4 ms·

Free speech and freedom in general were, not more than 7 years ago, the highest principles of democratic societies. Civil rights were considered universal and i

Free speech and freedom in general were, not more than 7 years ago, the highest principles of democratic societies. Civil rights were considered universal and inalienable, untouchable. (The foundation of civil rights is protecting the minority from the majority, protecting the doing and expressing of uncomfortable things. Now Orwellian rhetoric used by the Reactionary movement talks about the 'rights' of the majority, resulting in anti-rights - the rationalization of oppression.) Nobody speaks for them now. I think much of the world yearns for a leader who will stand up for them. Somehow they are cowed - by what? What is the overwhelming movement that has silenced them and cowed all these free people?

aplummer 3y ago
This is basically how it has always been in Australia. Someone’s freedom to protest is not more important than someone else’s freedom to use that same space to get to work, live their life, etc. Protests have always needed to be booked in advance and are essentially always approved (with police protection included for neo nazis etc). You seem to be describing the freedom of America (a right to a gun, but not a right to be free from the fear of getting shot) but it’s not like that everywhere, see even more extreme examples like the “guilty until proven innocent” case of libel in Australia. I’m not saying either way is better or worse, just that this is the status quo really for Australia.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Protests in the US generally require similar arrangements.
- defrost 3y ago
  For others not of a Commonwealth country, UK + Australian ( + Canadian ?? ) Defamation Law is relatively unique in the assumption of "guilty until proven innocent" - although recent years have seen strong moves to reform this position. See (for example): [1] https://rabbitholemag.com/australia-is-uniquely-bad-for-defamation/ https://rabbitholemag.com/australia-is-uniquely-bad-for-defa... Worthy of note though is that otherwise > In many respects, Australia compares well with other liberal democracies. Australia’s Freedom Score (95 out of 100) is on par with or better than countries like the UK (93/100), New Zealand (99/100), Canada (98/100), Germany (94/100), France (89/100), and the US (83/100). The country regularly ranks high on freedom indexes and democracy indexes and all sorts of human rights and civil liberties metrics. [1] Australia is considered to have greater than 10% "more freedom" than the USofA by some third party rankings.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Depends where, Quebec is closer to the US while English Canada is more like the UK. Comparison here for the curious. [1] [1] https://kellywarnerlaw.com/chart-differences-between-united-states-and-canadian-defamation-law https://kellywarnerlaw.com/chart-differences-between-united-...
  - jruohonen 3y ago
    You should not look at comparative rankings between countries; you should look at trends. The best current empirical source is: https://www.v-dem.net/ https://www.v-dem.net/ Accordingly, Australia is declining, like many other countries, unfortunately.
    - defrost 3y ago
      > The best current empirical source is ... Is there any particular reason why > the V-Dem Institute at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden [...] With five Principal Investigators [...] etc. [1] is currently the best empirical source? I've been about for a few decades and I'm a fan of large helicopter views of global parameters, resource | energy use | trade movements | political trends | comparative intra country wealth distribution | etc. I can see it's a decent enough project, albeit influenced by both the University of Notre Dame and the Kellogg Institute, but I see no compelling reason to rank it as "the best" of it's kind and a few flags that suggest potential bias in viewpoint. > Accordingly, Australia is declining, like many other countries, unfortunately. Err... I did look through the V-Dem 2023 Democracy report (56 pages), read several parts at length and looked at the four (4) mentions of Australia and while I agree that many parts of the world are backsliding to what is described as 1985 global democracy levels ... there is no mention there that Australia is one of those parts sliding back and indeed is rated there as on the world's more democratic nations (#11 of 190+ countries) [1] https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/ https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/
      - jruohonen 3y ago
        > is currently the best empirical source? Yes: a lot of academic research on the topic. > I've been about for a few decades and I'm a fan of large helicopter views of > global parameters, resource | energy use | trade movements | political trends | > comparative intra country wealth distribution | etc. You can do that with V-Dem too. > I can see it's a decent enough project, albeit influenced by both the University of Notre Dame and the Kellogg Institute, but I see no compelling reason to rank it as "the best" of it's kind and a few flags that suggest potential bias in viewpoint. These are the same people; V-Dem was built upon the foundation done at the Kelogg Institute. Since then, V-Dem covers over ten universities and over two thousand academics. > Err... I did look through the V-Dem 2023 Democracy report (56 pages), read several parts at length and looked at the four (4) mentions of Australia and while I agree that many parts of the world are backsliding to what is described > as 1985 global democracy levels ... there is no mention there that Australia is one of those parts sliding back and indeed is rated there as on the world's more democratic nations (#11 of 190+ countries) I just briefly looked at the chart about liberal democracy rights; a slight downward trend from the late 2000s. You'd need to do a thorough analysis for a definite conclusion, of course.
