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2022-08-18 09:23:40
Larssen
Member
+99|2202
I've been thinking about this every once in a while since leaving uni. I was taught the same notions, but it's a bit of a modern day dogma that democracy and especially more democracy is how stability is guaranteed. That if regimes fail it's because they weren't democratic and inclusive enough. Part of that thinking was surely borne from the cold war and especially the relentless optimism in the 90s after the west/democracy 'won' vs the soviet union.

But for the vast majority of history people did not live in inclusive democracies, and many governments were able to provide stability (for a time) despite this fact. Our notions of democracy today are also directly being challenged by China which supposes it can maintain stability and popular support from the vast majority of its citizens without even allowing them a voice in government at all. So far, despite its methods, it seems to be doing well enough. There's also plenty internal turmoil in the supposedly well functioning 21st century inclusive democracies for all sorts of reasons.

There's a certain degree of power asymmetry between groups which if imposed/maintained could and likely will lead to conflict, but that is true in any form of government and I don't think it's a sure bet that democracy/more democracy is the best way to guarantee access that feels equal enough for all groups. Democracy doesn't work all that well at scale either. The larger the population, the harder it will be to make everyone feel like they have a stake and representation in government.
2022-08-21 02:14:01
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6420|eXtreme to the maX
Democracy doesn't work, not when the stupid and selfish are allowed to vote and hold office.
Not that many 'democracies' really are democracies at all, they're really one party states with two supposed parties which use different distractions as they pillage the tax base.
America - Vote for Guns-freedom-gasoline or Abortion-freedom-free-money
Britain - Which Oxford PPE graduate would you like to vote for?
France - Which Sciences Po PPE graduate would you like to vote for?

it "gives no training in scholarship, only refining to a high degree of perfection the ability to write short dilettantish essays on the basis of very little knowledge: ideal training for the social engineer"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosoph … _economics

I think we should make people study a lot of maths and fire them out of tubes to determine if they can vote or hold office, what we're doing now isn't working.
Fuck Israel
2022-08-21 03:10:57
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6420|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

they haven't voted for a single israeli politician in their lives and have no say in its policy?
Yet they have the right to move there and displace further Palestinians

Thats whats crazy.
quite a number of israelis are critical of their government's actions with regards to the palestinians. it's not all rabid 'settler' types.

how can you presume their political opinions? wouldn't they have, you know, moved to israel before the war if they were rabid ideologues who believed in displacing palestinians?

again, i don't think there's a single thing that any jew, secular/liberal/progressive or not, can do to please you. you are a nutcase.

they have the right to move there and displace further
interesting rhetoric, anyway, to use to describe people seeking to escape a war-like regime from whom they fear threat and discrimination.

didn't your family technically 'displace' the aboriginals in australia? when you just presumed it was your god-given 'right' to relocate to their ancestral homeland? haven't aboriginal communities lived in every bit as like a racialised regime, kept in ghetto conditions, socially engineered out of society? until very recently, in any case? and don't you speak scornfully about any modern policy designed to ameliorate their conditions or help them get a leg up? really make u think. you're the jew to someone's perspective.
The displacement and extermination of the Palestinians is happening right now, not 200 years ago, thats the difference.
Fuck Israel
2022-08-21 10:01:29
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

What are you talking about?
2022-08-21 15:46:55
uziq
Member
+510|3766

Dilbert_X wrote:

Democracy doesn't work, not when the stupid and selfish are allowed to vote and hold office.
Not that many 'democracies' really are democracies at all, they're really one party states with two supposed parties which use different distractions as they pillage the tax base.
America - Vote for Guns-freedom-gasoline or Abortion-freedom-free-money
Britain - Which Oxford PPE graduate would you like to vote for?
France - Which Sciences Po PPE graduate would you like to vote for?

it "gives no training in scholarship, only refining to a high degree of perfection the ability to write short dilettantish essays on the basis of very little knowledge: ideal training for the social engineer"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosoph … _economics

I think we should make people study a lot of maths and fire them out of tubes to determine if they can vote or hold office, what we're doing now isn't working.
erm sciences po is a respectable research institution with actual credibility. it’s the énarques - you know, the school named explicitly after administration, who are associated with professionalized, centrist elite fuckery, so much so that macron had to 'close' and rebrand the school. haven’t you supposedly lived in paris for quite a while? you think you’d know the school that has decided the character of their modern political class and bureaucratic state, post-45. for 'PPE' switch 'ENA'.

even when you post this vague and angsty tabloid guff, you can’t even locate the correct targets. pitiable for a middle-aged man with supposedly a few brain cells still rattling around. “democracy doesn’t work”, oh my god you sound like the lamest gen-X’er ever. the edgy live-at-home professional pessimist.

as for PPE: i’ve told you repeatedly that it’s held in disdain by humanities scholars too. both sides of the aisle see it for what it is: a careerist ambition factory not a serious and credible academic discipline. people who want to make serious contributions to philosophy, politics or economics study those subjects separately at grad school level. i don’t know why you need to make this as ‘maths wins’ thing.

