4 ms·

I guess my question is whether or not the New York Times considers the US to be a wealthy authoritarian government.

by asdfman123 7y ago

smt88 7y ago
Wealthy, yes. If the US is considered authoritarian then the word starts to lose any useful meaning.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  What is the useful meaning it's supposed to have?
  - yowlingcat 7y ago
    A charitable reading could be "governments that uphold high liberty regimes as a nation, such as the US". Parts of that assertion are reasonable to question. A less charitable reading could be "governments that engage in the same global atrocities as my own, but which are on the other side." This reading is also a reasonable questioning.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    authoritarian, adjective favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom –New Oxford American Dictionary In the US, Steven Colbert can use public airwaves to make fun of the president every night, without going to jail.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Many heavily authoritarian regimes in the past have defended comedians as bastions of free-speech promoting those that do little harm to the system while spurning those that spread truly subversive messages. I think we also need to acknowledge the fact that the president is hardly the government - America is a gigantic bureaucracy and our government is primarily composed of civil servants who keep the lights on. If Steven Colbert (similar to his better know a district series on the old show) started to tear down agencies within departments, going after Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Nuclear Security Administration or Foreign Claims Settlement Commission[1] - then he'd actually be subverting the government. The executive branch is both structurally minor and, IMO, partially exists to be the target of blame and praise so that the rest of the government can get on with their business. 1. Random agencies pulled from agencies under the departments listed here https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/d https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/d
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        > If Steven Colbert (similar to his better know a district series on the old show) started to tear down agencies within departments, going after Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Nuclear Security Administration or Foreign Claims Settlement Commission[1] - then he'd actually be subverting the government. The executive branch is both structurally minor and, IMO, partially exists to be the target of blame and praise so that the rest of the government can get on with their business. Well, if Colbert started running those types of investigations, do you think is show would get pulled off the air? I'm pretty confident it would not. John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, while not a broadcast show, might serve as a better example in that respect. They've run a lot of pieces which are critical of a wide variety of government agencies. And they don't just crack jokes, they get into the weeds. And then there's outlets explicitly dedicated to investigative journalism, like ProPublica, and many of the major newspapers. None of this could exist in the UEA, or China, or Russia, etc.
      - dfc 7y ago
        Can you give two or three examples of the comedians + authoritarian regimes? I can't think of any.
      - pathseeker 7y ago
        You should check out Last Week Tonight. It's a comedy show that makes fun of various departments and it is still on air.
    - officemonkey 7y ago
      OTOH, one party can effectively conspire with the President to subvert the constitutional limits to that power (SCOTUS in Bush v. Gore; McConnell refusing to try an impeached president.)
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        The US is in very dangerous territory at the moment, I will not argue that point. We should all be very concerned. But—at least right now—there's a very clear difference between the US and the UAE.
    - baddox 7y ago
      That should be a hint that the government he makes fun of does not feel threatened by his comedy, which probably means that the government's position of power is so strong that being mocked and even derided for its negative qualities does not constitute a threat. Whether that's a good thing is, I suppose, a matter of perspective.
      - pathseeker 7y ago
        Nope, it just means that the US has free speech and there is nothing the government can do about it without massive public backlash.
        baddox 7y ago
        Is there evidence to suggest that the US government will not suppress speech that they deem to be a threat to their power? There was rampant blatant suppression of supposedly communist-friendly speech in the 1950s and 1960s. Does anyone think this has significantly changed? For a more recent example, see how the US government handled the leaking of its diplomatic cables, something which (unlike late night comedy) actually threatens the reputation of the US government.
- geogra4 7y ago
  How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian?
  - VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
    Because USA doesn't execute prisoners at the rate China or Russia does
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Those prisoners are being deprived of their lives - and I'd guess in many times wrongly since the US incarcerates twice as many people per capita than Russia or China.
      - caseysoftware 7y ago
        Do you believe the figures Russia and China publish? Alternatively, if a country had a high rate of executions and/or "disappearing" people, what would happen to that country's incarceration rate? Alternatively, is the term "incarceration" only applied to people convicted of a crime? Would re-education camps count towards the incarceration rate?
        munk-a 7y ago
        Sorry I missed including my source, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... (and yes, it's probably got a quite high inaccuracy, but there aren't other easy to ingest sources I found)
        maqp 7y ago
        US has basically modernized slavery with the for-profit prison system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo
- baddox 7y ago
  Well, yeah, historically and now "authoritarian government" is pretty redundant. The only meaning it might have is to draw an arbitrary line and consider only the governments on one side of the line to be "authoritarian," but when people do that they seldom bother to articulate where they're drawing that line and why. So I completely agree that the word in practice does not usually have much useful meaning.
mindslight 7y ago
Just as how a traditional dictator does not dwell on the autocratic authoritarianism of their country, the New York Times does not ponder the democratic authoritarianism of the US.

