What Do You Identify As On The Political Spectrum?

[Sparhafoc]

This conversation is bringing back up (like a gag reflex) the awfully obtuse works of Baudrillard and his self-structuring structures structuring the structuration.

 

[Deleted member 619]

If it wasn't before, it certainly is now, so thanks for that.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

According to one of Nixon's aides, it was explicitly to target and criminalise black people, with the serendipitous effect that it would also allow him to round up the anti-war activists.

it was an explicitly racist policy from the ground up. Much of the US judicial system is much like that. In fact, it was precisely looking at how legislation is written with an explicit bias that led to critical race theory in the first place.

Everything I can think of about the US judicial system is wrong. Its an obvious conflict of interest to begin with when crime can provide revenue for the state. We end up with over zealous police officers who hand out fines to citizens instead of doing anything useful. If you go to trial with out a paid lawyer, your going to be fucked so the poorer you are the more likely your going to plead guilty and be put on probation which is basically just a long term payment plan. All they mostly care about is MONEY.

It's the reason why Eric Garner is dead.



I read stories about rich celebrities who bring guns to airports. I promise you they would bury me under the prison if I did that. Cargo ships are bringing tons of cocaine into the country. Some of these cargo ships are owned by private individuals, mind you. Others are owned by JPMorgan Chase. But somehow thats ok I guess.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/10/business/jpmorgan-msc-gayane-cocaine-seizure/index.html

I know someone who has to do 6 month in jail and pay a 1000$ fine for being drunk in public. The judicial system in the US is about money. Not race. Targeting blacks is what abortion is for. White people killing black babies.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

And Trump was democratically elected, and had 50+ million people vote to elect him again.

So my sense is that you're not addressing that component of democracy.




Did they survive it? I am not at all convinced they did.




I am struggling to grasp your thinking on this when you're literally talking about a scenario where the state wasn't at all insulated from it, and the process which caused it to happen was literally democracy.




I wrote it in post 19.

I first pointed out that you erected a false dichotomy between representative democracy and oligarchy, whereas direct democracy offers even more decentralization of power. But I also raised the point that even there, huge problems still remain because a democracy entails a majority making laws for all, including minorities. Thus, whatever the majority conceives as best for them becomes sacred democratically despite it not being best for everyone, and it being quite possible that, in sum, the minorities actually outnumber the more cohesive majority.




No, I am disagreeing with your point that the dissemination of power necessarily produces more desirable results.




I feel like you didn't address the point I made or answer any of the question I raised.




I think these are all false dichotomies, and Trump's administration wanted a very similar infrastructure bill because.., unsurprisingly, it turns out that a very few are expecting to rake in the cash from these schemes.

Bipartisan Senate Infrastructure Plan Is a Stalking Horse for Privatization

The scheme would fund new infrastructure by selling off old infrastructure. Trump proposed the same thing.

prospect.org

Bipartisan Senate Infrastructure Plan Is a Stalking Horse for Privatization - The American Prospect






I think that it rather is the point and that you are rather missing the point rather often!

May I suggest restating what point it is you want to make?




I think you keep erecting arguments that aren't being presented to you.

For example, at no point have I said or suggested that discrimination is a 'proof of a total lack of political power' - none of my arguments or positions entail this, and obviously I didn't say it.

Rather, the existence of these historical facts call into question your argument that democracy represents the dissemination of power - I don't think much power is disseminated at all, and even if it is, it's clear that it's not disseminated equally, and that those who hold unequal power employ it to oppress those who don't have equal power.




Only on the weekends.




Well, I didn't say you said that democracy made such issues impossible, but it does make the idea of democracy being fundamentally about the dissemination of power clearly false when there were still other structures in place restricting, controlling, limiting, and retaining that power which in turn was used to oppress other people.

My argument comes down to the dissemination of power, and how it insulates a state from bad faith actors.

'Democracy', in my argument, represented a system whereby the power of a government is disseminated to more people.

