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The war on terror primed America for autocracy

economist.com

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Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#201

Post by amanaplanacanal »

spwa4 wrote: post #170
Terr_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer things stay vague, the more I become concerned that this may be a scenario that is so common that it has an enduring meme [0], where: 1. The person claims that a broad swathe of facially reasonable and views are being rejected or forbidden in a way that is an unfair overreaction. 2. Pressed, they refuse to provide any concrete details, even in a safe context. 3. They are actually facing difficulty from a m…

> 2. Pressed, they refuse to provide any concrete details, even in a safe context. And yet we all know why that is. We have decided that certain ideologies that are ... let's call it "easy to criticize" (because they deserve some damn serious criticism and have done enormous damage. Oh and not just one such ideology). To make things worse, in many places such discussions have been legally banned. And some of these id…

Everything you said about Islam has direct correlations in Christianity in fairly recent history. But, as you say, things evolve over time. Christians for the most part are now against slavery, as I would bet most Muslims are too. Countries that are no longer communist still have dissidents in prison, which would suggest that is not the fault of communism, but other ideologies still rampant in those countries.

I'm not sure what exactly you are saying about socialism, it has lots of proponents and implementations in different countries, it's not just one thing that I can see.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#202

Post by amanaplanacanal »

wmf wrote: post #56
andsoitis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bin Laden won are his people better off or are they worse off?

Was his goal to provide for his people? I thought his goal was to bring down the Great Satan.

As mentioned above his main beef was American troops in the holy Land in Saudi Arabia.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#203

Post by amanaplanacanal »

pembrook wrote: post #186
pjc50 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think spending a trillion dollars on Iraq might have something to do with the deficit.

Did France, Germany, the UK, etc. spend a trillion dollars in Iraq? How did they get themselves in the same ballooning deficit death spiral? The US did spend a Trillion on Iraq. But during Covid they spent nearly $5T...in 1/4th the time they spent 1 in Iraq. They also spent $9T on QE. Iraq is a drop in the bucket. The real problem is a structural one with modern democracies. Turns out when you can legally take your c…

If the problem is booming deficits, then the cause isn't taking citizens money at gunpoint, because that doesn't cause a deficit. The cause is the voters, they want the benefits now but they don't want to pay for them, so they pass the bills onto their children and grandchildren. The government is doing exactly what the voters are asking for.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#204

Post by amanaplanacanal »

pembrook wrote: post #192
watwut wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America’s current troubles are political polarization and ballooning deficits. American problem is one sided right wing radicalization, not polarization. If left of center moved the the right even more, the issues would remain.

I will call this Exhibit A in proving my point about polarization, thank you left-leaning person lacking in self-awareness. Now we just need a right-leaning person who lacks self awareness to offer a rebuttal to you and we can complete the picture.

Are Americans really more polarized? I guess it depends on when you choose your baseline.

It's certainly true that the political parties are more polarized, didn't used to be as ideological as they are now. To a large extent, the southern Democrats all left to join the Republican party, and the "compassionate conservatives" have mostly abandoned the Republican party. I expect with the split between MAGA and the America first people we are beginning to see another realignment.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#205

Post by fsflover »

GJim wrote: post #195
globnomulous wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. HN is very lightly, and fairly, moderated.

[flagged]

My entire posting and submission history go against the adtech. I only get flagged when I write stupid things or off-topic.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#206

Post by amanaplanacanal »

crote wrote: post #104
asdff wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it is important to vote in primary elections as well.

Voting the way you really want in primary elections might be counterproductive. Let's say in the main election 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side X, 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side Y, and 10% is more-or-less in the middle. If, during the primaries, side X votes for a far-X candidate, they will definitely lose the middle 10% to a moderate-Y can…

That all makes sense if things are one dimensional, but they aren't. There are tons of issues, and people don't break down into just X vs Y. It's multidimensional. Find the candidate who most represents your views, and vote for them. You may find, even if you consider yourself an X, that a lot of people who consider themselves a Y will also like your candidate.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#207

Post by mekoka »

vlian2088 wrote: post #32
xbar wrote: post #6

Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed and renewed repeatedly. America permanently traded away basic freedoms for the bogus promise of safety in the shadow of fear. And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it despite its obvious constitutional problems. Crying eagle photos in chain-emails were sufficient propaganda to keep it in place.

>Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed I've been seeing plenty of Americans cheering on temporary safety over essential liberty since then, and I can't even provide examples without getting [flagged].

This isn't a specifically American phenomenon. Humans have fear buttons. If you press the right ones, a sizable portion of any population would trade in significant amount of freedom to feel safer. Those for whom it's almost pathological spend considerable effort trying to pass on their worries to others, or chasing opportunities to exert some satisfactory control. If they succeed in either goals, you get less freedom.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#208

Post by amanaplanacanal »

tialaramex wrote: post #160
nullhole wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first reaction is that the step to torture was a step backwards, a disregard for what we've learned about the efficacy of torture in getting reliable information, and an embrace of sadistic revenge as an end in itself as state policy. It's the state policy part that I find the worst. Individual acts of senseless violence you can blame on the individual; state acts that in retrospect are senseless violence you can…

There's even a big book on my shelf "The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture" which catalogues extensive examples where US intelligence tortured people or was instrumental in their torture, insisted this had unlocked important information and then eventually walked that back as investigators started to dig in. The US still more or less remembers how to improve and that book is an example of how such impro…

Don't we still have a bunch of people in gitmo that can't be tried because we tortured them, and can't be released because they are "too dangerous"? Jesus fucking Christ. Even though the wars are long over.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#209

Post by [deleted] »

pyrale wrote: post #114
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t just the GOTW. It was much of the 20th century from World War I onward. Each step led to further centralization of government, a larger and larger security apparatus, and more and more foreign entanglements. We are more or less retracing the path of Rome as the Republic expanded militarily until it was no longer practical to run it as a republic and it transitioned to empire.

> It wasn’t just the GOTW. It was much of the 20th century from World War I onward. If you're looking for the seeds of imperialism, you'll find them all the way back to US independence. The point the article is making is that 2001 was a tipping point in that evolution.

[deleted]

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#210

Post by like_any_other »

pjc50 wrote: post #156
inigyou wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HN will flag you for being stupidly confrontational or promoting known conspiracy theories; you can introduce facts provided you back them up with non-insane sources.

In two of these posts, people might take issue with some of the sources. The rest should all be considered trustworthy by anyone. All flagged:

Posts flagged for showing how politics has meddled in science (unfortunately one of those facts was overstated, as a commenter kindly alerted me to. Including the correction did not prevent flagging):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48578344

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48524049

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48434792

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48434589

Demonstration of NYTimes bias, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48164242

Showing how an article omitted any links to Israel in its discussion of the Iran war, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48076950

Citing a Dutch study on economic impact of immigrants, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070799

Showing how a study omitted data that interfered with its conclusion, only revealed due to FOIA'd emails, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47281899

Elucidating on the nature of social media censorship, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47016171

Providing relevant context to UK's complaints about officials being banned from the US, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46615611

Showing the racial bias of a hacktivist, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46509295

Citing a Pew survey about the expressed importance of racial identity, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45575489

Correcting a misleading statement in an article, flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44932696

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