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Talkin’ about a Revolution

drb.ie

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Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#231

Post by rdm_blackhole »

nozzlegear wrote: post #148
baxtr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to a history professor recently and asked him how he viewed the whole situation. He leaned back, thought for a bit and answered: It’ll be all fine on a 200 years perspective, democracy will continue to increase its footprint, people will lead better lives. It’s the next 30 years I’m worried about. PS: ofc, I have no clue if he’s right or not. But I thought it’s an interesting take to share.

I have no comment on what your professor said, but reading the replies here just confirms to me that cynicism, pessimism and doomerism are certainly the mood of the current zeitgeist. Optimistic outlooks are too often met with a kind of reflexive dismissal or despair in a "I feel like things are really bad right now, have never been this bad before, and thus can never improve" diatribe. There's a pervasive sense in o…

> cynicism,

The cynicism comes from the fact that many people (including me) have decided to check out from what is going on in the world and instead focus on what we can control in our daily lives.

It also comes from the fact that in many countries the social contract is broken.

You are still expected to pay your taxes but the services provided are increasingly of bad quality such as schools,hospitals, judicial system and so on.

So much so in fact that it seems to me that this relationship that the people have with the state is becoming more and more one sided. Like in an abusive relationship of some sort.

Look at the number of people who don't bother to vote anymore because at the end of the day it does not make much difference to their lives.

There is profound sense of injustice in the world at the moment but it is being swept under the carpet.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#232

Post by kmeisthax »

jack_h wrote: post #228
kelipso wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't really make sense. The Democrats mainly, but also Republicans, have been reshaping our culture using federal funding for many many years now, using rules associated with federal funding, decisions for where federal funding goes to (one clear example being museum and arts funding), policies handed down from Department of Education and other federal organizations and departments, etc etc. I guess more peop…

Just to add a bit more credence to this post, I'd point to Thomas Sowell's "The Vision of the Anointed" which is 30 years old and discusses the intrusion of the federal government in shaping culture from the perspective of the right over many decades. I've noticed that left leaning individuals tend to view their philosophies as neutral and when the federal government exerts its power in continuance of these philosoph…

What you call an "unwritten constitution" is the fundamental idea behind common law, which is basically the default in majority-English-speaking countries. Outside the Anglosphere[0] the standard is "civil law", which means that the law is only the stuff that was actually written down and decided upon by the parliamentary body. Everything else is optional; you aren't forced to "obey precedent", but may "follow jurisprudence" if such rulings provide relevant argumentation to the facts of the case.

This isn't a left/right thing, it's a British/French thing. And being a former British colony, America is very strictly a common law country. That's why we even have to care about the Supreme Court at all. The Constitution merely says that there is a thing called a "Supreme Court", and that Congress can make more courts if it wants to. In the early days of America, SCOTUS got handed to them a constitutional crisis, squinted at the Constitution, remembered how common law precedent actually works, and said, "well, that means we have the power of judicial review".

So naturally, the Constitution always has an unwritten component; to get rid of that would be effectively making a new Constitution. What people are squabbling over is what should and shouldn't be in the unwritten component, not whether or not it exists. Originalism and textualism deny the unwritten component, but nobody is actually an Originalist or textualist. There's no historical justification for the people who wrote the Constitution to want a civil law interpretation of it. Remember, they were all British lawyers and politicians. What Originalists and textualists are actually doing is using their ideology as an excuse to overturn precedent they don't like. If they were really Originalists, they'd be shutting SCOTUS down.

[0] Sharia Law and Mao-style "We won't tell you what the law is" bullshit notwithstanding

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#233

Post by dudefeliciano »

kelipso wrote: post #223
jjice wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have multiple people in my life that followed this mindset as well, to offer some more anecdata. I never got a rationale when asked, which still perplexes me considering these people weren’t fans of the republicans in this past race.

Whether Trump would continue it was an unknown. Whether the Democrats would continue it was a known. And they wanted to punish people who were supporting a genocide. It's a fairly rational choice. My entire family didn't vote because of this and the friendliness with Cheney and neocons.

And how do you feel about the outcome? Do you think you would be happier having voted Harris?

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#234

Post by dudefeliciano »

wormlord wrote: post #220
dudefeliciano wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what it would take for the older and wealthier folks on here to open their eyes. I think there are plenty of wealthy folks who understand the benfits of living in a more equal society, and that would gladly pay their fair share to live in such a society. The problem is they are not enough, and worse yet the middle class and what remains of the working class are actively pushing propaganda that goes dir…

Of course wealthy or "petit bourgeois" can be leftists or Marxists or whatever, they have typically made up the intelligentsia of most left-wing revolutions historically. But the material interests of the wealthy align with the status quo that allowed them to acquire their wealth. This becomes less true as the "polycrisis" of climate change intensifies, since at some point there will be no future to enjoy, regardless…

The wealthy are not trying to maintain the status quo though, they are actively trying to dismantle the remnants of the social/welfare state. I would argue that it is exactly that social system that allowed them to become wealthy, and they want to hold and hoard the wealth, stifling economic mobility and increasing the divide. This is stupid though as it increases social tensions and IMO puts them even more at risk of losing their wealth.