Last edited by uziq (2022-08-21 17:18:32)

2022-08-21 15:55:27
uziq
Member
+510|3766

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

What are you talking about?
he’s saying he doesn’t want to accept any moral responsibility for populating someone else’s land when those peoples were still being abused and failed by the state in his life time. that’s what he’s saying.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51469708
Australia's indigenous inequality 'not good enough'

kevin rudd, scott morrison and now steve albanese have all publicly apologised for the treatment of aboriginals up to and including today. that’s across the political spectrum with wide partisan consensus. but dilbert claims it “happened 200 years ago”. you know, like slavery.

guy has no interest in actual fidelity to history or in social issues like indigenous rights. should tell you everything you need to know about his crocodile tears for the palestinians. a moral bankrupt on more than one issue: mr. petroleum profiteer with his green armband and the t. e. lawrence of the palestinians. what a silly little man.
2022-08-21 17:17:04
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

Conservatives get extremely irritable when hearing news about this apology or that acknowledgement, as if it make a huge difference to them if the pope flies to Canada for PR. I think this is significantly in part due to insidious, knee-jerk conditioning from conservative spin-doctors stirring up artificial resentments and false nostalgias. Here in America, especially so after the 80s explosion of nasty-minded, conservative talk shows measurably poisoning their listeners. Creating an otherwise, normally civil bunch (sometimes even with liberal and progressive pretentions and talking points) until the right trigger words are uttered.

This is probably a huge reduction, but I don't feel like I'm exaggerating too much with it. I haven't exactly documented all of the surprise, spittle-laced rants I've been exposed to though.

I think the cure for it is to stop "learning" about the world from "news entertainment" and junk books and unhinged blogs, and to read more quality material. It's sad when I can almost word-for-word predict how a conversation will unfold later in the day based on second-hand tidbits from social media. "Ah yes, accusations against librarians heavily featured in the rants of a woman who you may not know thinks clown demons turned her son gay." "You saw that Fox article too? I thought their unethical photojournalists did an ok job with the photomanip, but this part of the background is still distorted from the smudge tool. Also that happened in 2011, not 2017. Not even the same city. Not remotely similar context."

/Your thoughts, insights, and musings on this matter intrigue me

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-08-21 17:17:49)

2022-08-22 02:32:53
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6420|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

What are you talking about?
he’s saying he doesn’t want to accept any moral responsibility for populating someone else’s land when those peoples were still being abused and failed by the state in his life time. that’s what he’s saying.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51469708
Australia's indigenous inequality 'not good enough'

kevin rudd, scott morrison and now steve albanese have all publicly apologised for the treatment of aboriginals up to and including today. that’s across the political spectrum with wide partisan consensus. but dilbert claims it “happened 200 years ago”. you know, like slavery.

guy has no interest in actual fidelity to history or in social issues like indigenous rights. should tell you everything you need to know about his crocodile tears for the palestinians. a moral bankrupt on more than one issue: mr. petroleum profiteer with his green armband and the t. e. lawrence of the palestinians. what a silly little man.
You know what, you're right.

To atone for what happened to the aboriginals I'm going to renounce my Australian citizenship, take up Russian citizenship, stake out a claim in Donbas Oblast - say enough for 10,000 condos - and have a nice life.
I'm sure the noble Russian Army will be able to clear out any evil Ukrainian - has Ukraine ever even been a country? - terrorists who have been squatting there illegally on land which rightfully belongs to the Dilbertites. Its written clearly in the Book of Dilbs "You can steal whatever you want, and have the divine right to smite most smitily anyone who says you can't".
You can disagree - but that would make you an anti-Dilbertite.
If any evil anti-Dilbertic civilian terrorists stray onto the land given to me by god I'll shoot the adults and pour petrol down the throats of the children and set them on fire.

Thank you for setting me straight, I appreciate it.
Fuck Israel
2022-08-22 06:28:07
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

¿?
2022-08-22 08:11:47
uziq
Member
+510|3766
swivel eyed nut job. obsessed with palestine but has spent literal hundreds of hours on this forum downplaying settler colonialism and racist shitheelery that far more proximate to his own history.

i guess it’s easy to demonise evil israel and to keep ignoring the literal aboriginals in your back yard. sad!
2022-08-22 15:05:58
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

There's a particular brand of kryptonite I can bring to bear for when someone dithers and deflects, going off on whataboutisms or even dissimilar things outside the party in-topic.

"Can we also talk about that?"

Nothing takes the wind out of their sails more than being reminded that if the Clintons, or Obama, or any of the Bidens, or some Democrat legislator or whoever did something illegal, that yes I think they should be held to account for it.

