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ForumsDiscussion Forum → Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
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Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
2018-06-19, 8:05 AM #9481
to be clear, I mean exceptionalism in the sense that it was a one-off circumstance that would be impossible to replicate. of course it was exceptional.
2018-06-19, 8:06 AM #9482
Even if the US starts throwing hispanics into ovens, it won’t be the Holocaust because the Holocaust was a specific different event.


And even if this isn’t as bad as the Holocaust, it doesn’t mean it will never be. The Holocaust also started pretty slowly y’all. What was it someone said? A harsh consequence to deter an act? Yeah, that.
2018-06-19, 9:06 AM #9483
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Even if the US starts throwing hispanics into ovens, it won’t be the Holocaust because the Holocaust was a specific different event.


And even if this isn’t as bad as the Holocaust, it doesn’t mean it will never be. The Holocaust also started pretty slowly y’all. What was it someone said? A harsh consequence to deter an act? Yeah, that.


This!
2018-06-19, 9:07 AM #9484
https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1008849270026457088

I love how right-wingers are some of the best comedians around today. No liberal can make jokes this good.
2018-06-19, 9:11 AM #9485
Originally posted by Reid:
Y'know, I'm a little tired of this phrase. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are making a comparison in the sense of saying the policy is as bad as anything the Nazis did, which is clearly not true. But that's not what everybody is doing, what some people are doing is imagining: "what if this already bad thing is taken even further? what is the conclusion, the zeitgeist expressed here?" The world people imagine that exaggerates the political changes from a few years ago is one that seems more Nazi-like, so that's why it's expressed that way.

Just because Nazism ended up being so drastic doesn't mean comparison can't be made. In fact, that's what honest comparison sets out to do: we might say compare and contrast is a redundant phrase, because comparison highlights the contrasts, that's what good comparison does. In comparing things to Nazism we're highlighting how much things are moving in that direction, NOT saying the crimes are as bad as the Nazis. So let's not use shutdown phrases and try to pressure people from speaking about these things. Because it's good in general to avoid exceptionalism w.r.t. the Nazis, and be aware of any political shifts which could cause us to repeat the mistakes me made then.


Originally posted by Jon`C:
Even if the US starts throwing hispanics into ovens, it won’t be the Holocaust because the Holocaust was a specific different event.


And even if this isn’t as bad as the Holocaust, it doesn’t mean it will never be. The Holocaust also started pretty slowly y’all. What was it someone said? A harsh consequence to deter an act? Yeah, that.


I wouldn't disagree with any of that -- except for maybe a few things around the edges, but they're not worth getting into. Comparisons to the Nazi regime are not completely unwarranted.

Of course, genocide has happened both before and after the Holocaust. But just putting it in those terms betrays a complete lack of ability to maintain perspective to compare what's happening to the Holocaust: clearly, the Trump administration's policy is not genocidal either or intent or effect. Evoking the Holocaust can imply that it is, if one is not careful. And of course, going back to one of my original complaints way back when, many of these views hinge on the assumption that things happening now indicate that we're on some trajectory that will continue uninterrupted into the future. I think we're generally all on the same page, however, in terms of acknowledging what kinds of comparisons are helpful and which are too imprecise.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 9:19 AM #9486
Originally posted by Reid:
https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1008849270026457088

I love how right-wingers are some of the best comedians around today. No liberal can make jokes this good.


I think I "get" Jordan Peterson's appeal, but I really don't get Dave Rubin's.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 9:25 AM #9487
One thing to which there is no correlate in the Trumpian worldview is humiliation and loss that Germans felt after the first World War. Maybe there's some sense that our national ego is wounded from failed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but that humiliation doesn't translate into a felt need to conquer and enslave or starve our neighbors to death in land wars, in order to correct a perceived historic injustice (and to secure lebensraum).
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 9:32 AM #9488
The Nazi concentration camps weren’t originally built for exterminating Jewish people, they were built for incarcerating liberals and gay people. Genocide is what the Nazis did with the technological and legal tools Trump is building right now. You don’t need to have a genocide to have an oppressive and cruel fascist state.
2018-06-19, 9:34 AM #9489
Originally posted by Eversor:
One thing to which there is no correlate in the Trumpian worldview is humiliation and loss that Germans felt after the First World War.


