Well I’m a libertarian because it takes into account all the other monsters. The goal of government is to maximize freedom. That doesnt’ mean anarchy, because people are less free under anarchy than they are under properly-operating government.

IMO a government should be just powerful enough to prevent other governments from forming. Like, the purpose of an army in a democracy is to prevent other armies from coming to install a dictatorship over the people.

Or to mirror the common saying about guns: “The only way to stop a bad government with an army, is with a good government with an army”.

But the other monsters are gangs, corporations, individuals. And a good government enforces rules that prevent those other monsters from taking away your freedom.

But yeah. Basic point is that libertarian => government’s purpose is to maximize freedom

“You work for DARPA? No way! I also work for DARPA! I’m on terminal 3!”

I’d consider your fear to be rational, although others might disagree.

Governments, by their nature, hold a monopoly on the “legitimate use of violence.” That’s a pretty terrible power to abuse and the best systems we have for holding power in check is to diffuse it into many people and set those people somewhat at odds with each other, aka, checks and balances.

I would consider J6 to be a failed coup, and coups are often about consolidating power into fewer and fewer hands, purging groups at odds with a strong man leader, which is fertile ground for abuse of power.

Now though you have to decide what to do with that fear. You have to decide how you want that fear to be a part of your life. Fear exists to tell us of danger, it’s our limbic system telling us to pay attention. You get to decide now if this danger is real and if living in fear is appropriate.

There are many reactions to fear, but I’ve found that positive action and mental health support are good responses to fear.

As an example, I struggle with anxiety, and it sucks because when you are anxious about something it’s common to avoid it and then you never fix it so it makes you more anxious and then you avoid it more, repeat. It took mental health support in the form of therapy and anti anxiety medicine to give me the tools I needed to start taking positive action that started tackling the things causing me anxiety. Now though, much less anxiety, the things that made me anxious weren’t helpful, it wasn’t helpful to my life to be constantly worrying about things I could address once I wasn’t constantly worrying.

Fear is a difficult emotion to live with day in and day out. Perhaps there are positive actions you can take to help address these fears, run for office, vote, volunteer for candidates you believe in. I know that therapy was helpful for me in understanding why I feel what I feel and how to make healthy choices around those feelings.

I hope you find some measure of peace though, you aren’t alone. I share your concerns, and many other people do, and I’ve decided to work my hardest to prevent it since that’s all I can do. History is full of assholes trying to fuck shit up for their own benefit and decent people unfucking that shit up.

so far any communist/socialist societies have become totalitarian regimes

Uh. You need to broaden your perspective. 1) many countries in Europe have more socialistic governments than the USA. 2) socialism is a spectrum with varying levels. The USA while ostensibly capitalist, has socialist roads and schools and police.

It’s funny that I have to explain it, but just share any information that makes you look like a very average person, without anything that might make you stand out.

Obviously, you have to give them some information, to adhere to “don’t stand out”.

People that overcook chicken should go to jail /s

Thanks for the recommendation. I just looked him up.

East Asia? Home of North Korea, China, Myanmar et al?

Both can be true. A lot of the bad is business getting what it wants in pursuit of getting All of the money. A lot of the bad is incompetent government officials legislating things they don’t understand, often after “seminars” by lobbyists to “teach” them. And a lot of the bad is government officials with bad ideas doing bad things maliciously.

For example, even businesses don’t want to kill off encryption but every once in a while here comes some Representative to try and do it anyway.

I have a lot of friends who are either centrists or on the right who are also very anti-government or government critical in their own way, and it bleeds into some conspiratorial thinking. One of the most difficult things when discussing politics with these people is separating corporate greed and government complicity. Everything from federal reserve policy to rail safety protocol. It’s a constant struggle to remind people that the government is almost entirely beholden to corporate interest. In most cases, there is no “machine” or elitist hegemony behind the government pulling the strings. Our capitalist society is more often directed by the invisible hand of the corporatocracy. The system is legion, and very few individuals actually have goals beyond the next few quarters.

That’s often the most frustrating thing about arguing with conservatives and libertarians in my circles, at least with regards to systems of power and economic policy. They believe that since the economic powers that be seem to be making their own economic environment worse (and so threatening their own success decades down the line) that there must be some other power pulling the strings… but it’s really just shortsighted greed and economic mob mentality at every level.

That’s not to say that there aren’t warhawks and “law and order” zealots making our country a more dangerous place, and politicians pushing dangerous identity wars to suppress the labor class and garner votes. That’s all certainly happening. I just don’t believe there’s any grand plan in the minds of most powerful people beyond what they can obtain in the next political cycle or four fiscal quarters.