201–210 of 279 posts
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The law only matters insofar as you have enough money to drag it through court long enough to get a ruling. The government has unlimited money to spend in prosecution and will freeze yours to hobble your defense.
Then, I'd say, the US has far more pressing problems than this EU policy.
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The law is malleable. All laws will be abused, and by corollary, all laws are societal negotiations, one court room at a time. Those in the legal field grok this. Those with less experience in the legal field typically fear the law for its seeming black-and-white attribute when it's really a lot of grey.
People take the worst case because statistically it will happen to someone. You can't average risk in your life like you can with insurance.
Any claimed benefit or justification is entirely nullified for regular people if their oversight and transparency processes are being negated.
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Considering what the AfD stands for, I'm in for them being banned from political life. German society has been extremely patient with them, refraining to use the word "nazi" when it kind of fits. I don't think it'll happen though, because they manage to be as nazi as possible within the letter of the law. > The SPD should instead examine why they themselves are losing votes. Extremist discourse is appealing. Much lik…
Radical parties gaining mass support is an indication that the centrist parties which should be 'more reasonable' are deliberately ignoring some major factor which a lot of the voters care about. Anyone looking at the rise of AfD should also look at the example of Denmark, which some years earlier had also seen a strong rise of radical alt-right parties, but once the centrists switched their stance against immigratio…
Is it that so, or is it that hate-based shallow arguments appeal to a particular audience more than "more reasonable" policies or discourse?
> once the centrists switched their stance against immigration
Then the far-right would have won and turned the political mainstream into xenophobes. Not a great outcome for the society as a whole. Would arguments centered on supporting immigrants (and refugees fleeing humanitarian crisis) and integrating them into their host society have the same appeal for people who have been fed a diet of fear and hatred?
There has to be a line that should never be crossed in any democratic society. The far right has crossed it.
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Then, I'd say, the US has far more pressing problems than this EU policy.
The EU is a canary in the mine and a case study in the slide towards authoritarianism that the US is not uniquely safe from.
I grew up in a society where I was completely unaware of it, just because I was a white, middle-class, very caucasian, cishet male. I never feared a police stop. I have never feared the police would storm a party, show, or rave I was in and kill a dozen people. I moved to Ireland and was rapidly integrated into their society. I never faced any form of discrimination.
A lot of Brazilians there and here are not so lucky. My Indian colleagues tell horror stories of their encounters with less enlightened members of my adopted country's population. You wouldn't want t be one of them.
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Which govs ? There's like every year at least 10 terror attacks which are stopped by intelligences agency in France alone so AFAIk it's just not true
I can speak for America, if you read indictments of domestic terrorists 'caught' before the act they always had help from someone on the federal payroll. (CHS 1..n) The reality is that mind reading technology doesn't exist so you can't stop people. The effort/reward favors manufacturing terrorists rather than catching them.
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The EU is a canary in the mine and a case study in the slide towards authoritarianism that the US is not uniquely safe from.
I'd argue you have already crossed into that space a long time ago. Just observe the numerous transgressions by various police enforcement agencies. When you hire officers with tattooed swastikas, authoritarianism is kind of what you get. I grew up in a society where I was completely unaware of it, just because I was a white, middle-class, very caucasian, cishet male. I never feared a police stop. I have never feared…
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They have been using violence. Violence against property mostly but that's violence nonetheless. Throwing paint or other things at buildings and pieces of art in museums is violence (criminal damage is not peaceful protest). But in the grand scheme of things this is indeed a weak justification.
I disagree that "violence" is an accurate word to use when describing property damage. Someone smarter than me wrote: > Anarchists dedicated to nonviolent direct action are not opposed to all forms of property damage. It can be an effective strategy if the decision to do it involves all participants, the target chosen is one that will guarantee no one who is not part of the action could be injured, and the method use…
In any case, the (Cambridge English) dictionary's definition of "violence" remains "actions that are intended or likely to hurt people or cause damage" (you'll note that what firefighters might do is not intended to cause damage while vandalism obviously is), and the law indeed makes this a criminal offence for a reason.
I'm half expecting someone to seriously claim at some point that an instant death is not violence because there is no suffering...
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I can speak for America, if you read indictments of domestic terrorists 'caught' before the act they always had help from someone on the federal payroll. (CHS 1..n) The reality is that mind reading technology doesn't exist so you can't stop people. The effort/reward favors manufacturing terrorists rather than catching them.
Are you speaking of like gun shooters ? Yeah this could be a different breed than the islamic terrorists we have here
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The commissioners are not elected directly by the populace, just like ministers in any government I know of are not directly elected by the populace (and other powerful officials, too). The level of indirection is greater in a confederation of countries compared to a single country. The MEP usually do not "rubber-stamp with barely any changes". There often is considerable change applied to the original proposals, by…
You hit upon the "locality principle of representative democracy": the more non-local elected representatives are in their excertion of power, the less oversight by the electorate. EU Law is seperated from the electorate by multiple layers: electorate > national parties > national parliament > national government > Council of the EU > European Parliament > European Commission > EU law Each layer dilutes democratic in…
I agree with the first sentence, but I do not think that this cannot be improved upon. For example, more direct news reporting from EU level events/decisions could help. If only good journalism was not such a rare occurrence these days.
Regarding the "centralist power machine" - that is no different anywhere, no matter the processes. Money talks and lobbies get their way, even if not always. Still, (flawed) democracy and rule of law are better than doing without.
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If the people want AfD, is not a clear indicator that either something is wrong with Germany's highest law or its interpretation? The benefit of there being being AfD in the open is that it would be in the open. Is it a good idea to keep things hidden?
If you are unhappy with a law, get a majority. AfD just like it's spiritual predecessor in the NSDAP won't get that. The best Hitler got before his Machtergreifung was only 43% right after the Reichstagbrand. There was a path that we - thanks to the magic that is hindsight - can clearly see now and we should use that knowlegde to prevent history from repeating, but one thing is certain: The political extremes won't p…
I am avoiding addressing the meat of your argument so far and I am letting small things like Bush 2020 slide, because you are not wrong about power. You do, however, appear to be blinded by the convenience of Left/Right political spectrum.