Conservatism is a global plague of deception, oppression and death. It always has been.
Who downvoted this? Conservatism has always been an ideology that’s opposed to progress, democracy and freedom. It holds back society to preserve tradition and “family values” while promoting xenophobia, bigotry, and unquestioned submission to authority. The most conservative states in the United States are also some of the poorest, with the lowest standards of living, and also the most backwards. It isn’t much different in other countries. The Nazis were conservative. Islamic countries with Sharia Law are conservative. And right now, American Conservatives are trying to implement a Christian-flavoured Sharia Law.
ConservatismCapitalism has always been an ideology that’s opposed to progress, democracy and freedom.There you go, I fixed that for you.
All political entities serve the needs of capital first and foremost in a capitalist system, people are only a secondary…if that.
Speaking as a Marxist, this is false. Capitalism was once the historical progressive force against feudalism. This was already waning two centuries ago, but it was not always true.
Glad another Marxist said it. The problem isn’t that capitalism was always the wrong choice, it’s that we’re clinging to it long beyond its best before date.
And now it’s rapidly turning back into feudalism, while the masses clap and cheer.
Sure but did capitlism really defeat feudalism? Seems like the other side of the same coin.
Yes, it did, though vestiges still remain. That’s what the French Revolution overwhelmingly was, the bourgeoisie claiming power over the old feudal nobility and the monarchy (as anything but a figurehead). Also the American revolution and many others.
They resemble each other because they are in all cases the “owning class” claiming the seat as the “ruling class”, just as the slaveholders of classical antiquity and the patriarchs of pre-historical agrarian/pastoral societies.
It’s kind of a tangent, but in explaining the concept of equality, Lenin discusses some of the differences between feudalism and liberal capitalism in a letter here.
There are places such as Thailand and Bhutan where the struggle is still alive between the two modes of production, but those are the very rare exceptions to the global order of liberal capitalism (in various forms) vs whatever you want to call the theocratic capitalism of Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. vs the state socialism of the PRC, Cuba, etc.
This isn’t true, though; politics is in the driver’s seat, and capital is at the mercy of government. We can see this even in the US where the Biden administration is pushing decoupling/deglobalization for geopolitical and domestic reasons, to the discomfort of US-based multinationals. On the other side of the aisle, the business-friendly cosmopolitan arm of the Republican party has lost ground to the Trumpian populist wing. You see a similar story elsewhere in the world. In the case of Russia, a lot of people thought that Putin was a tool of the oligarchs, so you can change his behavior by putting pressure on the oligarchs. Surprise, it turned out that the oligarchs have to do what Putin tells them, not the other way round.
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say, are the democrats not friendly with ANY big businesses? Is the extreme right wing of US conservatives not motivated by money (Donald Trump is often thought of as a successful venture capitalist, the amount of money funneled out during his presidency, etc…)?
Russia is one of the most inequal countries in the world in terms of wealth distribution, and for decades now oligarchs in Russia have gone hand in hand with the state in eroding any form of democracy and exploiting what freedom those citizens do have.
So, can you really say democracy can exist with money?
This is ridiculous. “Politics” cannot be in the driver’s seat because “politics” is not an entity. Domestic capital legally falls under the jurisdiction of the government, but that does not mean that it is actually at the mercy of the government. Capital since before the country was even founded has owned the vast majority of politicians and dictated the way that the government is organized and the laws it passes. That’s why people without land couldn’t even vote at first and why we still retain a senate, which is 100% just a body for checking the power of people who do not own land versus those who own a lot of land.
Genuine question re: US conservative states, what came first, poverty or conservativism? As in, what caused the other? If not a little of column A and B…
That’s an easy one, conservatism came first because it preceded the founding of the US and was championed by many in the Continental Congress.
There are a lot of conservatives here thanks to Reddit. Tankie hysteria allows them to speak in parallel to the radlibs and anarcho-bidenists without too much dispute, so they have blended in. Funny how that works.
What in the world is an anarcho-bidenist?
God, I’m far too online.
It’s Vaush shit.