I guess my question is whether or not the New York Times considers the US to be a wealthy authoritarian government.

smt88 7y ago

Wealthy, yes. If the US is considered authoritarian then the word starts to lose any useful meaning.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
What is the useful meaning it's supposed to have?
- yowlingcat 7y ago
  A charitable reading could be "governments that uphold high liberty regimes as a nation, such as the US". Parts of that assertion are reasonable to question. A less charitable reading could be "governments that engage in the same global atrocities as my own, but which are on the other side." This reading is also a reasonable questioning.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  authoritarian, adjective favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom –New Oxford American Dictionary In the US, Steven Colbert can use public airwaves to make fun of the president every night, without going to jail.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Many heavily authoritarian regimes in the past have defended comedians as bastions of free-speech promoting those that do little harm to the system while spurning those that spread truly subversive messages. I think we also need to acknowledge the fact that the president is hardly the government - America is a gigantic bureaucracy and our government is primarily composed of civil servants who keep the lights on. If Steven Colbert (similar to his better know a district series on the old show) started to tear down agencies within departments, going after Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Nuclear Security Administration or Foreign Claims Settlement Commission[1] - then he'd actually be subverting the government. The executive branch is both structurally minor and, IMO, partially exists to be the target of blame and praise so that the rest of the government can get on with their business. 1. Random agencies pulled from agencies under the departments listed here https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/d https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/d
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      > If Steven Colbert (similar to his better know a district series on the old show) started to tear down agencies within departments, going after Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Nuclear Security Administration or Foreign Claims Settlement Commission[1] - then he'd actually be subverting the government. The executive branch is both structurally minor and, IMO, partially exists to be the target of blame and praise so that the rest of the government can get on with their business. Well, if Colbert started running those types of investigations, do you think is show would get pulled off the air? I'm pretty confident it would not. John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, while not a broadcast show, might serve as a better example in that respect. They've run a lot of pieces which are critical of a wide variety of government agencies. And they don't just crack jokes, they get into the weeds. And then there's outlets explicitly dedicated to investigative journalism, like ProPublica, and many of the major newspapers. None of this could exist in the UEA, or China, or Russia, etc.
    - dfc 7y ago
      Can you give two or three examples of the comedians + authoritarian regimes? I can't think of any.
    - pathseeker 7y ago
      You should check out Last Week Tonight. It's a comedy show that makes fun of various departments and it is still on air.
  - officemonkey 7y ago
    OTOH, one party can effectively conspire with the President to subvert the constitutional limits to that power (SCOTUS in Bush v. Gore; McConnell refusing to try an impeached president.)
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      The US is in very dangerous territory at the moment, I will not argue that point. We should all be very concerned. But—at least right now—there's a very clear difference between the US and the UAE.
  - baddox 7y ago
    That should be a hint that the government he makes fun of does not feel threatened by his comedy, which probably means that the government's position of power is so strong that being mocked and even derided for its negative qualities does not constitute a threat. Whether that's a good thing is, I suppose, a matter of perspective.
    - pathseeker 7y ago
      Nope, it just means that the US has free speech and there is nothing the government can do about it without massive public backlash.
      - baddox 7y ago
        Is there evidence to suggest that the US government will not suppress speech that they deem to be a threat to their power? There was rampant blatant suppression of supposedly communist-friendly speech in the 1950s and 1960s. Does anyone think this has significantly changed? For a more recent example, see how the US government handled the leaking of its diplomatic cables, something which (unlike late night comedy) actually threatens the reputation of the US government.
geogra4 7y ago
How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian?
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  Because USA doesn't execute prisoners at the rate China or Russia does
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Those prisoners are being deprived of their lives - and I'd guess in many times wrongly since the US incarcerates twice as many people per capita than Russia or China.
    - caseysoftware 7y ago
      Do you believe the figures Russia and China publish? Alternatively, if a country had a high rate of executions and/or "disappearing" people, what would happen to that country's incarceration rate? Alternatively, is the term "incarceration" only applied to people convicted of a crime? Would re-education camps count towards the incarceration rate?
      - munk-a 7y ago
        Sorry I missed including my source, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... (and yes, it's probably got a quite high inaccuracy, but there aren't other easy to ingest sources I found)
        maqp 7y ago
        US has basically modernized slavery with the for-profit prison system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo
baddox 7y ago
Well, yeah, historically and now "authoritarian government" is pretty redundant. The only meaning it might have is to draw an arbitrary line and consider only the governments on one side of the line to be "authoritarian," but when people do that they seldom bother to articulate where they're drawing that line and why. So I completely agree that the word in practice does not usually have much useful meaning.

mindslight 7y ago

Just as how a traditional dictator does not dwell on the autocratic authoritarianism of their country, the New York Times does not ponder the democratic authoritarianism of the US.