I suppose the opposite side of this would be, say, 'Dictatorship', whereby the power of a government is concentrated in the hands of a few people, or even one person.

My argument functions on a premise of a sliding metric of the dissemination of power, where the concentration of power described a more dictatorial government, whereas the dissemination of it described a democratic one.

I eventually use the US as an example, because I believe it possesses democratic institutions, and because I am more familiar with the US than with anything else.

If I am using these terms wrong, it's likely because I'm not particularly educated on political theory.

My argument, again, was that the dissemination of power insulates a state from, well, crazies who would abuse that power. My reasoning comes down to essentially one main point.

If a fascist, for example, were to control a singular institution in a democratized government, this would naturally restrict the power available to them, as orher institutions exist in this government, and also wield power. This is as opposed to a more dictatorial government, where a fascist in power would have more power available to them, as power in this government is concentrated in less hands.

In order for this fascist to accomplish what they might already have accomplished in a dictatorial government, a fascist must go about assuming control over other institutions in a democratized government. Said institutions, meanwhile, can still fight back against this encroaching fascism.

I don't disagree with any of that, but it's all predicated on a notion that I don't agree with, namely that democracy is ever a solution. The biggest problem in the context of race is that any attempt to address it from within the confines of the system constitutes attempting to solve a bottom-up problem with a top-down solution, always an exercise in futility, but additionally so when the attempt is piecemeal with anywhere from 50 years to a century for a single step of progress in what should have been a package.

I do think they'd have benefited. not even sure why you're asking these questions, because they're not remotely relevant to anything I've said. Flu is better than bubonic plague, but I'd rather have neither.

It's nothing to do with the needs of society. Society IS the power, if there's even a tiny degree of civilisation. Again, though, I don't hold my breath for any of that.

Have you ever encountered Rawls' Veil of Ignorance?

Start there.

I have no idea of what this means. It looks like a label, and we've already discussed what a catastrophic error it would be to attribute such a thing to me. I don't fit neatly in categories, so if this is some category of person somebody's designed, particularly since it looks like a well-poisoning, dismissive pejorative, I'll keep my own counsel. I won't hold it against you if you don't clarify this point, but I may if you do.

What I meant, basically, is whether or not you've given up. Do you think it's impossible for us to do better?

 

[Led Zeppelin]

What I meant, basically, is whether or not you've given up. Do you think it's impossible for us to do better?

Given up on what? The idea that we need democratically elected officials to tell us what our rights are?

 

[Greg the Grouper]

Given up on what? The idea that we need democratically elected officials to tell us what our rights are?

Broader, like, does he believe it's impossible for us to create a fairer, more just society by any means.

 

[Sparhafoc]

What I meant, basically, is whether or not you've given up. Do you think it's impossible for us to do better?

I think we certainly can do better as we've provably been doing better for centuries. While poverty is still entrenched, at least the peasants aren't owned commodities any more, lords don't have the power of life and death over their subordinates, women aren't forcibly married at a young age, animals aren't tortured for pleasure - on and on and on we have made continuous progress expanding our empathy sphere and attempting to make life reasonable for most - but what that indicates is that we can still go further, probably an awful lot further, in freeing people from power structures that exploit them.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Broader, like, does he believe it's impossible for us to create a fairer, more just society by any means.

Even though officially I can't answer for him, I will anyway as I've known him a long time!

It's not that he doesn't think there's any imaginable way to create a fairer society, it's that he doesn't have trust or faith in those in power volunteering to create a more just society and that the majority of people are basically sleepwalking through life, unaware that they could expect more, and unaware that there are hordes of others who don't even enjoy the freedoms they take for granted.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

Well, that all sounds fair.

To be honest, politics stresses me out. I typically wind up wondering if I'm a piece of shit for not giving up on my own life and just trying to fight the good fight. Not even sure how I'd do that, though.

 

[Deleted member 619]

What I meant, basically, is whether or not you've given up. Do you think it's impossible for us to do better?

Given up? No.

I think it's entirely possible for us to do better, and I think democracy has made it possible for us to do better... for some.

