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French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

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Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#541
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They indeed sometimes destroyed some properties But you cannot blame them for the violence in the protest they co-organized. People are free to attend the protest, and they cannot control them. They never called for violence against police. And most protest now in France have some people fighting with the police. The same way you can see firefighters throwing stuff (including petanque ball) to police during firefighe…

If it happens once it's accident, if it happens constantly, its their responsibility if not starting a protest at all would prevent the violence And if they put their label on it it's their responsibility.

That's not a good assessment at all. Because no one holds the government or its police to that standard.

Do you know how many problems in America regarding human rights stem from qualified immunity? Don't let that BS keep spreading.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#542
Well, if some dipshit in a costume is gonna show up and point a gun at me for using open source software of my choice, I just may contemplate responding with violence, possibly in a coordinated manner.

Governments would be wise, so long as I'm not doing anything to hurt anyone else, to mind their own business and fuck off.

Don't make me get out my AR-15 with its standard rapacity 45rd mag

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monopoly is on the legitimate claim to force, and is based on Max Weber. David Runciman has an excellent explanation of this in the "Talking Politics" podcast which I recommend unreservedly: https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership > (Specific segment occurs ~15 minutes in.)

That podcast does have an interesting explanation of the idea, and Max Weber did provide interesting insights into it. But the governments exerting monopolistic control over violence (to differing levels at different times and places) goes back basically as far as organised society does. The legitimate claim to violence in self defence is just as ubiquitous and has always been at least philosophically at odds with th…

Again, you are excluding the critical phrase legitimate claim, which is at the heart of Weber's definition. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself.

Absent this, one of three conditions exist:

1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.

2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious.

3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.

You might want to consider what a "state" which lacks a monopoly on the legitimate claim to the monopoly on force would look like. To what other entity would it cede that legitimate claim, and/or how would it prevent other entities from enacting capricious violence, as has occurred from time to time in the world, and even now.

The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy

Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.

https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...>

The "monopoly on violence" or "monopoly on force" short-hands are a much more recent emergence, and seem to originate with Murray Rothbard (1960s) and Robert Nozick (1970s), though widespread usage of that phrase really only begins to take off after 1980, per Google's Ngram Viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=monopoly+on+vi...>

That shorthand has become quite popular, and is often cited by Libertarians as key to their adopting that particular ideology.[1] As expressed by them the formulation is both incorrect and misleading.

________________________________

Notes:

1. E.g., Penn Jillette, https://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-how-became-libertaria...> and Charles Koch https://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-how-became-libertaria...>.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fifth republic is the result of a coup by a military leader (De Gaulle) that was in talks with commanders of tank divisions to drive to Paris should he not be instated president and allowed to write his own constitution (written by Pierre Debré, a friend of his). It was ripe to burn since 1958.

"The iron was hot. I struck it." - De Gaulle

Is this an actual quote? Interested regardless of the topic of this comment thread.

Couldn't find any source online except for this comment. Might be because of tranalation though.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it ever pass normal legislative process? If I tell you that you have spend two more years working and there's no benefit for you at all, would you vote for it?

Through parliement. Thats just how a normal democracy works. Or through a referendum. unless we are talking about handling a national crisis, or avoiding a US-style shutdown, then avoiding a vote may be legitimate under specific circumstances. but I doubt pension reforms fall under national emergencies

I agree it should not fall under national emergencies, but I don't see any other way it would pass. Nobody wants to work longer for no gain. The pension system in a lot of countries is basically a ponzi scheme.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That podcast does have an interesting explanation of the idea, and Max Weber did provide interesting insights into it. But the governments exerting monopolistic control over violence (to differing levels at different times and places) goes back basically as far as organised society does. The legitimate claim to violence in self defence is just as ubiquitous and has always been at least philosophically at odds with th…

Again, you are excluding the critical phrase legitimate claim , which is at the heart of Weber's definition. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself. Absent this, one of three conditions exist: 1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state. 2. There i…