Vaush claims the anarchist label (in contravention of any evidence that he practices anarchist principals in his daily life), he simped hard for Biden during the 2020 election, and disingenuous Marxists use that as a box to stick practicing anarchists in.
Isn’t democracy collapsing everywhere? The USA’s electoral voting system means democracy doesn’t exist. A vote in California is worth 27% of a vote in Wyoming in terms of representation. Add on blatant gerrymandering and you’ve got a rigged system.
The UK has introduced voter ID laws for a problem that never existed in the past. The UK has also had multiple unelected prime ministers due to the way that the parliamentary system works.
Democracy is on the wane everywhere.
Haven’t seen any indication of it being in danger in Switzerland. But we have proportional voting rather than first past the post and referenda are common.
I was going to say this. The older democratic systems (easily identified by 1st-past-the-post) are falling apart at the seams, but the rest of us is (relatively) fine. Places like the US and UK need to change their system, but politicians have an incentive not to change anything.
Switzerland’s isn’t so young either. It dates back to Napoleonic times.
Would France classify as an older system since they have a non-proportional 2-round system?
Places like the US and UK need to change their system, but politicians have an incentive not to change anything.
Fortunately with the US, its decentralized system allows experimentation at the state and local level. My city (Portland, OR) just switched to ranked choice voting for city council along with a host of other changes. Voters statewide will soon be able to vote on using RCV for state races. Meanwhile, ranked choice has been implemented in several other states and localities across the country. It will take a while, but I think ranked choice will become the norm within a few decades.
Unfortunately the form of RCV used everywhere in the US is Hare’s method, which eliminates candidates based only on voters’ first-choice rankings, which largely just perpetuates all the same problems as FPTP. There are many other better reforms. One of those should become the norm instead.
Switzerland is also a small and relatively homogenous community. That helps too.
relatively homogenous
Some may be surprised by the cultural diversity this rather small country packs:
It has four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian and Romansh. Although most Swiss are German-speaking, national identity is fairly cohesive, being rooted in a common historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy,[15][page needed] and Alpine symbolism.[16][17] Swiss identity transcends language, ethnicity, and religion, leading to Switzerland being described as a Willensnation (“nation of volition”) rather than a nation state.[18]
Due to its linguistic diversity, Switzerland is known by multiple native names: Schweiz [ˈʃvaɪts] (German);[f][g] Suisse [sɥis(ə)] (French); Svizzera [ˈzvittsera] (Italian); and Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ, ˈʒviːtsʁɐ] (Romansh).[h] On coins and stamps, the Latin name, Confoederatio Helvetica — frequently shortened to “Helvetia” — is used instead of the spoken languages.
I also think the local traditions differentiating down to single villages are more important and alive than in other countries.
But yes, “national identity is fairly cohesive”, maybe you meant that.
Yes, that’s what I meant.
.
I would say they’re better than a majority of other nations, but not much higher than the mean.
If you compared us to the worst we look great! We’re closer to the best than the worst, but we should be competing for being the best and we’re not nor does it seem like we will be any time soon.
The UK has also had multiple unelected prime ministers due to the way that the parliamentary system works.
That’s… not any indicator democracy is “on the wane”. In most Western European countries we don’t directly vote for the one man/woman, we vote for MPs because the legislative power is in the hands of the Parliament. As long as the Parliament is made of elected MPs then democracy is working just fine.
Sure on paper but reality is people vote for the leader of the party.
I’m not really familiar with the problem of voter ID laws in the UK. Here (Spain) showing your ID is mandatory to vote, and nobody think that’s a problem (but we need ID for basically any paperwork, so it isn’t an additional burden). Afaik, the problem in the USA is that it is quite difficult to get an ID card, and intentionally so for certain demographics. Is it the same in the UK?
The US’s system is unbalanced and unfair, but it’s far from “doesn’t exist”. And while you have listed a pair of blue/red state pairs, look at the 2nd and next to last state and you see a red/blue state pair. So it’s unfair, but it’s not uniformly unfair.