- Nursie 3y ago
  > Someone’s freedom to protest is not more important than someone else’s freedom to use that same space to get to work, live their life, etc. Protests have always needed to be booked in advance and are essentially always approved (with police protection included for neo nazis etc). UK too, if you want to do something large-scale you negotiate with the police about when is going to work, and try to give them estimates of numbers etc. And at the small-scale end, you've never been allowed to (for instance) block a public path or block entrance to a business you disagreed with. In the small town I grew up in, in the UK, I remember the police intervening when a local animal rights activist blocked access to a cafe which had put ostrich or emu egg on the menu. She was fine to stand there with a sign and say her piece, but she was not allowed to either block the cafe entrance or the path outside. I don't like these developments, but the argument I see a lot at the moment that protest has always been and must be about disruption, seems off. Perhaps effective protest is about disruption, but we're not going to legalise (for example) shutting down of an airport by a handful of people if they claim to have a cause, because we may as well give up on having an airport at that point.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > we're not going to legalise (for example) shutting down of an airport by a handful of people if they claim to have a cause, because we may as well give up on having an airport at that point. But the UK has had airports and such protests, without the oppressive laws. It's hardly even a time of much protest or dangerous protest - compare the 1960s or 1970s. People were hijacking planes. Political freedom is not a threat; it's not only compatible with a functioning economy, it's the source of all the highest-functioning economies in human history.
    - Nursie 3y ago
      I agree very much that the new laws are awful. I'm just arguing against the people who are basically saying that protest is a) supposed to be disruptive and b) should not be prosecuted when it is. The worrying part of the new legislation in places like the UK is how it is being used to target people who are not shutting down critical infrastructure, who are not causing property damage etc etc.
- runsonrum 3y ago
  Americans aren't anymore afraid of getting shot as Australians are of getting bitten by a venomous creature
  - aplummer 3y ago
    Well it’s the number 1 cause of death for children, I would be worried about the thing statistically most likely to kill me, but YMMV. Conversely, venomous creatures have killed approximately zero people in a hundred years.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Americans express opinions very different than yours. Gun violence is the number one concern in many elections now. Schools all now have mass-shooter drills and train students.
deepspace 3y ago
> What is the overwhelming movement that has silenced them and cowed all these free people? Media consolidation. A massive percentage of the media in democracies has been bought up by organizations who benefit from the suppression of free speech. No leader who wants to keep getting elected dares go against the wishes of these oligarchs.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  With the Internet, the media has diversified incredibly, including to non-professional information (for good or ill). I don't think media consolidation is an issue anymore. I was asking a different question; my fault for not being clear: My question was about the reactionary movement - what is it, how is it defined, what is its name (I use the term 'reactionary', but there is no name for it).
- FredPret 3y ago
  Who cares about the media? I can’t remember the last time I went to a news site or watched TV. Even when I do, they report on things that happen on Twitter (this was true pre-Musk, not sure now). I get my entire dose of other-people’s-opinions on Twitter and Youtube, from people I specifically picked out myself - the opposite of consolidation. For important things like the weather, financial news, and political votes, you’re better off getting the info straight from the source, which is usually available unbiased, free, 24/7, instantly, online.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    What about non-financial news, which is most of it? > you're better off getting the info straight from the source Unless you have incredible time, expertise, and access, I think that's a serious error. You can't do the research of a professional journalist - not only looking at the source, but calling (or emailing/texting) the principles and speaking to them, speaking directly to experts (without expertise you are easily misled by the primary source), researching all their claims. There's a reason Wikipedia only allows secondary, not primary sources as citations. Primary sources are highly biased, very narrow in knowledge and perspective, and are not trying to inform you.
