If you have noticed, every independent candidate almost never gets elected. Vast majority of those who say they will "change the country to the better" either never get elected or are ousted early on. And those who stay change their tune.

I fear that only blackmail-able people with the potential to win elections, get the support, so that they are beholden to someone who ultimately gives them the job (e.g. funding their campaign) and has to return the favor x10 when elected, so promises go out the window and new reality sets in.

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mothballed 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Someone tried to create an entirely new country with minimal governance by dumping sand on a submerged reef until it became an island[]. Even then it was quickly co-opted by the nearing statist powers (Tonga) with the blessing of western powers.

So it's not just that the primary process will crush anyone who will seriously roll back government powers. They won't even let anyone peacefully create an entirely new fucking island to try and get away from the tyrants and do it while leaving everyone else alone and not messing with the powers that be.

[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva

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anonymars 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Isn't that the libertarian paradox in a nutshell, the entire reason why "government" exists? Because in reality, the alternative is "might makes right" and a larger, stronger group will band together and steamroll the smaller and uncoordinated individuals?

	▲	mothballed an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Government is might makes right, just with a nice name slapped on it. Minerva was minarchist, not anarchist, but for whatever reason they chose not to defend their country by force. Somaliland and the remains of Rojava come to mind as present-day ~minarchist governments that defended their territory by force and ~succeeded. The point being is these kind of changes won't be allowed by election or peacefully. The primaries stop the election process and the militaries stop the peaceful separation process. America did have a period of relatively small government intervention at the beginning, but that took a war with Britain. It also had some periods of it during the pre-founding (some of 1600s Pennsylvania and Rhode Island while Britain was occupied elsewhere). Pennsylvania (before it was a state) in particular was basically straight up anarchist for I want to say, about 20 years.