Seems like the problem isn’t with democracy, but with the western falvor of liberal parliamentary democracy. Democracy is working just fine in China according to people who live there. All the available studies, including ones coming from prominent western institutions such as Harvard, consistently show that China is democratic and that public satisfaction with the government is far higher than in any western country:
- https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
- https://ash.harvard.edu/publications/understanding-ccp-resilience-surveying-chinese-public-opinion-through-time
- https://socialistchina.org/2022/01/24/china-is-not-a-democracy-or-is-it-the-chinese-toolkit/
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://news.cgtn.com/event/2021/who-runs-the-cpc/index.html
- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-numbers-show-just-how-much-the-lives-of-everyday-chinese-have-improved-in-recent-decades-2019-10-02
- https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
I’m not interested in any political system where I can’t criticize the ruling party without fearing for my or my family’s safety or permanently becoming unable to find employment anywhere except coal/steel plants working 12-14/hours straight 6 days a week for piss wages…
This political system you made up sounds fascinating.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an anarchist, I’m against the USA model as much as the Chinese model.
But lol, yeah sorry, not interested in being forced to conform by a hierarchy of “leaders” who have no inherent right to do so in the name of “society” or some vague idea of the greater good/social contract.
You let us all know when there’s a successful anarchist experiment that lasts more than a week.
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Fallacious argument. Just because something hasn’t been successful before or people don’t see how to make it work doesn’t justify an existing unethical/immoral system. Plenty of people thought it was crazy to imagine a world where slavery wasn’t a thing. That didn’t justify continuing that system though.
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There are many of examples of anarchist or pseudo-anarchist communities that exist. Many Shaolin monastic communities are anarchistic, and egalitarian depending on the sect. Some Mennonite and old world Amish communities are anarchistic also, having only collective property and some personal property, no privatization.
Some first nations tribes were pseudo-anarchist, operating as a collective with egalitarian leadership based largely on life experience and wisdom, they maintained completely voluntary relationships with other tribes in the region and had no private property.
It’s not a fallacious argument at all. When people keep trying to do something for over a century and have nothing to show for it, then the onus is on them to demonstrate that it can work. If you tell me that walking sucks because you can flap your arms and fly much faster, then you have to demonstrate that it’s actually possible to do.
Communists have built successful communist states that liberated millions of people from capitalist oppression, provided them with education, food, housing, and jobs. These are real tangible improvements that are possible following the communist model.
Anarchists have never achieved any sort of liberation at scale, and these pseudo-anarchist communities don’t translate into systemic change in society.
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Now do the same for communism (the marxist type, not Leninism/stalinism/maoism.)
What communists accomplished in USSR, China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam are all successes of communism, even if they don’t fit with your ideals. All of these revolutions have resulted in huge tangible improvements in the standard of living for the people, and created far more egalitarian societies than anything seen under capitalism.
Sorry, you can’t have democracy without basic political agency. You can’t have basic political agency without the ability to speak freely.
Picking between three party approved technocrats is not sufficient for political self determination.
Sorry, you can’t have democracy without basic political agency. You can’t have basic political agency without the ability to speak freely.
Somebody should let people like Assange, Manning, and Snowden know that they can speak freely.
Picking between three party approved technocrats is not sufficient for political self determination.
Ah yes, real democracy is picking between parties owned by the oligarchs. 😂
Imagine believing there are no oligarchs in China.
Imagine thinking oligarchs control China 😂
It’s like you don’t even have a passing familiarity with Chinese politics. The local councils which the average person can actually vote for are notoriously corrupt. Easily as bad as anything you’ll find in the west, and often far more so.
It’s like I linked a whole bunch of scholarly articles from institutions like Harvard explaining Chinese politics. The reality is that people in China have seen their lives consistently improve with each and every decade. Countless studies show that the standard of living in China is improving at an incredible rate, and that people see the government work in their interest.
And yes, China isn’t perfect, there’s corruption, but that’s missing the point entirely. Corruption exists in every human society, the discussion is whose interest the government is working in. In the west the government works in the interest of the capital owning class, in China it works in the interest of the working majority.