And that's entirely the problem. The problems of those at the bottom tiers of society rely for their solution on those in the tiers above to take action, and the further from the bottom tier, the more that means people working against what they see as their own interest.

Democracy perpetuates the systems of injustice and inequality that subjugate those in the lower echelons of society. Progress can be made, and society improved, via democracy - of any nature, whether direct, proportional, constitutional, or whatever - but what it cannot do is to improve those facets of it that create imbalance in the system, because that imbalance is a function of the system, manifest as the principle we've been talking about - might makes right.

To actually make democracy work, you have to convince those with all the cards that it's in their best interest to relinquish the cards for the greater good. Unfortunately, that's incredibly unlikely in any scenario. In the modern world, it isn't just unlikely, it's functionally impossible, because we live in a world-wide cult of celebrity, in which money and status are the metric for success in the minds of the vast majority of people who are shleepwalking (not a typo; a portmanteau) through life, being led by the nose in search of the holy lottery.

Democracy is as much a religion as any church, and every bit as flawed. All the good things about it are tainted by the oppression that isn't merely an undesirable outcome, it's an inevitable consequence of any sort of populist decision-making system. It's rule by committee, and the committee is composed of those with the very least to offer society in terms of improvement.

Note that ALL of the above is true in a system in which everybody is actually working together for improvement. When you introduce the notion of bad actors, forget it.

If you want to improve society in a democracy, you need to compose your committees out of those at the bottom, who actually understand the consequences of decisions taken within the system on real human lives. That isn't ever going to happen.

In the end, the only real hope for humanity's overall improvement is the thing the white supremacists fear above all other things; dilution.

I, for one, welcome our homogeneous future overlords.

So, no. I haven't given up. Nobody who can rant for hours and hours and still only scratch the surface can be said to have given up. I do, however, despair often.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Even though officially I can't answer for him, I will anyway as I've known him a long time!

I can count on the fingers of one head the people I'd trust to accurately convey my thoughts on a subject when I haven't expressly given them voice. I have no qualms where you're concerned.

It's not that he doesn't think there's any imaginable way to create a fairer society, it's that he doesn't have trust or faith in those in power volunteering to create a more just society and that the majority of people are basically sleepwalking through life, unaware that they could expect more, and unaware that there are hordes of others who don't even enjoy the freedoms they take for granted.

Pretty much, but with egregious sesquipedalianism.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Here's an example of that democratic 'tyranny of the majority'

Interfaith marriage: Pew survey says most Indians oppose it

A study said members of India's major religious communities often don't feel they have much in common.

www.bbc.com

Most Indians oppose interfaith marriage, survey shows​

Most Indians see themselves and their country as religiously tolerant but are against interfaith marriage, a survey from Pew Research Center has found.

People across different faiths in the country said stopping interfaith marriage was a "high priority" for them.

The research comes follows laws introduced in several Indian states that criminalise interfaith love.

Pew interviewed 30,000 people across India in 17 languages for the study. The interviewees were from 26 states and three federally administered territories.

According to the survey, 80% of the Muslims who were interviewed felt it was important to stop people from their community from marrying into another religion. Around 65% of Hindus felt the same.

So from the ideals of democracy, it should be considered right and just for India to enact a law banning interfaith marriage... but then how is that not a form of oppression against those people who actually want to marry someone of another faith?

You see this in every country, and it is often associated with religion because religious narratives inevitably contend that adherents are special, promised, unique and subject to the laws of religion rather than society.

Why should abortion be banned when no one is proposing to oblige everyone to have an abortion? Because people who would never choose to have an abortion themselves don't want others to have that freedom.

Why shouldn't homosexuals be allowed to marry when no one is proposing that everyone has to partake in same-sex marriage? Because heterosexual people - who would never choose to marry someone of the same sex - don't want others to have that freedom.

It's a harsh way of looking at democracy, and of course it doesn't address the benefits of a democracy, but it does spell out why the system isn't really very elegant or sophisticated at all - it's just might has the right recapitulated.