It's very inconvenient that I also think Israel should cease displacing populations in genocide-tinted operations (when it's convenient or an out for them to bring up), "but anyway back to whatever complaint you had about the natives here, or in Australia, or in South America wanting a little more justice, representation, acknowledgement, degree of protection and autonomy, and a fair shake in the history books … and are you really that opposed to truth, clarity, and freedom?"
2022-08-22 16:22:01
uziq
Member
+510|3766
anyone who is outraged at israel-palestine – and rightfully there is much to be outraged about – but who gives short shrift to decolonial/postcolonial struggles elsewhere, or denigrates other people's struggle for justice in exactly analogous situations of racial/religious oppression, etc, is probably highly suspect in their motivations. you can't selectively be mad about the jews in israel but then be blithe and sanguine about the exact same scenario, playing out with the exact same dynamics, elsewhere in the world.

zionism and the entitlement of settlers in israel are no different from any other modern imperialism and the 'entitlement' of similarly expansionist, extractive, oppressive settlers. it's as simple as that. you can't be selectively upset about the dispossession of the palestinians – not when you don't have any personal or sentimental ties to the struggle, anyway. the spectacle of an australian spending years ranting about israel-palestine but then being dismissive of aboriginals is truly something to behold.

if you're not a principled anti-colonialist, standing by some general or universal principle, here, call it the 'right to self-determination' or 'the right of oppressed peoples to be free', or howevery you like, then by logical reduction you are an anti-semite. you have a bee in your bonnet over jews and jews specifically.

all these artificial distinctions you make between 'this is happening now but that last happened in 1987 or 1887' are facile. many of these struggles are still within living memory and have very real, material, tangible effects on communities alive today. you can't consign something to 'history' for your convenience, all the better to single-out the jews.

Last edited by uziq (2022-08-22 16:24:19)

2022-08-22 17:10:27
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

I guarantee that a large amount of people don't even cogitate the disconnect. Juicily, those who complain about how their Irish-American fathers were treated, to whatever degree of truth there is to the discourse, but who get mad about states and organizations formally recognizing and addressing past misdeeds against indigenous peoples and other groups.

Like, how about you suck it up and stfu about your Irish great-great -- knock that particular chip off your shoulder if you want to be dismissive about other groups and tell people not to talk about it?
2022-08-23 03:22:41
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6420|eXtreme to the maX
Most of the struggles of people whose great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents were oppressed are fairly trivial compared with people who are actually being killed, tortured, watching their children being murdered and being dispossessed etc right now.
I'm sure my ancestors suffered some great wrong at some point, should I still be smarting about the Norman invasion and how a distant relative had his farm appropriated? Why isn't there a parade for that? Don't Anglo-Saxon lives matter?

Still not sure why the free world has rallied around Ukraine but sends money and weapons to Israel which has done and continues to do literally the same thing.
Only a swivel-eyed loon could see that and not see the problem. And its illuminating that Israel has sided with Russia on this one.
Fuck Israel
2022-08-23 03:37:24
uziq
Member
+510|3766
again, it's not great x105 though, is it?

learn some fucking history. there are still people alive who were witnesses to the tulsa race riots. aboriginal communities today still suffer the consequences of australia's forced adoption and socially segregative policies. they were active up until the fucking 1980s, for god's sake.

https://www.dw.com/en/racism-down-under … a-61216107
dilbert: but my ancestors were offended 1000 years ago! i'm tRigGereD by their complaints!

you are a moral bankrupt on this topic, and you know it. crocodile tears for a religious minority whose very faith you hold in contempt.

you need to grow up and read a history book.

i'm all ears when you want to genuinely talk about the struggles of the colonial oppressed and dispossessed. but you don't want to do that, do you? because it means examining your own privileged position in a settler colony and at the apex of extractive capitalism.

Last edited by uziq (2022-08-23 03:41:35)

2022-08-23 03:50:57
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6420|eXtreme to the maX
I'm not really interested in what happened 200 years ago, whats happening today and in the future is far more important.

Alternatively how far back do you want to go? If so lets talk about my relative's farm stolen by the Normans.

Running the world today on the basis of the hallucinations of dehydrated vagrants 2000 years ago but ignoring what is happening now makes no sense whatsoever.
Fuck Israel
2022-08-23 04:19:20
uziq
Member
+510|3766
it DIDNT only happen then though did it? it’s a PRESENT and ONGOING process. inter-generational poverty and trauma. massive inequality. lack of opportunity. systemic discrimination.

your ‘arguments’ on this topic are pathetic. they don’t stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever. even the establishment conservatives and politicians have no problem admitting the issue’s relevance to australia today.

you are a deluded cuck.

what is your point about the norman’s? that society was brutish and unfair 1000 years ago? so we shouldn’t bother with things like justice, equality, or redress today? that’s seriously your argument? i mean this is so stupid as to be several thousand leagues beneath comment.

whilst we’re at it, 1000 years ago there was no such thing as common law or the ability for plebs like your family to have their day in court. so why don’t you shut the fuck up about your own struggles for justice, with your whining, if society should be static and beholden to the judicial norms of 1066?

