7 ms·
With repression and fewer liberties, mostly?
by qxnqd 7y ago
With repression and fewer liberties, mostly?
- shadowgovt 7y agoI don't get the sense that people in Sweden or Germany feel over-burdened by a lack of liberty.
- philwelch 7y agoGermany has barely made it to the 30 year mark of “not being a dictatorship” if you count the East. America has been one of the freest countries in the world for at least 150-some years.
- radmuzom 7y agoCorrect. So free that women got the right to vote in 1920s. African Americans in the 1960s.
- philwelch 7y agoEast Germans got the right to vote in the 1990's. Largely as a consequence of American diplomatic pressure on the Soviet Union, I might add.
- CDSlice 7y agoWhich other countries were much better? Obviously the fact that women and African Americans got the vote so late is not good, but America could still be one of the freest countries in the last 150 years if most everyone else was even worse.
- foldr 7y agoI think there are lots of Western countries that have never had laws barring people from voting due to their race. E.g., there has never been any such law in the UK. Women in the UK also got the vote slightly earlier.
- philwelch 7y agoThe UK is an abnormally successful democracy by world standards. I suppose you could quibble about the British Empire, but the main difference there is that Britain colonized much more of the world than America did. The main question I have concerns Britain’s history of anti-Catholic discrimination. It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately zero black people lived there. Although I suppose Britain is responsible for colonizing South Africa and Rhodesia.... But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment. France, West Germany, and Italy were effectively fascist dictatorships until the mid-1940’s. (Vichy being a “puppet government” is a lie concocted to spare French pride—Petain was a fascist sympathizer since before the war and he took power within the French political system at the time—its not like the Germans overran the government and installed him like they did in other occupied countries.) Spain and Portugal until the 1970’s. Yugoslavia had a communist dictatorship until the 1990’s. Which is incidentally the same decade that Switzerland achieved universal women’s suffrage.
- foldr 7y ago>But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment. Great - that was the point of my post. Not sure why you are going off on a bunch of other tangents. You haven't mentioned any other country which banned people from voting on racial criteria. >It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately zero black people lived there. You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. (This is not to deny, of course, that there is a long history of racism in the UK. I'm merely pointing out that the US is relatively exceptional in passing actual laws banning black people from voting.)
- philwelch 7y agoBecause you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country. > You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different.
- asdff 7y agoAnd right to gay marriage in 2015.
- Kaiyou 7y agoAnimals raised in captivity also don't give off the impression to be too burdened by their situation from the perspective of a casual observer.
- shadowgovt 7y agoI'm going to assume you don't mean to compare the citizens of Sweden and Germany to captive animals.
- Kaiyou 7y agoThen what do you assume I wanted to say?
- shadowgovt 7y agoI have made no assumptions; I believe I misunderstand you. Can you clarify your meaning?
- Kaiyou 7y agoIf you put someone into a situation that isn't optimal, they generally have the means to adapt and not look disadavantaged. This is true for caged animals and humans that lost some of their rights. If you do it slowly enough, you can strip away basically all freedoms without the victim even noticing.
- foldr 7y agoSimilarly, people will come to regard high levels of violence as normal if they spend enough time immersed in a violent culture.
- Kaiyou 7y agoYes, people adapt. I'm saying you can't look at someone and determine whether how things are for them are good, just because they look fine. An animal raised in captivity looks fine, but maybe it would be better if it was raised in freedom. Or maybe it wouldn't. The point is you can't tell by looking.