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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#371

Post by immibis »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #66
immibis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First they came for those who thought the sky was pulsating green, but I did not speak out for I did not dare to question the blue sky narrative. Then they came for those who thought the earth was flat, but I did not speak out for I did not dare to question the round earth narrative. Then they came for those who thought the internet was carried by little elves, but I did not speak out for I did not dare to question t…

Also in 1933, people saying 'not all narratives are equal' to diminish any outcry against what was happening.

In 1933, lots of people were saying Hitler was a fascist and was gonna be really bad, and they were ignored.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#372

Post by nkrisc »

scandox wrote: post #299
JoBrad wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the overall rancor around topics like this, I feel it’s necessary to say I’m approaching this as a discussion, and am open to evidence that I’m wrong. In my opinion your item 2 is mostly a conflation of “people want to enjoy the same rights that others have enjoyed” and a recognition that “separate but equal” doesn’t actually work. A prime example is gay marriage, where we went from “don’t ask don’t tell” to a…

I don't see a contradiction. I'm happy for people to seek changes to the law that makes their lives better. But it is still seeking change to the law. I don't know the American system well but didn't gay marriage require legal change? Or at least legal challenge leading to precedent?

It was more an equalization of the law so that it applies equally to all people. Absolutely nothing changed, legally, for the vast, vast majority of Americans.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#373

Post by Amezarak »

thrance wrote: post #64
Amezarak wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you are not aware that the “other side” declared Constitutional amendments by fiat, assassinated American citizens with drone strikes, lied to the courts to imprison influential Twitter users, used intelligence agencies to spy on Congress, dramatically expanded the surveillance state, declared by EO they simply wouldn’t enforce some laws on favored demographics, ordered social media companies to censor and ba…

Got sources for any of that?

Constitutional amendments by fiat: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/17/biden-dec...

Assassinated Americans with drone strikes: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-were-the-4-us-citizens-kill...

Lied to the courts to imprison Twitter users: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.967...

Used intelligence agencies to spy on Congress: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief...

Expanded mass surveillance: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/obama-on-mass-gov...

EO declaring that some laws would not be enforced on favored demographics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DACA

Ordered social media companies to censor and ban users: https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/1-thread-the-twitter-fil... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerbe...

Locked people down unless they were protesting for approved causes: referring to the BLM protests

> engaged in politically motivated prosecutions of their enemies. Another reference to the Mackey case and the novel legal theories required prosecute Trump in NY, and the now known to be false constructiion of the Russia narrative.

Look, many or all of these things may have been for a good cause, a good end. But the problem we're talking about is the means. Now people are using the same means for different ends. Everyone has to agree authoritarianism is bad even when it’s for really good ends or this will continue to escalate.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#374

Post by Amezarak »

reb wrote: post #157
Amezarak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the problem. Everyone makes tendentious arguments about how their exact reasoning and mechanism is justified, while the other sides’ is not justified. The outcome is the same. Edit: I have been rate limited so I cannot reply, but note I was referring to prior administrations coercing media companies to censor and deplatform people, so yes, it is functionally the same whether it’s the FCC or Congress or other e…

The outcome is not the same: allegedly repressive liberal administrations, internet businesses, and tv networks allowed openly authoritarian media to continually build momentum for a decade until that media delivered an authoritarian regime willing to actively dismantle the open system that allowed it to come to power. Contrast that with less than one year of the authoritarian regime, where the full force of the gove…

> where "deplatforming" was a social phenomenon that meant hopping to one of many other open networks, not the dogged federal punishment of institutions and individuals promoting inconvenient narratives.

This is manifestly untrue. The government directly prosecuted people for their social media postings and ordered Facebook and Twitter to censor people, among many, many other acts.

