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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

#171

Post by celdon25 »

starfallg wrote: post #141
cwhiz wrote: post #130

In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.

People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…

> People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead --

We're already doing this.

> because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things.

Until when? The shutdowns were supposed to be about making sure that hospitals have time to prepare, research has time to be done, society has time to adapt. This has already taken place.

> which they (here in the UK but also in the US) failed to respond promptly with measures that anybody with a bit of common sense would agree with

Should a layman be expected to know what a common sense response is for a pandemic? If such knowledge were that ubiquitous, we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of issues, so calling it "common sense" serves only to insult people who don't agree with you here.

> Don't say it's because of the shortage of PPE for health care workers because a friend made around 40 cotton masks over a weekend for all of her friends and family back in early April.

Except the virus was thought to be much more deadly at first, and the efficacy of cotton masks has been and is still a controversial subject.

If you truly believe it is "common sense" to do things differently, you might be inclined to think there's some kind of conspiracy going on. I assure you that the more likely scenario is you just haven't taken the actual circumstances into account and are guilty of playing armchair general.

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

#172

Post by watwut »

BurningFrog wrote: post #135
mrkramer wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how Hitler winning 1932 German elections improved human rights in Germany and overall Europe. Instead it turned into dictatorship, tyranny and mass murder. And you can not say that Germany at the time was not rational and not educated populace. It was a Physics mecca of the world with people like Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein. My point is education does not equal to…

This is an epic side track, but the argument you could make is that Germany's choice at the time was between Nazi-ism and Stalin controlled communism. Liberal democracy was a distant third option that had no real chance. We know the Nazi option turned out very very bad. But it's possible a German/Soviet Stalinist block would have been even worse.

No, this is absolutely not true.

First, the second most probable outcome was non-nazi military dictatorship that almost happened.

Second, the other largest party was strogly pro democracy. They were called social democrats and were definitely not communist. Trying to cast them as such is just repeating nazi propaganda.

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

#173

Post by legulere »

neilwilson wrote: post #82
pjc50 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moody's downgraded the credit rating citing "governance issues" just now.

What Moody's think is irrelevant to a sovereign nation with its own currency. It's rather arrogant of them to think they have anything relevant to say on the matter.

Also Venezuela is a sovereign nation with its own currency. We live in a globalized world where those things do matter. The best you can achieve by isolationism is North Korea.

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

#174

Post by carierx1 »

noncoml wrote: post #138
cwhiz wrote: post #130

In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.

Enforcing restrictions for closed spaces or making people wear a mask is not corrosion of democracy. If you think that making you wear a mask attacks your freedom you are a moron. Corrosion of democracy is when these rules are used selectively and for political reasons. So I think you comparison to Sweden in a bit unfortunate. Also the virus was not the reason for the corrosion of the democracy where it happened, it…

You're the moron.

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

#175

Post by cmeacham98 »

krona wrote: post #168
starfallg wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…

> we have no choice but to shut things Genuinely curious; where is the evidence and statistical analysis that shows the variance of infection rates across the world can be explained solely (or overwhelmingly, as you suggest) by lockdowns?

Where do you think starfallg's comment makes that claim, especially considering the section you quoted?

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

#176

Post by CodeGlitch »

starfallg wrote: post #141
cwhiz wrote: post #130

In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.

People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…

Regarding masks in the UK, the evidence for their effectiveness is still up in the air. I think the UK gov didn't want to confuse the messages that were already numerous. I think they gave up on that idea when all the other countries went with the masks.

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

#177

Post by geofft »

cwhiz wrote: post #130

In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.

> The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.

Is that not democracy, then?

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

#178

Post by iso1210 »

baryphonic wrote: post #23
xyzzyz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the human beings at the top who wield unchecked tyrannical power.

I have a contrarian take. The ones at the top wield very little power, and those who are 2-3 layers beneath them wield small nuggets of tyrannical power that, in the aggregate, translate to real unchecked - really, unaccountable - tyranny, but of a sort of purposeless variety. This isn't some crazy conjecture. The book "What Washington Gets Wrong" convinced me.[1] The same phenomenon happens across government, even i…

The reason religion, grand conspiracy theories, strongmen dictators, appeal to people is it gives them comfort that somebody is in charge.

Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet. He doesn't have all the control, he doesn't even have significant control. Trump doesn't either. Nor does McConnell, or Pelosi, or Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. They all have a little control, but ultimately even if all of those people worked together they still couldn't control the US.

But I don't think that any middle managers etc are unaccountable individually either, but in aggregate they are.

The value of good leaders is to herd the cats in roughly the right direction, perhaps nudging the direction along the way.

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

#179

Post by maxerickson »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #164
noncoml wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enforcing restrictions for closed spaces or making people wear a mask is not corrosion of democracy. If you think that making you wear a mask attacks your freedom you are a moron. Corrosion of democracy is when these rules are used selectively and for political reasons. So I think you comparison to Sweden in a bit unfortunate. Also the virus was not the reason for the corrosion of the democracy where it happened, it…

Banning people from traveling, meeting each other, and working to earn a living and support themselves, are very much erosions of liberty, and people have been seriously impacted (particularly the poor). You are right, however, that they are not directly erosions of democracy. However, there are plenty of direct erosions of democracy, even here in the United States. Our democracy in the US is applied through the rule…

The court didn't find that Whitmer acted arbitrarily or capriciously, they simply ruled that she lacked the authority for the actions she took.

(for instance, the first finding speaks of the initial 28 day declaration being within the authority of the governor)

https://courts.michigan.gov/Courts/MichiganSupremeCourt/Cler...

I'm being pedantic, but you are implying a narrative that doesn't exist.

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

#180

Post by cesarb »

speeder wrote: post #95

In my country at least a lot of that has to do with the media and our current supreme court. Despite Brazil having the most advanced constitution in the world regarding human rights, local leaders have been ignoring it outright, and when the president complained the media portrayed the president as a genocidal dictator, and when the president sued the governors and mayors to force them to obey the constitution, the s…

> and when the president sued the governors and mayors to force them to obey the constitution, the supreme court literally ruled the Virus is so dangerous that ignoring the constitution and eroding rights is fine.

Do you have a reference for that? The closest I could find is ADI 6341 (http://portal.stf.jus.br/processos/detalhe.asp?incidente=588... which seems to be the one talked about by https://noticias.uol.com.br/saude/ultimas-noticias/redacao/2...), but that was a party (Partido Democrático Trabalhista - PDT) suing the president, not the president suing anyone, so you must be talking about a different event.

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