Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
91–100 of 138 posts
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#92Given that this is written by a historian it should be taken seriously.
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#93Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#94It's funny how much democracies with free speech are always self critical with rampant doom saying while actual autocracies that crack down on this kind of speech are quiet and content when economic times are good only really cracking at the seams during distress. I know its a healthy part of democracy but it is very draining.
> actual autocracies that crack down on this kind of speech
The ball is rolling. Action against media organizations is already underway. You already couldn't publish this message via CBS, WSJ or the Post, for example. They likely wouldn't even interview the author.
But yeah, it takes time, censorship is hard in practice, and random substacks are fairly far down the list.
But pretending that this is a "healthy" democracy at this point is pretty strained reasoning.
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Trump is not authoritarian The better discussion is: 1. Does he aspire to be authoritarian or does he prefer to do work with congress, scotus, and independent agencies? 2. Has he expanded presidential power, formally or informally?
It is not a better discussion in context, because the topic says "America has signs of fascism", not "Trump wants more power". The later topic is not very intellectually engaging.
Constitutional law is pretty engaging actually. You are welcome to feel otherwise.
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#96[flagged]
So should we wait for it? Is avoiding the embarrassment of calling a Fake Fascist a fascist worth it? Whats the EV on that decision? What’s the body count going to need to be before it’s Real Fascism?
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> Welcome to Hacker News. Blood in the streets doesn't spark curious conversation so let's talk about compilers! Probably for the better. Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. There are plenty of other places where you can get that already.
Except when it is political content against the EU or some European nation doing something Americans don't like. Then it is very interesting to HN, never flagged and raised to the front page.
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Politics junkies are the least human people around.
America does have basically every characteristic of fascism on every important list of fascism characteristics ever made. That's actually kind of important to the tech community, considering we are wildly complicit in this . So, maybe consider that more than "politics junkies" might be interested in this, and that the tech billionaires might have a vested interest in making sure stories like this get flagged (very ea…
> That's actually kind of important to the tech community, considering we are wildly complicit in this.
This should be why modern fascism is of interest to the HN community.
Pretending tools exist in a vacuum is shirking ones ethical responsibility for employing ones skills.
Code is politics by other means.
It's disgusting that we have people who avoid taking ethical ownership of their work on adtech, surveillance capitalism, etc.
"If not me then someone else?"
Then let it be someone else, or admit you're making the world worst in exchange for a bigger paycheck.
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#99With the risk of sounding naive: How come this post is flagged? Reading the guidelines I can't see how this is off-topic or does _not_ "[gratify] one's intellectual curiosity." Edit: spelling
We’ve turned off the flags.
The story was flagged by many users. The problem with articles like this is the discussions are repetitive and predictable. We rarely see anyone approaching them with genuine curiosity. The topic of whether this president and administration are befitting of particular labels and historical analogies has been continually discussed (in broader society and on HN) since about 2015. And in the discussions we generally just see people trying to justify why they believe what they already believed about the topic, sometimes quite belligerently.
This is why discussions about politics are generally bad on online forums (and considered to be best avoided at dinner parties); it’s a domain in which people’s belief about the topic is deeply entangled with their identity, and by definition, people get defensive and hostile when their identity is thrown into question. Thus, they work much harder to justify why they were already right about the topic, instead of seeking to learn anything new.
The kind of politics discussion that would be good to see much more of on HN would explore the question: if we were to agree that the state of politics globally is terrible (I certainly do), what actions can ordinary people like us working in technology do to make things better?
Re: Ten Signs of Fascism. America has all of them
#100It's funny how much democracies with free speech are always self critical with rampant doom saying while actual autocracies that crack down on this kind of speech are quiet and content when economic times are good only really cracking at the seams during distress. I know its a healthy part of democracy but it is very draining.
The problem is that America is not in a terribly healthy democratic state, and pretty much all of the indicators show it. At best, America is a "flawed democracy" ala The Economist. The worst evaluations label America as a "hybrid regime" / "competitive authoritarianism" / "electoral autocracy" or many other terms to describe a democracy-on-the-surface that has, in reality, become heavily titled in favor of one party…
> Orbán's government never got to the full-on violent oppression used in actual autocracies, but instead used many of the tools that the Republican party uses today to attempt to stay in power. That being: gerrymandering and other aggressive vote meddling; media manipulation (not full on censorship, but attempting to ensure that dominant media voices were party line); propaganda using social / culture war rhetoric; and government pressure on institutions (schools, businesses, etc.) to destroy independence, and force conformity to the party line.
This. One of the characteristics of modern transitions into fascism seems to be intentionally avoiding and subverting the antibodies democratic states have developed to curb authoritarianism, to wit all of the actions you mentioned above.
Grey warfare against democracy is real.
Charitably, its practitioners probably think of it as "playing politics hard", but if the outcome of a course of action is eroding democratic norms then we (the people) need to be harsher in our appraisal of it. Anti-democratic forces know exactly what they're doing, even if they don't admit it publicly.
What's more worrisome is constituting a credibly alternative to MAGA+conservatism in the US that can:
1. Win elections
2. Avoid overly alienating the current MAGA+conservative supporters (to the extent they reject democracy)
3. Restore and reinforce democratic norms and laws
- Clarence Thomas 78
- Samuel Alito 76
- Sonia Sotomayor 72
- John G. Roberts Jr. 71
Who controls the presidency and senate is going to matter a lot, in terms of unfucking the unbalanced court that Ginsberg's egotistical refusal to retire created.