lelanthran 3y ago
> The foundation of civil rights is protecting the minority from the majority, protecting the doing and expressing of uncomfortable things. I completely agree, but I don't know how you'd go about doing such a thing. Popular speech needs no protections, but any expression of unpopular speech quickly gets disappeared, with no government intervention needed at all. Look at how Visa+Mastercard together completely shut out voices that popular rhetoric demands must be silenced.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  It's been done with astounding success for generations. Look at the liberal democracies of the world. It needs to get better, but to say it's so impossible is missing the incredible forest for a few trees. Look at how successful the far right is, spewing utter BS, for example.
Semaphor 3y ago
> I think much of the world yearns for a leader who will stand up for them. That has not been my impression. Rather, the opposite. All over the western world, more and more authoritarian parties get more and more votes.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  I wrote the GP and I agree completely as far as that goes. My point is, that's because of the lack of leaders who stands up for the values I described in the GP. The leaders on the 'left', really centrists, have adopted a 'middle way' (true to their centrist ideology), but between authoritarianism (really fascism, IMHO) and freedom. They are bipartisan, they'll proudly tell you! They aren't standing up for those values, they've mostly abandoned them in order to not alienate the fascists. The fascist movement (lacking a better term) has displayed endless aggression, and others just let themselves be intimidated and back down. What leader talks consistently about freedom, all people are created equal, democracy, 'liberte, egalite, fraternite', the American Dream, land of the free, etc.? What leader aggressively stands up for them and fights for them?
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    Ah, though that's a very US perspective. We have a few more options over here, though the left is too busy with infighting to do politics …
- soco 3y ago
  Might be because the "traditional" parties got to be led more and more by oligarchs and the regular citizen feels more and more disconnected from what is happening up there. On the other hand the authoritarians play at the same time big on the populism so they get wins after wins being the only ones promising their voters a reconnection to leadership. You could ask, what's so difficult for the old parties to do the same and I can only shrug and assume they don't care that much because the oligarchs are the ones paying.
Haga 3y ago
Seeing stones aka cell phones collected mankind's communication and behavioral data. This allows to "hack" the behavior of the species, manipulate groups into infighting and thus divide and conquer. It also provides a api to manipulate fearfull of the future politicians, company ceos and shareholders by offering advise. Its even got its own philosophical movement for the spiders in the center of the web. With a lack of social control over distributed tech artifacts as great filter and thus infinite justification for all these emergency atrocities already in effect or yet to come. Science goes were the data goes. Neurosciences were privatized.
hkt 3y ago
> Free speech and freedom in general were, not more than 7 years ago, the highest principles of democratic societies. Not really. Post 9/11 brought new forms of surveillance which were declared to be legal en-masse. Invasive searches at borders became standard. Within a few years of cryptography becoming the norm, most "free" societies had written laws to ensure that you'd be imprisoned for not turning over your cryptographic keys, for instance. But it goes back further: most people in history have been fine with other people's unfreedom. There's nothing new about that. Whether we think of legal or actual segregation in the US, or the treatment of Catholics or Muslims in the UK, or French attitudes towards Algerians, most of the time people have been perfectly fine without freedom. As the old (communist, I think) song goes: freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all. Still, what is relatively new is the championing of equity over equality, and the voices of minorities over broad sweeping statements from representatives of the powerful. It is progress, even if it is slow, and bitterly fought.
throw_m239339 3y ago
> Free speech and freedom in general were, not more than 7 years ago, the highest principles of democratic societies. Civil rights were considered universal and inalienable, untouchable. (The foundation of civil rights is protecting the minority from the majority, protecting the doing and expressing of uncomfortable things. Now Orwellian rhetoric used by the Reactionary movement talks about the 'rights' of the majority, resulting in anti-rights - the rationalization of oppression.) Very few countries have ever guaranteed the right to free speech and freedom of assembly. The first amendement in the US constitution for instance is something unique in the world, and no other country have something remotely similar. In most of the EU, one can go to prison if they voice their opinion, and freedom of assembly IS NOT guaranteed, as states can dissolve groups and organizations, especially religious ones.
- jruohonen 3y ago
