I think it has been happening for a while now cancel culture had a very negative effect on academia Jordon Peterson and Warren Smith being examples of that. I much appreciate Dr. Sam Richards who walks the fine line of trying to be centerist but he did comment recently how he does gets hate from both sides. Now I know this is going to be down voted because some will say I am both sidesing this when it's clearly one side right now. This is true I think that's however not a great argument to start a conversation. the founding fathers gave us a great foundation to work with it just takes open dialogue to convince enough of the other side that their is an actual good counter argument. The violence we have seen in the past couple months is only going to entrench positions because each side will want the result of that violence to have been meaningful furthering solidifing the separation. Currently I think American agree on the vast majority of things social media just does it's best to highlight our differences but the average person has mostly the same culture and the same day to day issues so I actually am hopeful.
They Thought They Were Free (1955)
141–150 of 545 posts
Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a chinese friend who said something similar to this, she believes much of the culture in the modern west is influenced by some shady chinese government attempt at controlling the speed at which said wheel turns, through Tiktok and stuff. While Id normally dismiss her as a nut, we do have rioting in the street arguing over a miniscule group of people wearing clothes dsigned for the opposite sex.
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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may want to read the Appeals Court ruling that overturned his conviction 3-0 because the government lied. But also consider the point that everyone has a reason why their exact situation is different than the other sides when the outcome is the same. They would say for example that Kimmel was simply deplatformed because he also spread misinformation. There’s no way out until everyone agrees it is the outcome that…
>They would say for example that Kimmel was simply deplatformed because he also spread misinformation. Okay, but they would be either misinformed or lying.
They would not. I love Kimmel, but it turns out the story of the gunman is now much more layered and nuanced than "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them..." In Kimmel's defense, this was a developing story at the time, but it is not untrue, in hindsignt, that Kimmel spread misinformation.
Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#144Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
It turns out that the British were one of the allies and about 380,000 of them died fighting the Nazis, so they have a good claim to having defeated Germany, with help from their friends.
Reassuring to hear that the british consider soviets their friends. Not joking.
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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#146No, they noticed. 90 years ago, 2/3 of the world's books were in Germany. They were educated and literate and knew what they were doing and what was happening. Germans were acutely aware of the reality of the day to day situation and their previous history in WW1.
I just read the book last week. What you said is not true in any useful sense. “Germans were acutely aware…” tries to reduce an entire population and years into one statement. Reality has much more color. For the germans interviewed in the book, it seems to be true that many had read or heard about the camps or other atrocities, but (1) not the “final solution” which was not in the press and (2) there seems to be hea…
What I took away from the book was that all these people were very eager to say variants of 'das haben wir nicht gewusst' when at the same time they also describe how the jews were systematically removed from their society and every part of civil society was taken over by the nazi's.
I would add to your statement that almost everyone should read it. It's unnerving to read how 'normal' all these people were in some way and how 'easily' it all happened because the population generally disliked jews.
Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mein Kampf was published 1924 and distributed broadly. There was not much hidden, the goal of making a big war in the east to conquer new land for the Aryans was there in big letters in the open. His views towards jews likewise. So they knew. Maybe largely did not wanted to know. And they did celebrate the victories of the german army as their own. They only stopped celebrating after the victories stopped happening a…
Yes. Also, Project 2025 was openly published. Anybody could read it. They aren't hiding the goals. People just don't want to bother with it.
In their defense, there is an inexhaustable supply of "take over w my ideology material."
This is a confluence of many conditions. Some long-focused efforts, some architecting and annealing of interests, some individual greed, some long-lasting effects of trauma, and some massive ignorance.
One of the only good points is that the American people are stubbornly allergic to authoritarianism. Yes there are exceptions, but mainly carved out by people trading it for self-interest. Many good surprises like Tucker Carlson's opposition to squashing free speech and the Republican's long-lasting distaste for pedophilia are still out there.
The post above pointing out how we're diff to Nazism is on point. There have been many more authoritarian plays since then. Americans remain conveniently ignorant of them.
Also we're being economically crushed and everyone feels it. Although racism is a powerful tool by this movement, it's actually centered around impoverishing everyone and the dizzying egos of its leaders.
Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#148I think it has been happening for a while now cancel culture had a very negative effect on academia Jordon Peterson and Warren Smith being examples of that. I much appreciate Dr. Sam Richards who walks the fine line of trying to be centerist but he did comment recently how he does gets hate from both sides. Now I know this is going to be down voted because some will say I am both sidesing this when it's clearly one s…
The US has always been a very moralistic country. From banning alcohol and burning witches to its long struggle to accept differences (in skin color, gender or even the definition of freedom). “Cancel culture” is part of America since its foundation. It’s a moral tug of war.
It’s a different thing altogether to have the government itself weaponize “cancel culture”, however. As much as right wing people like to scream that “democrats are the same”, there’s little evidence of the same level of systemic abuse and disregard for institutions in the name of revenge (“if the left cancels, I can cancel too”). It’s a flight from moral infighting to authoritarian rule.
Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasnt Germany better off in the decades following WW2 than the British that defeated them?
It’s something of a red herring. Britain got the largest slice of the Marshall Plan money, they just wasted it on things like trying to maintain the Empire. One thing you’d learn from the book is Germany definitely wasn’t in a good shape in 55.
Apart from the Suez crisis and the Rhodesian embargo was there any serious British attempt to maintain the empire after the second World War?
Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
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"They came for..." in this comment refers to "the marketplace of ideas built a brief consensus against..." The "they came for..." in the famous poem, and in reference to today's Trump administration, refers to "the government utilized state power to advance or suppress certain ideas." These are not the same at all. A few specific bullets: * Universities (especially private ones) are allowed to have ideological biases…
> Universities (especially private ones) are allowed to have ideological biases
Universities as private associations can have whatever biases they want. What they can't do is take public money earmarked for promoting debate and discovery and use it to promulgate a particular ideology, discriminate on the basis of immutable protected characteristics, or do other things contrary to public policy.
If they want the money from the public, they need to serve the public --- the whole public, not the part that agrees with administrators who mandate diversity statements for hiring.
> At least in the US, the health institutions merely flagged low-quality information to social media companies
There are public records of highly placed government officials emailing social media company leadership and demanding that specific posts be taken down. Not only is this state censorship in all but name, it's also unconstitutional under Vullo and other precedents.
Yes, the UK is worse. That doesn't make the behavior of the previous administration acceptable or consistent with American values.