[kaens]

> The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents.

According to who? I understand that this is a kind of framing used here often, but the federal government has been concerned primarily with itself for a long time now at least to my eyes.

[_jgdh]

According to ground realities. In a well functioning representative democracy, voters will kick out politicians/administrations that don’t represent their interests well.

So if you want to be the one politician that values non-citizens’ rights over citizens’ rights, good luck getting re-elected.

Or you could set up an autocracy and try to manage this anyway. For further reading, I recommend the book The Dictator’s Handbook or CGP Greg’s 20 minute summary of it.

[kaens]

ground realities are that, for example, flint michigan barely has clean water after seven years.

if you are claiming the usa is not a well functioning representative democracy, i agree.

[PeterisP]

The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens even if a particular government fails at this duty. When a government does not properly fulfil their role, that is the direction towards which we push them, to better represent the interest, desires and choices of their citizens - not to act for the benefit of everyone else in the world.

[squidlogic]

That's a pretty basic tenant of democracy. The government is by the people and for the people.

[phaemon]

Perhaps just a typo, but since I've seen this mistake before: it's "tenet" rather than "tenant".

[kaens]

if i write "bees" on a box, does the box contain bees?