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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)

#51

Post by a_puppy »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #45
a_puppy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than thinking in terms of "left vs. right", I think in terms of "extreme left vs. moderate left vs. moderate right vs. extreme right". I support moderates over extremists. I support democracy and rule of law. I care about this more than I care about left vs. right.

Agreed - I think we say similar things. I am mostly suggesting that authoritarians currently live in all sides of the aisle in our government right now. And they’ve all been ratcheting up in intensity, getting us used to “their” version of it. This latest jump being by far the most severe and scary.

I actually think Biden/Harris are moderates, and tried to de-escalate things. Whereas Trump is anti-democracy and anti-rule-of-law.

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

#52

Post by goos »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #18
RangerScience wrote: post #6

> What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And…

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

I see what you're saying, but listening to partisan rhetoric on both sides here does not really get you any closer to the truth here.

If you were you were to look back at the political discourse in 1920s and 1930s Germany, you'd find extremely scathing critiques from the Nazis lobbied against the Social Democratic party. Did this mean that the two were equally bad?

While it's true that Biden's actions during his recent term were frequently called unconstitutional by the right – be it for trying to raise the minimum wage or forgiving student loan debt – it was rarely from a perspective of solidifying his executive power. In the case of the Trump v. United States, he was avowedly against how the ruling implicitly expanded his executive power.

On the flip side, Trump's openly pushing the expansion of his executive power with his firing inspectors general, overruling the senate by freezing funds and appointing his own pseudo-agencies that take control over independent agencies in the executive branch.

These are fundamentally different things, and should be treated very differently, even if people from either side complain about both.

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

#53

Post by throwawaymaroon »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #45
a_puppy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than thinking in terms of "left vs. right", I think in terms of "extreme left vs. moderate left vs. moderate right vs. extreme right". I support moderates over extremists. I support democracy and rule of law. I care about this more than I care about left vs. right.

Agreed - I think we say similar things. I am mostly suggesting that authoritarians currently live in all sides of the aisle in our government right now. And they’ve all been ratcheting up in intensity, getting us used to “their” version of it. This latest jump being by far the most severe and scary.

[dead]

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

#54

Post by tmpz22 »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #18
RangerScience wrote: post #6

> What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And…

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

You’re being gaslit.

Democrats did not subvert the checks and balances of our system - they faced opposition in all their initiatives in the judiciary, house, and senate.

What Musk is doing now amongst a silent government is unprecedented. His youth group is marching into federal offices walking past security and taking everything because people are afraid. They’re afraid of being fired. They’re afraid of reprisals.

The next step will be for Musk to USE what he’s taken from these IT systems. There’s a reason he beelined for the IT systems.

They have everything they need now to make lists. That is the next step. Lists of names.

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

#56

Post by NomDePlum »

muglug wrote: post #49
ImaCake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this mostly comes down to (1) people are more aware of Nazi Germany and thus its easier to use that context than another and (2) the Nazis were extreme even by comparison to their contemporaries and thus have been (presumably) studied the most.

Yeah, but it breaks down because Trump also knows that history, and knows that people want to compare him to Hitler, so he does a bunch of things that make the comparison harder.

Can you elaborate on those things?

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

#57

Post by smaudet »

tmpz22 wrote: post #54
BytesAndGears wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

You’re being gaslit. Democrats did not subvert the checks and balances of our system - they faced opposition in all their initiatives in the judiciary, house, and senate. What Musk is doing now amongst a silent government is unprecedented. His youth group is marching into federal offices walking past security and taking everything because people are afraid. They’re afraid of being fired. They’re afraid of reprisals.…

Musk is a traitor per US legal definition and his actions highly resemble a hostile foreign national takeover, he deserves nothing less than the maxumim punishment under current US law...

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

#59

Post by yawpitch »

GolfPopper wrote: post #40
michaelhoney wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not the same. One party is weaponizing racism and ignorance to illegally destroy institutions that have taken decades to build.

They can be very different, but still both push our governing structures and our thinking in directions that are not good for us individually or collectively. To risk an analogy, if you're drowning and need assistance, you need some sort of flotation device, or a rope to get out of the water. If one person throws a heavy stone block at you, they're not helping. If a different person tosses you a metal chair, they're…

Examining that analogy in light of the electoral outcome, would you prefer to be in the timeline in which someone throws you a chair but there is a boat full of others who might throw you something useful, or the one in which someone has thrown you a heavy block, has drilled holes through the hull, and is actively pushing everyone else overboard?

In this timeline we’re all gonna be drowning.

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

#60

Post by smaudet »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #27
rectang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they feel the same way about your side. Yes, this is surely true. > So maybe the issues are actually with both sides. Not necessarily. Is Russian resentment of Ukraine equivalent to Ukrainian resentment of Russia merely because both citizenries feel their own resentments passionately?

I see your point, however, in this case the democrats and republicans are part of the same entity. I am suggesting that the politicians’ interests are somewhat aligned, in regard to grabbing power. Their techniques are different, but the outcome is that we become more normalized to the behavior of “being ruled”, bit by bit. Don’t forget the right-leaning protests in 2020 over democratic governors telling people they…

An actuall global event that killed hundreds of millions of individuals is a very different thing than what Musk is doing, without any such precipitation...

I do not agree that firing should have been on the table, however this is not an Apples and Oranges situation...

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