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Which explains why the administration has acted the way it did. What has the US become? I am not surprised by the fact that Trump is a fascist, this is a thing

by atoav 1y ago

Which explains why the administration has acted the way it did. What has the US become? I am not surprised by the fact that Trump is a fascist, this is a thing I knew in 2016. What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. I remember a time where americans scolded me online for my countries laws preventing certain types of speech (related to nazi insignia and Hitler), you guys do realize that if your government can just make up bullshit about you and send you to a torture camp abroad without due process, that free speech is no longer free? Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what.

khazhoux 1y ago
> What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. There should be no surprise at what has happened, since this is what the US voted for.
easyThrowaway 1y ago
As someone from outside US but who spent some time in LA can't really believe anyone ever took those "second amendment" guys at face value. It was always the most obvious cover for "say or do something we don't like and we shot you". The current US administration policies were always their end game.
- ghufran_syed 1y ago
  why would this be the case? Taking the 2nd amendment argument to its logical conclusion, wouldn't the speaker also have a firearm?
  - rgblambda 1y ago
    The speaker would need to sleep every night with a gun under their pillow, in a room with no window.
  - easyThrowaway 1y ago
    In a game-theory-prisoner-dilemma kind of situation, yeah, maybe. In the real world, those guys were always sure to point their to guns to those they knew very obviously couldn't retaliate back. And I'm not strictly talking about minorities, by the way. Simply, those who weren't part of their circle had a rough time and the police made very clear that they would act in their defense if anyone tried something funny. I've only seen shit like this in sicily in the early 90s, when the mob controlled much of the big cities.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      This is how you get revolutionary militant resistance like the Black Panthers (and militias).
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    The logical conclusion, yes. I hope we don't need to get to that point. The current reality is that the people who say this often say it to those they know don't have guns themselves to fire back with. Bullies, to put it in the simplest terms. They only take easy targets.
CursedSilicon 1y ago
I think this will be a veeeery unpopular opinion on this site. But I think the simple reality is this is the natural end state of unchecked capitalism. The entire model the US has been on since Reagan has been a rapid, uncontrollable concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer. The reality of that is of course, wealth translates (roughly) to power On the reverse, in an authoritarian state you need to concentrate power in the hands of as absolutely few as possible. The loyal ones who keep the empire running Of course you also need to convince the working class to "play along" with your game as you fleece the blind. So you enter the role of the fourth estate, particularly after Nixon. You just have to convince enough percentage of the population that you're "fighting for them" So you create enemies. "The Gays" "The Trans" "The Browns" and all other cornucopia of manufactured enemies. Anything to divide and conquer and prevent the proles from rising up and obliterating your empire
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  Decent hypothesis, but fails when we compare America to other capitalist countries. (Or non-capitalist countries, extant and historically, with extreme wealth inequality.) This has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The police state we built internally, lack of trust we engendered externally, economic straitjacket trillions of useless spending caused to our livelihoods and then resulting collapse of the party of Reagan into the vindictive mess it is today, all of these trace from the Iraq War.
  - cma 1y ago
    Under the first Bush and continued under Clinton, Haitian asylum seekers were interdicted at sea and sent to Guantanamo to avoid due process, which set the stage for its use in the war on terror. However, in these earlier uses it was for additional processing to give a chance at asylum for those claiming persecution and others not seeking it were deported back to Haiti directly. But it was still used to avoid full due process. Under treaties that are supposed to be law of the land under the constitution, we are supposed to accept legitimate asylum seekers.
  - CursedSilicon 1y ago
boabp 1y ago
[dead]
rgblambda 1y ago
>were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech I've gotten into arguments with people (usually non Americans who tend to have an American tinge to their accents from consuming so much U.S. media) who are very pro 2nd amendment and wish their country had similar. I always ask "How do you destroy an M1 Abrams or F-35 with a licenced hunting rifle?". They usually say "Well at least they have that" then quickly move the discussion on to something else. Anyone who's seen an episode of Cops knows how much protection a firearm provides you against law enforcement. Zero.
- matwood 1y ago
  At an individual level you are correct, but that's not what the 2nd amendment was about. An armed populace can stand up to a government. All you have to look at are the wars that the US has lost - Vietnam and Afghanistan come to mind. With that said, it's moot since a large portion of the population wants an authoritarian dictator/king. I'm not sure if the founders addressed the issue of the people possibly wanting a king again.
  - rgblambda 1y ago
    I don't believe either of those examples are appropriate. The U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war. The opposite would happen. The insurgency would surrender. Also in the case of Vietnam, it's worth noting that the Viet Cong for all intents and purposes lost the insurgency. The war was won by the conventional forces of North Vietnam after the U.S ceased military aid to the south. I also missed the most important point. Neither country had a 2nd amendment and both insurgencies imported arms illegally. And actual military hardware at that, not revolvers and sporting shotguns.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war But the military may turn on its commanders if forced into a guerilla war against Americans. The point is to draw out and make more difficult the oppression. There is a massive difference between pacifying a city with a couple of Marines and National Guardsmen and calling in air strikes on the homeland.
sussmannbaka 1y ago
They didn't "become" anything. They didn't "give away" anything. The torture prison and fascism isn't a bug, it's a feature. People voted for this. A large part of this community voted for it, probably the majority.
lysp 1y ago
I also put this blame on the US supreme court too. 1. Presidential absolute immunity decision. 2. The fact that they constantly consider the dozens of presidential appeals. If DT has no risk of jail, he does what he likes with impunity. Also the SC has allowed him to not take any lower court decisions seriously, by not rejecting his numerous vexatious appeals. No accountability, no risk of punishment = free reign.
throw0101b 1y ago
> What has the US become? It has become what the popular and electoral college vote wished it to become. * https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt... * http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/...
johnnyanmac 1y ago
My most overly generous interpretation is that any resistance within the party is intimidated down. We have cowards in congress who can't at least be decent enough to run away and live with their principles. If you followed the story of the "Big Beautiful Bill" you see this in action. Mumdami's potential vote in as Mayor of New York is the only little spark at tihs moment that gives me hope that there may be a blue wave coming next year, when a 3rd of congress is up for election. >Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what. Ding Ding ding. Sadly, the 2A crowd is comprised mostly of people who are in fact fine with a dictator. As long as they agree with the dictator.

