Every Choice Is a Trade-off

[@andrewhosfeld]

Have to comment again as I had just watched a documentary on the Shah of Iran’s 2500 yr Persian Empire celebration in ‘71. The big aspect of the “shin dig” was of course the incredible amount spent on it. The people of Iran viscerally angry against such spending and rightfully so. But then I reflected on the incredible and insatiable spending the American Gov’t not just engages in but that the people go along with. It puts such events like the Shah’s party to spending shame. It seems, as you say (though you didn’t spiritually state a republic) that the people in a republic do exactly as you state in that it’s either a bad or worse choice not the right choice. The people in a republic, who are suppose to be a check on the gov’t, actually engage in the very acts of its own destruction rather than saving it. Almost makes the ‘Shah’s party’ an envious expense vs the kleptocracy so rampant in Western nations today.

[@BenedictBeckeld]

I'd add the distinction that in a republic the spending is ostensibly for the people (although it's often harmful spending), whereas in a monarchy or dictatorship there is more ostentatious spending to glorify the regime itself.

[@andrewhosfeld]

@@BenedictBeckeld when you mentioned that, it was the distinction I didn’t realize I was looking for until you pointed it out. When the Shah did said party, it was of course a vain objective veiled as national pride. Where as in republic’s the spending is under the indulgence/entitlement, maybe the “you only live once”, mindset. Or in later okiophobic stages, a guilt penance for past wrongs as slavery or “stolen land”. Or even just spend $ to give poorer nations regardless of their success.