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Most controversial or unpopular political/economic/social opinions?

I submit that "authoritarianism" isn't actually a useful concept.

All functioning states are authoritarian. As in, they have laws enforced by state power. This word is actually generally a word used for rhetorical effect against states that someone doesn't like, implying that they are also disliked by their population, whether they actually are or not.

It would be trivially easy to describe the US or Britain as "authoritarian" if I wanted to. The UK is probably the most surveiiled society in history.

At this point, I won't be surprised if the American far left-wing (small as it is) goes full circle and starts praising Russia in the 20s-30s.

Lots of them do that (I was one, so I know). Usually only up into 1928 or so though.
 
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All functioning states are authoritarian. As in, they have laws enforced by state power.
Authoritarian is generally used in accusations of state power being used to enforce social standards, rather than being limited to legal ones. For example, the "Moral Panic" conservatives (though it was once-a-fucking-gain Democrats doing the legislation) are name-called as Authoritarian due to calling for state power being used to enforce the social standards of a particular subset. Non-authoritarian governance centers on life-and-limb legislation, as well as blocking off abuses of non-state authority with minimal overreach.

There is a coherent meaning, the issue is that the usage isn't coherent. Really do want to dive into a thread full of Nazi accusations and ask about economic social policies, citing where the Nazis did their Socialism for the Nation. It ain't a Marxist "transitory" state, but it is Socialism.
 
At this point, I won't be surprised if the American far left-wing (small as it is) goes full circle and starts praising Russia in the 20s-30s.
Authoritarian is generally used in accusations of state power being used to enforce social standards, rather than being limited to legal ones. For example, the "Moral Panic" conservatives (though it was once-a-fucking-gain Democrats doing the legislation) are name-called as Authoritarian due to calling for state power being used to enforce the social standards of a particular subset. Non-authoritarian governance centers on life-and-limb legislation, as well as blocking off abuses of non-state authority with minimal overreach.

There is a coherent meaning, the issue is that the usage isn't coherent. Really do want to dive into a thread full of Nazi accusations and ask about economic social policies, citing where the Nazis did their Socialism for the Nation. It ain't a Marxist "transitory" state, but it is Socialism.

Meh, depends on the definition of "socialism." In the classic Marxist sense of the term, that's control of the MoP by the working class, or barring that at least nationalization of the economy. Which the Nazis definitely were not about. If by "socialism" you mean something else, maybe.

I think you'll have a hard time rigidly distinguishing between legal and social standards. The former are a subset of the latter, no?
 
The French Revolution was fully justified.

Yes it mutated beyond recognition and brought about alot of upsets and suffering but all great movements do that.

The modern tendency to view the parasites of the era, nobles. clergy and Co as more or less innocent victims or at best missunderstood really grinds my gears.

A bit disheartening to see threads on the issue going full ancien regime apologia.
 
The French Revolution was fully justified.

Yes it mutated beyond recognition and brought about alot of upsets and suffering but all great movements do that.

The modern tendency to view the parasites of the era, nobles. clergy and Co as more or less innocent victims or at best missunderstood really grinds my gears.

A bit disheartening to see threads on the issue going full ancien regime apologia.
Woah. Where?
 
The French Revolution was fully justified.

Yes it mutated beyond recognition and brought about alot of upsets and suffering but all great movements do that.

The modern tendency to view the parasites of the era, nobles. clergy and Co as more or less innocent victims or at best missunderstood really grinds my gears.

A bit disheartening to see threads on the issue going full ancien regime apologia.

Really? What country do you live in?

In my experience, the only people who view the FR as bad are some right-wing intellectuals.
 
I think government can be good.

Look, look, hear me out.

We all know the shitty things government can do. We all know that they can do incredible evil. We all know the crimes of China, America, UK, and all the other various things.

But governments can do good things too! Sometimes, they can actually catch the criminal and put him in jail. Sometimes, they can actually run relief efforts without pocketing the money! Sometimes, the leaders actually care about doing their jobs right! And then, there are those times they build infrastructure and public programs which actually work!

Let's cut the government some slack, shall we?








/jk.
 
Meh, depends on the definition of "socialism." In the classic Marxist sense of the term, that's control of the MoP by the working class, or barring that at least nationalization of the economy. Which the Nazis definitely were not about. If by "socialism" you mean something else, maybe.

I think you'll have a hard time rigidly distinguishing between legal and social standards. The former are a subset of the latter, no?

Nazi "socialism" is basically socialism of the rich with some trinkets and lipservice to placate the working classes essentially.
 
