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Okay but no scandal can damage a politician because you the American people are currently choosing to let that be the case. Same with the billionaires. The en

by XorNot 1y ago

Okay but no scandal can damage a politician because you the American people are currently choosing to let that be the case. Same with the billionaires. The entire problem gets painted as "other" but it's you: you're actually promulgating it by your very choice of language here!

benreesman 1y ago
I'm not saying that the decline of Enlightenment values and the rise of crony-nepo-central-committee surveilance nightmare is "other", I'm saying it is indifferent to the stated political system, it's about the de facto political system no matter what you call it. What I care about is outcomes, what actually happens, what norms and institutional posture actually obtains in reality. And on that basis, "western liberal" society has very little business holding its nose up about "authoritarianism" as a blanket term for rival nations in 2025. No one here is talking about Sudan or Turministan, they're talking about other advanced nations with participatory politics, robust social welfare programs, limited influence for oligarchs, and highly competent governance.
cyanydeez 1y ago
Sure, but its a boiling frog with cancer. Certain states made choices to skew far right and other states mde choices to "keep business open" and others made choices to remain ignorant. This becomes diffusion of responsibility because every cycle maybe 1% were directly embracing far white religious authoritarian. The consistency of those choices were sticky because the oligarchy spent decades ensuring. The point being, very few people actively participated and there was no progressive decadal length comspiracy. But the reverse isnt true. There was and is a decadal length conspiracy to become a far right ethnostate run by religious minority.
- Levitz 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    The left has… vastly less power than the right, especially the christian right, because the right has money.
    - Levitz 1y ago
      Money? More money than Hollywood? California? Both of which lean left pretty hard? It's not 1980 anymore. "Vastly less power", pray tell, would you rather piss on a Christian cross and post it on social media or a LGBT flag? What do you think would have worse consequences? Can you even imagine a prevalence of corporations showing to align themselves with the Christian right for a month every year? The "Christian right" would, no doubt, sell their soul to have half as much power the left has. It doesn't even come close, it's off by orders of magnitude for crying out loud. If anything this power is exerted so widely you barely even recognize it. You see a pride parade, or any entity making an effort to promote or signal multiculturalism and it doesn't even register as left wing when it evidently is. Can you even picture anything comparable to BLM, on the right? Can you imagine the right managing to pull a display of power comparable to disturbing the meaning of a word as basic as "woman"? Where is this vast amount of power manifested? It's surely not in the form of respect, it's definitely not in the form of demographics, which dwindle year by year. Culture? What references are even there, Jordan Peterson? Nick Fuentes??? I'm just baffled by this perspective.
      - cyanydeez 1y ago
        People who are afraid of the "left authoritarians" seem to think that you can just sum up human history and cherry pick some great "left-branded" authoritarian and equate that to todays. You're arguing that the people kidnapping people without due process and zero consequences, masked police, are equal to some arbitrary "leftist" in some time that's not relevant to todays political climate. It truly is bizarre how mental gymnasts survive in this logical incapacity.
        Levitz 1y ago
        Sorry but I can't take this seriously. I've given more than enough contemporary examples, if you want to dismiss the whole of it and pretend nothing makes sense, that's a choice and I can't help you.
BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
You could explain any authoritarian regime this way, but how much of what we believe and do is some kind of pure, unconditioned-by-our-surroundings choice?

by XorNot 1y ago

benreesman 1y ago

I'm not saying that the decline of Enlightenment values and the rise of crony-nepo-central-committee surveilance nightmare is "other", I'm saying it is indifferent to the stated political system, it's about the de facto political system no matter what you call it. What I care about is outcomes, what actually happens, what norms and institutional posture actually obtains in reality. And on that basis, "western liberal" society has very little business holding its nose up about "authoritarianism" as a blanket term for rival nations in 2025. No one here is talking about Sudan or Turministan, they're talking about other advanced nations with participatory politics, robust social welfare programs, limited influence for oligarchs, and highly competent governance.

cyanydeez 1y ago

Sure, but its a boiling frog with cancer. Certain states made choices to skew far right and other states mde choices to "keep business open" and others made choices to remain ignorant. This becomes diffusion of responsibility because every cycle maybe 1% were directly embracing far white religious authoritarian. The consistency of those choices were sticky because the oligarchy spent decades ensuring. The point being, very few people actively participated and there was no progressive decadal length comspiracy. But the reverse isnt true. There was and is a decadal length conspiracy to become a far right ethnostate run by religious minority.

Levitz 1y ago
[flagged]
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
  The left has… vastly less power than the right, especially the christian right, because the right has money.
  - Levitz 1y ago
    Money? More money than Hollywood? California? Both of which lean left pretty hard? It's not 1980 anymore. "Vastly less power", pray tell, would you rather piss on a Christian cross and post it on social media or a LGBT flag? What do you think would have worse consequences? Can you even imagine a prevalence of corporations showing to align themselves with the Christian right for a month every year? The "Christian right" would, no doubt, sell their soul to have half as much power the left has. It doesn't even come close, it's off by orders of magnitude for crying out loud. If anything this power is exerted so widely you barely even recognize it. You see a pride parade, or any entity making an effort to promote or signal multiculturalism and it doesn't even register as left wing when it evidently is. Can you even picture anything comparable to BLM, on the right? Can you imagine the right managing to pull a display of power comparable to disturbing the meaning of a word as basic as "woman"? Where is this vast amount of power manifested? It's surely not in the form of respect, it's definitely not in the form of demographics, which dwindle year by year. Culture? What references are even there, Jordan Peterson? Nick Fuentes??? I'm just baffled by this perspective.
    - cyanydeez 1y ago
      People who are afraid of the "left authoritarians" seem to think that you can just sum up human history and cherry pick some great "left-branded" authoritarian and equate that to todays. You're arguing that the people kidnapping people without due process and zero consequences, masked police, are equal to some arbitrary "leftist" in some time that's not relevant to todays political climate. It truly is bizarre how mental gymnasts survive in this logical incapacity.
      - Levitz 1y ago
        Sorry but I can't take this seriously. I've given more than enough contemporary examples, if you want to dismiss the whole of it and pretend nothing makes sense, that's a choice and I can't help you.

BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago

You could explain any authoritarian regime this way, but how much of what we believe and do is some kind of pure, unconditioned-by-our-surroundings choice?