressman used to do tele town hall meetings, which were mainly Q&A. I sat in on those every now and then. Our representative at the state level did the same thing. The difference between the US congressman and state congressman was like night and day. Our state representative just felt more like one of us, someone who lived among us and had a vested interest in what happened in his district. Our US representative felt like an outsider. He was "one of them" off in a distant place called DC.

One was a real person. The other was just another playing piece, going through the motions. (They were both the same party by the way)

[goaded]

"Originally it didn't have a federal government at all"?
Congress is literally set out in Article 1 of the constitution. The presidency in Article 2.

Before there was an agreed constitution there was no United States. Before the revolution, they were subjects of the British Empire.

Why don't you try to convince people in your state to elect a better congresscritter?

Whether your vote is one millionth of the overall or one third, democracy is about the right of the majority to choose their leaders, tempered by the rule of law and the constitution.

[WindAtMyBack]

@goaded

The Constitution was NOT the start of the US. The Articles of Confederation was. Many of the founders of the US were against the Constitution and the change from a confederation to a federation. In hindsight I think they were right.

[goaded]

Maybe. Britain would probably have managed to take the colonies back in the war of 1812. Slavery would have been outlawed decades earlier and the slaveholders recompensed, reducing resentment towards freed slaves and their descendants.

[Anpu23]

Complacency and strict adherence to party lines is the biggest threat to democracy. "If my team says it's good its good by golly." Both sides of the isle have issues and flaws and part of being a good citizen is to look deeply into issues that concern you. To educate yourself with information from both sides if an issue and form an opinion on the best understanding of the facts. To not take any one sources word for something and to be informed.

I've worked in a government bureaucracy and their biggest concern is just to guarantee themselves a job by overly complicating their position. Want to know why you need 6 copies of some form or other and some obscure stamp to get something done? It's because someone somewhere needed to justify their paycheck so they created a bunch of procedures that only they could understand. It's how crap gets done though.

“The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

― Thomas Jefferson

[MisterWack]

No.

Bureaucracy isn’t the threat. Lobbyists, swindlers, conmen, corrupt political figureheads, thieves, and liars are the issue.

I’m pro regulating of corporate entities like spying on us, stealing & selling our data, junk fees & late fees & overpriced subscriptions, shrinkflation, squeezing their workforce dry while giving CEO top dollar, pumping harmful chemicals / fumes into atmosphere also dumping chemicals into the water ways, and shady business practices also monopolizing industries. Bureaucracy does these on paper, but these factors corrode the system.

[MisterWack]

I want to make it abundantly clear: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, etc. are all out for their money therefore their needs, desires, priorities revolve around money not their workers or the environment they potentially harm with their product or service, only out for themselves. Gates & Bezos & Tim Cook play to the Left I don’t care, I see them as assholes same with all CEOs / Corporate entities without bias. Musk & Zuckerberg & others play to the Right I don’t care, I see them as assholes same with all CEOs / Corporate entities without bias. I have my reasons not to trust them more than reasons to trust them, they can’t just play political strings to win over my praise because I don’t play that way.

[goaded]

“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

That's what's happening, and questions like this prove it.

A nation that turns on the whim of one man is a dictatorship and failed state. That's true even if it takes an entire political party to comply to make it happen.

[ImalwaysrightOK]

100%. It's already proven to be true. Large government alphabet agencies are unelected and have used their unchecked power to terrorize and imprison those who disobey.

FBI

CIA

ATF

DOJ

IRS

all government bureaucratic terrorist organizations.

[DrPepper12]

Uh-huh...

[purplepoppy]

No, the more politicians tie themselves up in bureaucracy the less time they have to do any real damage. Do you realise how dangerous it would be to actually allow them to do stuff.

[molonski2]

Anyone who has ever had even a small taste of working for/ with government knows this to be true in the absolute , sadly , its human nature , I have this great gig , now I need someone to manage , from there it simply extends to employment preservation , where the poor fcker at the end gets left all the work , and all the blame.

And when you are in there your goal is to attach to the Gravy train , create some issues , make more work.. and on and on and on she rolls..

[DrPepper12]

That's so sad. I feel sorry for you.

[molonski2]

@DrPepper12
I dont work for the government , but it did happen for years - completely and utterly useless when it comes to productivity , this particular " business " did not need to exist , now it does not.
All on board the Gravy train ! Now is the time to clean it up.
500k ( 20 years ago ) to a female CEO they didn't need , and was useless , I could have run that in my sleep with 1/4 of the staff.

[lightbulb27]

at this point I'd say the threat is truth, lies and such.

[Anonymous]

"a" not "the" but I still voted "yes" because it's a big enough threat.

[Anonymous]

that's what the fascists are saying but it's not true

[DrPepper12]

Isaac Asimov was right about you people...

Why this war on expertise? WHY?

[Dongie]

That's half anyway. Don't forget their benefactors the politicians.

[NaultD]

What's the alternative? Just bat shit crazy because I said so. Without any documents.

There's reason why we can't have nice things.

[NaultD]

It's fucking crazy to me. Government is too powerful without any overhead keeping it in check while also being over encumbered keeping too many rules in place.

[DrPepper12]

I thought we the people check it?

[Knightwatch27]

Not bureaucracy in itself but too much bureaucracy, yes. Ancient China at one point suffered from the overtake of a bureaucratic elite which hampered social growth, technology and economy severely.

[RavVid]

Beyond doubt. There are far more bureaucrats then elected politicians and they are out numbered

[OddBeMe]

Of course not. Bureaucracy keeps Medicare and social security checks going out to your fcking grandparents

[HungTexan]

Bureaucracy is not only a threat to democracy, it’s a killer for getting anything done.

[DrPepper12]

Soooooo... Did your SS check arrive via post office on govt roads delivered by a publicly educated civil servant as you were BBQing your inspected ribs using standardized BTU measuring units?

Even the Cognitive dissonance is bigger in TX...

[Friendlybro79]

I think more than one thing can be true at the same time and this is def one of things that is true but not sole reason.

[NYCQuestions1976]

Definitely true. The government should be as tiny and as streamlined as possible.

[Anonymous]

no because it's Marxist communism that's the biggest threat to Democracy

[electromagnetic]

I am indifference to it. I live, I die.

[just_a_potato]

Words... too... big for potato...

[FenixG45]

No, the REAL threat to Democracy is electing idiotic morons.

[NicholasRedone]

Is that code for puppetry rule the world?

[Notherndude84]

One of many, not the sole threat

[Wiredone]

Yes 100 percent

[beefcakebradybatson]

D**N SKIPPY !!!

[Miristheiss]

Corruption

[FunkyMonkee]

No, it's democrats.

[RingOfFire]

100%

[RingOfFire]

Again I refer people to President Reagan's inauguration address which makes this case the best I have ever heard it made...

https://youtu.be/G8jV_1G9Yj4?si=rBQdOWJFs96p9xKd

[AManOnTheWeb]

Yeah, still waiting for that wealth to trickle down... Under 45ish years of Reaganomics we've seen the greatest transfer of wealth to the top 0.01% in history.