  > The first amendement in the US constitution for instance is something unique in the world, and no other country have something remotely similar. In most of the EU, one can go to prison if they voice their opinion, and freedom of assembly IS NOT guaranteed, as states can dissolve groups and organizations, especially religious ones. While I applaud your defense of the democracy in the US, which has long been in a severe decline, the rest is pure nonsense, either by ignorance or by intention.
jacquesm 3y ago
> I think much of the world yearns for a leader who will stand up for them. Yeah sure, we all know how that ended the last time parties were advocating for this.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  What are you referring to? I'm not sure if it's this: Leaders have been advocating it for generations, on all sides of the aisle. Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, ... Reagan, Clinton, even Bush Jr. Every American leader extolled it, maybe all presidents. Until Trump, the GOP, and the global fascist movement, which have been the exception, and mostly only since 2016.
2-718-281-828 3y ago
> What is the overwhelming movement that has silenced them and cowed all these free people? covid policies. the majority has always been sheep unable to see the larger picture or even care about political freedom. but covid policies successfully framed civil subservience as a moral virtue. if you question the policies you are a criminal at best or simply a crazy idiot.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  > if you question the policies Yes, let's not pretend the problem was people "questioning" policies. The problem was people actively disrespecting them. This is the problem of freedom. Your freedom to be an imbecile takes away my freedom of living in an imbecile-free society.
  - csdvrx 3y ago
    > Your freedom to be an imbecile takes away my freedom of living in an imbecile-free society. Unfortunately for you, this "freedom of living in an imbecile-free society" does not grant you or the government to decide which opinions (as forms of speech) are "imbecile", and to limit their spread through censorship.
    - surgical_fire 3y ago
      Why are you trying to remove my freedom to decide who is an imbecile? Why are you censoring me?
      - csdvrx 3y ago
        This is very correct and I should have phrased things differently: you can call any idea or opinion "stupid", and you can also scream whatever you want, but you can't do anything to limit their spread through censorship (and there may be more people, also with louder voices than you :)
        3y ago
nirimda 3y ago
I don't think this is on target. Seven years ago there were already attacks on the right to protest in democratic societies. I can remember reading slashdot in the Bush years, hearing complaints of free speech zones (where protests at major public events were constrained to certain areas). In particular growing up at that time, I understood that September 11, 2001 was some kind of a turning point between the grand old days of democracy and the modern decline, the growing authoritarian state. Before that, there have been complaints about many legislative proposals in democracies that were directed against the possibility that such-and-such a policy might be used against the general public if an authoritarian government were elected. Nowadays, complaints against similar policies are provided as prima facie evidence that the government is authoritarian. I think the distinction between these two positions is interesting and worth paying greater attention to. Anyone who is familiar with the history of democracies knows that there have always been laws against disruptive protests, whether couched in exactly those terms or otherwise. And they have always been used against disruptive protesters. One issue is that in a democracy you expect the law to reflect popular sentiment, and protesters are often protesting against the broader public. It's foolish to expect anything different. During the development of democracy, people said "there shouldn't be a law against this protest, but there is yet I will protest anyway and get arrested and people will find the penalty I will receive in their name unpalatable and it will shift public opinion perhaps moderately in my direction" whereas now they say "there shouldn't be a law against this protest, but there is, therefore we are an authoritarian hellhole". If your goal is to change public opinion, then you must direct your actions to changing public opinion, not disrupting people. If you believe disrupting people will change public opinion, that's great but describe a realistic mechanism. Weight its tradeoff and risks. Plan it and strategise and choose a method because, given the laws that exist and the power centres that exist, it will be effective. Don't choose a method because some dead philosopher said you have a right to it. Aim to be effective. There was no golden age of democracy. Democracy is just a struggle. It is a struggle to change public opinion and it is a struggle to bring public policy in line with public opinion.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > There was no golden age of democracy. Democracy is just a struggle. It is a struggle to change public opinion and it is a struggle to bring public policy in line with public opinion. I agree, to a degree. But things are much worse now, and many measures support that (some discussed in this thread). Also, democracy includes the protection of minority rights and the rule of law; it's not rule of human and a raw power struggle.

