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People voting themselves right to the edge of a totalitarian regime does not make that criticism any less legitimate.
by dessant 5y ago
People voting themselves right to the edge of a totalitarian regime does not make that criticism any less legitimate.
- jsbdk 5y agoFor many people, any political change that is not a move towards an even more liberal view of the world is automatically authoritarianism.
- dessant 5y agoI think what's important is respecting human rights, not ideological affiliation, and in that sense Hungary has noticeably regressed in the past decade.
- jsbdk 5y ago"human rights" is a liberal construct.
- dessant 5y agoI guess you will change your views about human rights when you and your family will be the ones being specifically targeted by your own government.
- hyper_dynamics 5y agoNo it's not.
- Dma54rhs 5y agoHuman rights are a human construct and constantly change over time.
- huetius 5y agoIf you deny any form of transcendence, which is the case in the positivist, technocratic culture of the West, then this is the inevitable conclusion.
- trasz 5y agoIt’s either this, or basing ones moral code on old wives tales.
- huetius 5y agoI am very much in favor of human rights. They are among the last, public vestiges of the “old wives tales” you denigrate, and could be problematized at any time. This could come from the political left, the political right, or some as-yet unrevealed historical force. Without recourse to the kind of transcendent, essential reality that positivism negates, we will have a very hard time defending them as anything other than a mutable, socially contingent prejudice.
- trasz 5y agoThat’s an interesting argument, given that the Catholic Church was - and largely still is - opposed to Human Rights, and fought fiercely against them. Remind me, when was the last time the Catholic pope argued against woman voting rights; it was ~1950, right?
- cannabis_sam 5y agoFar more people have an apoplectic fit at anything that can even vaguely be described as “liberal”..
- bbv-if 5y agoEven when the word is being used in its european sense, meaning more or less the same as 'libertarian' in the US.
- cannabis_sam 5y agoIt can be for sure, but at least in Northern Europe, it can also suggest a more social liberal ideology (e.g. look at Sweden’s recent debacle) To be honest, my comment was mostly a jab at the GP for their touch anxiety when using the word “liberal”, although it’s less obvious now, when their followup comment is dead.