by atoav 1y ago

khazhoux 1y ago

> What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. There should be no surprise at what has happened, since this is what the US voted for.

easyThrowaway 1y ago

As someone from outside US but who spent some time in LA can't really believe anyone ever took those "second amendment" guys at face value. It was always the most obvious cover for "say or do something we don't like and we shot you". The current US administration policies were always their end game.

ghufran_syed 1y ago
why would this be the case? Taking the 2nd amendment argument to its logical conclusion, wouldn't the speaker also have a firearm?
- rgblambda 1y ago
  The speaker would need to sleep every night with a gun under their pillow, in a room with no window.
- easyThrowaway 1y ago
  In a game-theory-prisoner-dilemma kind of situation, yeah, maybe. In the real world, those guys were always sure to point their to guns to those they knew very obviously couldn't retaliate back. And I'm not strictly talking about minorities, by the way. Simply, those who weren't part of their circle had a rough time and the police made very clear that they would act in their defense if anyone tried something funny. I've only seen shit like this in sicily in the early 90s, when the mob controlled much of the big cities.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    This is how you get revolutionary militant resistance like the Black Panthers (and militias).
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  The logical conclusion, yes. I hope we don't need to get to that point. The current reality is that the people who say this often say it to those they know don't have guns themselves to fire back with. Bullies, to put it in the simplest terms. They only take easy targets.

