# Can we ever create a government that works well? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2022, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280 "2022-12-29T14:39:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/41 "2022-12-30T17:07:05Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > A government will always be a compromise, and no one will ever get everything that they want. So, before you can answer how to get a government that works well, you have to answer the question, “Works well at what?” What metrics do we judge by? Took over 30 posts for someone to point _that_ out. The very first compromise to be achieved would have to be indeed, what _ **is** _ “working well”?? Are we being \*process-\*oriented or \*goal-\*oriented, and then who decides what is the better process AND the better goal, and what happens if they don’t sync well with each other? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/42 "2022-12-30T17:09:19Z")
I think there are things in most systems of government that could do with a tweak, but it’s difficult to tweak things in ways that actually improve things and don’t have unintended consequences. I also think that it’s wrong to think of “a government that works well” in isolation. The US isn’t suffering a crisis of government, it’s suffering a crisis of society and good government is a casualty as well as a tool in the struggle. There are issues with right wing and populist movements in other western democracies as well, and the reason many of them are doing better isn’t that their systems of government were inherently better, it’s that their societies had less issues for the right wing and populists to build off of (not none, but less). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/43 "2022-12-30T18:00:00Z")
I wouldn’t say “honesty test” per se, but it would probably be beneficial if there were some consequences for knowingly lying. Note that this sidesteps the issue of “who gets to decide what is true or not?”. Because it is not whether a statement is _true_. That’s virtually irrelevant. It’s about on what _basis_ did you make that statement? If we can have campaign finance laws, I don’t see why willful lying laws are impossible. In both cases you make laws limiting what politicians can do and have a independent judiciary that must evaluate when the law has been broken. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/44 "2022-12-30T21:44:38Z")
Dollars and cents are a lot more objective than disputed statements. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/45 "2022-12-30T21:57:25Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > If we can have campaign finance laws, I don’t see why willful lying laws are impossible. IMHO a big part of it is that voters on the right don’t care if their politicians tell certain types of lies. Let’s say a Republican official says “I’m not racist” but then evidence comes up that they have said racist things, or maybe they vote to enact legislation that is racist. Their voters wouldn’t care. The same thing happens when they say something to the effect of “I believe the working class / middle class pay too much in taxes”, and then they proceed to cut taxes on the wealthy and raise taxes on the middle class. Those voters don’t care that they were lied to, they’ll vote to re-elect those politicians anyway. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/46 "2022-12-30T22:19:58Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > The same thing happens when they say something to the effect of “I believe the working class / middle class pay too much in taxes”, and then they proceed to cut taxes on the wealthy and raise taxes on the middle class. Those voters don’t care that they were lied to, they’ll vote to re-elect those politicians anyway. Or: if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/47 "2022-12-30T22:33:48Z")
But for Republican opposition to all things good & sane, that would have remained true. It was part of the D plan at that time. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/48 "2022-12-30T22:34:49Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Or: if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > But for Republican opposition to all things good & sane, that would have remained true. It was part of the D plan at that time. Not only that, but the Democrats did, in fact, get shelled at the polls in 2010. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/49 "2022-12-30T22:55:02Z")
Right, that was a significant talking point of the right that entirely took the quote out of context and changed its meaning in order to make it into a lie. And even thought the actual context was right there to see, many republicans chose to believe the lie anyway. The lie was also spread in various news media, exposing low information voters to it. Lies are generally believed much more readily than the truth. They get repeated over and over, even a decade later. What to do about it is a different question. Educating people in critical thinking and agency is about the best we can hope for, but that only helps those who want to learn and think, and don’t just want to parrot the latest ‘pwn the libs’ line that they heard from their choice of media. Which is how we end up where we are, where we have an entire party that just repeats the lies they are told to repeat, to believe the lies they are told to believe, and to consider anyone who would say differently to be not a fellow citizen with whom they should work together on the things they agree on and compromise on the things they don’t, but that they should fight against anything the other side wants, even if it is something that they want too. Government is the people, and when the people are dysfunctional, when they aren’t even capable of living in the same reality anymore, government can’t fix that, it will be a symptom of that, and be just as dysfunctional. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/50 "2022-12-30T23:03:04Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > Ultimately the problem is that a significant number of people, maybe most of them, don’t want to work with views, opinions, and desires that are counter to their own. > > The art of politics is to find areas where we _can_ work together on things that we agree upon, and to find acceptable compromises in the areas where we don’t. > > Anything else is tyranny. I have a more cynical view that the politics is the art of crafting deals between different entities that hold power so that the can continue to hold power. What prevents tyranny is having that power distributed across different groups so that no single group can simply rule unilaterally. