alt Hacker NewsThanks for correcting me.
I don't know if your comment was intentionally ambiguous or not but it makes sense to either extreme, plus anything in between.
Really one of the things that can (has) stimulate ideas from many directions.
Too bad when you end up as a punching bag from the fraction of partisans just because some of them are so extreme, usually it's only the ones that harbor a lot of hate more than anything else, where negative outlook emanates in all directions.
So you get put down from all directions :(
When the message stands alone as completely neutral and it ends up as a target of the "non-nattering nabobs of negativity" it is still kind of disappointing. So much better responses could be made. I still haven't found any reason to downvote anybody, ever.
Hope it wasn't my mischaracterizing your comment that dismayed anybody worse.
Now with more meat on the bone, infrastructure and real public utility are table stakes which somebody has to pay for, and I'm perfectly willing. Cheerful only if the rate is not exorbitant, which is the real problem.
I'd like to be more cheerful but the corruption sunk in so long ago that it's not pretty. One of the reasons that things dedicated to the public are always more expensive than they could be.
I happily pay my taxes in order to feel like a productive citizen in society. I'm very glad and lucky that I am in a position where I can pay my taxes. I drive on roads, I should absolutely contribute to the building and maintenance of said roads. It is a no brainer.
But I also don't agree with the taxes I pay because I feel like too much goes to waste and that I don't get the value back from what I'm putting in. Most of the roads I drive on today, are very poorly maintained. Where did the money go?
I pay the taxes that employ local lifeguards at my beach. They save people's lives. Good. But they also get angry at me when I'm not holding my dogs leash, even if there are no other dogs around. I don't think that overlapping ocean safety with a nanny state around dogs, is a good use of my taxes. Especially when there are people living in RVs at the beach who are breaking the laws stated on posted signs and they do nothing about it.
The original question about legitimacy was more philosophical. If you are a believer in government and laws, then legitimate is that a group has made up a rule (or law) in order to make it legitimate. I don't agree with that defining legitimacy, it is something else. It isn't law, it is a social contract. We should contribute to society by definition, not by law
So at the end of the day, it is a lot of give and take. Some better or worse. It is what it is. I just try to live my best life and ignore the rest.