aplummer 3y ago

This is basically how it has always been in Australia. Someone’s freedom to protest is not more important than someone else’s freedom to use that same space to get to work, live their life, etc. Protests have always needed to be booked in advance and are essentially always approved (with police protection included for neo nazis etc). You seem to be describing the freedom of America (a right to a gun, but not a right to be free from the fear of getting shot) but it’s not like that everywhere, see even more extreme examples like the “guilty until proven innocent” case of libel in Australia. I’m not saying either way is better or worse, just that this is the status quo really for Australia.

wolverine876 3y ago
Protests in the US generally require similar arrangements.
defrost 3y ago
For others not of a Commonwealth country, UK + Australian ( + Canadian ?? ) Defamation Law is relatively unique in the assumption of "guilty until proven innocent" - although recent years have seen strong moves to reform this position. See (for example): [1] https://rabbitholemag.com/australia-is-uniquely-bad-for-defamation/ https://rabbitholemag.com/australia-is-uniquely-bad-for-defa... Worthy of note though is that otherwise > In many respects, Australia compares well with other liberal democracies. Australia’s Freedom Score (95 out of 100) is on par with or better than countries like the UK (93/100), New Zealand (99/100), Canada (98/100), Germany (94/100), France (89/100), and the US (83/100). The country regularly ranks high on freedom indexes and democracy indexes and all sorts of human rights and civil liberties metrics. [1] Australia is considered to have greater than 10% "more freedom" than the USofA by some third party rankings.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Depends where, Quebec is closer to the US while English Canada is more like the UK. Comparison here for the curious. [1] [1] https://kellywarnerlaw.com/chart-differences-between-united-states-and-canadian-defamation-law https://kellywarnerlaw.com/chart-differences-between-united-...
- jruohonen 3y ago
  You should not look at comparative rankings between countries; you should look at trends. The best current empirical source is: https://www.v-dem.net/ https://www.v-dem.net/ Accordingly, Australia is declining, like many other countries, unfortunately.
  - defrost 3y ago
    > The best current empirical source is ... Is there any particular reason why > the V-Dem Institute at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden [...] With five Principal Investigators [...] etc. [1] is currently the best empirical source? I've been about for a few decades and I'm a fan of large helicopter views of global parameters, resource | energy use | trade movements | political trends | comparative intra country wealth distribution | etc. I can see it's a decent enough project, albeit influenced by both the University of Notre Dame and the Kellogg Institute, but I see no compelling reason to rank it as "the best" of it's kind and a few flags that suggest potential bias in viewpoint. > Accordingly, Australia is declining, like many other countries, unfortunately. Err... I did look through the V-Dem 2023 Democracy report (56 pages), read several parts at length and looked at the four (4) mentions of Australia and while I agree that many parts of the world are backsliding to what is described as 1985 global democracy levels ... there is no mention there that Australia is one of those parts sliding back and indeed is rated there as on the world's more democratic nations (#11 of 190+ countries) [1] https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/ https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/
    - jruohonen 3y ago
      > is currently the best empirical source? Yes: a lot of academic research on the topic. > I've been about for a few decades and I'm a fan of large helicopter views of > global parameters, resource | energy use | trade movements | political trends | > comparative intra country wealth distribution | etc. You can do that with V-Dem too. > I can see it's a decent enough project, albeit influenced by both the University of Notre Dame and the Kellogg Institute, but I see no compelling reason to rank it as "the best" of it's kind and a few flags that suggest potential bias in viewpoint. These are the same people; V-Dem was built upon the foundation done at the Kelogg Institute. Since then, V-Dem covers over ten universities and over two thousand academics. > Err... I did look through the V-Dem 2023 Democracy report (56 pages), read several parts at length and looked at the four (4) mentions of Australia and while I agree that many parts of the world are backsliding to what is described > as 1985 global democracy levels ... there is no mention there that Australia is one of those parts sliding back and indeed is rated there as on the world's more democratic nations (#11 of 190+ countries) I just briefly looked at the chart about liberal democracy rights; a slight downward trend from the late 2000s. You'd need to do a thorough analysis for a definite conclusion, of course.
Nursie 3y ago
> Someone’s freedom to protest is not more important than someone else’s freedom to use that same space to get to work, live their life, etc. Protests have always needed to be booked in advance and are essentially always approved (with police protection included for neo nazis etc). UK too, if you want to do something large-scale you negotiate with the police about when is going to work, and try to give them estimates of numbers etc. And at the small-scale end, you've never been allowed to (for instance) block a public path or block entrance to a business you disagreed with. In the small town I grew up in, in the UK, I remember the police intervening when a local animal rights activist blocked access to a cafe which had put ostrich or emu egg on the menu. She was fine to stand there with a sign and say her piece, but she was not allowed to either block the cafe entrance or the path outside. I don't like these developments, but the argument I see a lot at the moment that protest has always been and must be about disruption, seems off. Perhaps effective protest is about disruption, but we're not going to legalise (for example) shutting down of an airport by a handful of people if they claim to have a cause, because we may as well give up on having an airport at that point.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > we're not going to legalise (for example) shutting down of an airport by a handful of people if they claim to have a cause, because we may as well give up on having an airport at that point. But the UK has had airports and such protests, without the oppressive laws. It's hardly even a time of much protest or dangerous protest - compare the 1960s or 1970s. People were hijacking planes. Political freedom is not a threat; it's not only compatible with a functioning economy, it's the source of all the highest-functioning economies in human history.
  - Nursie 3y ago
    I agree very much that the new laws are awful. I'm just arguing against the people who are basically saying that protest is a) supposed to be disruptive and b) should not be prosecuted when it is. The worrying part of the new legislation in places like the UK is how it is being used to target people who are not shutting down critical infrastructure, who are not causing property damage etc etc.
runsonrum 3y ago
Americans aren't anymore afraid of getting shot as Australians are of getting bitten by a venomous creature
- aplummer 3y ago
  Well it’s the number 1 cause of death for children, I would be worried about the thing statistically most likely to kill me, but YMMV. Conversely, venomous creatures have killed approximately zero people in a hundred years.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Americans express opinions very different than yours. Gun violence is the number one concern in many elections now. Schools all now have mass-shooter drills and train students.

