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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#351

Post by silexia »

nathan_compton wrote: post #187
silexia wrote: post #169

The common ground Republicans and Democrats can find is that neither wants the power of government used against them or their rights. The best way to stop the government from being used against either party is to shrink the government until it is a threat to neither party. Lower taxes, less spending, and no regulations infringing on rights or freedoms.

This is one solution to the problem. But it isn't as if its the only solution or one that has no downsides. I mean from a very trivial point of view, government spending constitutes a large amount of GDP. What this comes down to, in my opinion, is the question of democratic allocation of resources and labor . Most people believe that there is a role for democracy in the allocation of resources and labor, which is to…

The system you describe is majority rule, which often abuses minority rights. It is better to have a constitutional democracy with very limited government powers.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#352

Post by ants_everywhere »

motoboi wrote: post #287
padjo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means criticise the implementation but definitely don’t criticise the idea! America’s democracy would be greatly improved by being made more representative through electoral reform.

Yeah, but this is not what they are saying. They are saying that debate stiffle innovation. They are saying that we should get rid of all this mess and let the wise man govern.

I think about least 3/4 of the anti-democracy rhetoric I've seen here has been from people opposed to this administration.

So I wouldn't conflate opposition to democracy/embracing authoritarianism with one particular man if that is what you mean by "let the wise man govern."

It's broader than that and more worrying because there are multiple authoritarian factions who agree mainly on democracy being the enemy.

In that sense it's a similar sort of set up heading into WWII

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#353

Post by creata »

bborud wrote: post #323

The shocking thing isn't that fascism would come back. The shocking thing is that the people I thought were smart would allow it to normalize so fast and give up without a fight. And that even some people I know are apparently fascists at heart - they just needed "permission" to show themselves. For most of my teens I wondered what side I would have been on in 1930s Germany. If I would have had the courage to stand u…

> For why they can't stand up to this.

How have you been standing up to "this"? How do you expect others to stand up?

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#354

Post by epistasis »

bix6 wrote: post #242
username332211 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen social media's reaction to that murderer Mangione?

Social media is not real life. How many of those comments are bots? How many people say things online they wouldn’t say in person? The right and left are not as far apart as the internet would have us believe.

It's especially important to realize this when it's TikTok where most of that is happening, and where TikTok is the propaganda arm of China, a country that the US currently considers a frenemy at best, if not an outright enemy, and that considers the US in somewhat similar terms.

And when the algorithms on the rest of the media sites are used to drive maximum engagement for profit purposes, or maximum dissent because of the political leanings of their owner (e.g. X), social media is most definitely not the reality.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#355

Post by 010101010101 »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #295
themgt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of different national and international situations that get compared to Nazi Germany seems to reflect a paucity of historical imagination and desire to collapse every conflict into an manichaean analogy with modern civilization's foundational battle of good vs. evil. It might make at least as much sense to compare to Erdoğan's Turkey, Orban's Hungary, Syria's Assad and al-Julani, Chile with Allende and Pin…

This should be the top-voted comment of the whole thread. I used to teach history; it makes me roll my eyes when I hear comparisons between Nazi Germany and the current moment. It reflects both a lack of historical familiarity with the unique circumstances of Germany in the 1920s and 30s (including recently losing a world war), and also, as you say, a lack of knowledge of other more relevant historical examples — of…

Surely the Venn diagram needs not be a circle for you to draw parallels, nor does the existence of a more direct comparison make other comparisons moot.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#357

Post by UncleMeat »

analog8374 wrote: post #286
UncleMeat wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professors have been publishing papers advocating for legal bans of gender affirming care for ages. They've been publishing papers on gender dysphoria and the medical impact of transition for ages. Heck, there are law professors on topics like "against civil rights." For covid, there are not only oodles of papers on the topic you describe here, but entire books written by academics on the topic. These people remain e…

Entire books you say.

Yes, even ones that are expressly critical of the policies.

In Covid's Wake is a rather famous recent example. The authors are both professors at a prestigious university. They were interviewed by all sorts of outlets, including left leaning outlets. The idea that doing a cost-benefit analysis of various covid policies would get academics expelled from the academy is just not based in fact.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#358

Post by jhbadger »

ArnoVW wrote: post #123
roenxi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is largely irrelevant, they weren't in control of their own destiny at that point. What we learned in the 50s/60s was that the US leadership in the 40s/50s had a really good idea of how to build a country up and score diplomatic wins. They did amazing things in Japan and Germany. Unfortunately, those people appear to all be dead. Now we have whatever Afghanistan and Iraq was meant to be.

As much as I lament the quality of leadership at the moment (and not just in the US) I am not sure that we can equate Afghanistan with Germany. It is one thing to denazify a "modern western country" that shares most of your values, culture and religion, and that has had institutions for some time. It is another thing altogether to pull off the deal in a country that has never had a working civil society, civil instit…

That could explain the success of rebuilding Germany, as it shared a lot culturally with the US, but what about Japan? Japan was, and to a large extent still is, a very alien culture, and yet the US rebuilt it extremely effectively.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#359

Post by alashow »

kleiba wrote: post #204
Forgeties79 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been 7mo and we’re not all here every day. It’s fine. I appreciate the post and discussion it sparked. Why does it bother you?

Why do you think it bothers me? I wrote the original comment because previous discussions might be interesting reads.

Maybe prefixing with "Previous discussions" instead of "Posted here multiple times before" will not sound like complaining

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#360

Post by throaway5445454 »

username332211 wrote: post #291
throaway5445454 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mau Mau, Malaya, Kenya

Those were efforts at preventing British colonies from becoming Soviet colonies, weren't they? There was no effort to keep either Kenya or Malaysia as British. In Malaysia, the war continued after independence.

The entire effort by the British was to keep them as possessions. The wars continued after independence because non-communists took power.
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