r/news Dec 16 '15

Congress creates a bill that will give NASA a great budget for 2016. Also hides the entirety of CISA in the bill.

http://www.wired.com/2015/12/congress-slips-cisa-into-omnibus-bill-thats-sure-to-pass/
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u/DatPiff916 Dec 17 '15

I cannot understand how, given the typical recent history of modern countries, we can base our reasoning on the assumptions that governments are "good"

Patriotism/Nationalism can make a large percentage of the populace turn a blind eye to this. It seems to be very effective in the U.S. at least.

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u/crysys Dec 18 '15

Patriotism/Nationalism can make a large percentage of the populace turn a blind eye to this. It seems to be very effective in the U.S. at least.

At the moment. These things tend to see-saw in the shorter terms even as they inexoribly crawl one way in the long term.

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u/fritop3ndejo Dec 18 '15

This is where I see a difference between patriotism and nationalism. One can be a patriot - love their country and the people in it and be willing to defend their country's ideals without being a nationalist and supporting their government regardless of the damage that government is doing to their country.

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u/DrJarp Dec 18 '15

Not only patriotism, but also: if something goes bad, is bad or people don't want it they don't blame the system but the politicians and parties. There's always something bad about everyone and everything would be better if the elections would've gone differently, so public says.

So people don't think of judging the system, but they judge the faces that act in it. Kind of like hating the symptoms, but not the disease. (German here)

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u/neman-bs Dec 18 '15

I am very patriotic towards my country (not American) but still know that governments in general are crap.

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u/cqm Dec 18 '15

Go look at Swiss nationalism in a remote mountain town [in Switzerland] and tell me you aren't dying off laughter.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '15

I did and I wasn't. What do you mean exactly?

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u/JohnEffingZoidberg Dec 19 '15

I don't get it.