The MAGAhideen would disagree.

Edit: Fox News has spent the past ~25 years beating “America is **** now” into peoples heads. It’s true that the US never suffered a defeat as humiliating as WW1 was for the Germans, but facts don’t matter. Feelings do. There’s a reason Trump’s rhetoric resonates with a certain kind of person.

It’s not even that baseless. The US is losing its international stature politically, economically, and even militarily. They’re still a very powerful country but they are distinctively in relative decline (even if what’s actually happening is other countries are catching up). That’s gotta be a big deal to some folks.
2018-06-19, 10:02 AM #9490
Originally posted by Jon`C:
The MAGAhideen would disagree.

Edit: Fox News has spent the past ~25 years beating “America is **** now” into peoples heads. It’s true that the US never suffered a defeat as humiliating as WW1 was for the Germans, but facts don’t matter. Feelings do. There’s a reason Trump’s rhetoric resonates with a certain kind of person.

It’s not even that baseless. The US is losing its international stature politically, economically, and even militarily. They’re still a very powerful country but they are distinctively in relative decline (even if what’s actually happening is other countries are catching up). That’s gotta be a big deal to some folks.


I wouldn't disagree with most of this, but when you quoted me, you left out the operative part of what I wrote. There are some profound differences between the ways in which Americans feel wounded and the ways in which Germans did. Germans believed that they had been robbed of their effort to reclaim their rightful role as the world's dominant super power, and wanted to correct that injustice by starting a war of conquest. Humiliated Americans sees America's relative position in the world waning (while still seeing it as the dominant global power), and feel as if they aren't sufficiently compensated for what they do for other countries. Those two things call for profoundly different responses.

Plus, Germans and Americans have profoundly different conceptions of their respective countries' roles in the world. Germany was united under the Junkers, who were exceptionally militaristic. The country's national honor was predicated on its capacity to overtake Britain as the dominant world power and to conquer Europe. On the other hand, America's right wing has for most of its history generally been isolationist and skeptical of imperialism. Trump is very much part of that tradition. His signature policy is building a wall: he wants to turn America into a fortress. He doesn't want to expand the country's borders through conquest.

All of this has pretty significant implications, I think, for where this could be headed, if the worst case scenarios unfold. I'll write about that in another post, though.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 10:21 AM #9491
Originally posted by Reid:
https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1008849270026457088

I love how right-wingers are some of the best comedians around today. No liberal can make jokes this good.


lmao!
2018-06-19, 10:23 AM #9492
Originally posted by Eversor:
I think I "get" Jordan Peterson's appeal, but I really don't get Dave Rubin's.


The appeal is: "Politics is hard! Let's go libertarian"

The reason you don't get it is because you're probably too well educated (i.e., educated at all).
2018-06-19, 10:27 AM #9493
https://thinkprogress.org/tom-homan-jeff-sessions-nazi-comparisons-nuremberg-defense-165249b9eb33-44e3856468c3-3b59877b1758/

Quote:
Homan, without any sense of irony, responded with the same argument that was unsuccessfully used by a number of prominent Nazis during the Nuremberg trials — the so-called “Nuremberg defense” about how law enforcement officers are just following orders.

“I think it’s an insult to the brave men and women of the border patrol and ICE to call law enforcement officers Nazis. They are simply enforcing laws enacted by Congress,” Homan said.


Quote:
A couple hours later, Laura Ingraham asked Sessions to respond to the same comparison.

“Nazi Germany, concentration camps, human rights violations — Laura Bush has weighed in, Michelle Obama, Rosalynn Carter, you’ve got all the first ladies going back to Eleanor Roosevelt, she’s apparently weighed in as well– [Attorney General] Sessions, what’s going on here?”

Sessions replied by revealing profound ignorance about the history of Nazi Germany.