A major difference between China and the West re: corruption is that it’s institutionalized in the West and called “lobbying.” Because of this, it’s easy for Westerners to point at China and say local councils are “notoriously corrupt” but not bat an eye at lobbyists, rich donors, and [super]pacs swaying Congressional votes.
From your own damn source.
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread [in China]
🤣
oh hey, why don’t you quote the rest of it? 😂
Democracy is working just fine in China according to people who live there.
Lmao, what? You can’t be serious.
Wait, are you serious?!
Yeah, I’m as serious as Harvard is. Maybe bother learning about the subject you’re opinion on?
Maybe bother learning about the subject you’re opinion on?
The rally cry of the propagandist.
Ah yes, resorting to name calling when you don’t have any actual point to make.
Careful now, you’ve stirred up the china hawks!
Thanks for the sources! Here’s another one that I read the other day and found pretty insightful https://www.sinification.com/p/why-chinese-democracy-is-better-than
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Vote weight is fairly common as it provides minority groups a bit more control of their areas. I find that reasonable. There is no such thing as perfect democracy unless you voted on every single issue regardless of importance and that is simply not practical. Sure things could be designed a bit better but the majority of democratic countries have systems that are working quite well. The biggest destabilizes now likely comes more from social media that spreads every dissatisfaction because it sells and makes people think the world is coming to an end. It’s not. Or at least not because of failing democracies.
Absolutely a good point. Californians get fucked in senate voting power compared to some dickhead religious voter from a small red state. It’s a travesty that California and New York have the same amount of Senate representation as North and South Dakota.
Then you have lifetime judicial appointments. Trumpf was able to get 3 Supreme Court judges in during his 4 years. The impact will last a generation or two at least.
The corruption at the highest levels is open and astounding. PACs can basically buy elections. Insider trading is also normalized in Congress by both sides.
Religious fundamentalists have infiltrated all levels of government and are pushing for a Christian Theocracy. Very similar to what is happening in India. Religion has NO place in politics.
The US is not a good example of a democracy. There are Conservative Republicans (far right), Maga Republicans (Fascist) and Democrats (Center right). Nothing much in between as the system is designed for only 2 parties.
Also, when was the last time a republican won the popular vote? This is proof enough the US is a poor democracy as the will of the people is ignored because of the electoral college.
When I look at Modi I see another Erdogan
My exact thoughts, certainly a similarity between the two
Or Viktor Orbán.
Or Trump Or Bolsonaro
It’s been a trend across the world, and I have to think Russia has thrown fuel on the fire with disinformation campaigns in all those cases
can you even call it a democracy anymore?
Of course not. India used to be secular. the far right Hindu extremism is taking over. Also it’s so good to be able to post this and not be trolled by pro Modi trolls. The amount of concentration of power due to lack of alternatives is so scary.
PS: I’m an Indian who now lives in Australia.
Just to clarify, the lack of alternatives creates a vaccine creating an almost defacto win for Modi et all. that’s the part of democracy collapsing
Yes it is still a democracy, maybe a democrazy. There are no widespread voter suppression, disenfranchisement.
The most recent election has shown that.
There are some pockets of election tampering, violence but nowhere widespread.
What makes it not a democracy ?
a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (“direct democracy”), or to choose governing officials to do so (“representative democracy”).
Going by wikipedia, India fits in as a representative democracy. None of the elections are contested despite widespread corruptions. Its pretty much assumed all major parties do so and thus in a level field.
Where most have issue is:
Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.
India has some level of trouble with almost all of those. Both in past as well as some ongoing.
A large part of the reason is all available government choices are shitty in some sense or other. Modi is bad but so was their opposition. India didn’t start having these issues magically the day modi came to power. In that sense many blaming him ignore how deep rooted these problamatic views are in general soceity (at least in some areas and communities).
My point is that the many issues pointed here stems from a deeper problem and exists despite India being a democracy not because it isn’t. Infact if it was nearly as authoritarian as many claim, it would have plunged into greater chaos.