deepspace 3y ago

> What is the overwhelming movement that has silenced them and cowed all these free people? Media consolidation. A massive percentage of the media in democracies has been bought up by organizations who benefit from the suppression of free speech. No leader who wants to keep getting elected dares go against the wishes of these oligarchs.

wolverine876 3y ago
With the Internet, the media has diversified incredibly, including to non-professional information (for good or ill). I don't think media consolidation is an issue anymore. I was asking a different question; my fault for not being clear: My question was about the reactionary movement - what is it, how is it defined, what is its name (I use the term 'reactionary', but there is no name for it).
FredPret 3y ago
Who cares about the media? I can’t remember the last time I went to a news site or watched TV. Even when I do, they report on things that happen on Twitter (this was true pre-Musk, not sure now). I get my entire dose of other-people’s-opinions on Twitter and Youtube, from people I specifically picked out myself - the opposite of consolidation. For important things like the weather, financial news, and political votes, you’re better off getting the info straight from the source, which is usually available unbiased, free, 24/7, instantly, online.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  What about non-financial news, which is most of it? > you're better off getting the info straight from the source Unless you have incredible time, expertise, and access, I think that's a serious error. You can't do the research of a professional journalist - not only looking at the source, but calling (or emailing/texting) the principles and speaking to them, speaking directly to experts (without expertise you are easily misled by the primary source), researching all their claims. There's a reason Wikipedia only allows secondary, not primary sources as citations. Primary sources are highly biased, very narrow in knowledge and perspective, and are not trying to inform you.

lelanthran 3y ago

> The foundation of civil rights is protecting the minority from the majority, protecting the doing and expressing of uncomfortable things. I completely agree, but I don't know how you'd go about doing such a thing. Popular speech needs no protections, but any expression of unpopular speech quickly gets disappeared, with no government intervention needed at all. Look at how Visa+Mastercard together completely shut out voices that popular rhetoric demands must be silenced.

wolverine876 3y ago
It's been done with astounding success for generations. Look at the liberal democracies of the world. It needs to get better, but to say it's so impossible is missing the incredible forest for a few trees. Look at how successful the far right is, spewing utter BS, for example.