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/51 "2022-12-30T23:04:55Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Right, that was a significant talking point of the right that entirely took the quote out of context and changed its meaning in order to make it into a lie. The “right” did not take anything out of context. Politifact called Obama’s statement the “Lie of the Year” in 2013. [Obama’s ‘You Can Keep It’ Promise Is ‘Lie Of The Year’ : The Two-Way : NPR](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/13/250694372/obamas-you-can-keep-it-promise-is-lie-of-the-year) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/52 "2022-12-30T23:07:15Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > > [@Mijin](#): > > > > If we can have campaign finance laws, I don’t see why willful lying laws are impossible. > > IMHO a big part of it is that voters on the right don’t care if their politicians tell certain types of lies. Let’s say a Republican official says “I’m not racist” but then evidence comes up that they have said racist things, or maybe they vote to enact legislation that is racist. Their voters wouldn’t care. The same thing happens when they say something to the effect of “I believe the working class / middle class pay too much in taxes”, and then they proceed to cut taxes on the wealthy and raise taxes on the middle class. Those voters don’t care that they were lied to, they’ll vote to re-elect those politicians anyway. Which begs the question is it really a failure of democracy of the people continue to elect shit-heads? At what point does someone step in and say “you people are too stupid to pick your leaders so we’ll pick them for you”? Who would be that person who steps in and what prevents them from simply picking different shit heads who serve their own interests? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/53 "2022-12-30T23:09:45Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Right, that was a significant talking point of the right that entirely took the quote out of context and changed its meaning in order to make it into a lie. No, it was just a lie, as is. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/54 "2022-12-30T23:15:06Z")
Yes, Obama did make the mistake of thinking that the American people and Republicans in particular weren’t stupid. He should have mentioned that if you have a plan that just takes your money and won’t actually help you out if you need it, you may not be able to keep that, thinking that people who had plans like that wouldn’t like them and wouldn’t _want_ to keep them. And he also made the mistake of assuming that people would understand that he was only talking about the effects of the ACA, and that he had no power over your employer who may choose to change your plan. But, like I said, if half the country is incapable of even the most basic levels of critical thinking, where they would actually think of that as something that misled them, then there is no government structure that can help us. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/55 "2022-12-30T23:17:47Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > He should have mentioned that if you have a plan that just takes your money and won’t actually help you out if you need it, you may not be able to keep that, thinking that people who had plans like that wouldn’t like them and wouldn’t _want_ to keep them. Yes, he should have. No, he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/56 "2022-12-31T04:47:37Z")
You said that it was a talking point of “the right”. Politifact is (allegedly) nonpartisan. Were they wrong, too? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/57 "2022-12-31T11:33:43Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > When was that ever a thing in any western government? Seems like total fantasy land to me, given what I know of past presidents (I admittedly don’t know much about senators, governors and representatives in that regard, but I can’t imagine it’d be astoundingly different). I’d say that among people in positions of power, adultery has been the rule rather than the exception - especially in “traditional” societies. “Traditional morality tests” have always been more a matter of “Don’t ask too many questions” and “Let’s not talk about that, OK?” Adultery may have ended peoples political careers, but only if the public knew about it… and the public was never informed. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/58 "2022-12-31T14:34:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > You know who had an efficient government? The Nazis. This is not correct. The Nazi system ran on the basis of the absolute authority of one man. Basic organizational behaviour theory says that’s not possible, at the national level. One man cannot make all the decisions. That meant that Hitler had to delegate, to people like Himmler and Goering. Relying on the _Führerprinzip_, those officials in turn set up their own areas of control, with absolute authority within them. Naturally, they of course tried to expand their own areas of control, so they were constantly squabbling over their respective powers. But since they only had authority based on delegation from Hitler, that meant that in cases of dispute, their power waxed and waned with how well Hitler perceived them, not how well they were doing their jobs. And that sort of dynamic played out down the food chain, as each local leader tried to use the _Führerprinzip_ to justify expansion of their authority. Laws did not have the same role as in a democratic system, of providing a relatively objective government structure, that everyone understood. It was a system ultimately based on the personal whim of one man. Policies were implemented, or not, based on Hitler’s own views. There was no way to correct or challenge those views, even if they made no sense. The “no surrender, no retreat” approach was an extreme example. Retreats can be valuable militarily, to preserve your forces as an army in the field. But instead, Stalingrad. An interesting read is Speer’s _Inside the Third Reich_. There are clear dangers in the book, since he was trying to present himself as one of the “good” Nazis (right - the guy who used slave labour to keep the Nazi war machine running was a “good” Nazi). However, he does show how the Nazi system worked from the inside, and it was anything but efficient. > **[Inside the Third Reich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Third_Reich)** > > Inside the Third Reich (German: Erinnerungen, "Memories") is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Adolf Hitler's main architect before this period. It is considered to be one of the most detailed descriptions of the inner workings and leadership of Nazi Germany but is controversial because of Speer's lack of discussion of Nazi atrocities and questions regarding his degree of awareness or involvement with them. First published in 1969, it a... ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/59 "2022-12-31T20:05:36Z")
To be fair, in general it is often the _government_ of certain countries that assume it would be the best form of government for other countries (its _people_ may not have a lot of say in countries where 100% vote for the preferred candidates), often including a mix of naïveté, cultural ignorance, historical hegemony, wishful thinking or manifestations of power and patriotism. I doubt I could create a better form of government de novo; the question then becomes what form of government which has existed in human history is the best one? And according to whom? ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280/60 "2022-12-31T20:37:02Z")
This is a good post. Smart people have also looked at when _in time_ specific governments passed the most effective legislation. In the US, this might consider major reforms between (say) 1930 and the 1970s (opinions will vary) - and also whether it is better to have younger or older leaders, or the effect of major global disruptions as impetus for change and partisan cooperation. The US is also interesting because states have considerable power in some areas and differ very widely in their approaches to certain problems. These “cradles of democracy” can be great innovators, trying bold experiments - or remain seemingly run by babies. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-ever-create-a-government-that-works-well/977280.md?page=4)