- Joined
- Apr 22, 2019
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- 46,485
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- Political Leaning
- Progressive
The basic theory of our republic is that the people are informed and want good policies, and elect people who serve their interests and have society have a powerful enough government to get things done.
It's very broken from that, but let's remember a couple times it sort of worked.
One was that government funded scientific research, which learned about harmful damage happening to the Ozone layer of our atmosphere. Scientists warned the public and while aerosols were popular, the government banned them, working with others globally, and successfully solved the problem.
Another was as our growing use of fossil fuels was creating great amounts of air pollution, covering our cities in smog and killing people. Again government science looked at the problem, and government supported significant improvements to the problem, which was much reduced.
We could go on - to things like other environmental issues, such as the extinction of animals, leading to government actions from the creation of the EPA to the Endangered Species Act; to the earlier recognition of food safety problems and the government greatly increasing regulations to solve that. go to China and you have great risk of food and water poisoning, lacking the effective US government policies.
Unfortunately, our government has been greatly corrupted since those examples, with many Americans foolishly cheering the corruption unwittingly. We can contrast those examples like the Ozone threat with how we're reacting to scientists warning about climate damage. A bought and paid for Senator brings a snowball into the Senate and symbolizes the corruption and Republicans cheer him and call the scientists liars. We've largely broken our democracy.
It's very broken from that, but let's remember a couple times it sort of worked.
One was that government funded scientific research, which learned about harmful damage happening to the Ozone layer of our atmosphere. Scientists warned the public and while aerosols were popular, the government banned them, working with others globally, and successfully solved the problem.
Another was as our growing use of fossil fuels was creating great amounts of air pollution, covering our cities in smog and killing people. Again government science looked at the problem, and government supported significant improvements to the problem, which was much reduced.
We could go on - to things like other environmental issues, such as the extinction of animals, leading to government actions from the creation of the EPA to the Endangered Species Act; to the earlier recognition of food safety problems and the government greatly increasing regulations to solve that. go to China and you have great risk of food and water poisoning, lacking the effective US government policies.
Unfortunately, our government has been greatly corrupted since those examples, with many Americans foolishly cheering the corruption unwittingly. We can contrast those examples like the Ozone threat with how we're reacting to scientists warning about climate damage. A bought and paid for Senator brings a snowball into the Senate and symbolizes the corruption and Republicans cheer him and call the scientists liars. We've largely broken our democracy.