MODIcracy
Well it is Bourgeois democracy that’s slowly been consumed by corporate power. Globally
Yeah literally, this same thing can be said about every country on earth. The only places where corporations haven’t infected the government are ones like Afghanistan that have no strong corporations.
Haha true that. This was inevitable btw, the further capitalism develops the more its will absorb everything. Religion is done for, community is done for, bourgie democracy is dying, next come nationality I guess, the environment is already compromised. It truly is a vampiric black hole.
Religion is done for
This is not because of capitalism. Religion has been used as a justification to extort money - look at the Catholic church in the Medieval times. If capitalists could make you believe that giving them money had any correlation with the afterlife they would gladly do so.
One plenary indulgence, please.
Cuba would like to have a word with you
Thought this would be about the US
“Oh no. Thats disgusting. Which one? There are like… sooo many.”
It’s foreshadowing
Reminder that Reddit still hosts the largest hatful subreddit that is r/IndiaSpeaks and nothing ever happens to it.
The content in the sub ranges from Islamophobia, death threats, misogyny and homophobia.
I think we also underestimate just the sheer mass that India has. The chances that you talk to an Indian on an English website is pretty high.
हममें से दर्जनों लोग हैं
You obviously haven’t been to /r/sino then. The most racist place on the internet. Reddit is aware of it and do nothing. I wonder why.
an Indian version of fascism.
Lol, what? Isn’t fascism the same across the globe?
Not really. Every instance of fascism has been really good at adapting to a local culture and political environment. Just to cite the major ones from 1930s Europe, there are clear differences between nazism (German fascism), Francoism (Spanish fascism) and Italian fascism (the original).
It’d be absurd for fascism in the USA to parade with swastikas, pagan symbols and Hugo Boss uniforms. An American fascism would use stars and stripes, crosses and… red baseball caps, I guess. In the same way, Modi’s Indian fascism uses Indian iconography to maintain power.
Fascism also exploits grievances, much like other populist movements. I’m not very familiar with Spanish and Italian fascism, but the Nazis had a whole stack of grievances. Many were complete nonsense, but that never stopped anyone.
Give Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents a look. Wilkerson’s got well researched links between India’s caste system, U.S. Slavery, and the German Nazis. I was really surprised to learn that the Nazis researched national policies to find out how to best institute ‘purity’. They ended up modeling theirs after the United States.
Fascims might not look the same every where, but it shares more than was obvious to me…
Not really, it always adapts to local needs and shares the same oppressive memes, sometimes taking some and leaving some behind.
I don’t really feel representative democracy falls into a category of democracy anymore.
In our modern age, it really doesn’t. We have the infrastructure to make direct democracy possible, we just lack the political will to take responsibility for our communities and vote and be informed as much as that would require. As humans, not as a nation in particular.
We have the technology, but not the social skills. Most of America doesn’t know their next door neighbors, let alone their community. We have a lot of steps to go before direct democracy is the best solution.
You want to know what’s truly disturbing? The previous Australian Federal government did many of these same things too, or worse.
It seems true democracy has fallen out of favour.
I can’t believe no one noticed Scomo making himself minister of 5 areas
It it all got swept under the rug.
The problem is that we noticed, but nothing really happened. As it always is here in Aus.
The politicians and corporations think it’s too hard to get their agendas implemented with the will of the people in the way.
It’s as if western style liberal democracy is an inherently unstable political system.
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Just stating basic facts bro.
Totalitarians in either China or India are bad.
People in China say it’s a democratic country that represents their interests, but I’m sure a western chauvinist who’s never been to China knows a lot better than people living there.
As compared to?
Compared to China, Cuba, and Vietnam.
I’ll take “unstable” over “authoritarian” thanks.
Adorable that you think west isn’t authoritarian. Every government is fundamentally authoritarian because the government has the monopoly on violence, that’s where its authority comes from. And when people in western countries don’t behave the governments unleash their security forces on them as they did during George Floyd protests in US and they’re doing in France right now.
China does keep it’s slaves in line more… and their recent pushes for global imperial authority have had a lot of success.