I think you’re really putting the kart before the horse here. It’s certainly not true that no legitimate governments existed prior to the 20th century, regardless of what particular phrases may be been invented to describe them during that time. Just like gravity existed long before Newton managed to come up with a sensible description of it. You also almost get to describing the actual reality of the situation, but not quite, which is that a monopoly on violence and a state are the same thing. All states emerged when some group attempted to assert a monopoly over violence, and whether they fail or succeed in becoming a state comes down to their ability to monopolise violence. The status of legitimacy here is entirely subjective, and if it’s called into question, the only way it’s ever falsified is if some other group successfully challenges that monopoly.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#547
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday the French government dissolved an environmental movement (which I don't like btw), amongst the reasons stated[0] are that they leave their phones at home or switch them off, refuse to talk to the police when arrested, or even that they organize their protest over the internet. When accused of authoritarian tendencies the government usually answers "go to China or North Korea to see what a dictatorship is l…

They have not been dissolved because they left their phone at home, they have been dissolved because it was a violent organisation that was systematically attacking the police and destroying property. And given the sort of stuff they brought to their protests: swords, machettes, baseball bats, jerrycan, bricks, fireworks, petanque balls, Molotov cocktails, fire bombs, etc, it is particularly disingenuous to pretend t…

So, should the FNSEA be dissolved then? https://twitter.com/SebastienM/status/1671842089502494721?s=...

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

--- clarification and details of my initial point --- The starting point of this exchange is me saying that I can see Le Pen or Zemmour as a potentiel threat to the current French democracy, but not Melenchon. Le Pen is from a political party that has a long history of wanting less counter power (ending the "republic of the judge" for example") and more "authority'. And in places where her party got power, there're b…

And important point I forgot, policeman (for sure) and army (I think) vote very predominantly for the far-right, and very little for Nupes.

I don't know how many of them vote for the far right, but why on earth would they vote for NUPES? Mélenchon constantly attacks them, he's on auto-blame mode.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you switch from defending him (as it's impossible) to "both-siding" it, and pretending I have a "focus" on him, and then hinting that I'm just scared... Sounds like a typical LFI politician. It's disappointing. So, let's start with "Why do I have such focus on Melanchon?" That one is just dishonest. Let me remind you of your own answer that started this focus on Mélenchon: "Not sure what Melenchon is doing in i…

--- Answer to your last post --- 1- To me " permanent outrage, inflammatory discourse, obstruction of debates, conflictualization of everything, exacerbating existing social tensions" or using "vague" undefined word or using "overused catch phrase" can definitely apply to Macron, Darmanin, Ciotti, Valls, Rousseau, Wauquiez... and many others. All mainstream political party. Most of mainstream politicians doing good i…

1- There's no comparing Macron and Mélenchon. Macron is not anywhere close regarding inflammatory discourse, and conflictualization of everything. Imagine if Macron had screamed "I AM THE REPUBLIC" on camera like Mélenchon did.

I'm sorry but if you can't at least admit this, there's nothing we can gain from this conversation.

2- Did you watch the video? It's clear that his idea of governing is "conquer[ing] power but also exercise it in a revolutionary manner!". If he's not talking about his understanding of democracy, then I don't know what he's talking about. In any case he's explicitly supporting using "revolution" and "conflictualization of everything" to "conquer power" and "exercise it in a revolutionary manner". If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.

3- I'm sorry but I won't bother read stuff from LFI, they so often fail to be relevant, throwing nice-sounding ideas around, they don't care if they work, everything sounds so easy, "pay people more", "more money to education", "more money to health care", "lower retirement age", "more democracy", "more power to the people". All of that we can't have because of [some target group]. [some target group] are conspiring against "the people". Can't you see it's just a "nice" and empty ideology? It has a name: demagogy and populism.

4- I'm not surprised some powerful people support a demagogue. While it'll be bad for most people, opportunists can really profit from such a regime.