> The liberal era was marked largely by criticism without consequence,

You are able to believe this because the government and the chattering classes were so efficient in their control of the narrative that their abuses were institutionalized as the norms: people that were punished were so bad we didn't question the idea they were extremists or Nazis, and even when the government clearly overreacted, the reaction was largely tepid because complaining too loudly would seem to empower the wrong people. Now that populists have reacted, we're all shocked. That's on us to be responsive democratically, or these things will continue to happen.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#375

Post by ProllyInfamous »

noobermin wrote: post #232
jebarker wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an awful lot of stuff about “national character” that is… questionable. Yes! I recently read this book and was pretty shocked by how much was chalked up to the German character. I came away feeling neither comfort nor increased panic relating to the current US situation. I read the book because I was hand-wringing about how complicit I am just by getting on with my privileged and comfortable life right now. I didn’…

While reading about history can always be enlightening, I sure hope you aren't looking to a book to inform you on what is right or wrong and what your behaviour should be.

The entire purpose / point of this book is that the overly-oppressed majority is easily susceptible to becoming "NAZIS," and why National Socialist mentality ought to be actively DISCOURAGED.

But you're just going to see the swastika on the cover (which is used appropriately as the symbol of hate it represents) and you'll not even attempt discussions at preventing future Nazi-creating societies.

Good work /s

If you search my username, I have provided the couple-dozen quotes from this book that alarmed me most, in regards to society in 2020 (when I first read the book). I am not a supremicist in any capacity — I am a blue collar union electrician (so: I hate everybody equally smile_face.GIF). But I've heard it all on jobsites, and not all hate is "misdirected"...

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#376

Post by varjag »

DrewADesign wrote: post #298
overfeed wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Armed civilians with their puny little guns and little organization are right out as soon as any part of the military joins a fight In the 1940s, the DoD published a field manual on how folk with "puny little guns" - or no guns at all - can fight.

Let's see... military drones; satellite surveillance; comms surveillance; giant network of flock cameras vacuuming up facial, descriptive vehicular, and license plate movement data; small-scale tactical nuclear weapons; a huge fleet of hypersonic aircraft and extremely maneuverable helicopters; decades of urban combat experience; militarized law enforcement; the largest military in the world by orders of magnitude fi…

Good luck with hypersonic nukes when your patrols are pecked by ambushes and FPV drones in the spaghetti of neighborhoods with opposing alignments.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#377

Post by varjag »

microtonal wrote: post #201
bix6 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whereas the Nazi Germany analogy ends with near-inevitable wave function collapse into "start shooting Nazis" Does it? I haven’t thought about shooting anyone. I would like to see more widespread awareness, protesting, and a general strike.

This. If you read Reddit, a whole lot of comments go from Nazi parallels (which is partly justified, but as another comment points out there are also a lot of parallels with Orban's Hungary, Erdogan's Turkey, Putin's Russia, etc.) to 'Luigi'. There are so many non-violent approaches that would be effective. First, there is the 3.5% rule [1]. Second, if 10%-20% of the general population would go on a general strike, p…

That 3.5% rule stopped working some time ago with the rise of technical surveillance state. There are now several notorious counter-examples.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#378

Post by falseprofit »

alashow wrote: post #359
kleiba wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The phrasing was matter of fact. And there is nothing inherently wrong with reposting. Certain other websites have developed a culture opposed to it, but I have yet to see that here.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#379

Post by kleiba »

alashow wrote: post #359
kleiba wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Agreed, I actually tried and go back to change the wording to exactly that, but unfortunately it was already past the editing grace period. But lesson learned for next time.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#380

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

theptip wrote: post #336
nosianu wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and who knows what it will look like if we have some kind of civil war out of this. I don't understand mentions of "civil war" in the public lately (there's even a Hollywood movie about it). There is only one party controlling the armed forces. I also doubt that any high-ranking officers would take the troops they command out of the command structure and then even order them to attack the government and other troop…

If the president shreds the constitution, there would likely be many in the military opposed to it. While they are actively replacing cabinet positions with loyal outsiders that have little-to-no experience within the organizations they now run (eg Patel, Hegseth), I think it’s reasonable to assume that there remains career leaders throughout that would put country before king. You also need to look at loyalty within…

Hard to say. "About six-in-ten registered voters who say they have served in the U.S. military or military reserves (61%) support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, while 37% back Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early September." from https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/30/military-...

The military is not composed of constitutional lawyers and the danger is that they might persuade themselves that the best way to protect the country is to support whoever has at least a façade of legitimacy, particularly if it aligns with their political preferences.

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