Semaphor 3y ago

> I think much of the world yearns for a leader who will stand up for them. That has not been my impression. Rather, the opposite. All over the western world, more and more authoritarian parties get more and more votes.

wolverine876 3y ago
I wrote the GP and I agree completely as far as that goes. My point is, that's because of the lack of leaders who stands up for the values I described in the GP. The leaders on the 'left', really centrists, have adopted a 'middle way' (true to their centrist ideology), but between authoritarianism (really fascism, IMHO) and freedom. They are bipartisan, they'll proudly tell you! They aren't standing up for those values, they've mostly abandoned them in order to not alienate the fascists. The fascist movement (lacking a better term) has displayed endless aggression, and others just let themselves be intimidated and back down. What leader talks consistently about freedom, all people are created equal, democracy, 'liberte, egalite, fraternite', the American Dream, land of the free, etc.? What leader aggressively stands up for them and fights for them?
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Ah, though that's a very US perspective. We have a few more options over here, though the left is too busy with infighting to do politics …
soco 3y ago
Might be because the "traditional" parties got to be led more and more by oligarchs and the regular citizen feels more and more disconnected from what is happening up there. On the other hand the authoritarians play at the same time big on the populism so they get wins after wins being the only ones promising their voters a reconnection to leadership. You could ask, what's so difficult for the old parties to do the same and I can only shrug and assume they don't care that much because the oligarchs are the ones paying.

Haga 3y ago

Seeing stones aka cell phones collected mankind's communication and behavioral data. This allows to "hack" the behavior of the species, manipulate groups into infighting and thus divide and conquer. It also provides a api to manipulate fearfull of the future politicians, company ceos and shareholders by offering advise. Its even got its own philosophical movement for the spiders in the center of the web. With a lack of social control over distributed tech artifacts as great filter and thus infinite justification for all these emergency atrocities already in effect or yet to come. Science goes were the data goes. Neurosciences were privatized.

hkt 3y ago

> Free speech and freedom in general were, not more than 7 years ago, the highest principles of democratic societies. Not really. Post 9/11 brought new forms of surveillance which were declared to be legal en-masse. Invasive searches at borders became standard. Within a few years of cryptography becoming the norm, most "free" societies had written laws to ensure that you'd be imprisoned for not turning over your cryptographic keys, for instance. But it goes back further: most people in history have been fine with other people's unfreedom. There's nothing new about that. Whether we think of legal or actual segregation in the US, or the treatment of Catholics or Muslims in the UK, or French attitudes towards Algerians, most of the time people have been perfectly fine without freedom. As the old (communist, I think) song goes: freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all. Still, what is relatively new is the championing of equity over equality, and the voices of minorities over broad sweeping statements from representatives of the powerful. It is progress, even if it is slow, and bitterly fought.

throw_m239339 3y ago

> Free speech and freedom in general were, not more than 7 years ago, the highest principles of democratic societies. Civil rights were considered universal and inalienable, untouchable. (The foundation of civil rights is protecting the minority from the majority, protecting the doing and expressing of uncomfortable things. Now Orwellian rhetoric used by the Reactionary movement talks about the 'rights' of the majority, resulting in anti-rights - the rationalization of oppression.) Very few countries have ever guaranteed the right to free speech and freedom of assembly. The first amendement in the US constitution for instance is something unique in the world, and no other country have something remotely similar. In most of the EU, one can go to prison if they voice their opinion, and freedom of assembly IS NOT guaranteed, as states can dissolve groups and organizations, especially religious ones.