 

[Deleted member 619]

The problem is, of course, that democracy has been touted as the best thing since sliced bread for absolutely ever, including by some of the greatest minds in history, yet nobody ever really answered Plato's objections.

I'm no defender of ancient philosophers (anybody who's known me for five minutes will tell you this in their top five things about me), but Plato and I see broadly eye-to-eye on this.

Of course, while waffling about having no solution, I realise I offered one. They're not going to like it, though:


If allies really want to be allies, they're going to have to stand aside and give all their strength to minority candidates. That's going to skew the system one way for a while, and that's going to be massively positive for society in the short term, diminishing returns into the middle term, and into negative consequences in the long term. One of the beautiful (actually, the only good) things about democracy is that correcting it is, at this point, trivial, because you simply make the decision as a society and vote accordingly.

Of course, this is all just like fantasy football. In order to make a system like that work - the only route to equality in a democracy, to my mind - you have to convince the haves that having less is actually better for them. This is a true statement. It wasn't a true statement when the haves said this to the have-nots; trickle-down economics - but it's true here.

Majority actors have to quell their own ambitions and support minority candidates with the same fervour as if they were running themselves, and the process needs to be bottom-loaded.

Democracy is a nice idea, but it can never fulfil Rawls' Veil. Call me crazy, but that's my benchmark for society.

 

[surreptitious75]

Democracy is not perfect but it is the best system we have
But corruption has existed since forever so it is nothing new
Because whoever has power can be corrupted regardless of whoever they are or whatever the system is
Changing the system is not the solution however but changing human nature for the good of everyone

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Democracy is not perfect but it is the best system we have

I think it would be better to just let people live how they would live normally, without a system.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

Well, that all sounds fair.

To be honest, politics stresses me out. I typically wind up wondering if I'm a piece of shit for not giving up on my own life and just trying to fight the good fight. Not even sure how I'd do that, though.

If you want to single handedly take on the government and society, you need one of three things.
1. Power.
2. Authority.
3. Money.
None of those you can get, by giving up your life to fight the good fight.

What you can do though, is join protests on issues that concern you on the weekends, join organisations that "fight the good fight" and contribute with your time and money. Alone, you stand no chance, but as a member of Greenpeace or a card carrying union member, you actually can create change.
Nothing wrong with doing what you can, without totally derailing your life.

Btw. word of warning, protesting capitalism or capitalist policies/projects could have you end up getting classified as a violent anarchist and a domestic terrorist. The Red Scare sadly is making a comeback.

Has Joe Biden Made Anti-Capitalism Illegal?

The White House published a new strategy document for tackling domestic terrorism, and argued "we need both short-term steps to counter the very real threats of today and longer-term measures to diminish the emerging threats of tomorrow."

www.newsweek.com

Not at a point were you need to be careful about what you post or say yet .. but its getting there, so better take care about what you post online, who knows if the situation is gonna get worse and they ll put you on trial for being a member of the communist party based on 5 year old posts.

 

[Sparhafoc]

However, the strategy has already caused controversy on Reddit, as users claimed on Saturday that it would classify "anarchist violent extremists" that "oppose all forms of capitalism" as "domestic violent extremists (DVEs)."

What exactly is wrong about considering violent extremists as 'domestic terrorists' and how... how do you go from that to having comments posted on a web forum as being considered terrorism?

 

[Deleted member 42253]

The definition of a "violent extremist" is really lose as far as the US is concerned.
You could be part of a peaceful protest and one guy throws a bottle and all of a sudden, you are part of a violent protest.
Property damage also does count as violence in the US.

Recent examples of peaceful protestors getting classified as violent extremists are the BLM protests.

FBI terrorism unit says 'black identity extremists' pose a violent threat

Leaked report, citing concerns of retaliation over ‘perceptions of police brutality against African Americans’, prompts fears of crackdown on activists

www.theguardian.com

“When we talk about enemies of the state and terrorists, with that comes an automatic stripping of those people’s rights to speak and protest,” said Mohammad Tajsar, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “It marginalizes what are legitimate voices within the political debate that are calling for racial and economic justice.”

