5 ms·

35 years ago, a good chunk of the current EU was under a Soviet-imposed totalitarian rule. Spain was a dictatorship until 1975. And it's been just 80 years sinc

35 years ago, a good chunk of the current EU was under a Soviet-imposed totalitarian rule. Spain was a dictatorship until 1975. And it's been just 80 years since WWII. It always boggles my mind that most Europeans are absolutely convinced that nothing like that could ever happen again. Meanwhile, many people in the US are convinced that the government will be coming for them any minute now.

teh_infallible 8mo ago
[flagged]
- altcognito 8mo ago
  They who and what?
  - deadlocked 8mo ago
    They’ll give you a small handful of examples, of which a number occurred in the UK (famously not a member of the EU), most of which were actually arrests for incitement, and of the remainder the majority were thrown out before ever going to trial, or subsequently on appeal. Very few of the cases they present will have involved citizens being murdered in the streets by the government for exercising their absolute right to free speech.
    - pb7 8mo ago
      The UK has more arrests for social media posts than any other country in the world, including authoritarian countries like Russia, Belarus, etc. Germany is the third highest. Both have thousands, not "a small handful".
      - piltdownman 8mo ago
        Ah, the Joe Rogan school of geopolitics finally rears its HGH malformed head {1}https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-england-germany-freedom-house-ministry-of-public-security-b2900316.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-englan... {2}https://pa.media/blogs/fact-check/fact-check-international-data-on-online-comments-arrests-not-comparable/ https://pa.media/blogs/fact-check/fact-check-international-d... {3}https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-claims-b1248644.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla... Most of the erroneous conclusions come from a cursory interpretation of a Times article from last year: {4} https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr... In 2023, UK police forces made around 12,000 arrests under the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. These laws cover sending messages that are "grossly offensive, threatening, indecent, or menacing over communications networks" (which includes social media). Prosecutions resulting tend to come from a small subset of serious crimes - stalking, incitement to hatred, endangering minors etc... This was gleefully misinterpreted by Musk, Steven Forbes and the rest of the right-wing braintrust as "12,000 people were arrested for saying politically incorrect things." Germany at third highest is equally in the realm of complete fantasy. The Tagesschau debunked it and concluded that the German numbers make no sense. There is no statistic in Germany for the number of arrests, but the number of people investigated is lower for the period claimed and not all led to arrests so the number is simply a fabrication. https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/grafik-festnahmen-online-kommentare-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/grafik-festnahmen-onl... Finally, the notion that China or Russia would self-report less cases than the UK and expect the figure to be believed is farcical. There isn't even something comparable to the anti-activism laws or the HK47 in the UK.
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
- cyberax 8mo ago
  In general, Europe does not subscribe to the US absolutist version of freedom of speech. At the same time, most European countries are also way more resilient against authoritarian takeover.
- louthy 8mo ago
  ‘They’ literally didn’t.
kergonath 8mo ago
> It always boggles my mind that most Europeans are absolutely convinced that nothing like that could ever happen again. It’s not that it cannot happen again. It’s that the EU is explicitly built against that and if it happens it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU.
- chii 8mo ago
  > it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU. what's the difference? The EU relies on national gov't to enforce rules. Until the EU becomes a sovereign entity with standalone enforcement mechanisms, it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    >it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN It's not the same. EU will cut your funding if you don't follow their rules. UN is not finding any EU countries, but the opposite, we all pay to fund the UN.
  - kergonath 8mo ago
    National governments are often at odds with the commission. France was regularly threatened and fined for its energy policy, for example, which was not pro-business enough. All EU regulations are the result of horse trading in the council of ministers and the commission, the member states are not helpless victims or perfect enforcement forces blindly applying what the president of the commission of the day wants.
- techpression 8mo ago
  Maybe in theory, but the idea that nations that trade doesn’t go to war is a naive one, it has happened plenty and will happen again. As for the structure of voting etc, it’s just a matter of pushing until people give up.
  - kergonath 8mo ago
    Indeed, which is why entanglement goes deeper than simply trade. The emergence of pan-European companies like Airbus makes the cost for one country to go alone much steeper. Same for the establishment of EU-wide supply chains. There are also incentives to play nice in the form of the customs union and the single market. The moment you leave, you’re on the wrong side of a trade barrier.
rob74 8mo ago
> Meanwhile, many people in the US are convinced that the government will be coming for them any minute now. It's a bit ironic that most of those people voted for Trump, who is now doing exactly that. But I guess they think it's ok as long as the government is coming for others, not for them (at least not yet)...
- pb7 8mo ago
  While I love the premise that he is choosing arbitrary groups to go after and we just haven't been chosen yet, no, he campaigned on this and was elected for exactly this. This is what the people want.
close04 8mo ago
Sort of correct but also playing with words. Most, many. There's a divide between generations and geographies to start with. Younger vs. older generations see things differently. Westerners vs. Easterners (especially those who remember the communist times) see things differently. It's very hard to say what many and most people are doing on either side of the Atlantic. Until a few short years ago you wouldn't have imagined enough Americans would vote for the leader they did, knowing exactly what they're getting, and yet they did. So people aren't always forthcoming about their views and beliefs. In Europe for anyone who can't remember the "hard times" it's easy to fall into the trap of believing things will stay good forever. The US hasn't had equivalent "hard times" relative to the rest of the world for as long as any person in the US has been alive and a few generations more. So they too can easily believe things can't turn sour, which is why this recent and swift downturn caused so much shock and consternation. But the US also always had a lot of preppers and people "ready to fight the Government" (that's why so many have guns, they say). It's a big place so you expect to have "many" people like this.

