{"id":3517,"date":"2002-11-04T15:14:56","date_gmt":"2002-11-04T20:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3517"},"modified":"2002-11-04T15:14:56","modified_gmt":"2002-11-04T20:14:56","slug":"customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/04\/customers.html","title":{"rendered":"Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an interesting essay on how the American public’s relationship with government is changing from citizens to customers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It would be a mistake to conclude, as many commentators do, that Americans are apathetic citizens gone AWOL. But there’s no question that the fundamental relationship between citizen and government has changed. Increasingly, public officials regard us as “customers” rather than as citizens, and there are crucial differences between the two. Citizens own the government. Customers just receive services from it. Citizens belong to a political community with a collective existence and public purposes. Customers are individual purchasers seeking the best deal. Customers may receive courteous service, but they do not own the store.<\/p>\n

The article also discusses the rise of personal, rather than popular democracy, how both parties aren’t eager to expand voting rolls to increase voter participation, and how advocacy groups and “movements” tend to focus more on litigation and testimony than on rallying the citizenry to the polls.<\/p>\n

Interesting — and disturbing — stuff.<\/p>\n

(via InstaPundit<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an interesting essay on how the American public’s relationship with government is changing from citizens to customers. It would be a mistake to conclude, as many commentators do, that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32910,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/25\/citizens-are-not-customers-or-consumers.html","url_meta":{"origin":3517,"position":0},"title":"Citizens Are Not Customers or Consumers","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 25-Mar-13 2:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The government belongs to citizens. It is an expression of them. As soon as the people in the country become consumers, customers, recipients of government, then they've lost a fundamental aspect of our democracy and society. Government stops being a servant, and becomes a monopolistic corporation\u00a0you can't stop doing business\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27963,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/22\/government-is-not-a-business.html","url_meta":{"origin":3517,"position":1},"title":"Government is not a business","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-May-12 9:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"Government is not designed to make a profit. Citizens are not customers (or employees). Campaign contributors are not shareholders. The Constitution is not a business charter. Presidents are not CEOs.While there are leadership qualities that are needed both to lead a business and to lead a nation, the conditions that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136118,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/13\/google-loses-a-right-to-be-forgotten-case-in-the-uk.html","url_meta":{"origin":3517,"position":2},"title":"Google loses a “right to be forgotten” case in the UK","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Apr-18 3:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"European law around the \"right to be forgotten\" is pretty zany to start with. The idea is that people should be able to petition to have annoying, inconvenient, or possibly misleading information taken down off the Internet -- or, in many cases, removed from search engines like Google. For example,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/unnamed-44.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133662,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/12\/the-fog-of-net-neutrality.html","url_meta":{"origin":3517,"position":3},"title":"The Fog of Net Neutrality","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Jun-17 1:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I keep trying to figure out if the opponents of Net Neutrality are simply misinformed as to what it's about, or are intentionally claiming it to be something it is not. Net Neutrality is, simply, the rule that like content will not be discriminated against (e.g., by throttling its speed)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133568,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/29\/airlines-and-crisis-control.html","url_meta":{"origin":3517,"position":4},"title":"Airlines and Crisis Control","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 29-May-17 11:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"From personal experience and anecdote (so take it for what it's worth), airlines are one of the consumer service companies most prone to service problems -- delays, changes, inadequate resources -- and, most ironically, the poorest crisis control when things really hit the fans.The causes of problems for airlines are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131461,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/08\/calling-wells-fargo-to-account-both-real-and-fake.html","url_meta":{"origin":3517,"position":5},"title":"Calling Wells Fargo to Account (both real and fake)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Sep-16 7:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've known people who worked in bank branches, and one thing that has steadily escalated over the years has been pressure to expand business. 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Bank personnel are not just incented to keep expanding the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}