Honestly, you can not be paranoid enough as far as stuff like this is concerned, especially considering what they did to the communists, hippies, the anti-war movement and what they are doing to enviromental and BLM activists.

I can only recommend watching Fox News every now and then, to get an idea of what a big part of the US, that could get into power any time, wants to do to people with opinions they do not like ... spoiler, its not presenting better ideas and debating them in good faith.

 

[Sparhafoc]

The definition of a "violent extremist" is really lose as far as the US is concerned.

Oh? So this will be where you cite the authoritative definition as expressly stipulated in some bill or law?

I would've thought it pretty clear what violent extremist means, and it doesn't mean 'anti-capitalist'. But perhaps the official definition is so loose weave as to be meaningless. You'll have to show me because I have zero acceptance of statements like that made absent corresponding evidence.

This...

Recent examples of peaceful protestors getting classified as violent extremists are the BLM protests.

For example, only suggests that they could have cast the net too wide and mistaken peaceful protestors for non-peaceful elements, it doesn't say that there's no justification for considering some members of BLM to be violent extremists.

I'm obviously not going to argue it's right to consider all BLM activists violent extremists - the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, undeservedly so really given the fact that they are pushing back against such fucking endless injustice - but there absolutely were BLM activists who went there with a mission to cause trouble, and those people deserve to be kept under scrutiny because they're dangerous fuckwits. It's only the dim and the mendacious who would then suggest that all BLM activists are guilty by association with people they probably never even met.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

Oh? So this will be where you cite the authoritative definition as expressly stipulated in some bill or law?

I would've thought it pretty clear what violent extremist means, and it doesn't mean 'anti-capitalist'. But perhaps the official definition is so loose weave as to be meaningless. You'll have to show me because I have zero acceptance of statements like that made absent corresponding evidence.

For now, we have National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. No bill or law. Btw. I do not even know, if that is policy or just a recommendation ... has to be policy, no?

As well as:

The document obtained by the not-for-profit Property of the People through a Foia request defines domestic terrorism as “any act of violence that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources” and that is intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government body. The assessment is directed at departmental leadership and is based on a review of roughly 80 violent incidents between 2014 and 2017, according to the document.

Revealed: US listed climate activist group as ‘extremists’ alongside mass killers

DHS listed activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting oil industry alongside white supremacists in documents

www.theguardian.com

The critical part is what is going to get classified as "violence" and what is going to be seen as "critical infrastructure". This is one of the cases were they should have been as anal and nitpicky as possible, cause as it is now, they could argue that banal property damage is violence and that roads or even banks are critical infrastructure.

Give it a couple of days, I am sure the US government will clarify exactly what they mean by "anarchist violent extremists, who violently oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which they perceive as harmful to society," And who that would apply to. Or well, they will let the FBI and Homeland just to do with that whatever they want ....

Am I being alarmist? Totally. Better to err on the side of caution here imho.

This...



For example, only suggests that they could have cast the net too wide and mistaken peaceful protestors for non-peaceful elements, it doesn't say that there's no justification for considering some members of BLM to be violent extremists.

I'm obviously not going to argue it's right to consider all BLM activists violent extremists - the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, undeservedly so really given the fact that they are pushing back against such fucking endless injustice - but there absolutely were BLM activists who went there with a mission to cause trouble, and those people deserve to be kept under scrutiny because they're dangerous fuckwits. It's only the dim and the mendacious who would then suggest that all BLM activists are guilty by association with people they probably never even met.

I am not gonna give the authorities the benefit of the doubt here. Imho that would be naive considering US history. And well .. how many black people US cops shoot.

I do get the troublemakers though ... I mean, considering whats going on, I honestly do not blame them, as long as they do not hurt anyone. "In case of emergency, break glass" is something that stayed with me when I followed the BLM protests.