teh_infallible 8mo ago

[flagged]

altcognito 8mo ago
They who and what?
- deadlocked 8mo ago
  They’ll give you a small handful of examples, of which a number occurred in the UK (famously not a member of the EU), most of which were actually arrests for incitement, and of the remainder the majority were thrown out before ever going to trial, or subsequently on appeal. Very few of the cases they present will have involved citizens being murdered in the streets by the government for exercising their absolute right to free speech.
  - pb7 8mo ago
    The UK has more arrests for social media posts than any other country in the world, including authoritarian countries like Russia, Belarus, etc. Germany is the third highest. Both have thousands, not "a small handful".
    - piltdownman 8mo ago
      Ah, the Joe Rogan school of geopolitics finally rears its HGH malformed head {1}https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-england-germany-freedom-house-ministry-of-public-security-b2900316.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-englan... {2}https://pa.media/blogs/fact-check/fact-check-international-data-on-online-comments-arrests-not-comparable/ https://pa.media/blogs/fact-check/fact-check-international-d... {3}https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-claims-b1248644.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla... Most of the erroneous conclusions come from a cursory interpretation of a Times article from last year: {4} https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr... In 2023, UK police forces made around 12,000 arrests under the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. These laws cover sending messages that are "grossly offensive, threatening, indecent, or menacing over communications networks" (which includes social media). Prosecutions resulting tend to come from a small subset of serious crimes - stalking, incitement to hatred, endangering minors etc... This was gleefully misinterpreted by Musk, Steven Forbes and the rest of the right-wing braintrust as "12,000 people were arrested for saying politically incorrect things." Germany at third highest is equally in the realm of complete fantasy. The Tagesschau debunked it and concluded that the German numbers make no sense. There is no statistic in Germany for the number of arrests, but the number of people investigated is lower for the period claimed and not all led to arrests so the number is simply a fabrication. https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/grafik-festnahmen-online-kommentare-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/grafik-festnahmen-onl... Finally, the notion that China or Russia would self-report less cases than the UK and expect the figure to be believed is farcical. There isn't even something comparable to the anti-activism laws or the HK47 in the UK.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
cyberax 8mo ago
In general, Europe does not subscribe to the US absolutist version of freedom of speech. At the same time, most European countries are also way more resilient against authoritarian takeover.
louthy 8mo ago
‘They’ literally didn’t.

kergonath 8mo ago

> It always boggles my mind that most Europeans are absolutely convinced that nothing like that could ever happen again. It’s not that it cannot happen again. It’s that the EU is explicitly built against that and if it happens it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU.

chii 8mo ago
> it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU. what's the difference? The EU relies on national gov't to enforce rules. Until the EU becomes a sovereign entity with standalone enforcement mechanisms, it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  >it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN It's not the same. EU will cut your funding if you don't follow their rules. UN is not finding any EU countries, but the opposite, we all pay to fund the UN.
- kergonath 8mo ago
  National governments are often at odds with the commission. France was regularly threatened and fined for its energy policy, for example, which was not pro-business enough. All EU regulations are the result of horse trading in the council of ministers and the commission, the member states are not helpless victims or perfect enforcement forces blindly applying what the president of the commission of the day wants.
techpression 8mo ago
Maybe in theory, but the idea that nations that trade doesn’t go to war is a naive one, it has happened plenty and will happen again. As for the structure of voting etc, it’s just a matter of pushing until people give up.
- kergonath 8mo ago
  Indeed, which is why entanglement goes deeper than simply trade. The emergence of pan-European companies like Airbus makes the cost for one country to go alone much steeper. Same for the establishment of EU-wide supply chains. There are also incentives to play nice in the form of the customs union and the single market. The moment you leave, you’re on the wrong side of a trade barrier.

rob74 8mo ago

> Meanwhile, many people in the US are convinced that the government will be coming for them any minute now. It's a bit ironic that most of those people voted for Trump, who is now doing exactly that. But I guess they think it's ok as long as the government is coming for others, not for them (at least not yet)...

pb7 8mo ago
While I love the premise that he is choosing arbitrary groups to go after and we just haven't been chosen yet, no, he campaigned on this and was elected for exactly this. This is what the people want.

close04 8mo ago

Sort of correct but also playing with words. Most, many. There's a divide between generations and geographies to start with. Younger vs. older generations see things differently. Westerners vs. Easterners (especially those who remember the communist times) see things differently. It's very hard to say what many and most people are doing on either side of the Atlantic. Until a few short years ago you wouldn't have imagined enough Americans would vote for the leader they did, knowing exactly what they're getting, and yet they did. So people aren't always forthcoming about their views and beliefs. In Europe for anyone who can't remember the "hard times" it's easy to fall into the trap of believing things will stay good forever. The US hasn't had equivalent "hard times" relative to the rest of the world for as long as any person in the US has been alive and a few generations more. So they too can easily believe things can't turn sour, which is why this recent and swift downturn caused so much shock and consternation. But the US also always had a lot of preppers and people "ready to fight the Government" (that's why so many have guns, they say). It's a big place so you expect to have "many" people like this.