CursedSilicon 1y ago

I think this will be a veeeery unpopular opinion on this site. But I think the simple reality is this is the natural end state of unchecked capitalism. The entire model the US has been on since Reagan has been a rapid, uncontrollable concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer. The reality of that is of course, wealth translates (roughly) to power On the reverse, in an authoritarian state you need to concentrate power in the hands of as absolutely few as possible. The loyal ones who keep the empire running Of course you also need to convince the working class to "play along" with your game as you fleece the blind. So you enter the role of the fourth estate, particularly after Nixon. You just have to convince enough percentage of the population that you're "fighting for them" So you create enemies. "The Gays" "The Trans" "The Browns" and all other cornucopia of manufactured enemies. Anything to divide and conquer and prevent the proles from rising up and obliterating your empire

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
Decent hypothesis, but fails when we compare America to other capitalist countries. (Or non-capitalist countries, extant and historically, with extreme wealth inequality.) This has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The police state we built internally, lack of trust we engendered externally, economic straitjacket trillions of useless spending caused to our livelihoods and then resulting collapse of the party of Reagan into the vindictive mess it is today, all of these trace from the Iraq War.
- cma 1y ago
  Under the first Bush and continued under Clinton, Haitian asylum seekers were interdicted at sea and sent to Guantanamo to avoid due process, which set the stage for its use in the war on terror. However, in these earlier uses it was for additional processing to give a chance at asylum for those claiming persecution and others not seeking it were deported back to Haiti directly. But it was still used to avoid full due process. Under treaties that are supposed to be law of the land under the constitution, we are supposed to accept legitimate asylum seekers.
- CursedSilicon 1y ago

boabp 1y ago

[dead]

rgblambda 1y ago

>were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech I've gotten into arguments with people (usually non Americans who tend to have an American tinge to their accents from consuming so much U.S. media) who are very pro 2nd amendment and wish their country had similar. I always ask "How do you destroy an M1 Abrams or F-35 with a licenced hunting rifle?". They usually say "Well at least they have that" then quickly move the discussion on to something else. Anyone who's seen an episode of Cops knows how much protection a firearm provides you against law enforcement. Zero.

matwood 1y ago
At an individual level you are correct, but that's not what the 2nd amendment was about. An armed populace can stand up to a government. All you have to look at are the wars that the US has lost - Vietnam and Afghanistan come to mind. With that said, it's moot since a large portion of the population wants an authoritarian dictator/king. I'm not sure if the founders addressed the issue of the people possibly wanting a king again.
- rgblambda 1y ago
  I don't believe either of those examples are appropriate. The U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war. The opposite would happen. The insurgency would surrender. Also in the case of Vietnam, it's worth noting that the Viet Cong for all intents and purposes lost the insurgency. The war was won by the conventional forces of North Vietnam after the U.S ceased military aid to the south. I also missed the most important point. Neither country had a 2nd amendment and both insurgencies imported arms illegally. And actual military hardware at that, not revolvers and sporting shotguns.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war But the military may turn on its commanders if forced into a guerilla war against Americans. The point is to draw out and make more difficult the oppression. There is a massive difference between pacifying a city with a couple of Marines and National Guardsmen and calling in air strikes on the homeland.

sussmannbaka 1y ago

They didn't "become" anything. They didn't "give away" anything. The torture prison and fascism isn't a bug, it's a feature. People voted for this. A large part of this community voted for it, probably the majority.

lysp 1y ago

I also put this blame on the US supreme court too. 1. Presidential absolute immunity decision. 2. The fact that they constantly consider the dozens of presidential appeals. If DT has no risk of jail, he does what he likes with impunity. Also the SC has allowed him to not take any lower court decisions seriously, by not rejecting his numerous vexatious appeals. No accountability, no risk of punishment = free reign.

throw0101b 1y ago

> What has the US become? It has become what the popular and electoral college vote wished it to become. * https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt... * http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/...

johnnyanmac 1y ago

My most overly generous interpretation is that any resistance within the party is intimidated down. We have cowards in congress who can't at least be decent enough to run away and live with their principles. If you followed the story of the "Big Beautiful Bill" you see this in action. Mumdami's potential vote in as Mayor of New York is the only little spark at tihs moment that gives me hope that there may be a blue wave coming next year, when a 3rd of congress is up for election. >Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what. Ding Ding ding. Sadly, the 2A crowd is comprised mostly of people who are in fact fine with a dictator. As long as they agree with the dictator.