The pandemic is the match, but I’m going to blame the pile of kerosene soaked rags.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
those seem to be a minority thou
The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
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Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#52The pandemic is the match, but I’m going to blame the pile of kerosene soaked rags.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
I'd argue there's no direct correlation. There are societies with lesser regard for rationality doing just fine too. Several countries not in "the path of the storm" can claim credit for anything they did and didn't do as having stopped covid to the point of superstition. Id credit Germans' preference of beer just as much as their February/March response or their penchant for rationality. It's a form of collective survivorship bias. There are several cases of countries next to each other with no particular great early response having vastly different outcomes. Rational, educated populace doesnt explain away the difference between Italy vs Austria, Belgium & Netherlands vs Germany, the US vs Canada, etc. It's too early to gloat and take digs at the US. Were all countries at equal risk of exposure, or were the US, Italy, and other more severely affected countries already major travel hubs for people coming from early affected regions? Some countries have turned "flatten the curve" into "nobody should ever get a fever again" and have gone to great lengths to make that happen but I doubt the temporary security is worth the "emergency powers" theyve given their leaders.
Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#53Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
those seem to be a minority thou
Most wealthy countries are weathering corona quite decently, with woman-led countries being in the lead (e.g. NZ, Germany).
The most notable exceptions are the US, Brazil, UK and Turkey - these four countries have one thing in common: far-right populist "strongmen" in power who are unable to find a line between the demands of medical/epidemiological expertise and their self interests.
Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#55Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#56From the article, it sounds like our response to the pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights. The virus is not agentic, and what they describe are intentional acts by human beings.
New Zealand's lockdown was announced nine days before it had legal effect, a court case found that was illegal. Every country has let these values fall in one way or another.
The court's decision was more nuanced than that. They basically argued that it was technically not legal for a brief period, but justified, necessary and reasonable under the circumstances. It wasn't exactly an erosion of democracy and respect for human rights, and the court made that very clear in their judgement.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-08-2020/unlawful-but-ne...
Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well put. There was a book from ages ago called The Ugly American which caused a big stir in US political circles because of the way it decried US foreign policy. It contrasted the US approach (dinner parties in the Embassy) withe the Russians - who learned the local languages, respected local cultural nuances and customs, and taught locals how to more effectively till their lands. That contrast caused a huge stir in…
Yet the USSR is long gone and we're still here.
Looking pretty path dependent at this point. Don't mistake luck for good policy.
Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
those seem to be a minority thou
Most wealthy countries are weathering corona quite decently, with woman-led countries being in the lead (e.g. NZ, Germany). The most notable exceptions are the US, Brazil, UK and Turkey - these four countries have one thing in common: far-right populist "strongmen" in power who are unable to find a line between the demands of medical/epidemiological expertise and their self interests.
The reality is, most people are going to get the 'rona. Germany for example; they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now. NZ, same thing's going to happen, unless they develop North Korea style immigration policies or 12 monkeys style lifestyle. They're better off in general because they have healthier populations than, say, the US or the UK, but putting it off isn't going to work forever.
I don't think the US, Brazil, UK or Turkey explicitly realized this or anything (Sweden did; they're doing fine, and are basically over with it). But ultimately getting it over with is probably going to look better in the long term.
Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
New Zealand's lockdown was announced nine days before it had legal effect, a court case found that was illegal. Every country has let these values fall in one way or another.
I think the Netherlands hasn't. In fact, commentators everywhere are yelling that they should make face masks obligatory, but they can't because the constitution prevents it (something about personal freedom of movement iirc). They have to pass a new law first and until then it's "strongly recommend". For reasons I don't get, the Freedom House picture on this article shows NL as orange, meaning that freedom and democ…
We have something similar in Ireland: many of the coronavirus regulations (don't travel outside your county, don't have big gatherings in your home) don't have the force of law and/or the police don't have powers to enforce them. The government gave itself some emergency powers back in March, but these lapsed after I think 6 weeks and weren't renewed.
The interesting question is why they didn't renew the emergency powers. They arguably weren't constitutional in the first place, but the only real challenge to them came from the conspiracy theorists /anti-vaxxers who got laughed out of court on about a hundred technicalities.
Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can see the failure of American leadership and an inability to engage in global crises in a decisive manner since Vietnam due to our inability to get over our incompetence and total misunderstanding of the political situation during the war there. I have a strong suspicion that American foreign policy wonks still don't understand why we failed in Vietnam; why applying the lens of containment and the same policy e…
The USA had an almost resounding success in Vietnam in its true objectives - it completely destroyed the (somewhat) functional North Vietnamese socialist state, and prevented any kind of spread of that idea in the area. It's true that 50 years later Vietnam is now a relatively well-functioning state again, but after the war in Vietnam there was no other attempt in the area. The real failure in Vietnam was not retreat…
The North Vietnamese state successfully expanded to southern Vietnam, Vietnamese-trained revolutionaries took over neutral Laos after and largely because the US dropped as much ordinance on it as Europe during WWII and Vietnam successfully invaded Cambodia and installed its still current leader after Cambodia infamously disastrous experiment with a unique homegrown variant of socialism. And it wasn't as if Vietnam would have been on course to be a superpower without the bombs.
The only part of US Indochina strategy that worked was pumping Thailand full of money. Ironically, dangling that carrot could probably have tempted Vietnam into more "market reforms" and fewer collective farms a lot earlier, given that Ho Chi Minh was fond of quoting the Founding Fathers as well as Marx and appealed to the US when he was fighting his anticolonialist war.