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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#191

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jolux wrote: post #164
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're talking across each other here. I'm not attempting to draw a strict equivalence; I'm not saying this year is as bad as that year, this side is as bad as that side, this argument is as bad as that argument. I'm just saying that the original claim - that only one part of the political spectrum attempts to dispute clear election results - is flawed.

I'm not talking about in general though, I am talking about this year. And moreover, one senator and one representative cannot be taken as representative of a whole side. One objection is an aberration. A whole party objecting is a political strategy.

That sounds like we are indeed talking across each other, then. I'm not talking about this year.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#192

Post by OminousWeapons »

jolux wrote: post #180
OminousWeapons wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said there was. The lawsuits that have been frivolous have been swiftly thrown out by the courts so frivolous lawsuits are largely a non-issue.

That's wrong. Frivolous lawsuits made with the intent to overturn a legitimate election result may be legal, but they're incredibly dangerous for the health of our democracy.

The probability of a frivolous lawsuit succeeding in such a way that it could overturn the results is literally zero. Frivolous suits are not legal, the courts have identified and nullified all frivolous lawsuit attempts so far, and they have signaled that they will not be tolerated. If Trump wants to bring frivolous suits then it only makes him look less legitimate in the eyes of everyone and bolsters the case for forced removal if need be. These events really don't pose any danger to our democracy. The danger to our democracy occurs when you allow one side to build a narrative that the election isn't legitimate and that one side (the left) is refusing to even hear out the right when they claim a lack of legitimacy.

Give them their time and then we can all move on.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#193

Post by pantalaimon »

frenchyatwork wrote: post #157
awb wrote: post #105

> "How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice — ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certa…

> I think it's safe to fear unchecked power and those who are loyal to people instead of loyal to ideas For all its many failings, I think this is one of the benefits that religion (an particularly the form of religion popular in Europe during the the last 2000 years) can provide. By having a notion of some god, and a cannon, you can have a list of ideas that everyone considers good, and it makes such demagoguery a l…

I don't see that at all. You can still end up in a theocracy with an inquisition for everyone who doesn't follow the dogma.

Religion is perfectly exploitable for this and has been more often than not in history.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#194

Post by bryanrasmussen »

drilldrive wrote: post #172
mmastrac wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Consider the erosion of long-standing norms in the west over the last four years and how far society has slipped. These are the first, strong, signs that things are starting to go off the rails.

Last year has had a greater loss of norms of Western thought than we have seen since the dawn of the modern world in almost every Western country. Say what you want about the virus response, but powers that be don't give up newly founded power after they seized it once (the lockdowns never will truly end).

>the lockdowns never will truly end

unless, somehow, it should turn out they were really bad for business in which case out they go once no longer needed.

on edit: clarification at end.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#195

Post by justinator »

nostrademons wrote: post #162
amirkdv wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious: what are some historically significant examples of "false positives"? By which I assume you mean a time when people rose to resist something they didn't really have to.

To elaborate on aazaa's comment: think of the labels "patriot" and "terrorist" and think of how frequently they correlate with "winner" and "loser". The Founding Fathers were patriots, because America is now the dominant world superpower. But there are a number of groups that attempted to do to America exactly what America did to the British. Daniel Shay, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, the entire Confederacy, the Anarchist…

Sitting Bull is in interesting company.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#196

Post by elipsey »

drilldrive wrote: post #172
mmastrac wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Consider the erosion of long-standing norms in the west over the last four years and how far society has slipped. These are the first, strong, signs that things are starting to go off the rails.

Last year has had a greater loss of norms of Western thought than we have seen since the dawn of the modern world in almost every Western country. Say what you want about the virus response, but powers that be don't give up newly founded power after they seized it once (the lockdowns never will truly end).

They did last time, and in the middle of the Palmer Raids at that. The necessary and proper use of pulic health orders during pandemics has been thourougly adjuticed in the US, and has a basis in precedent centuries old. This is hardly a regression.

Why don't you worry instead about whether we get a trial before we get shot or locked up?

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#197

Post by jolux »

dahfizz wrote: post #185
jolux wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but what matters most is not how my beliefs appear to the other side, but whose beliefs are closest to the truth. I have little control over what other people believe, but I have some control over what I believe, and I strive to be rational and realistic and follow the truth.

That depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve. If you want to move beyond self satisfaction and actually effect change, you need to be concerned with how your message is conveyed. What are your beliefs for?

>That depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve. If you want to move beyond self satisfaction and actually effect change, you need to be concerned with how your message is conveyed.

This is a conflation. Trying to be rational is valuable independent of what message you have. Messaging is secondary. When messaging becomes primary, the truth suffers, and freedom dies. I'd rather be self-satisfied and correct than highly influential and wrong. The latter is far more dangerous.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#198

Post by pontus »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #103
pontus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I broadly agree with you. That being said, I don't think it's fair at this point to equate what's going on on the left to what's going on on the right. They are leagues apart. That's not to say that the same thing couldn't happen on the left or that the people on the left in some way are superior. Quite the opposite. I think the people on the left are just as susceptible to the type of effects happening on the right.…

The left had something similar in 2016, in Bernie Sanders. The differences were that he didn't have the locker room talk (that I know of), and he didn't have the dictatorial tendencies (that I know of). But he was an insurgent from outside the party (he wasn't a Democrat, though he may have joined the party in 2016 for his run). In the same way, Trump wasn't really a Republican. (He did join the party, but somewhat r…

I guess while he was an outsider I'm not sure that he would have proven to be authoritarian in the way Trump is. I'm mostly worried about our democracy and not necessarily so much about policies.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#199

Post by istorical »

hinkley wrote: post #171

All the Left politicians are talking about how they're going to spend this cycle rolling back what the last cycle rolled back and that's not what I want. We can absolutely do that, after . What I want is to know why we had a seated president who could get away with so much shit. A smarter autocrat would have taken us to a scarier place much faster. Mercifully, Hitler's dumbest lieutenant could talk circles around His…

Because this political system couples your support for a set of policy choices to your support for a particular leader, and people perceive that in order to support their team's policy positions, it's simply unavoidable that you may have to accept a poor leader.

Seems that simple to me. It's easy to say that if there was a left-version of Trump who promised to implement sweeping tax reform to tax the rich, create a real public option, save the rainforest in Brazil and plant a new one in America, and truly address racism, that the left would say 'forget his policy goals, even if they are so aligned with what I want, I will speak out against him and vote for a republican in the next election'. But perhaps many would see it as still the lesser of two evils to continue to support the poor leader in order to signal support for their team's policies and hopefully implement meaningful change.

If we had a different form of democracy, perhaps decoupling leadership from policy choice, would we still be able to elect a Trump? Don't think so.

Perhaps the two party system (and the way it has evolved despite not being part of the constitution at all and warned against by George Washington) would be the easier thing to change than the political system per the constitution, but still. It seems the coupling is the culprit.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#200

Post by AnimalMuppet »

rootusrootus wrote: post #143
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a set of rules. According to the rules, he won. That's not stealing the election, that's winning by the rules. That's like saying that one team "stole" a baseball game because they had fewer hits than the other team. Yeah, but they had more runs, and that's the rules of the game.

> There were a set of rules. According to the rules, he won Correct. Which is why most of the grousing centered around the electoral college being archaic and undemocratic. Many people want to see the rules changed.

And I'm fine with that. That's the approach they should take.

Claiming "they stole the election" is not that.

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