“Well, it’s a real exaggeration,” he began. “Of course, in Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country, but this is a serious matter.”


There are other differences too, like instead of IBM building the information systems to power them, the US has hired Microsoft.
2018-06-19, 11:17 AM #9494
US is reportedly going to withdraw from the UNHRC today.
2018-06-19, 11:32 AM #9495
So I am hearing that the UNHRC is anti-Israel, and not just from the Trump administration. I don't mean to start a flamewar, of course, since I bet this is a hot-button topic. Or maybe it's not, maybe it's simple.

My imagination tells me that because Israel has a higher degree of economic clout and political influence, any body with equal representation between nations is inherently going to be against it.
2018-06-19, 11:58 AM #9496
The many crimes against humanity might have something to do with that too.
2018-06-19, 12:07 PM #9497
It'd be a different story if Israel was reprimanded in proportion to its human rights abuses. More resolutions have been brought against Israel than the rest of the world combined. Israel isn't responsible for 50% of the world's human rights abuses. It's preposterous to suggest that it is, especially given what happens in just about every other country in the region. The fact that the UNHRC spends so much of its time singling out Israel means that it's not doing its job. Maybe it is a sham.

In principle, I'm opposed to Trump's decision to pull out, but it's clearly not an institution worthy of the UN's name that should be making authoritative moral pronouncements on behalf of the international community.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 12:08 PM #9498
52% of Republican voters support suspending democracy if Trump wants (56% if the Republican Congress agrees). So at this point I’m just assuming that self-indentified Republicans are a bunch of cucks who want daddy Trump to **** their wives. Sorry not sorry if this describes you.
2018-06-19, 12:09 PM #9499
Woah. Where'd you see that?
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 12:17 PM #9500
Originally posted by Eversor:
It'd be a different story if Israel was reprimanded in proportion to its human rights abuses. More resolutions have been brought against Israel than the rest of the world combined. Israel isn't responsible for 50% of the world's human rights abuses. The fact that the UNHRC spends so much of its time singling out Israel means that it's not doing its job. Maybe it is a sham.

In principle, I'm opposed to Trump's decision to pull out, but it's clearly not an institution worthy of the UN's name that should be making authoritative moral pronouncements on behalf of the international community.


Israel gets singled out a lot, sure, but if you have a problem with it then maybe the correct answer is to take the HRC seriously and work to improve it and our own countries rather than excuse our abuses with whataboutism.
2018-06-19, 12:27 PM #9501
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Israel gets singled out a lot, sure, but if you have a problem with it then maybe the correct answer is to take the HRC seriously and work to improve it and our own countries rather than excuse our abuses with whataboutism.


I agree, whataboutisms would be bad. But pointing out that Israel isn't responsible for half the world's human rights abuses isn't a whataboutism. It points to the institution's failure to provide a clear-eyed moral vision to the rest of the world, despite its prominence as a UN organization dedicated to addressing the most pressing human rights issues. It should be a moral compass for the world. Instead it's an institution that's been hijacked and uses its prominence and veneer of moral legitimacy to serve a specific political agenda of marginalizing Israel -- in *half* of its activity. That being said, reform would be preferable, which is why, as I said before, I'm opposed to Trump's decision to pull out.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 12:31 PM #9502
Originally posted by Eversor:
Woah. Where'd you see that?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/10/in-a-new-poll-half-of-republicans-say-they-would-support-postponing-the-2020-election-if-trump-proposed-it/

Originally posted by Eversor:
I agree, whataboutisms would be bad. But pointing out that Israel isn't responsible for half the world's human rights abuses isn't a whataboutism. It points to the institution's failure to provide a clear-eyed moral vision to the rest of the world, despite its prominence as a UN organization dedicated to addressing the most pressing human rights issues. It should be a moral compass for the world. Instead it's an institution that's been hijacked and uses its prominence and veneer of moral legitimacy to serve a specific political agenda of marginalizing Israel -- in *half* of its activity. That being said, reform would be preferable, which is why, as I said before, I'm opposed to Trump's decision to pull out.


