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The history of Europe I learned is littered with tyrannical regimes throughout Europe.
by JanezStupar 10y ago
The history of Europe I learned is littered with tyrannical regimes throughout Europe.
- eru 10y agoYes, but less so the modern republics. (But that borders on True Scotsman argument.)
- venomsnake 10y agoHungary is moving in that direction, Poland too, Austria is mixed case and even the western Europe countries are not as hostile towards wanna be authoritarians as before.
- a_imho 10y agoThat is simply false, corruption and amassing political power is a thing, not that most people can do anything about it. Which is an elephant in the room very few want to address, exactly because it is a hard problem to tackle. It is interesting however, from here it seem one of the US presidential candidates is much more above the law than any leader in Europe, and no one bats an eye.
- eru 10y agoHave you seen Berlusconi?
- _98fj 10y agoI happen to live in Austria, and while the presidential election (between a far right and a far left candidate) stirred up global attention, I can tell you we are not a tyranny or authoritarian state. I always read about this supposed "freedom" in the US, but what does that mean actually? I mean here you can drink alcohol in public, wear no t-shirt on the subway, still smoke in many bars, say what you want online, and there are even illegal misdemeanours like kids smoking weed in public that nobody really cares about.
- venomsnake 10y agoI said that European countries are moving in that direction. Not that we are tyrannical yet. Although France with its permanent Extraordinary Circumstances since Paris ... But if in 2050 I live in united authoritarian Europe, I won't be surprised the least.
- _98fj 10y agoI understand. But still: the US has homeland security, the patriot act and so on. Aren't those rights like "permanent extraordinary circumstances"? We don't have anything in that magnitude. I think it's actually way easier to defend yourself against the state here, than in the US.
- venomsnake 10y agoWell the US have headstart before us. But as with electric grid voltage, telephones and wall sockets - we the europeans take their innovation and do it right. Everything you say is true. But I think that adding yet to the end of each statement is not great stretch.
- _98fj 10y agoYou know, I don't think europe's immediate future is pretty either. But I don't think there will be much more oppression of it's citizens. I think the borders will be closed and immigration forced to stop. After that happens people will be content enough to stop leaning further to the right.
- ahoka 10y agoHow are these countries tyrannic?
- venomsnake 10y agoGoogle Victor Orban.
- JanezStupar 10y agoYeah that is a bit of a stretch. Last 50 years have been far from universally peaceful, but even then - this period is an anomaly in European history, not yet the norm.