It’s always amazing to see the wild fantasies westies believe about other countries.
No, I mean it, they really have taken the models of the British Empire and the American Empires and expanded them in a way neither at their heights could ever justify nor imagine. Surveillance system sales to authoritarian governments? Selling surveillance in other countries?! Like the CIA look like idiots spending money to get surveillance in other countries on that one. Plus they get to support the dictators keeping the peasants sending raw resources to China!
Purposely loaning money to countries with bad credit histories for leverage to get them to build ports for the Chinese empire’s trade network?! Britten spent so much time and money fighting wars, and colonizing just to be our shined on that.
And let’s not even get to started on the levels of control business have over workers there. The US robber barons use the State here looks like child’s play to the anti-union, anti-solidarity work done by the CCP. A giant union ran by the largest capitalist in the country? With authorities able to crack down on grassroots organizing on the opposite side, and the ability to send slaves from regions in need of “reeducation” all around the country. Makes the US look practically socialist on some fronts (we aren’t and have a good way to go).
Literally every word of that is a falsehood.
They aren’t loaning out money to have ports built? They don’t have a state run union? Their government isn’t filled with some of their richest? They don’t have a program reducate certain peoples that includes shipping them accross the country? Like come on, some of these are just established public facts that even the CCP doesn’t deny.
When a party form a government on its own i.e without any coalition partners, they tend to target the opposition with all the arsenal be it CBI , ED and sometimes even the Judiciary. However the elections are fair and impartial for the most part. Just recently, BJP got its ass handed to it in a state election in Karnataka. They may win the federal election again but it is hardly a death of democracy. Their grip on states have been slipping and once it goes out, they will most likely lose the federal government as well. The same happened during Indira Gandhi era. The same is happening now. Democracy survived then and will survive now. I am not saying there is no assault on democratic institutions in India. But they have proved resilient enough to prevent a democratic collapse as portrayed in this article.
And it’s already been pointed out that the actions of Trump and Bolsonaro mirror the same undermining strategy but failed. Still, Modi controls nearly all the media now so it’s going to be stronger propaganda than Fox News.
and just look at what happened to Fox News: finally knocked off of their pedestal after decades of being #1-- by MSNBC
MSNBC which does only marginally better reporting than Fox News. I have mixed feelings about this.
I haven’t looked at the numbers but I wonder if this is driven by the consolidation of media consumption by left-leaning consumers and the fracturing of media consumption by right-leaning consumers.
oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not simping for MSNBC-- nor any corporate news conglomerate. I was just commenting on Fox News’s fall from… well, whatever it was. the top.
Yes, I feel the same. So while I do enjoy watching their decline I’m not sure this represents an improvement in the media ecosystem as a whole. I suspect a lot of former Fox News viewers have now been sucked into far right or even fascist media sources.
TV is becoming like radio was back in the 90s, something only old people listen to. However, only old people vote it seems as well.
Which makes India’s case sound more like Hungary or turkey don’t you think? More or less complete control of the media while still having “fair” elections.
International commentators can’t seem to wrap their minds around the idea that Modi’s BJP is having so much success because Indians, on the whole, like them and think they’re doing a pretty good job.
Americans in particular tend to think that if you don’t have two equally strong parties duking it out over 50/50 nailbiter elections, it’s not democracy. But plenty of postwar and postcolonial democracies end up with dominant parties, without falling into dictatorship. In Japan, for example, the LDP has held power for something like 95% of the time since WWII, and it’s a pretty healthy democracy.
The LDP has never had opposition leaders arrested. Just because they are popular doesn’t mean that they aren’t anti-democratic. Democracy requires free elections, which cannot exist if a significant minority is being actively suppressed.
Dictators can also be popular, but that doesn’t make their systems of government democratic. I would suggest you read the article if you haven’t because it discusses both Modi’s popularity and the specific actions he has taken that undermine Indian democracy.
Thank you for sharing this.
Sometimes, democracy is the enemy of freedom. In cases like that, which side do you support?
If democracy is the enemy of freedom, either that means it’s not working correctly, or the people have a skewed idea of what freedom is.