“But HRC isn’t punishing worse people” is whataboutism. And the blame for the HRC’s leadership failure doesn’t lie with the Israel-hating countries who use it as a political weapon, it lies with the western countries that don’t take it seriously in the first place.
2018-06-19, 12:43 PM #9503
Pointing out that Israel -- a tiny country of 8 million people -- is not responsible for *half* the human's rights abuses in the world is not a whataboutism. It's to point out a dereliction of duty of a human rights organization that claims singles it out as if it were.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 12:56 PM #9504
Originally posted by Eversor:
Pointing out that Israel -- a tiny country of 8 million people -- is not responsible for *half* the human's rights abuses in the world is not a whataboutism. It's to point out a dereliction of duty of a human rights organization that claims singles it out as if it were.


Yes it is: Other countries are doing worse things, so why isn’t the HRC spending time on them? It’s textbook whataboutism.

You seem to think I disagree that it’s silly the HRC spends a disproportionate amount of its time on Israel. I don’t. It is silly, but there are a lot of reasons it’s this way.

Some of it is because humans rights abusers want to use it to point out western hypocrisy, but the general assembly is also empowered to remove countries that abuse the process or humans and they aren’t doing it. Where is Israel and the United States on getting SA and other slave labor countries suspended? Nowhere. They don’t care. We don’t care.

But also the main thing the HRC goes on is reports from civilians and independent organizations. The HRC doesn’t exactly have boots on the ground looking for the mass graves, they work from complaints submitted by... well, people like you and me. So of course Israel would have more reported violations, because concerned Israeli citizens are free to speak about such things. Same as Canada and its HRC ‘feedback’ about the reservation system.
2018-06-19, 4:45 PM #9505
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
So I am hearing that the UNHRC is anti-Israel


probably has something to do with the "human rights" part
2018-06-19, 4:57 PM #9506
Originally posted by Eversor:
It'd be a different story if Israel was reprimanded in proportion to its human rights abuses. More resolutions have been brought against Israel than the rest of the world combined. Israel isn't responsible for 50% of the world's human rights abuses. It's preposterous to suggest that it is, especially given what happens in just about every other country in the region. The fact that the UNHRC spends so much of its time singling out Israel means that it's not doing its job. Maybe it is a sham.

In principle, I'm opposed to Trump's decision to pull out, but it's clearly not an institution worthy of the UN's name that should be making authoritative moral pronouncements on behalf of the international community.


Maybe they get more **** because they're a fully developed, first world nation which we hold to a standard of conduct.
2018-06-19, 5:02 PM #9507
Originally posted by Jon`C:
52% of Republican voters support suspending democracy if Trump wants (56% if the Republican Congress agrees). So at this point I’m just assuming that self-indentified Republicans are a bunch of cucks who want daddy Trump to **** their wives. Sorry not sorry if this describes you.


Damn, the descent into full on fascist sympathy was quick.
2018-06-19, 6:02 PM #9508
Originally posted by Reid:
Maybe they get more **** because they're a fully developed, first world nation which we hold to a standard of conduct.


Is it really the United States and Israel itself that are primarily responsible for influencing the HRC to scrutinize Israel? Or other nations in the region which we hold to a lower standard and are blatantly hostile to Israel?

Honest question, since I don't even know what the HRC really does.
2018-06-19, 6:05 PM #9509
BTW, according to Reddit, the deed is done.
2018-06-19, 6:08 PM #9510
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Honest question, since I don't even know what the HRC really does.


nm I just remembered: HRC stored servers on a private Benghazi email.
2018-06-19, 6:41 PM #9511
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Is it really the United States and Israel itself that are primarily responsible for influencing the HRC to scrutinize Israel? Or other nations in the region which we hold to a lower standard and are blatantly hostile to Israel?

Honest question, since I don't even know what the HRC really does.


We hold other countries to less of a standard, yeah. We probably shouldn't but we do. But the U.S. and Israel aren't responsible.
2018-06-19, 7:08 PM #9512
I suppose we could start by refraining from literally backing human rights abusers and instigating coups against democracies. :downs:
2018-06-19, 9:30 PM #9513
Originally posted by Jon`C:
The MAGAhideen ...


