@morecowbell@mastodon.social yep! But there's balance right? You could make up some pretty dystopian things in the name of preventing abuse, yes? So where is that balance? Privileged people who don't understand how the government could possibly abuse them, or people naturally comfortable with authoritarianism are going to want a different balance than other people, who are a little bit more wary of too much statist control.

Think about the RNC convention in 2016: it was all about setting aside your civil liberties so that we can keep you safe. Did you watch it? It totally had that vibe. Some people are comfortable with that: "the best government identifies and stops that crime" – this to me was where we really saw an uptick of authoritarianism in the Republican party.