# Should governments fear their people? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 30, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331 "2016-07-30T21:45:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/21 "2016-07-31T12:44:44Z")
Democracy cannot work if neither the electorate nor the elected can be trusted to act in the best interests of the whole, rather than of themselves individually. So, if there is to be a perception of democracy, “fear” ought not be an issue, on one side nor the other. When a fear is perceived, your democracy has failed. Fear, as you have no doubt noticed, is a very easy mindset to cultivate. ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/22 "2016-07-31T13:00:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The mob is not the people. It’s just a small group that happens to be near the seat of government. The mob deciding to kill a leader it doesn’t like is no more legitimate than an assassin shooting a President. The government should be subject to review by the people as a whole not by every individual person in the country. I think we are having a failure to communicate. You think I am talking about a small group of insurgents holding a coup. I’m not. The “mob” is the voting population. You keep saying “the people as a whole.” What does that even mean? The “people as a whole” can barely agree on the time of day, much less what should or should not be the proper role of government. Go read some of the examples that I mentioned. When “the people as a whole” make dumb shit decisions and decapitate their own leadership over any perceived failure or disagreement, it results in paralyzing the system of government to the point that governance is ineffective. > [@](#): > > It the people as a whole who should have the power to decide if government officials are removed from office. And despite your cynicism, we manage to accomplish this every few years. > > In the short run, the the loudest and angriest and stupidest people may get their way. But then the smart people get organized and outmaneuver the stupid people. This is why we keep making progress. Yes, we do accomplish this… _every few years_. The Athenians wanted the government to be afraid of the people, so they held elections annually and had great power to recall, expel, or even execute anyone that displeased them for practically any stupid reason. This led to chaos. This is part of the reason that we have things like a four-year presidential term and a lifelong Supreme Court. We recognize, for example, that the Supreme Court Justices should be able to make their decisions purely on the basis of law and reason, and not because they are afraid of being fired or voted out of office. Likewise, if the President makes an unpopular decision he is still protected from losing his job for at least a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/23 "2016-07-31T13:26:07Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > OP, you better define what you mean by “fear” in this context. Because as mentioned there is the fear of failing to serve the people well, the fear of displeasing them, and the fear of actually being _harmed_ by them. > > That the stability of the state must based on fear of the people is a clever buzzline for a comicbook and the film based thereon but in actual politics? As already mentioned, it creates a presumption that the relation between the state and the public must be essentially an _adversarial_ one and that turns the concept of government of/by/for the people on its head IMO. …snip… +1 to this. OP is extremely vague and it is causing confusion. Some responses here are interpreting “fear” to mean that the people should violently attack their government, and some are interpreting it to mean that an official can be voted out in the next election. There’s a huuuuge amount of gray between those two extremes. I’m also going to criticize the juvenile nature of the government/people dichotomy. The dominant narrative in most anti-government screeds is that the “government” is this monolithic and alien entity that comes from outside the country and imposes itself on “the people.” In real life, the government is composed of the people. Where do you draw the line? Is the little old lady that works at the Post Office “government” or is she “people?” Is she in danger of being murdered if the “government” does something the “people” don’t like? How high does a civil servant have to rise in the hierarchy before they are “one of\* them\*?” The people that support this kind of comic-book fantasy world have this idea of the “government” being something like the evil Empire in _Star Wars._ When they talk about “the government” they imagine the capitol building in Washington and maybe the police and the IRS, or whatever other agency they have a beef with. They don’t acknowledge that in real life the “government” is composed of literally millions of people with varying degrees of responsibility who make sure they have clean water, safe roads, and buildings that don’t fall over. I’d suggest that these kinds of people should take a look at what happened in Baathist Iraq. They got rid of the entire “government,” which meant kicking out not just the dictators and the tyrants but also the minor functionaries and the municipal workers. They blacklisted all of the people who knew how to operate the water systems, the city electrical grids, and the garbage collectors. And it turns out that no matter how much you hate the police, when you fire _everyone_ down to Barney goddamned Fife the Mayberry deputy, it throws everything into chaos. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/24 "2016-07-31T14:23:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s hyperbole. In the context of Colonial America, the “people” were subjects of the Crown. The King ruled by divine right and could do whatever he wanted to preserve his authority, as there was no mechanism to remove him… Pretty sure that was disproved about 120 years earlier, in 1649. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/25 "2016-07-31T14:36:09Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > No, ALL of the people will be unhappy at some time or another. > > Government (or “the state”) has to make choices about what to do, and even then has to prioritize how and when it carries out those choices. A government that’s constantly afraid of revolution will either do nothing, or, as **Der Trihs** points out, will treat the people as an enemy. That’s nonsense. If all of the people are unhappy because the government failed to serve them then the government should be afraid, and hopefully the people will revolt for their own benefit. That has nothing to do with government fearing dissatisfaction due to factors beyond their control any more than fearing the dissatisfaction of a single citizen. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/26 "2016-07-31T14:45:46Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#): > > You keep saying “the people as a whole.” What does that even mean? The “people as a whole” can barely agree on the time of day, much less what should or should not be the proper role of government. Go read some of the examples that I mentioned. When “the people as a whole” make dumb shit decisions and decapitate their own leadership over any perceived failure or disagreement, it results in paralyzing the system of government to the point that governance is ineffective. You produced two examples, one from 406 BC and one from 1789. That hardly indicates that mob action is an ongoing danger. In general, the people act with more restraint. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/27 "2016-07-31T20:17:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m no historian, but I don’t think you have it quite right. The Americans beef was with Parliament, not so much the King. Remember, the Stamp Act was an Act of Parliament, and the Americans were protesting “no taxation without representation”, as they had no representatives in Parliament. I don’t believe that GIII could “do whatever he wanted”. . . . Valid point, but people have a kind of “figurehead” reasoning – synecdoche? – where, yeah, Parliament is the problem, but they still shake their fist at The King. It’s a little like blaming Obama for the ACA: Congress passed it, not the President… Certainly the existence of Parliaments in the first place is an outbreak of “fear the people” reasoning. Kings were too damned powerful, until the Barons rose up and put some limits on them. (Divided government is, quite possibly, the single best thing humanity has ever invented in 8,000 years of civilization. Second best is sanitary sewage disposal.) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/28 "2016-07-31T20:57:33Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Have you met people before? Because in my experience, they’re just as likely to lash out at what they fear than cower from it. Especially if they have the tools right at hand needed to do the lashing out with. Which by nature governments always do have. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331/29 "2016-07-31T22:31:05Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > That’s nonsense. If all of the people are unhappy because the government failed to serve them then the government should be afraid, and hopefully the people will revolt for their own benefit. That has nothing to do with government fearing dissatisfaction due to factors beyond their control any more than fearing the dissatisfaction of a single citizen. I said, “ALL of the people will be unhappy **at some time or another**.” As in, you can’t please everyone all the time. As soon as a government makes a choice, someone won’t like it. And given the nature of democracies, eventually everyone will disagree with som4e decision or other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-governments-fear-their-people/761331.md?page=1)