Who’s freedom? Your freedom? my freedom? Freedom of what? Freedom without boundaries is just Anarchy. but who determines those boundaries - who determines what kinds of freedom constitutes “freedom”
The US definition in its constitution defines The five freedoms it protects: speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government.
So to break those down
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You can say what you like about the government, but likewise you can’t silence anyone else on their opinion. This means they can state their opinion that you should get fucked when you say an opinion they disagree with - they can’t actually make you get fucked though.
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You can practice any recognised religion freely without persecution. (Note: persecution does not stop people from criticising religion, as that would violate the freedom of speech, it stops government persecution from practicing or not practicing religions)
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It allows the press to report freely - the government can’t dictate what the press can and cannot say, particularly when it comes to political and governmental matters
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Assembly - the right to gather and peacefully protest. - the moment it becomes even the slightest bit violent is when they’re allowed to step in.
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The right for your opinion to be heard in government. You can post your opinions to government officials and have them be heard - likewise, other people can do the same. It doesn’t mean the official has to act on it, just that they have to take it into account.
As to whether or not these freedoms are being honoured is up for debate. You’ll have to read the lawbooks for the concrete legal definitions and decide for yourself if
- the definition is wrong
- the current situation fits the definition
- how you would redefine it.
As an Aussie I have no say in how your country is run - and my own country has its own issues, but I do impore you to understand the position on the global stage your country has and why it affects us all.
What makes you think people always want freedom? People support the Taliban and other totalitarian states. Many would gladly support authoritarianism so long as it is their dictator in charge.
Again… what kind of freedom do they want or not want?
And what’s the Taliban got to do with any of this? How do we know they want the Taliban ruling? -
The Taliban are known to be
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Incredibly brutal - if you gather and protest against them they’ll massacre you without a second thought. They rule through terror, fear and lies and their hardline fascistic Muslim beliefs. (Yes these are essentially the equivalent to Christian neo Nazis today) you think Tiananmen square was bad? Nah man, theyll line the protestors up and behead them one by one to make an example.
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Indoctrinating - they have, in my opinion a similar program to the Hitler youth. - take the boys and make them into brainwashed soldiers who don’t or can’t question the Taliban. then Take the young women and teach them it’s their lot and benifit in life to have children for the cause - turning them into nothing but glorified baby makers.
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They tend to be abusive towards women, grinding them into the dirt - these ladies essentially have one “right” - the “right” to have children - often whether they like it or not.
So I don’t think we can use wether people want the Taliban there - they could be saying it because they’re either brainwashed or fearing for their lives. Sure there are assholes who genuinely love the Taliban. But those people are usually high in the ranks, and have lots of power.
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I think the point here is to prevent tyranny of the majority. For example, protecting small religious or ethnic groups from discrimination or persecution from a majority.
Likewise, the ACLU (American, i know) protects free speech even for very anti-patriotic messages, even if those messages are unsavory to the majority.
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Well in any case, you shouldnt support Authoritarians, or those who rule through imposing long term centeralized control. They are the antithesis to freedom. Anyone can easily label themselves as supporting ‘freedom’.
The true strength of democratic systems anyways is that it provides a buffer between people and out of control government entities. This government might have your approval but will the same people be leading in 40 years?? 60 years?? Will they have the same values??
They will have the same powers regardless of whether you agree with them or not.
Wait how so?
I remember the day we started bombing Iraq. Their vice-president (actual it was their president, but he was second in command to Saddam as the PM) was a Christian calling on the pope to help stop the war. After the war, things go so bad that we had to intervene a second time to stop the killing of Christians. Freedom of religion definitely took a hit, since the public at large didn’t support it. Was it worth it in that particular case to get rid of a dictator? Maybe, maybe not. He most likely would have fallen during the Arab spring - if it still occurred without our Iraq intervention.
My main point is the American public loves ‘freedom’, but you shouldn’t t expect it to follow democracy. Specially when popular leaders get elected claiming everything wrong with “country name” is because of “insert basic human right”.
