1) Most people around the world have some alienation towards their government (probably because most governments are willing to screw over/kill their citizens to maintain power if need be).
2) The United States Found Fathers pretty much all warned (and every child is taught in school) that the government should not be trusted (at least not with that much power).
Its astonishing that most American's allowed their government to become so over baring. If anyone read a couple history books as a child or young adult they would understand that one of the greatest concern for many of the nations leaders was the government become tyrannical. If it is a "peculiar American" trait, it comes from the literature, ideology, and moral fortitude of the original founders of the culture/nation.
Many Americans have a baseless distrust of government. Our schools teach us from a very young age that "government bad, founding fathers came here from Britain to escape the evil government".
Part of the American mythology is that government involvement is always bad. It's hard for me to know if this developed because of the myths of the America Revolution, that a small colony won it alone and not because of external factors, and how much is due to people preaching small government politics. Regardless a distrust of the government seems to be ingrained in the American psyche IMO.
People from more or less politically stable countries like the US are very naive in not considering what can happen to the best of governments overnight.
People from Europe have this sort of... experience. Most of us know that trusting the government with our lives is not a good idea.
> [1] A large subset of the American population believe that government can do no good.
[2] An even larger subset of American population believe that government was there assigned by God and one should listen and obey it. Anyone who disagrees or criticizes government's position (especially related to privacy issues, torture, wars, extra-judicial executions) is deemed a terrorist sympathizer.
They are also known as authoritarian followers. Their numbers far far surpass the number of those who think "government can do no good". From my observation, the proportion is surprising given the story of "freedom", "war of independence", "democracy". I have seen more dissent and criticism of government in other countries with governments with authoritarian or totalitarian leanings.
In many places in the world, the government is corrupt and there is no transparency.
I’d be surprised if people trust their governments in Poland, Bulgaria etc.
Government officials have more power to abuse people than companies. At least Germany has an established constitutional court that can still resist the politicians to some degree.
I think the american view is that governments are bad because they can be used to establish tyranny. Every citizen’s right to be judged by their own peers, their right to carry firearms and freedom of speech are the things that allow people to fight against corrupt governments.
This is my view being someone living in Turkey. I am even afraid of posting this comment.
Maybe this generation in Europe trusts their government and thinks that its good. But I bet people having experienced autocratic regimes can never trust their government.
I think the real reason is buried deeper: most Americans have instilled into them that governments are not to be trusted. It's why government salaries suck, it's why it's largely filled with people that couldn't find jobs in the private sector (sad but true). This sentiment bleeds over into education, with nonsense talk of "leftist indoctrination", teachers being stereotyped as money-hungry and lazy because of their unions, and so on.
This isn't that far-fetched; the country was basically founded by rich conspiracy theorist farmers that didn't want to pay taxes.
One reason voters in the US trust their government far less to do a competent and honest job than voters in other rich countries is that their government actually is that much worse.
I think there's a fundamental distrust of government here in the U.S. that I chalked up to greed until I bothered to glance at the beginning of Tom Paine's "Common Sense" which basically states that government is a necessary evil.
I think it's sad how a default distrust of the government gets one painted as a crazy gun-toting militiaman, or a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. These are after all, the people who founded America, not out of paranoia, but from deep reflection on the nature and history of government.
After President Franklin Pierce's child died gruesomely in a train wreck, it was believed, even by his own wife and family, that it was God's punishment for him seeking authority and power.
I didn't live in the past, but my reading of it leads me to believe that, at least through US history, it seemed that the public consciousness in the past has had very real skepticism of authority.
Perhaps that is the opposite today in many parts of the developed world. For example, a German guy recently looked me dead in the eye, smiled, and said sincerely: "But why would anybody not trust their government?"
That's true to a degree. But I think it goes beyond that for many people. Many people are looking at the history (and present) of governments oppressing and taking military action against dissenting citizens (see Burma today, United States/Britain in the 1700s).
It goes beyond "disagreeable policies". There are real events that lead people to be distrustful of government.
Personally I think that not having trust in government and not allowing for an effective government because of that lack of trust is a critical problem. But it's not adequate to simply ignore the previous bad behavior of governments. There need to be some structural improvement to increase the credibility of trust.
The US government continues to lose the trust of the citizens. Because of poor policy making, too MUCH policy making, and crazy assholes attaining high level positions (Trump, Pai, etc...). So, what exactly is odd about that?
I agree that the military industrial complex (let's not call it "defense", when is the last time our military had to defend our borders?) created the environment that spawned the current tech industry, but, who cares? The people are rightly sick of it. We are sick of wasting tax dollars on foreign oil wars, sick of our friendly town police officer using military weapons and aggressive military escalation policies, and sick of the microcontrol our government exercises over our lives.
> It's a failing of the American condition. The country was founded by radical conspiracy theorist farmers that didn't want to pay taxes. Distrusting government is in our national ethos.
Not true at all. Distrust of government is a relatively new phenomenon in American politics. It can be traced back to Reagan's infamous "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help" quote. This is because Reagan strictly believed in small government, and wanted to limit government interference in most things.
Before Reagan, Americans had no issues trusting government to solve big problems or accomplish major goals. See the Space Race, and Roosevelt's New Deal policies two decades before that. American people were largely optimistic about those endeavors because they trusted their government.
This deeply cynical and distrustful view of govt. is very US-centric. Perhaps it's driven by the fact that govt. frankly stopped working for the average US citizen a long time ago. It doesn't hold true elsewhere in the world.
Edited: OP is not the top-voted comment any more, thank goodness.
2) The United States Found Fathers pretty much all warned (and every child is taught in school) that the government should not be trusted (at least not with that much power).
Its astonishing that most American's allowed their government to become so over baring. If anyone read a couple history books as a child or young adult they would understand that one of the greatest concern for many of the nations leaders was the government become tyrannical. If it is a "peculiar American" trait, it comes from the literature, ideology, and moral fortitude of the original founders of the culture/nation.
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