jruohonen 3y ago
> The first amendement in the US constitution for instance is something unique in the world, and no other country have something remotely similar. In most of the EU, one can go to prison if they voice their opinion, and freedom of assembly IS NOT guaranteed, as states can dissolve groups and organizations, especially religious ones. While I applaud your defense of the democracy in the US, which has long been in a severe decline, the rest is pure nonsense, either by ignorance or by intention.

jacquesm 3y ago

> I think much of the world yearns for a leader who will stand up for them. Yeah sure, we all know how that ended the last time parties were advocating for this.

wolverine876 3y ago
What are you referring to? I'm not sure if it's this: Leaders have been advocating it for generations, on all sides of the aisle. Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, ... Reagan, Clinton, even Bush Jr. Every American leader extolled it, maybe all presidents. Until Trump, the GOP, and the global fascist movement, which have been the exception, and mostly only since 2016.

2-718-281-828 3y ago

> What is the overwhelming movement that has silenced them and cowed all these free people? covid policies. the majority has always been sheep unable to see the larger picture or even care about political freedom. but covid policies successfully framed civil subservience as a moral virtue. if you question the policies you are a criminal at best or simply a crazy idiot.

surgical_fire 3y ago
> if you question the policies Yes, let's not pretend the problem was people "questioning" policies. The problem was people actively disrespecting them. This is the problem of freedom. Your freedom to be an imbecile takes away my freedom of living in an imbecile-free society.
- csdvrx 3y ago
  > Your freedom to be an imbecile takes away my freedom of living in an imbecile-free society. Unfortunately for you, this "freedom of living in an imbecile-free society" does not grant you or the government to decide which opinions (as forms of speech) are "imbecile", and to limit their spread through censorship.
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    Why are you trying to remove my freedom to decide who is an imbecile? Why are you censoring me?
    - csdvrx 3y ago
      This is very correct and I should have phrased things differently: you can call any idea or opinion "stupid", and you can also scream whatever you want, but you can't do anything to limit their spread through censorship (and there may be more people, also with louder voices than you :)
      - 3y ago

nirimda 3y ago

I don't think this is on target. Seven years ago there were already attacks on the right to protest in democratic societies. I can remember reading slashdot in the Bush years, hearing complaints of free speech zones (where protests at major public events were constrained to certain areas). In particular growing up at that time, I understood that September 11, 2001 was some kind of a turning point between the grand old days of democracy and the modern decline, the growing authoritarian state. Before that, there have been complaints about many legislative proposals in democracies that were directed against the possibility that such-and-such a policy might be used against the general public if an authoritarian government were elected. Nowadays, complaints against similar policies are provided as prima facie evidence that the government is authoritarian. I think the distinction between these two positions is interesting and worth paying greater attention to. Anyone who is familiar with the history of democracies knows that there have always been laws against disruptive protests, whether couched in exactly those terms or otherwise. And they have always been used against disruptive protesters. One issue is that in a democracy you expect the law to reflect popular sentiment, and protesters are often protesting against the broader public. It's foolish to expect anything different. During the development of democracy, people said "there shouldn't be a law against this protest, but there is yet I will protest anyway and get arrested and people will find the penalty I will receive in their name unpalatable and it will shift public opinion perhaps moderately in my direction" whereas now they say "there shouldn't be a law against this protest, but there is, therefore we are an authoritarian hellhole". If your goal is to change public opinion, then you must direct your actions to changing public opinion, not disrupting people. If you believe disrupting people will change public opinion, that's great but describe a realistic mechanism. Weight its tradeoff and risks. Plan it and strategise and choose a method because, given the laws that exist and the power centres that exist, it will be effective. Don't choose a method because some dead philosopher said you have a right to it. Aim to be effective. There was no golden age of democracy. Democracy is just a struggle. It is a struggle to change public opinion and it is a struggle to bring public policy in line with public opinion.

wolverine876 3y ago
> There was no golden age of democracy. Democracy is just a struggle. It is a struggle to change public opinion and it is a struggle to bring public policy in line with public opinion. I agree, to a degree. But things are much worse now, and many measures support that (some discussed in this thread). Also, democracy includes the protection of minority rights and the rule of law; it's not rule of human and a raw power struggle.