5- This quote is just there to remind you that LFI have it very easy, they point at "authoritarian" Macron, while they burn mannequins of him, threaten to behead him like Louis XVI, put his head on footballs, etc. They can do all that borderline stuff with no consequences. They just support these massive hate campaigns. Which is maybe ok? Because it's free-speech? I don't know, it sounds like hate speech to me. But in any case they have it soooooo easy, compared to any country with actual authoritarian leaders. It's easy being InSoUmIs in a free country. They are just highly privileged people, pretending to be oppressed and revolting against an imaginary "dictatorship". Can't you see that? It's so obvious to me.

Let me add a 6th point. The way Mélenchon blames Ukraine, apologizes Putin, his completely ridiculous stance just before the war started, saying that Russia would never invade and that it was all a big plot from US/NATO as always... He was soooooo wrong on that one, it's just embarrassing. He's wrong on so many things, but he just angrily moves forward, finding new enemies to denounce, new polemics to surf on, never acknowledging his spectacularly failed predictions. I simply can't understand for the life of me how can educated and honest people fall for such an obvious fraud.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

--- Answer to your last post --- 1- To me " permanent outrage, inflammatory discourse, obstruction of debates, conflictualization of everything, exacerbating existing social tensions" or using "vague" undefined word or using "overused catch phrase" can definitely apply to Macron, Darmanin, Ciotti, Valls, Rousseau, Wauquiez... and many others. All mainstream political party. Most of mainstream politicians doing good i…

1- There's no comparing Macron and Mélenchon. Macron is not anywhere close regarding inflammatory discourse, and conflictualization of everything. Imagine if Macron had screamed "I AM THE REPUBLIC" on camera like Mélenchon did. I'm sorry but if you can't at least admit this, there's nothing we can gain from this conversation. 2- Did you watch the video? It's clear that his idea of governing is "conquer[ing] power but…

1- Macron is known for his inflammatory and regular "petites phrases" (but often said more calmly than Melenchon), like "people who are success, and people who are nothing"... Some of his minister (eg. Darmanin) too, with some fake news sometimes.

And there are discourses and there are actions... Even journalists of le Figaro (right, with far right journalists and guests) had to publicly protest several times against Macron and his police because of stuff linked to democracy.

2. Your initial post where mentioning defining democracy around the term of revolution. This is not the case. Note that most violent revolution were to bring more democracy (even if does not end well all the times) and he seems to use the word in a very broad sense, including winning election. I did say this point is in a way scary, but gave you detailed explanation why in this context it is not that scary at all. You did not answered to any of those points.

3. I you don't read their detailed stuff, how do you know it is "a "nice" and empty ideology" ?

4. Why you call him a demagogue (even without reading any detailed stuff) ? and on what base you you say it will be bad for most people ?

More importantly as we were talking about democracy, how do you see Melenchon managing to reduce democracy, while his political plateform is more democracy, his party and people voting for him want more democracy, while his allies he need does not want less democracy, while there are important safeguard in France, while counter powers does not want less democracy, while army, police, companies and press does not like him and would oppose any move toward more autoritarism ???

5 - Your answer is off-topic... Still answering it :

Protesters did a lot of things, not LFI (except for ONE elected representative saying something one time)...

The discourse of LFI is the recent protest the not centered around the lack of democracy but about retirement, and more broadly about work and money.

No LFI leader compared the French situation with Russia ! But indeed some pointed that democracy moved back a bit... And indeed even journalist from Figaro had to mobilize several times against Macron for stuff link to democracy... And I am sometimes afraid to go protest (and I do respect the law) having been attacked several times by the police... And the recent twist to prevent the parliament to vote a law is lawful but is seen as going against "democracy" by a majority of French people.

6 - Here again a new off topic subject... You are grossly caricaturing his position, but what is the link with democracy in France ??? (note that only USA predicted that Russia will attack)

7- If you are around Lille, let's have a drink if you want :-)

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