Bravo
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2018-06-19, 10:26 PM #9514
Good stuff on /pol today

2018-06-19, 11:29 PM #9515
Originally posted by Reid:
Damn, the descent into full on fascist sympathy was quick.


This had been happening before Trump. Yascha Mounk made his name as a public intellectual writing about this stuff as early as 2014. It's not only Republicans who're increasing developing anti-democratic impulses. Actually, the NYT ran a piece just a few weeks ago about how it's most common among centrists.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-19, 11:43 PM #9516
Originally posted by Eversor:
anti-democratic impulses [...] most common among centrists.


And speaking of anti-democratic impulses in the center, I seem to remember one of Jon's posts earlier in this thread where he broke down the crude left-right spectrum into something more meaningful for American politics. I think he had the center-left / liberal professionals pegged as people happiest with the present system of government and corporate structure, whereas it is such a far cry from actual leftist thought to be happy in any way with it.
2018-06-19, 11:59 PM #9517
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/opinion/international-world/centrists-democracy.html
former entrepreneur
2018-06-20, 12:09 AM #9518
From 2015: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/opinion/across-the-globe-a-growing-disillusionment-with-democracy.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fyascha-mounk&action=click&contentCollection=undefined®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection

Quote:
According to a growing share of Americans, the answer is yes. Back in 1995, the well-respected World Values Survey, which studies representative samples of citizens in almost 100 countries, asked Americans for the first time whether they approved of the idea of “having the army rule.” One in 15 agreed. Since then, that number has steadily grown, to one in six.

To be sure, that still leaves five out of six Americans who would rather not have a military coup. And of course, not every American who tells a pollster that he would rather have the army in charge would actually support a coup. But the willingness to countenance alternative forms of government, if only by a small minority, reveals a deep disillusionment with democracy, one that should concern everyone living in an advanced democracy, including those in Europe and Asia.

The generational differences are striking. When the World Values Survey asked Americans how important it was for them to live in a democracy, citizens born before World War II were the most adamant. On a scale of one to ten, 72 percent assigned living in a democracy a ten, the highest possible value. Among many of their children and grandchildren, however, democracy no longer commands the same devotion. A little over half of Americans born in the postwar boom gave maximum importance to living in a democracy. Among those born since the 1980s, less than 30 percent did.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-20, 12:49 AM #9519


Very interesting.

Does the law of large numbers explain it? If you're a centrist you don't need to vote because you know they'll average out.
2018-06-20, 1:13 AM #9520
The most bizarre thing to me is that so-called centrists are also least likely to support liberal institutions. Before I saw this, I would've guessed that centrists are liberal anti-democrats, if they harbor anti-status quo tendencies.

Right? Like, we've heard a lot about illiberal democrats in the past few years: people who want to use democratic sovereignty in order to infringe upon the liberties of certain elements within society (e.g., cracking down on immigration rates, curtailing protections of Muslims, etc).

But the flip side of that phenomenon is liberal anti-democracy. I would've guessed that centrists are anti-democratic (to the extent that they are anti-democratic) because they'd prefer to hand over governance to technocratic elites, and because they think the democratic process is a nuisance that only empowers candidates who pander to poorly educated people, rather than experts who "know things," and who are therefore best equipped to rule. At the same time, though, I would've expected that (so-called) centrists want to curtail democracy, precisely because they don't want certain liberal values to be contested through the political process. In general, liberals don't think that things like human rights should be up for debate. So democracies shouldn't have the power to infringe on them. That's what makes them human rights in the first place: they're inviolable.

But the fact that they're opposed to liberal values, too, is difficult to square with their anti-democratic views. So I'm left asking: what does it even mean to call these people centrists. Who are these people who are identifying with the center (i.e., the establishment) who are apparently the most anti-establishment elements within society? What does their so-called "centrism" even entail at that point?
former entrepreneur
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