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Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

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Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#151

Post by dotancohen »

srean wrote: post #128
dotancohen wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the right to do something does not make it safe. Americans have the right to carry a pistol. But carrying a pistol while heckling police officers and touching a police officer who is performing their duty, sounds deadly to me. Can we agree that the deceased had a right to carry a pistol? Can we agree that the deceased had been heckling police officers? Can we agree that the deceased had touched a police office…

A 'right' in this context by definition means government (agencied) will not persecute you for the activity protected by this right. If that's not the case you don't have the right at all, period. Note though, I do not agree with this particular right (that of bearing arms, visibly so, at a protest), but the so called right leaning people are very enamored by this one and were very vocal about it just yesterday. Sudd…

In this specific case, considering the video evidence, I agree with you 100%. There was no valid no justifiable reason to murder that man.

I still think, in general, when going out looking for confrontation (whether that be against the police or even just a bar fight) that the firearms should be left at home.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#152

Post by dotancohen »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #145
dotancohen wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the right to do something does not make it safe. Americans have the right to carry a pistol. But carrying a pistol while heckling police officers and touching a police officer who is performing their duty, sounds deadly to me. Can we agree that the deceased had a right to carry a pistol? Can we agree that the deceased had been heckling police officers? Can we agree that the deceased had touched a police office…

> Even if you're right, you're still dead. Yes, this is the entire point: the left is saying "the government shouldn't murder citizens for exercising their legal rights", and the right is saying "if you exercise your legal rights, it's your fault if the government murders you" (or at least "that's the risk you run"). If American patriotism has anything at all to do with valuing freedom from tyranny and oppression, th…

Lots of things that are legal are deadly.

For what it's worth, I don't even see this specific incident as government persecution. It looks like plain murder. Murder by a government employee, but murder nonetheless.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#153

Post by [deleted] »

dotancohen wrote: post #150
CamperBob2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Karl Popper's 'Paradox of Tolerance' applies. TL,DR: tolerating intolerance turns out to be a bad idea. Glancing at your user page, this should be an exercise in preaching to the choir. You do understand that the only reason the Republicans in the US support Israel is because embracing fundamentalist Christian eschatology gets them votes they don't have to work for. Right?

No, actually, it seems to me that Americans support Israel because we have the same system of values (democracy, human rights, rule of law), and have the same enemies who wish to destroy both our societies.

[deleted]

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#154

Post by throwaway894345 »

dotancohen wrote: post #151
srean wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 'right' in this context by definition means government (agencied) will not persecute you for the activity protected by this right. If that's not the case you don't have the right at all, period. Note though, I do not agree with this particular right (that of bearing arms, visibly so, at a protest), but the so called right leaning people are very enamored by this one and were very vocal about it just yesterday. Sudd…

In this specific case, considering the video evidence, I agree with you 100%. There was no valid no justifiable reason to murder that man. I still think, in general, when going out looking for confrontation (whether that be against the police or even just a bar fight) that the firearms should be left at home.

> I still think, in general, when going out looking for confrontation (whether that be against the police or even just a bar fight) that the firearms should be left at home.

How do you exercise your 2A rights without your firearms? If you leave them at home, then you aren’t exercising the right, and if you show up in public with a firearm staying out of the way of law enforcement with your hands visible the entire time, then you are exercising those rights i.e. “looking for confrontation”.

In general, I think it’s nonsensical that people can exercise their rights but not in a way that a tyrannical regime might persecute them for—by definition, that’s not exercising rights it’s yielding them to the government.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#155

Post by throwaway894345 »

dotancohen wrote: post #152
throwaway894345 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you're right, you're still dead. Yes, this is the entire point: the left is saying "the government shouldn't murder citizens for exercising their legal rights", and the right is saying "if you exercise your legal rights, it's your fault if the government murders you" (or at least "that's the risk you run"). If American patriotism has anything at all to do with valuing freedom from tyranny and oppression, th…

Lots of things that are legal are deadly. For what it's worth, I don't even see this specific incident as government persecution. It looks like plain murder. Murder by a government employee, but murder nonetheless.

We seem to agree that it’s dangerous to assert your rights to a tyrannical regime, and that in this case the regime murdered the person peacefully asserting his rights.

I think we are disagreed about whether someone can safely assert their rights before a tyrannical regime. If you could do it safely, the regime wouldn’t be tyrannical. If you “assert your rights” but only in a way that is safe from reprisal by a tyrannical regime, then you aren’t asserting your rights, you are letting the government infringe on your rights.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#156

Post by Recurecur »

TitaRusell wrote: post #109
rsynnott wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the interesting bit; Winston’s job turns out to be largely redundant. You don’t need to hide the evidence that the chocolate ration used to be higher; if a sufficiently charismatic person with sufficiently stupid hair says that it has increased, a lot of people will believe that.

How many Americans give a shit about history?

All the smart and informed Americans…

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#157

Post by Recurecur »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #133
squarefoot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People is kept away from details by shortening their attention span with the production of continuous pervasive stimuli. Regarding Trump, when he does something apparently stupid (on behalf of the rich people pulling his strings, let's never forget this) he's just forcing the media and people consuming them to start talking about the next event without further exploring more important ones.

put another way, they don't care about history because every economic actor in the economy is trying to keep them distracted -- so that they don't learn the history the goal is to keep keep em poor, distracted, and angry

Hence the movement to eliminate the “Department of Education”, which at this point would be better named the “Department of Intentional Ignorance”.

That’s despite spending more per child than any other country in the world.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#158

Post by ted_bunny »

zhoujing204 wrote: post #59
hleszek wrote: post #8

This is still so relevant now: > This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done. As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is only necessary…

Dictators are absolutely terrified of the paper trail. This is the entire reason for existence of the Great Firewall. The CCP invests heavily in sanitizing imported literature and curating the information supply to maintain cognitive capture over the populace. We are seeing parallel mechanics from the Trump/GOP camp: look at the library purges in conservative states and the push to co-opt moderation on platforms like…

You sure aggressive propaganda and espionage from the west aren't part of the reason for it? What sort of "cognitive capture" is necessary to maintain control of their population right now? The Chinese are often painted as brainwashed ideological drones in the west, and it says more about us that we tend to believe it than it does about them. You can download RedNote and talk to people in Xinjiang. You can travel there and talk to people in person. Mao is arguably deceased.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#160

Post by Timwi »

dotancohen wrote: post #150
CamperBob2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Karl Popper's 'Paradox of Tolerance' applies. TL,DR: tolerating intolerance turns out to be a bad idea. Glancing at your user page, this should be an exercise in preaching to the choir. You do understand that the only reason the Republicans in the US support Israel is because embracing fundamentalist Christian eschatology gets them votes they don't have to work for. Right?

No, actually, it seems to me that Americans support Israel because we have the same system of values (democracy, human rights, rule of law), and have the same enemies who wish to destroy both our societies.

> enemies who wish to destroy both our societies.

How can you say this, out loud, and not immediately hear yourself as the villain? This is such a cartoonishly deluded and paranoid belief, it truly boggles the mind.

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