I've been talking with friends and acquaintances these past few days. Everyone wants to be hopeful. They are looking for a bright spot in the chaos. A few are happy with what's happening or at least relieved it's finally happening. What do I mean by it? It in this case is dismantling the federal government. They have bought into the story about massive waste and fraud. They see the end consumer of government services as perpetuating massive fraud. They see government agencies as wasteful organizations. They have at best some anecdotal information that they extrapolate into massive waste and fraud. They also thing the government is inefficient at delivering services. But this is more accurately described as the government is doing something they don't think it should be doing. My interaction with federal agencies has been mostly positive. The social security website, the passport office, the Internal Revenue Service. All of those agencies have system in place to apply and manage the various aspects of the services. Renewing a passport is entirely online and worked without any issues. Checking on social security benefits and signing up for early benefits online worked without requiring a visit to an office or phone calls, I use a free online tax service to file tax returns electronically with the IRS and have paid and received refunds with no issue. So I am left with the feeling that most people have either had a personal bad experience due to their own misunderstandings or their lives are a lot more complicated than mine. They also seem to be mad about things they don't really understand. The government provides a lot of funding to maintain elements of the nations infrastructure in ways that are normally invisible to the average person. Somehow they've all become efficiency experts and junior sleuths opining on what the government should support and how much it should cost. Could our systems be better? Maybe. Would they be significantly cheaper? Maybe. Can we stop doing certain things? Maybe. Does the government have a role in all aspects of society? Probably. Should people be better informed about their government? Maybe. Knowing a little bit so you can tear down things is not helpful. We have created a complex society that attempts to provide the good life for many people. It's not always fair. It is however a thing we created because there was a need. I am all for reforming systems and evaluating services. Decisions need to be made in a democratic way. I would also think that kindness and mercy would be values that influence our decision making. There's no reason to treat people as targets and assume they are enemies. Kindness can go a long way to making things better. It doesn't mean there aren't hard decisions to be made. It merely means we can consider other values when making decisions.