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The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

economist.com

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Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#41

Post by Spearchucker »

Zafira wrote: post #19
roenxi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been a consistent theme to responses to major crisis in US has faced in my lifetime - every time, after the crisis the situation is worse than it was before the crisis. Not because of the crisis, but because of the response. 9/11, the 2008 recession (QE is still with us) and now COVID. The scars from the first two really should have healed a long time ago. It'll be a pretty dire future if the COVID response…

You can see the failure of American leadership and an inability to engage in global crises in a decisive manner since Vietnam due to our inability to get over our incompetence and total misunderstanding of the political situation during the war there. I have a strong suspicion that American foreign policy wonks still don't understand why we failed in Vietnam; why applying the lens of containment and the same policy e…

Well put. There was a book from ages ago called The Ugly American which caused a big stir in US political circles because of the way it decried US foreign policy. It contrasted the US approach (dinner parties in the Embassy) withe the Russians - who learned the local languages, respected local cultural nuances and customs, and taught locals how to more effectively till their lands.

That contrast caused a huge stir in Washington but nothing changed. Americans (forgive my generalization) still prefer dropping bombs to building schools. Hammer, rather than quill.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#43

Post by Vinnl »

skrebbel wrote: post #32
lozenge wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand's lockdown was announced nine days before it had legal effect, a court case found that was illegal. Every country has let these values fall in one way or another.

I think the Netherlands hasn't. In fact, commentators everywhere are yelling that they should make face masks obligatory, but they can't because the constitution prevents it (something about personal freedom of movement iirc). They have to pass a new law first and until then it's "strongly recommend". For reasons I don't get, the Freedom House picture on this article shows NL as orange, meaning that freedom and democ…

Mostly because there's lots of rule by decree that has been severely impacting our lives, I presume. That's why everyone's calling for the law to be passed (and also, of course, for that law to be a good law): to restore parliamentary oversight and unerode our democracy.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#44

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

m0zg wrote: post #28
astrobe_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is quite telling that the economic aspects almost immediately pops up. I believe that over the decades we have shifted more and more from "people first" to "economy first", to the point that sometimes it feels like people exist only to serve economy.

People _are_ the economy. If you don't think economic collapse does not affect "people" I invite you to read about the Great Depression.

No. The economy is people plus a whole lot of relationships that economists ignore, but which happen to be critical to a functioning civilisation.

Of course economic collapse hurts people. But there are only two causes of economic collapse - external stressors, and internal mismanagement.

And the only situations in which they're not the same are when physical disasters permanently destroy significant productive capacity. Everything else should be manageable.

Covid - and the Great Depression - both prove the economy is badly mismanaged. It should be possible to hit a pause button on non-essential activities, keep as many people as possible safe, fed, entertained and possibly even educated, and then hit restart when the threat is over.

"Possible" does not mean "trivially easy." But it does mean "Can be handled successfully with some adjustments and minimal attrition."

This culture just can't do it. Its primary engine is debt-fuelled plutocracy and short-term profit-seeking, and it's so inherently unstable it can't cope rationally with a relatively minor and short-lived challenge like a nasty but not spectacularly deadly virus.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#45

Post by neither_color »

Spearchucker wrote: post #41
Zafira wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the failure of American leadership and an inability to engage in global crises in a decisive manner since Vietnam due to our inability to get over our incompetence and total misunderstanding of the political situation during the war there. I have a strong suspicion that American foreign policy wonks still don't understand why we failed in Vietnam; why applying the lens of containment and the same policy e…

Well put. There was a book from ages ago called The Ugly American which caused a big stir in US political circles because of the way it decried US foreign policy. It contrasted the US approach (dinner parties in the Embassy) withe the Russians - who learned the local languages, respected local cultural nuances and customs, and taught locals how to more effectively till their lands. That contrast caused a huge stir in…

Yet the USSR is long gone and we're still here.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#46

Post by FpUser »

quaintdev wrote: post #14

It feels like eroded democracy and respect for human led to pandemic. We have known about eroded democracy worldwide for few years now. Edit: So I am being down voted. At least challenge my reasoning? Anyways, here's what I think. Of course the headline is true but that does not mean what I said is not true. Remember the doctor in Wuhan who tried to warn officials about mysterious disease?[0]. Instead of looking into…

>"Edit: So I am being down voted. At least challenge my reasoning?"

They just do not like what you say and the button is way easier to press than straining one's brain. Besides there are many subjects on HN that fall into "party line" areas and those are downvoted in droves

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#47

Post by throwaway2048 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #35
Zafira wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the failure of American leadership and an inability to engage in global crises in a decisive manner since Vietnam due to our inability to get over our incompetence and total misunderstanding of the political situation during the war there. I have a strong suspicion that American foreign policy wonks still don't understand why we failed in Vietnam; why applying the lens of containment and the same policy e…

The USA had an almost resounding success in Vietnam in its true objectives - it completely destroyed the (somewhat) functional North Vietnamese socialist state, and prevented any kind of spread of that idea in the area. It's true that 50 years later Vietnam is now a relatively well-functioning state again, but after the war in Vietnam there was no other attempt in the area. The real failure in Vietnam was not retreat…

Even in terms of containment, the Vietnam war was a huge failure, shortly after Laos and Cambodia went communist, directly supported by the Vietnamese communists.

I have no idea how you can reasonably claim that the war "prevented any kind of spread of that idea in the area", or that the "rational objectives" were achieved "relatively quickly and efficiently".

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#49

Post by danparsonson »

neither_color wrote: post #45
Spearchucker wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. There was a book from ages ago called The Ugly American which caused a big stir in US political circles because of the way it decried US foreign policy. It contrasted the US approach (dinner parties in the Embassy) withe the Russians - who learned the local languages, respected local cultural nuances and customs, and taught locals how to more effectively till their lands. That contrast caused a huge stir in…

Yet the USSR is long gone and we're still here.

That's not an endorsement of US foreign policy

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#50

Post by m0zg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #37
m0zg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People _are_ the economy. If you don't think economic collapse does not affect "people" I invite you to read about the Great Depression.

> People _are_ the economy Most popular economic performance metrics are quite distant from the real world effects on most people, largely because measures that incorporate distribution rather than simple aggregates are not popular. So while the people are the economy in a very real sense, discussion of economic performance impacts of real or hypothetical policy tend to focus on impacts that have a distant, loose rel…

That's a very long winded and obfuscated way of saying that people would be utterly fucked if the economy collapsed, which was my original point. "Experience of most people" would be pretty awful with 50% unemployment, and once economy stops it's very hard to get going again, let alone get it going to the extent we saw in January.
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