Last edited by uziq (2022-08-23 04:23:55)

2022-08-23 04:42:40
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6420|eXtreme to the maX
Well society is expected to be beholden to judaic norms of 3500 years ago.
This should have ended when we discovered the earth orbits the sun.

The world is an unequal place, people obsessing over the past aren't going to take us into the future.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2022-08-23 04:48:36)

Fuck Israel
2022-08-23 07:23:05
uziq
Member
+510|3766
you are so fucking stupid.

why is it that aboriginals are ‘obsessing over the past’ but palestinians aren’t?

people wanting equal opportunities and fair treatment are ‘holding us back from progress’, by your implication. wow, nice one. ever occurred to you that a rich jewish settler in a new suburb would say the exact same thing about the poor, uneducated palestinians? the disdain with which you hold the ‘backwards’ people who affect your life all so much with their claims is the exact same presumptuousness and arrogance that the zionist settler has, idiot.

what’s the difference between the tribe considering themselves chosen by yahweh and america or australia’s settler ideology of ‘manifest destiny’? terra nullius for the white man, because no other human beings worth the title we’re living there already, right? it might come in secular terms but the ideology is the exact same.

israel is a de facto and de jure entity now. it was made thus in the late 19th century by britain. ‘get over it palestine’. spilt milk from 140 years ago, what ho!

you are honestly the stupidest adult i have ever interacted with.

Last edited by uziq (2022-08-23 16:54:53)

2022-08-23 08:37:33
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

People should be interested in the history of ~200 years ago and more, as they are a part of the chain of events that shaped the world today. Primarily sticking to select WW2 tidbits as your source of history reading isn't even scraping the surface off the top of the seafoam. Very self-hobbling.
2022-08-24 09:41:50
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+650|4034
Biden announced a canceling of $10,000 of debt and an extension of the student loan payment pause until December 31st. They are never restarting those payments as long as Biden is president..

National Review is apoplectic.



"Biden’s Student-Debt Bonfire Is a Classist Message to the Uncredentialed: Screw ’Em"
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/ … -screw-em/




"Joe Biden Illegally ‘Canceling’ Student Loans Would Be a Middle Finger to America"
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/j … term=first






Oh I wish the military members who earned their education on the battlefield were here to see that they should have just taken the loans.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2022-08-24 10:16:03
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

Skimmed.

Two rants in two days by the same writer. These are NR's top stories? lol

Ignoring of course that college graduates are sometimes working the kinds of "downtrodden, lower-class" jobs Cooke is stumping for in his weirdly barbed defense of sweat-labor. Goes on to call it illegal, but with no citations. Heavy on the 'is,' vacant on the 'why that is.'

Very typical stuff. "In principle, helping out a group of people is a big middle finger to everyone else." An aside, 'middle finger' has nineteen hits on the second article. Quite a wordy complaint in response to a vague twitter post.

I love that they're suddenly concerned about stuff like the the 'rule of law' and the 'constitutional order' after half a decade of licking Trump's boots. Suddenly speaking up for Democrats who are being 'wronged' by this? lol

There's undertones here I'm not sure the author has realized yet. Yes, education should be more accessible for more people. So let's identify politicians and donors usually opposed to the country moving in that direction.
2022-08-24 11:09:22
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+650|4034
You ever notice how the people who most defend shit sweat labor are educated workers with cushy jobs? Blue collar for thee but not for me.

The legality of the order is complicated. On the one hand, only congress can spend money. On the other hand, the president has control over the DoE and how they structure the loan program as the head of executive branch. I think the thing will be challenged in court though who has standing to sue will be complicated.


I know that there are a bunch of bitter (about everything) people on NR. The student loan situation is especially infuriating to them. There's the identity politics side of it. Education is liberal and blah. Government dropping billions on liberal arts education. Lol. I think some of the hyperventilating on the right is also because they also realize that this will probably juice Democrats numbers and if they try to fight it, it will hurt them electorally.

Good stuff
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2022-08-24 14:55:27
uziq
Member
+510|3766
your average american dies with something like $60,000 worth of debt/credit. i read that somewhere a few weeks ago (cit. needed).

adds an extra level of umami flavour when you consider why people get bitter and angry over student loans.

the whole system is broken but the conservatives would rather persevere and make debt bondage a universal human condition i guess.
2022-08-24 16:18:45
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,064|7086|PNW

oof

https://i.imgur.com/N578nfx.jpg

 

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