I'm all for equality but it doesn't matter what your sex or gender is, this idea that the world would somehow be better with more women running it is nonsense. Our leaders fucking things up has never been an issue of them being mostly men, if anything it's an issue of class, being out of touch, and lack of concern for the people.

Women are capable of and will commit the same evils and mistakes as men if put in similar situations, not because of their sex, but because they are human.

It doesn't help that some of the the worst of us are drawn to positions of authority and power. Having more women in charge would not change this.

"Wherever there is an ounce of power to be had there will be people dicking each other over."
 
I read news articles but I also haven't phsyically watched the news in like years.
 
Here's one that will probably get me hatemail: the Republican Party of America is Hostis Humani Generis and should be treated as such.
At this point, if reality keeps taking my future-history setting as a blueprint, then they would essentially be. Hundreds of millions all around the world, dead, just because of an evolutionary trait of fearing of being replaced gets activated.

Then again, given that Stand on Zanzibar has been rather right on the money... I hope to god that I don't become some prophet. :(
24-hours news is basically a drug - addictive as hell and bad for you. I realized this several years ago, stopped bothering with news, and only check them twice a week. Helped with my stress.
No, it's exploitation. They simply use that to flood the airwaves and what not with information. After you overload people's minds with information, then you can get away with a lot of things.

My entry? We're going to have more and more authoritarian governments as we go forward, especially as the threats shift and proliferate. We're going to see restrictions on information and speech in the coming decades thanks to memetic weapons. Privacy is going to be eliminated entirely because of idiots with more ideology than sense getting weapons that make the small group (or individual) do vastly disproportionate damage to the very systems that modern civilization needs to survive.

Those are going to be -sadly- a good thing, given human nature being more Hobbsian than anyone else.
 
Bernie Sanders is too old to be US President.

That's it. I will not go in his politics nor will I praise or mock his followers as *Berniebros*, I am just saying his time has come and gone.
Not to mention that Bernie likely is compromised given that he did a honeymoon in the USSR. Given that a good portion the current leadership of Russia was part of the KGB (Putin, for example, was a colonel of the KGB on the German 'front'), it is likely that the file from those days is still viable and it is likely that they will use it to puppeteer Bernie.

Given that a lot of the words we use for intelligence come from Russia...
 
Not to mention that Bernie likely is compromised given that he did a honeymoon in the USSR. Given that a good portion the current leadership of Russia was part of the KGB (Putin, for example, was a colonel of the KGB on the German 'front'), it is likely that the file from those days is still viable and it is likely that they will use it to puppeteer Bernie.

Given that a lot of the words we use for intelligence come from Russia...

*Shrug*

From what I have seen in US politics one can get away with everything if they are brazen enough or have the right PR team.

In the very unlikely case Sanders did... What? What does compromised mean?

Let's go with the worst case. Was a KGB agent!

Deny,deny,deny call everyone that accuses you a traitor/Russian provocateur! That should do it.

Add a bit, or a whole lot of frothing in the mouth conspiracy theory youtubers and you are done.
 
*Shrug*

From what I have seen in US politics one can get away with everything if they are brazen enough or have the right PR team.

In the very unlikely case Sanders did... What? What does compromised mean?

Let's go with the worst case. Was a KGB agent!

Deny,deny,deny call everyone that accuses you a traitor/Russian provocateur! That should do it.

Add a bit, or a whole lot of frothing in the mouth conspiracy theory youtubers and you are done.
That... isn't exactly how it is done. You need a propaganda team and Bernie doesn't have one, especially not in the depth and scope of what the GOP has. Trump has one because he's using FOX and friends which were developed into one just to stop Watergate from occurring again.
 
Third/small parties are not necessarily better than the major ones. In fact, they can be significantly worse.

It's just that, due to their irrelevance, they don't get mentioned much and not much damage is done.
Outside the US Progressive (aka Bull Moose) Party, third parties in the US -historically- are essentially made up of 'cray cray with extra cray' with the rare exception.
 
Outside the US Progressive (aka Bull Moose) Party, third parties in the US -historically- are essentially made up of 'cray cray with extra cray' with the rare exception.
Not just the US, really. And that description fits their voters as well, even if some of them mask themselves as conscientious and smart.
 
Not just the US, really. And that description fits their voters as well, even if some of them mask themselves as conscientious and smart.
I'm just putting in the context here... but then again US third parties can get pretty crazy.
 
Not just the US, really. And that description fits their voters as well, even if some of them mask themselves as conscientious and smart.

Libertarians

are and remain fucking stupid.

and will forever be immortalized by this video.



that or they are republicans taht like weed.
 
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