The reactionary propaganda does come from the top. Case in point: Elons “X the everything app” and him promoting afd - one has to wonder why he cares so much about immigrants. The answer seems simple, if they are not the target, he is.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#235

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #162
davedx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People do not change all that much morally This is debatable. In fact, the US culture war is absolutely about what American "morality" should be. It's what a lot of the Project 2025 Manifesto is about: "The document spans a wide range of policy areas, but when it comes to culture, family, and morality, it emphasizes a return to traditional values, a rollback of progressive social policies, and an assertive use of f…

Honestly, the way I see it: The people behind the 2025 stuff etc have been on the "losing" side of the culture war since 1969. And they're sick of it, they're desperate, and now are just laying their cards on the table. I grew up in an evangelical church in the 80s-- albeit in Canada -- attending "Focus on the Family" events, Bible studies, etc. that promulgated heavy socially conservative ethos -- so I feel like I h…

The evangelicals believe that anyone who doesn't believe in their god will be tortured by their god for eternity. There's nothing worse than eternal torture, so they see it as their moral obligation to do anything at all to prevent others from being tortured for eternity by their god. Nothing they do to others can possibly be worse than that, so as long as they're focused on saving others any actions they take are justified (to them).

Their god considers gay sex a crime worthy of eternal torture. So anything they do to prevent people from having homosexual encounters is morally acceptable, up to and including torture & occasional execution via "conversion therapy".

Anyone who truly believes in hell is either morally bankrupt & willing to allow others to suffer for eternity, or a dangerous monster who will stop at nothing to prevent others from what they see as sinning.

Many of them don't go to the extremes they would if they actually believed they were saving others from hell. They're full of shit. But some of them do, and they're fucking terrifying.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#236

Post by lynx97 »

righthand wrote: post #144
lynx97 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love if the public discourse would allow for more diversity of opinions. Unfortunately, where I come from, the left has simplified the rhetoric to "If you are of a different opinion then we are, you are either badly educated (read, stupid) or a nazi." Unfortunately, this elitist attitude has only contributed to the divide of the people.

Decades of name calling and refusing to compromise from the right and it’s the left with the bad attitude that’s dividing people?

Yes. If you pretend to be the better person, you better make sure you act like it. If you give up and fall back to name calling, people will judge you based on your actions. "But I used to be the good guy" doesn't count at all.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#237

Post by lynx97 »

sofixa wrote: post #72
lynx97 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love if the public discourse would allow for more diversity of opinions. Unfortunately, where I come from, the left has simplified the rhetoric to "If you are of a different opinion then we are, you are either badly educated (read, stupid) or a nazi." Unfortunately, this elitist attitude has only contributed to the divide of the people.

> If you are of a different opinion then we are, you are either badly educated (read, stupid) or a nazi Depending on where you are from, this could absolutely be true, as "elitist" and insulting as it might be. Well, fascist is more appropriate than Nazi because Nazi is superset of fascism with a heavy anti-semitic element, and I'm not aware of many rabidly anti-semitic parties in the mainstream in many countries.

No. Just because a conservative is not willing to support a liberal position, that doesn't make them automatically a fascist. In fact, thats the core of my criticism. Political views are a spectrum, and you can't just push someone to the far right just because you disagree with them. This black-and-white thinking is doing far more harm then you might imagine.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#238

Post by lynx97 »

dudefeliciano wrote: post #210
alabastervlog wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Class consciousness is entirely too intellectual and nerdy to ever be popular, you'll never convince someone swayed by bumper stickers to read and thoughtfully consider your 500-word ultra-concise argument for it. "Vibes" and populism drive voter behavior. Cheap populist messages will always resonate at least as well as even an ultra-simplified "it's all of us versus the owners of capital". Us vs. Them is what populi…

> Class consciousness is entirely too intellectual and nerdy to ever be popular, well yea, and Marx is a taboo, nothing new there. Those ideas can be repackaged though, in a way that won't make people foam at the mouth because of the "communist sounding words" (thinking of gary's economics for example). I agree with what you said, it's easier to package an "Anti-something" message, as we see with all the anti-immigra…

Well, I dont remember any "immigrants for the poor" movements. But I know from personal experience that Lions Club and Rotary people actually sometimes do something useful for the poor with their money...

Given that context, do you really not understand that you shouldn't bite the hand that might feed you?

Immigrants are never going to feed the poor and disadvantaged.

The oh-so-bad-and-evil rich people might at least sometimes.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#239

Post by lynx97 »

wormlord wrote: post #156
lynx97 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left pretty much falls into the same trap all around the world. Its almost funny to watch when a leftist realises that immigrants are right-leaning. The typical reaction is to fall back to elitism and claim those immigrants must be stupid somehow.

I don't think you mean leftists you mean liberals. Leftists ostensibly have a materialist understanding of the world, not idealist. Of course many immigrants are right-wing, the US exported counter-revolution globally during the 20th century. I went to eat out at a Guatemalan restaurant the other day and they had a poster for a right-wing ultranationalist paramilitary group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mano_Blanca…

> The claim that all immigrants are right-leaning is a generalization.

Yes, agreed. I probably saved a few words too much on that sentence. I should have thrown a "some" or "many" in there. OTOH, as a non-native speaker, I will loose every argument that ends up in native-speaker pedantery, so I am kind of unimpressed.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#240

Post by lynx97 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #157
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what to tell you, I'm never going to be happy about people voting against my rights or about secret police disappearing people and ignoring the court system

You seem to be completely ignoring lynx97's actual point. If you're not happy about those things, stop telling everyone who disagree with you how stupid they are and how they're literal Nazis . Then at least some of those who disagree with you on some issues will be less driven to vote for the people whose positions appall you.

Thanks for rewording my point. You pretty much nailed what I was trying to say.
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